Featuring Guest Host Genetically Modified Skeptic! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 3 Season 3 - Skeptic Generation

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hello, and welcome to the show. I'm Eric Murphy. This
is Skeptic Generation and we need to talk. Hey everybody,
it is a really, really fun episode that we've got today.
Thank you so much for joining us. I the last
week was kind of nuts, but we're well rested and
ready to go. And I am not alone. Joining me
today is genetically modified Skeptic Drew. How's it going.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hi, It's great to be here. I am super psyched
that you're bringing the show back. And as soon as
I learned that you were going to do this, I
was like, yeah, I've got to get it on and
co host. So yeah, thanks for having me here.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Dude, I'm I'm so happy to have you here. I
know that doing these kinds of shows isn't something you
do very often. And like, before we get into calls,
I do have a couple of announcements, if that's all right,
So let me dive into a couple of these announcements. So,
first of all, we had some trouble with the phone

(01:19):
number while we were gone. Somebody went in and stole
a tiny dot cc slash call SG for people to
call in online. And now it leads to some weird
crypto theme and I've been trying to get it fixed.
So check this out. People can call four one two
skep gen. That's four one two seven five nine seven

(01:41):
four three six to call us. And you can also
go to tiny dot cc slash skep gen. That's tiny
dot cc slash skep gen. If there are any problems,
let us know in the comments. But when I tested
it this morning, everything looked good and I was really
proud about that. So that is how people can get
in touch with us and get on the show. Uh

(02:03):
So we've got that. Let's see. I know that you
know things have been going on over here at home,
uh V having their surgery and just kind of all
of that. But how have you been, Like, what have
you been up to?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I want to just make you a wear a
chat saying that someone's echoing I don't know if it's
me you. I'm you're sounding fine to me and listening
to the chat, you're sounding fine. But as I talk,
I'll let you let you figure that one out than you.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
I really appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, So if you follow me on Twitter, you know
that I have been completely immersed, emerged, immersed, submerged, whatever
word you want to use in scientific literature about trans
healthcare and just kind of LGBT issues in general. I

(02:58):
thought it was really funny that some people were doubting
when I said, you know, I've been reviewing hundreds of studies, Like,
there's not hundreds of studies about this. There are dozens
of studies that have come out this year already about
this subject. It's a pretty big, big subject, but not
every single one is like a you know, randomized controlled
trial of testosterone on a transfers. There are a lot

(03:22):
of different things that this touches, and this research has
been being done since depends on how you want to
define it. But the oldest research I ever reviewed starts
in nineteen seventy three, which is in no way even
close to the beginning of the birth of this kind

(03:42):
of literature. It's also happened in multiple different countries. I've
read a lot of literature from Sweden, from Finland, as
well as from the US. In Canada, I also have
been reading literature that was written in English but by
Chinese authors about Chinese population. So this is it's a

(04:03):
really big subject. You also can review dozens of studies
at one time by reading one study because that study
is a systematic review or meta analysis, which you know,
as we know, reviews many many studies itself. So it's
not an exaggeration to say that there are hundreds of
studies out there that are accessible. I'm talking about open access.

(04:25):
I have not even had to sign into journals yet
in order to read full articles. There are a couple
of articles that I actually am probably going to reach
out to our friend V to help me get access to.
They have a couple of connections. But yeah, yeah, just
a few, But.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
I mean.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
It.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I think the thing that's been been bugging me for
some time is that for a skeptic community, the people
at the forefront, who have the most subscribers, who have
the biggest voice, do a pretty great job at looking

(05:10):
at the science when it comes to evolution, which is
a kind of extremely old debate, like hundreds of years
old debate, and we do an absolutely abysmal job of
talking about the science surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity.
The science is on the progressive side, like just squarely.

(05:34):
It just is like if you actually are scientifically literate
on this subject, you realize that getting on a show
and being like yeah, let's talk about you know, sex
and gender, and then going to just purely philosophical discussion
with somebody who is spreading misinformation like eighty percent of
trans people desist from being trans at some point in

(05:56):
their life. You might as well be getting on with
I don't know, Brett Weinstein and denying AIDS, or you
might as well be getting on with an anti vaxxer
with like Andrew Wakefield and being like, tell me about
your revolutionary study.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
God, you're gonna get so many callers about this today.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Sure, I mean that's fine. I'm seeing people are saying
that audio is fixed, so great work, Eric, Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway,
That's what I've been doing, and I'm working on a
response video right now that that talks about this. I
consider this to be the first of many projects to

(06:41):
come that utilizes and rest upon the actual scientific literary
consensus on this subject. So I will also share all
my sources with the public as soon as I put
that video out.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Nice. So, I've got a couple questions for you. We've
got a couple of callers on the line, But it
seems like you've kind of moved away from the angry,
frustrated you know, stereotypical atheist content, and you've been going
into more nuanced stuff. How's that? How's that been? And like,
I know, your channels has exploded, Like how have you
seen the audience changing? And just yeah, well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
The me going from being more frustrated and kind of
using some mockery to me being a lot softer and
kinder was like several years ago, and I definitely got
a lot of hate for it at the time. And
then my brand became the nice, friendly, jovial, compassionate atheist

(07:40):
who still talks about philosophical percussion surrounding theism, basically philosophy
of religion discussions. It actually wasn't until I started getting
away from just philosophy of religion and started getting into
the science and psychology of religion as well as how
religious ideas and sociology of religion touches social justice that

(08:03):
I really started to get pushed back and I really
started to slow down in growth. And I mean, you know,
having people on to discuss how the Satanic panic in
the US has really had a resurgence and it's surrounding
specifically trans issues, and that and the trans panic today

(08:26):
being sociologically very much analogous to the Satanic panic surrounding
metal and D and D in the in the eighties.
There are a lot of people who like, we're telling
me immediately, even though I was bringing on actual scholars
to say these things. Oh, you've given into woke ideology,
and I like, I like such and such way more

(08:47):
than you now, And it's it's kind of like, well,
this topic is a lot bigger than just the same
discussion about philosophy of religion over and over and until
we die. We learn a lot more if we talk
about diverse subjects and instead of just arguing hypotheticals, we

(09:08):
read empirical research. So that's where I'm at now. I'm
being nice, but you can tell I'm a little a
little feisty about the subject.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Well, I mean, I'm glad. I'm glad that you're utilizing
the platform that you have to do the good that
you want to see. I mean, I think that's really,
really awesome. And I've kind of made a similar transition
where I'll still see people from time to time saying, Eric,
why don't you just get some guts, you know, sack

(09:38):
up and yell at the collar. And it's like, because
that's not neat that's not what I do and kind
of yeah, developing that and I don't know, I think
it's really admirable, and you've been doing more than just that.
I'm sure everyone who's in the chat knows who you are,
but for people who don't, Drew also has done a

(09:58):
really good job of kind of cataloging atheism for believers,
you know, ways to talk to your family, different trends
that happen in atheist communities, and addressing kind of common
and really frustrating things that get brought up at dinner

(10:20):
with family who just want to make it difficult. And
I really appreciate the resources that you've provided, like over
the years. That's been incredible, So thank you for that.

Speaker 5 (10:29):
Man.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, I'm happy to do it. I just it is,
like you said, it's me trying to be the change
that I want to see. I've for decades people have
been talking about the column cosmological argument and you know,
teleological thinking and all of the classics, you know, and

(10:51):
that's that's useful to a certain extent, but really isn't
at the end of the day, aren't we watching Philosophy
of Religion videos so that we can apply what we've
learned in them to conversations with the people that we love,
or hopefully at least the people that we love, maybe

(11:11):
people who are just harassing us. But either way, ultimately,
isn't the divide between you know, religious people and atheists
more of a sociological problem than a philosophical one. Philosophy
is a part of it interesting, But if we only
look into that, then what are we going to do

(11:32):
other than have the same conversation over and over. Maybe
I want to have a different conversation, one where maybe
we can actually disagree in the end about the philosophy
of religion, but still not have the negative outcomes from
the disagreement from the difference. So yeah, cataloging those resources

(11:53):
has been kind of a life mission for me.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
I really appreciate that. That's awesome.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Well, I am going to be putting your channel in
the description for the video and any resources that you
want to provide, because of course, anything else before we
dive into calls. We've got a couple hmm.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
I don't think so. I mean I I someone just
said that Drew is widely loved by atheists and skeptics
in India, by the way, which I'm super hyped about.
I actually was on a on an Indian channel with
my friend scientist dope, and yeah, that that was really awesome.
There's a there's a growing movement of scientific skepticism in

(12:39):
India and that's exciting to see.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
I actually spoke to an Indian caller last week. I
wish you would have been here to be a part
of that.

Speaker 5 (12:47):
Dang.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Okay, maybe maybe they'll call back. All right, Yeah, we
actually have a Christian caller from South Korea and I
would love for us to talk to them. Drew, I
did not give you, uh. I did not give you
enough time this morning to be able to access and
see the calls on the screen. So, for everybody watching,
Drew is coming into this so blind. It is so

(13:08):
not fair.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
It's fine, it's fine, we'll do We'll do our best.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
We will we will. So our first caller is Isaiah,
a Christian from Isaiah. We can hear ourselves say, can
you mute the string? I did not give you Isaiah, Isaiah.

Speaker 6 (13:27):
I did not give you enough time this morning to
be able to access Isaiah.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
For everybody watching.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Okay, Isaiah, I'm going to hop you back into the
quem it looks like Isaiah's watching the show right now,
So Isaiah, we could hear ourselves. There was a lot
of feedback there. If you can just turn down the
volume or preferably mute the volume of the show that
you're watching, we'd love to talk to you. But in

(13:55):
the meantime, let's move on. And ooh. Tug called in
last week. Tug is in Canada and actually has a
really good question here, or at least this one that
I enjoy. Tug is asking what is morality? And how
do we figure out what's moral? Oh god, Doug, you're

(14:20):
live with Eric and Drew Tug.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Tug sounds like all the callers have stepped out to
go to the bathroom right when we pick up.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Apparently, I'm gonna put Tug back in the queue. Let's
see if we can talk to Ronan. Ronan, you are
live on the show. Can you hear us? I know
what's going on? I meet us. I muted us to
callers so that they couldn't hear us before the show,

(14:56):
and they could not hear us. That was my bad.
You're live? How's it going?

Speaker 7 (15:02):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (15:03):
Oh, hello, hi, Hi, I I was not expecting this.
I just want to say that I'm a big fan
of both of you guys. You guys gave me a
lot of a lot of good entertainment from your collins.

(15:24):
Oh yeah, and then recently genetically modified Skeptics video. I
watched every feature of the apist culture explain. That was
a really good video. I just want to say that now,
as for my question, I am I'm still sort of
new to learning about, uh, like sort of like a

(15:45):
lot of like the intricacies of Christianity, And I wanted
to talk about denominations because it's sort of like I've
the way it's it's a sort of weird, like I don't, okay,
correct me if I'm wrong. I could I could be

(16:06):
totally like seeing this wrong, but I sort of see
it as as almost a hypocrisy of like Christianity, where
like there's like even though they follow like the same
book and like this, like the same morals of like
the Bible, they still have like specific things that are
specific to like there's different like sector denomination. So I
I just I don't know, I just want to ask what.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
That's all about.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Are you are you have you always been a non
believer or have you have you personally come out of
a religious denomination.

Speaker 8 (16:36):
So I'm I'm thankful to be raised non religious. My
parents were the.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Question, No, that's okay, the question makes a little bit
more sense. So, as somebody who's a non believer, you're
wondering why there are so many different factions and the
religious denominations. Yeah, okay, you called the right place, Drew.
Do you want to take this or.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, sure, yeah I can. I can have a crack
at it. So why are there so many different denominations? Well,
as a non believer, don't you see that people who
don't believe in a religion also disagree about a lot
of different things, you know, I mean, God, sorry to
even bring this up for you, Eric, but let's talk
about like vaccine science and public health policy based on

(17:29):
vaccine science. Even people who believe in vaccine science, sorry
will will still disagree about the right public policy to have.
And we saw. I'm bringing this up because everyone has
born witness to the massive disagreement that has happened among
you know, public health administrators and scientists, different politicians, even

(17:54):
those who are informed. And then there are people who
are not informed that that disagree with each other and
disagree with people who are better informed. You don't need
religion to disagree, and within religion you will disagree for
a lot of the same reasons. You're operating on different facts.
You have different assumptions about different things. Your emotions lead
you to want to say a certain thing. The people

(18:17):
that you're around tend to have certain assumptions, and group
think sets in because you, you know, fall into tribalism
with them. So why are there so many different denominations?
I mean, because people are diverse in their thinking. That's
how it works, regardless of whether you're religious or not.
I'll let Eric kind of uh give his two cents

(18:39):
on this too, and if I can formulate anything useful
to say about mimetics on top of this, then then
I'll jump back in.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah. So I totally get it as a you know,
a lifelong non believer or not understanding how you can
have the many differences. But have you have you? Have
you tried reading the Bible? I not. That's fine, I
don't recommend it. It's not a great time.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh I love reading the Bible, like I ironically love
reading the Bible. Well, it's okay, I can be the
weirdo out here.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
No. Drew you know, I've got my Bibles. It's it's
not so much that, but who's never read it before?
It is not as fun as other Like I think
you can probably get through Genesis and Exodus and have
a good time, but once you get into like Leviticus,
it's not yeah reading you know, you can skip forward

(19:34):
to like, you know, uh, the the Conquest of Canaan.
You know, numbers and kings and and and and that,
that's pretty fun. But for them, like as far as
creation myths and the mythology of people's it's tedious.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I would say, read Genesis, read
job and read Mark Luke is also pretty cool or
or acts, but like, yeah, yeah, other other than that,
it's it's actually quite tedious. Okay, you got me there.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
He I mean yeah, like like Ronan Drew and I
grew up in a in a in a world where
just to make the stories interesting we would dress up
and put on plays and things like that, and so
that there the story that gets me that stuck with me,
that I absolutely loved was the story of Shadrack, Nieshak,

(20:30):
and a Bendigo, the three brothers who refused to pray
before this This statue of Nebeconezzer, right, and they were
tossed into the fire and they came out unscathed. And
that I think to an outside of that probably doesn't
sound awesome. But like, there was a song, dude, there

(20:54):
was a song, and there were cartoons and animations and
ship and it was pretty badass. But like all of
those are interpretations. And because of that, you have to
realize that when you have you know, old old, old
interpretations of you know, mythology like that, people are just
gonna split up. They're they're going to find the things

(21:14):
that resonate with them and go, this is the most
important thing, and they're going to split off from others
who have things that they think are more important to them.
And so that's kind of how you get the split.
And then you get things like Ronan. I'm not, I
don't know how much you know about like the history
of of the like the Protestant Reformation or anything like that,

(21:36):
but you have, you know, just and I could go
on for days, so I'm not I'm going to try
not to. But like you have traditions that get built
into these religious structures, and so you have something like
the Catholic Church that got built, built and built and built.
And then you have Martin Luther who posts the ninety
five THESS on the on the on the the door
of the church in Wittenberg saying here are my problems

(21:59):
with the Catholic Church. I'm going to create a schism
and boom, just completely separate, split off and have this
entire different thing. And then within the Catholic Church you
have splits and they're just a lot of them are doctrinal,
a lot of them are are about traditions that have
been built up within the church. It's just it's a clusterfuck.
That's why. That's why on shows like this, I would

(22:23):
say that our best bet is to listen to the
caller and find out what they believe, meet them where
they are, and then interact and then interact from there,
because a lot of non believers, especially lifelong non believers, go, well,
if you don't believe it literally, then you know you're
a hypocrite or or you know, why isn't all the

(22:44):
it's not the same because it's all tied into these
cultures that we grew up in. You know, there's so
many pieces to it that it really does matter to them.
So I'm glad you're taking the time to ask instead
of just thinking it's dumb, because if we don't have
those nuance come sations with them, we're never going to
get anywhere.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Absolutely, Yeah, Drew, did you have anything that you wanted
to add? I kind of just went on a tangent.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
No, No, that that was great. I was wondering if
if Ronan had anything else.

Speaker 8 (23:14):
Yeah, I do have another question that pop popped of
my head. So what what is how did how did
how did the circumcisions start? Like how did that become
a thing? Why is that a thing?

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Well? I so I feel Drew, have you done any
research other than just what we know from the Bible,
because I all I.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Repeat the question to me. I I didn't catch it.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Ronan was asking where circumcisions started? Like how did that
become a thing?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh God, yeah, I don't. I don't know the so
like I I know and I understand. I've looked into
the psychology of this, but I don't actually know about
the history of of where it originated. I do believe
that there may have been some people who we wouldn't

(24:06):
have considered to be Jewish today who did practice circumcision
around in Levant and Mesopotamia. We're talking like over one
thousand years two thousand years BC, a long time ago,
properly long time ago. But you know, Judaism has evolved.

(24:27):
There have been some Jewish sex a long time ago
that probably did not do circumcision, and there were people,
like I said, who were probably not Jewish who did
do circumcision. Circumcision even today is not just a Jewish thing.
So it's been predominantly Jewish for a long time, but
you have to realize that things are so diverse that

(24:48):
it's not just Jewish. That's about the best I can
do when it comes to the history of it. That said,
I will talk about the psychology of this a little bit.
Anthropological research shows that communities and individuals who make costly
sacrifices for their communities and for their beliefs, especially supernatural beliefs,

(25:10):
tend to stick to them more strictly and tend to
influence people to take on these supernatural beliefs and these
beliefs that bind them together with the community who practices
these things. So yeah, cutting off a part of your
genitals is a sacrifice for most people, and you can

(25:35):
imagine that doing something that's so costly as that might
feed into this psychological phenomenon and bind people together. So
it's an interesting question where did it come from. I
think it's an even more interesting question why it's stuck around.
And I think that it's stuck around because things like that,

(25:56):
practices like that make communities stick together. As strange as
it sounds, humans minds work in really weird ways, even
weirder than God sometimes.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
And and I just to tie in on the end
of that, the the mythological reason, the reason that's said
it stated in the Bible is that God told Abraham
to do that as a covenant with God. So it
was a sacrifice to show God that you really, really,
really mean it. It was something that painful and that
awful that you know, you you you you really do

(26:28):
believe you can go through something like that. And and
continuing to do that was the way that in the
Old Testament it's described as as Jewish people, you know,
showing their covenant with God.

Speaker 8 (26:41):
I know, right, Yeah, that's that's pretty interesting.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
This was an interesting call.

Speaker 8 (26:51):
If you don't mind, can I ask one more question.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
One last thing, and then we've got like a dozen
callers so I know, right.

Speaker 8 (26:58):
So, I think I believe if I've heard the claim
from either this show or other adjacent call in shows
that a lot of the roots of the stories of
the Bible, there's a lot of parallels between like ancient
Greek or.

Speaker 7 (27:18):
Something like that, ancient Greek.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Or probably as ancient Mesopotamian if you're talking about the
Old Testament there, you may have heard that there's parallels
between like the Genesis account and ancient Mesopotamian creation myths.
Does that sound right, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (27:34):
That's probably what I was thinking of, got it all right?
Thank you for much. You guys have a great show.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Hey, thank you for calling in.

Speaker 8 (27:42):
Yeah, take care too.

Speaker 7 (27:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
I don't want to overstate you know what I know
about this. I'm not exactly the right person to learn
about this from. I would recommend that you check out
the scholar Dan McClellan, who is very very popular on
TikTok and has a really great podcast that uploads on
YouTube too. You can also check out Religion for Breakfast

(28:09):
that's a great YouTube channel, and Esoterica, who my friend
Justin Sledge who has a fantastic channel about the esoteric
aspects of philosophy and religion and they'll they'll be able
to educate you better than I can. But oh also
digital Hammer Robbie is a good channel for this, probably
the best channel for this, come to think of it.

(28:30):
But yeah, So there was something called the Babylonian Exile
in Jewish history and myth that basically the Jewish people
were separated from their communities, were separated, and many, many,
many of them were taken into kind of like a
form of slavery or subservience in Babylon. In Mesopotamia outside

(28:54):
of the levant they were kind of second class citizen,
second class citizen citizens and babalon for a good while.
I'm not exactly sure exactly how long, but cultures probably
meshed and melded, and some scholars like to say that

(29:14):
I think it's justin Sledge that says that ancient Levantine
polytheism went into Babylon and Judaism came out. So yes, yeah,
there are definitely parallels between creation accounts that the ancient

(29:34):
Mesopotamians had about the creation of the world. One of
the biggest parallels is the creation of the world as
a as an ordering event, where the original condition of
the world was chaotic water, water, kind of represented chaos
for the Mesopotamians of that time. And the first thing

(29:57):
that happens in Genesis is that God is hovering over
the surface of the waters and it is formless and void,
as I think the KJV says. So, yeah, that's an
interesting parallel. It's not all parallel. Don't listen to people
who tell you it's just a one hundred percent a
ripoff and there's nothing different. That's not true. But they're

(30:18):
definitely interesting parallels there that. Yeah, there is something to
that for sure.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
I love that. Thank you for that. I wish I
hadn't cut him out. I'll make sure to put the
links that you described in the comments for the clip
that I put out for this. Yeah, awesome, thank you, Drew.
Are you ready for the next caller?

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, let's do it all right.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Our next caller is calling from South Korea. We're going
to try again, Isaiah. Thank you so much. Isaiah. You're
live with Eric and Drew.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
So sorry about that the technical problems. But first of all,
I really enjoyed Juice Channel. I'm a Christian, but I
find the content to be very informative and very engaging.
And then also I do want to say to Eric,
I'm so sorry about the trolling that you had last
week that was so in calls for.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
But let's I here's the thing, and Drew, I don't
think you know about this. We had a drop in callers,
and so I was like, anybody, So the person who
comes in next Brie, who was call screening for us,
didn't get the chance to call screen this person and
would have screened them out immediately. But instead I had

(31:33):
somebody who hopped on and blew an air horn into
the microphone. Oh and just blasted the ears of the odd. Yeah,
it was brutal, but appreciate that. And you know what,
We're going to do our best. And I don't know,
I okay. As a quick aside, I gotta say, for
a show that is doing its best to have engaging, meaningful,

(31:55):
empathetic conversations with people, why troll this show? I don't know.
I don't know, but maybe maybe it just means that
we've got enough attention. So that's fine anyway, Isaiah, I
want to read what you have here in the comments.
It says that you want to you what can moderate
Christians to do? I'm sorry, what can moderate Christians do

(32:17):
to moderate extremists. How can moderate Christians avoid further alienating
atheists even more? Do you want to elaborate a.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
Little bit, Yeah, so a couple of things. Because I'm
a Christian, and although I don't vote, I would definitely
be leaning left, certainly not to like where the Democrat
Party is, but definitely leaning to the left. And the
thing is, what I've seen from the last twenty years
since I've been like an adult, is that the Christians

(32:46):
are getting more like further to the right, and more indoctrinated,
indoctrinated by like nationalism and specifically like an obsession, like
a cult like obsession with Donald Trump. And it is
frightened the living hell out of me. And I, as
a Christian, cannot wrap my mind around how people could

(33:07):
be so obsessed with someone who has such anti Christian
values and rhetoric. I can't even It's like my family
has just been like taken captive by it, so I
can't really seem like I can reason with them on
this topic. That's the first part of it. The other
part of it is that kind of like how you

(33:29):
got trolled or how and I wasn't even referring to
the airport, and I was referring to the other guy
who was talking about you and your partner. Yeah, and
I know your partner has received a lot of trolling
online and misgendering and all that, So I know that's
like very intentional stuff that maybe Christians do to try

(33:51):
to maybe try to trigger atheists. But like from your perspective,
because I know what I think about this from my perspective,
but from your perspective, what we do to like make
you guys left hostile? Because I understand a lot of
you are pretty hostile religion too, and I get it.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
I So I have thoughts, But Drew, as the guest,
don't do do you have anything or do you have
gonna go first?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Uh, you can go ahead and go first. I'll just
say thanks for like being willing to have this discussion
with people who it affects. That's actually a pretty huge deal.
So yeah, Eric, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Now that was the first thing. So Isaiah, I know
that we've talked before before the show stopped for a year,
and you're a sweetheart, And I honestly if more people
were as empathetic and and and consider it as as you,
I don't think there'd be as many angry atheists. You know,

(34:50):
I think part of what you can do is just
consider the fact that a lot of us don't have
homes that feel like we can be ourselves in. A
lot of us don't have communities that we grew up
in that still want anything to do with us. And yeah,
and in the process of deconversion, you know, just imagine

(35:13):
still believing that there's a God because a lot of us,
when we're you know, losing our faith, we still think
that there's a God for a really long time, just
maybe not the one in our church. But by the
time that we go, you know, well, maybe this isn't it.
The people in our church already gave up on us.
They already thought that we were gone, right, And so
you find yourself excluded before even fully realizing you're an atheist.

(35:35):
There's this, there's a pretty common experience that when you
find that you want to talk to your loved ones
about your leaving your faith, getting a lot of anger
and a lot of you know, a Christian hopping online

(35:56):
and googling, what do I tell my atheist son or daughter?
You need whatever? You know, what do I tell this
atheist so that they can come back to our faith?
And what they get is a lot of vitriol and
a lot of frustration. And so I think that one
thing is that one thing that a lot of atheists
do when we do find ourselves kind of fully out
of it, is we're so anxious to defend ourselves after

(36:22):
being attacked for so long, that we arm ourselves with, well,
here's the response to this, and here's the response to that,
and here's the response to that, so that we can
at least answer to the frustrating things that we dealt,
you know, by loved ones and strangers alike. It's not
true of everyone, but it is enough that it is

(36:42):
definitely a stereotype that you have somebody coming up ready
to fight because they've been fighting in their personal lives
to the people that they should be trusting, and that
the loved ones who should be supporting them the most
absolutely leaving them hanging out to dry. And so it's
kind of no wonder bit of empathy and a bit
of understanding that they're going to get through this. But

(37:07):
you don't start acting okay until you start feeling like
things are going to be okay, and until you can
find a community and people who care about you. For you,
it's really hard to expect that. So my first bit
of advice about our Christians is make atheist friends and
don't just go play Mario kart Man. You know, go

(37:30):
go and and and do something that you enjoy together,
you know, help your community, and don't make it something
that has to be, you know, a doctrinal issue that
they have to be behind you on, because you know,
building those places is what's going to make atheists a
lot less angry.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
I think you by the way, oh I'm sorry, can
I object thing? And I really want her Drew, But
but two things, I totally get that. And do the podcast,
I was able to interview a lot of different atheists
and I even got a chance to go to the
UK and meet up with three of them in person.
So one of them I stayed at this house and

(38:09):
you know, we've exchanged Christmas gifts for each other's kids.
It was a quite an amazing experience. And then just
one other thing. The last time I ever saw my mom,
I told her I didn't believe in God, and she
like just refused to talk to me, and lo and behold,
he just happened to die on my birthday, like four
months later. But I totally get where you're coming from

(38:30):
because I wasn't a father back then. I'm a father now.
And that's one of the things that really makes me
second guests my Christianity and religion in general, because I
can't think of anything I could break the bond of
me and my daughter, and I don't care if she's
a Satanist. That still wouldn't make me left her any less.
And so that's one of the things that's causing me

(38:51):
some cognitive dissidence since being a father. But the truth.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Please, yeah, so let me see. Oh, I'm I'm here
in myself in your mic there, Eric, Okay, now it's gone.
I appreciate that when it comes to what a Christian
can do two in this divide. I mean, I'm not

(39:21):
sure if this is just a general generic moral value
or if this is a super Christian moral value. But
I was always taught as a Christian to lead by example,
that what you do is always going to be much
greater of a moral teacher than what you say. You
can argue with family, you can argue with people until

(39:44):
you're blue in the face, but if you are not
actually showing your moral values through your behaviors, then you're
not going to have the same impact. So honestly, yeah,
making friends who are atheists and you know, not going
to convert them or something, but just being friends with
them and loving them. I mean, honestly, just being friends

(40:05):
with atheists and loving them is like the best way
for an atheist to become interested in like Christianity. Like, oh,
the Christians I know are nice, you know, like that's
that's actually going to be the most convincing thing for
most people, to be honest, so you don't actually have
to try if you actually want to make converts, in
my opinion, you just have to not be a dick

(40:25):
and uh and and also but oh go ahead, yeah,
go ahead.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
I was just gonna say, if your goal is to
witness to them, I might advise you not be their friend.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, that's probably true.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Like I think a lot of I think a lot
of Christians assume that because they want a witness to atheists,
that they need to be on guard that atheists are
going to be witnessing to them. And for atheist who
are watching and wondering what the hell is Eric talking
about with witnessing it, it means when I was a
Christian witnessing meant and I'm sure it still does, but

(41:02):
it's been years. Witnessing meant sharing your experience of God
so that you can convert other people. And so yeah,
the assumption that atheists are trying to witness to you,
I guarantee you that's not happening. So you know you
not doing that in return would be helpful.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, And I'll say, you know, building community with other
Christians who are willing to kind of take the same
stance and see mending this divide as necessary, that's helpful too.
I mean, if you have larger numbers of people who
are Christian but willing to engage with atheists as human beings,

(41:46):
not as like subjects, test subjects, pet projects, whatever you
want to call it. Yeah, the better we're going to be.
So create interfaith communities, Create communities with Christians who are
willing to, you know, try to empathize with atheists the
best they possibly can, and be be more concerned about

(42:10):
showing love and kindness. And I'm assuming you you believe
that means godliness than actually sharing a message of you know,
what the what the Gospel says atheists probably already know anyway.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
MM hmm.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
Well, thank you guys for your feedback, and uh, Eric,
please send my regards to.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Your Isaiah on the line. Still, yes, no, I can
hear Oh, I can't hear him?

Speaker 1 (42:41):
No, oh got it. Let me hold on a second.
I think I can. I can fix that on my end,
but I will. I'll wrap things up here, Drew. You
might get a bit of an echo from what you're hearing,
but you'll be able to hear callers. Is that okay? Yeah,
that's fine, Okay, cool, all right, take care Isaiah, thank

(43:03):
you for calling in.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
Okay, that was nice.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
So Isaiah called in from what I remember before the
show took a hiatus and would call in about like
different views and and and it kind of felt to
me like like like he was testing them out to
kind of see if they're a hold water. But what

(43:32):
I'm hearing from this last call is a lot of growth.
I'm really happy to hear it. And I'm really like
having these ongoing conversations and seeing that that development is
really really meaningful to me. So I'm happy to see it.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah, okay, yeah, absolutely. I've seen my own commenters, you know,
I've had commenters who were with me at an earlier
stage in my channel and say this and that and
the other to try to convert me or just to
insult me or whatever. And then as the years have
gone on, and you know, I've tried to mature and

(44:11):
show that in my content, I've seen their comments reflect
their own growth as well, and so it really helps me,
you know, it allows me to have empathy for them
and where they were, because I know that if if
me from twenty seventeen commented on twenty twenty four GM
skeptic videos, I today would look at that and be like, oh,

(44:35):
that's so cringe, Oh my god, why do you think that?

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Right? So, of course, you know people and I've I've
actually had people reach out years later and be like,
could you remove that call from several years ago? But
then I look at that call and there are comments
years later of people that week who have been like,
oh my god, this is exactly where I am or
this is exactly where I've been, and this was helped
up to me, you know, seeing those reflected, especially the

(45:01):
cringey stuff, it can be so helpful. It can be
so helpful. Do you know how many times to put
my foot in my mouth on this very show and
just wanted to like take it down. But how am
I going to show growth? You know?

Speaker 5 (45:15):
So right?

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, I keep up my older videos just so that
people can see. I mean, they don't really get many
views anymore, so I don't really see them as doing
much harm. But like my really old videos, I keep
up there so that people can see, like, hey, this
is where I was in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and
now you know, as I've grown up a bit, my
views are different and are a lot more moderated in

(45:36):
some places and are much more radical in others. So yeah,
it's good for people to see growth.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
It is all right. Let's move on to the next caller.
I know that you were not looking forward to this one,
but well I want to Tug in Canada. You're live
with Eric and Drew.

Speaker 8 (45:54):
How's it going, Tug, Hi, I'm doing pretty good. I
was wondering how how you define morality and where where
you think.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
It comes from?

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, Drew, how do you define morality? Where it comes from?
There's quite a bit there. I can go first if
you want, Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, so let me just
read the definition of morality to start out with. I
think that that's a good one oh one essay. Way

(46:32):
to fill some space here. So the first definition to
come up is a particular system of values and principles
of conduct, especially when held by a specified person or society.
Where do I think morals come from. I think that
it's a mix of nature and nurture. The nature comes
in with the way that our brains have formed. We

(46:56):
naturally can feel what other people are experiencing, not in
a psychic way, but like visually and auditorially. We're really
good at kind of keying in to other people and
mirroring what they're doing and how they're feeling. And there
have been studies that have shown mirror neurons in people's

(47:18):
brains that actually activate in the same place. Somebody gets
an injury to their arm, and a brain scan of
somebody watching that their brain will light up where that
arm injury was. You can feel to a degree that
kind of pain and other people. The problem is it's
most effective the more similar you see that of the person,

(47:40):
the more they look like you, or the more they're
in your group. Right, But I think that that creates
a good foundation for that kind of kind behavior to others.
We also see it in animals, this kind of social reciprocity,
and it's the foundation for building a social society, so
that the underpinning to it, I believe the nurture piece

(48:05):
of it is as we build the society up. It's
not enough that we don't just you know, not kill
each other. It's also that we respect each other's humanity,
and that's something that we're continuously building. I don't think
that morality is necessarily something that's set in stone, but
something that they were constantly refining that over generations. I'm

(48:28):
seeing now us having a morality fight that was not
even remotely being had fifty years ago. Right fifty years ago,
people were you know, we're we're having riots over race
in ways that while we're still having race riots, aren't.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
We it feels like we're making it feels like.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Things are hopefully getting I don't know, I don't know
how can I go act further. We don't have slaves
in the United States the same way that we have
there's still a type of slavery. But I'm thinking out
loud here, tug a.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Person, a person, the average person on the street will
say slavery is bad and that one race should not
be subject to another. Most people will agree on that
moral premise. Whether or not people are acting well on
that moral premise is a completely different issue. But yes,
there is some progress there. I agree with your with

(49:24):
what you're trying to stay there, Eric.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
I appreciate that. But how do we figure out what
is moral? There are so many different philosophies. I think
that if the philosophy is over three hundred years old,
you should probably find one that's a little more updated,
you know.

Speaker 9 (49:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
But I think that if you want to like get
a primer in it, read Kant, K A n T.
I think that that is I. I don't agree with
a lot of things there, but it's a good start
and it can give you a good place to ask
questions and move forward.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
When it comes to discussions of morality. Eric is constantly
serving Kant.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
I would say, Drew, we're already going to be so
demonetized you can you can cuss. I don't see any
I appreciate that. That was good, that was clever. Yeah.
So the problem that I have with cont is KNT,
you know, believes that we have souls, and us having
souls is the reason why we need to treat each

(50:35):
other kindly. So obviously I'm not there, but you know,
this this idea that we should act in a way
that we want everyone else to behave, Right, you kind
of look at your action and go, what I want
a world where everybody else does the thing I'm about
to do. What I want that world to exist? Is

(50:56):
a cool start and you can go on from there.
But yeah, I think that's a pretty decent launch pad.
I know I would want to go further, but like,
we have so many callers going in, but did you
have anything else that drew or tug?

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Yeah, I have a couple of questions. So one one
would be can you consider morality like this is this
is a question people should ask themselves. Do you consider
morality to be able to be objective without it being

(51:33):
based in something transcendent, you know, extra to the universe.
That's a huge question that you should ask yourself because
a lot of the time people say, you know, well,
where does morality come from? And you say something like
Eric just said, and you know, it's like a societal
consensus type thing and it also is based in our biology,
and they'll go, well, that's how you're telling me, you know,

(51:53):
like how to be moral? But like, where is it
actually based, what is the actual reason for blah blah blah,
you know, what's the actual grounding? And what they mean
is they own they accept the premise. They're not actually
directly saying this, They're just implying this because they think
that everyone just believes the same thing. For some reason
they believe, and they're stating that unless something is based

(52:17):
in the transcendent, in the divine, in the supernatural, whatever
you want to call it, it's not a real grounding.
The next question you should ask yourself is is something
objective like objective morality, or actually, I should say, is
morality that is useful inherently objective? Can a morality moral

(52:43):
system that is not, you know, transcendently or otherwise objective,
still be useful? That's another question? Is something is a
moral system being useful it being objective or transcendent? That's
a question. And let me see, I know I had
another another question here, but yeah, I think that people

(53:08):
just get really hung up on the implicit premise that
that a moral system is not real and not useful
unless it's grounded in the metaphysical, and people never explain why.
They just kind of assume this, and then a lot
of people who believe things like Eric and I do
just allow that premise to slip on by and then

(53:30):
have a discussion where we're never going to resolve it
because we're not addressing their their snack premise.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah, the idea that we need some you know, supernatural
law giver essentially just a yeah, yeah point on that.
That is an incredible rabbit hole that I hope that
you explore, Tug, because oh my gosh, I have spent
so long on it and I've found a lot of

(53:58):
value there, and I hope you do too. I think
my last statement to you on this is don't let
people approach you with the idea of morality that you
need to create it from the ground up. We are
not without moral behavior and are trying to build it.

(54:19):
We are living in a somewhat moral world, you know,
where we and our neighbors already have a concept of morality.
And because of that, it's not could we be moral?
It's not how to be moral? It's what you know,

(54:40):
we're behaving in a moral way right now? What is it?
And then is it the best that we want it
to be? Can we do better? You know? But treat
it as something that is currently happening, currently being iterated upon,
and don't let anybody remove your ability to join the
conversation because they think that you need to start from

(55:01):
square one. We're all starting at a place where everybody
is already behaving to a degree, you know, based on
what they think their morals are, and so don't let
them undercut you.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Thank you so much, absolutely, Tug. I love these kinds
of questions. I know Drew doesn't, but thank you. Thank
you both, and I'll catch you later, Tug. I think.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
That that was a good one. Just I just got
to make a joke that I liked. So that was
a worthwhile call for me.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
I appreciate it. I I there are so many calls
here that I'm not used to that have so much
to do with the kind of stuff you talk about.
I saw that one though, when I thought that would
be kind of fun. So let's jump into the next.
We have somebody whose name is Phylogeny. That's what they

(56:01):
told the call screamer Philogny. It says in the notes
the reliability of the Gospels and who wrote them? How
much weight should we give to church tradition and other
secondary sources. Phil you're live with Eric and Drew.

Speaker 9 (56:17):
Awesome, Well you pretty much hit it right on the head.
I'm curious because I find a lot of sources, including
church scholarship or religious scholarship, that says that the Gospels
are not actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
And part of me is like, Okay, I'm inclined to
believe that, and that seems like confirmation biased because I'm

(56:37):
an atheist. So then I go and I look at
religious sources, and there's a lot on there that talks
about like Apostolic succession and how we know based on
a chain of custody for people like Tertullian and Polycarp
and Ignacious and all the things that they wrote that
were a little bit more contemporary that seemed to confirm

(56:59):
whether or not these things rye witness.

Speaker 7 (57:00):
Now, now, I don't believe the.

Speaker 9 (57:02):
Things just because of the supernatural.

Speaker 10 (57:04):
Claims that are in them, Like there might be some
truth in there as far as the names of places
and people and stuff like that, but that doesn't mean
that it's all true. Right, So I'm just curious if
we step back from just looking at the narrative and
we actually look at that.

Speaker 9 (57:17):
Shane of custody throughout history. Where do these discrepancies come from?
And why does the church get to be like, oh, no,
church tradition says it's this, and everybody believes that it's true.
Does make sense?

Speaker 2 (57:30):
It's a really yeah, it's a good question. And God,
I feel like I can so strongly sympathize with where
you're at on it right now, which I'm sure I've
discussed this with both Eric and b you're at You're
at like the peak, which is the bottom of the
Dunning Kruper effect. It's like you were really ignorant on it,

(57:52):
and so you had a certain amount of confidence and
you knew a few facts and you had high confidence.
And the more and more and more and more you learned,
confidence just went down and down and down and down,
And now you're down here, way more educated than most people,
and you're like, I don't really, I'm not sure, Like
I think I know, but I could be wrong, and
I want to second guess myself. I don't want to

(58:12):
give it a confirmation bias. Right, it's a paradog. But
if you've gotten to the point where you are really
worried about your confirmation bias kicking in after you've consumed
sources on both sides like ad nauseum.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Uh okay, I would it.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Probably You're you're probably informing yourself well enough to be
confident at this point. All right, awesome, Yeah, I mean
I'm sure that you would. You know, you would agree
that when it comes to the apostolic succession thing, there
are many different branches of Christian tradition that all claim

(58:52):
Apostolic succession. You know, which, which apostle, which church father
was the one that was right. I'm sure that you
realized that that, you know, Tertullian did not agree completely
with Polycarpin, who didn't agree completely with Ignacious, who didn't
completely agree with any of the twelve Apostles. We don't
even know who all of them were, who also didn't

(59:13):
agree with you know origin.

Speaker 7 (59:16):
It's right.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Like I said earlier, it's a there's a human problem.
We disagree on things. There's inherently diversity, and I think
that these chain of apostolic succession arguments really only work
if we can discern whose subjective opinion is the objective one,
and I don't think that we can really decide what
the objective answer is based on interpretation of scriptures and

(59:40):
things like that. Maybe if we had archaeological evidence of
this person had the first scroll that was written about this,
and the scroll was written by somebody who was an eyewitness,
and then this scroll was passed down, you know, this
chain through several years, and there's actual archaeological physical evidence
that the you know, some authoritative source was in possession

(01:00:03):
of only this sect. But we just don't have that,
so we kind of we have to interpret the text
for ourselves and just decide who's right based on interpretation.
There's not a lot of certainty there. And it sounds
like you perfectly well understand that at this point. Give
yourself some credit.

Speaker 9 (01:00:18):
Okay, that's cool, yeah, because it sounds like like if
one of the things that trip me up.

Speaker 7 (01:00:25):
Okay, the Marcian Knights. Are you familiar with that sect?

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Yes, yeah, I've done a whole video on Marcian Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:00:32):
Yeah, So the Marcian Knights have the oldest gospel in
the world, and aren't they also unitarians, like they compiled
it first into a thing, and so they can claim
to be the oldest, you know, have the oldest canon
if you will even older, then I think the night scene,
the stuff that was decided on during the Console of
Nicea and stuff like that.

Speaker 7 (01:00:53):
But like, then, why aren't they the most popular?

Speaker 9 (01:00:57):
You know, it's like it was all just power and
politics that caused Christianity to go the way it went.
So then how can that possibly be true that I
don't know, there's just a lot going on there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Sorry, yeah, no, there is a lot going on there.
I will I will say, so it is a misconception
that the Council of Nicea decided on anything related to
the canon. That that's like probably the most popular misconception
about New Testament history or study. So I don't I
don't blame you for voicing that the Council of Nicea

(01:01:32):
decided on a few things, but one of them was
whether or not the Church was going to affirm arianism.
Like basically this idea that God and you know, God
the Father and God the Son were like two separate
beings and one was subordinate to the other. And eventually,
you know, they decided that God was Jesus was equal

(01:01:56):
to God, and Jesus was fully man and fully God.
And in a way, that's kind of the Trinity. I
don't know that they actually use that term, but think
of the Nicea, the Council of Nicia, the first Council
of Nicea, as having more to do with the nature
of God and Jesus, not so much the can But yes,
you're exactly right that there are the The Marcianites did

(01:02:23):
have the first canon in Christian history as far as
we can tell. And why does that not give them,
you know, authority to roll over the rest. Well, I
mean even the Catholic Church today and the Eastern Orthodox
Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches don't go based on

(01:02:44):
just the idea that they have the right canon. They
also are like, hey, we have apostolic succession, we have
these traditions that we're taught that don't have anything to
do with having a canon or not. And I think
that honestly, you just said it. That's when you said, yeah,
there's a lot of stuff in there. It's really complicated.
That's honestly just the correct view to have. It's just

(01:03:06):
not simpler than that.

Speaker 9 (01:03:08):
Okay, one final question, then, can you point me in
the direction of when and where the canon was decided on?

Speaker 7 (01:03:18):
Because I knew I knew that the Council of Nicea
did the Aryan you know, took care of the Aryan heresy.
But I'm curious.

Speaker 9 (01:03:28):
I guess I kind of also thought that that's where
they started to decide on biblical canon.

Speaker 7 (01:03:34):
Was the canon decided before that or after that?

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
So the canon was decided on this is? This is
I think the reason why this misconception is so common
because the answer cannot fit even in a single sentence. Uh,
the canon was decided on over actually hundreds of years,

(01:04:00):
could argue more than a thousand years. There were bishops
like people like Iranaus, people like Tertullian, people like origin people,
I mean people hundreds of years after them, not just
in the first few Christian centuries, who were arguing over
what books were authoritative and which ones weren't, and what
authoritative even means. There were a lot of people that

(01:04:24):
were arguing about the canon and what books we should use,
that were arguing about that subject before the idea that
the Bible or any of the books were divinely inspired
was introduced in the first place. Oh wow, ideas of
where or ideas of what should be canon. Before most

(01:04:47):
people took on the idea of divine inspiration of these
texts in the first place wasn't even the same conversation.
It wasn't which books are inspired by God? It was
which ones do we like the most and we want
to use and might be the most historically accurate and
match my personal theology and biases the most, And which
ones are the most misogynistic or which ones are the
least misogynistic, which ones create the best society, which ones

(01:05:08):
create the worst society. It's so incredibly complicated that you
can't fit the answer to this in like in a
bullet point right, I will say I might be wrong.
Do google this, look this up after I say this
to see whether or not I'm getting the name right.
I believe it was Athanacious of Alexandria, who was at

(01:05:33):
the Council of Nicia but was very young at the
time who first sent a letter to it was either
another council or to another bishop, or I think he
might have circulated this letter publicly, which did dictate that
he believed that the church should use this set of books,

(01:05:54):
and that canon list of his was very, very very
similar to the roughly one six books of the New
Testament that we have today. The thing is is that
after that letter was circulated. Yes, that idea did gain popularity,
but it took a really long time for people to
decide that that's the canon. And I think you could

(01:06:15):
argue that because there are different Bibles and different traditions,
we still haven't decided what the canon is. So that's
that's the real answer.

Speaker 7 (01:06:25):
That's a nice application of logic.

Speaker 8 (01:06:27):
All right.

Speaker 9 (01:06:28):
I think you get thank you guys for the conversation,
and have.

Speaker 7 (01:06:32):
A great day.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Thanks. Not every day that I get to geek out
on that one.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Drew, you killed that. That was amazing and I and
the entire time you're talking, there's a Catholic caller waiting
on the line who had a totally different question, and
I am just like who I want to see how
this plays out, But yeah, I thank you. That was fantastic.
Let's move on to see if we can hammer out

(01:07:03):
a couple more callers. We have a religious caller. His
name is Andrew. He's in Florida. Andrew, you're live with
Eric and Drew. How are you doing?

Speaker 11 (01:07:13):
Greetings, gentlemen, Happy Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Happy Sunday. So before we dive into your question, you
just listened to an entire conversation about canon and about
the Catholic Church to which you belong. Is there anything
that you want to talk about with that before we
get into your question.

Speaker 11 (01:07:31):
Sure, yeah, I just pointed it. No, I agree with
him as historically speaking, a lot of the claims to
the canon are theological claims. So on, just on pure
the historical basis, I don't disagree with anything Drew said.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
Cool, okay, so then I'll dive right into your question.
It says here in the comments, why does atheism promote cohabitation?
And it sounds like you're not a fan of cohabitation.
Talk to us about it. What's what's going on?

Speaker 11 (01:08:03):
Yeah, I don't know why. I don't know what the
connection is. Like, Okay, we realized, okay, we don't have
any evidence for God. Therefore, now most Faitheists believe that
cohabitation is a better option than waiting until marriage. I
don't know what. I don't see the connection, but I
do see a lot of atheists or second, I'm sorry,
secular people with that view. I would just like to

(01:08:24):
quote two studies to show why it's a negative thing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
A statement.

Speaker 11 (01:08:29):
One, cohabitating couples have higher odds of divorce than married couples,
even after controlling for factors such as age, education, income,
and race, according to a secular study by Brown and
colleagues in the Journal of Marriage and Family. So, do
we have time for me to state the second statement
or we're gonna stick with that one.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Well, I'd love to respond to that first and then
let you get to the second one.

Speaker 9 (01:08:52):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
So people who aren't married, who are cohabitating together and
then they split up, I think think that's a good
thing personally. So I think that when if you are
living with somebody, you're getting the chance to find out
what kind of person they are. You know, if you're

(01:09:14):
going on a date, you don't necessarily know that that
person has no idea how to watch their own laundry
and their parents have been doing it. You know, you
have no idea if that person is a slob or
is casually just terrible in a whole lot of different ways.
There are so many things that happen when you live
with somebody that if you get the chance to live

(01:09:35):
with them and find out that, oh my gosh, this
isn't going to work, then the whole point I think
there is you have the chance to get out while
you can. I don't imagine that the idea of people
splitting up because they've gotten the chance to drive the
car before buying it is a bad thing. I think
that that is an effect of that working the way

(01:09:56):
I would hope it would, Drew, do you have anything.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Yeah, I think that we have to challenge the implicit
assumption that divorce is inherently a bad thing in all cases.
I'm sure that you know. I know that the Catholic
Church has pretty strong taboos in doctrine against divorce, But
I'm sure that you would agree that there are certain
cases where divorce is probably actually best for both both people.

(01:10:19):
You probably think that it might be fewer cases than
I think, But but fine, I think that we would
still agree with us operating on that premise. Then can't
we can't we see that if we're not making, you know,
divorce completely synonymous with a negative outcome. Now, assuming that

(01:10:39):
it's negative, we could see in that study that, Yeah,
and I believe you. I think that the data I've
read that before, I think that study is accurate. But
it's pretty understandable that people that do not have a
taboo against splitting up would split up split up more
often than people who do have a taboo against it.

(01:10:59):
But because we know that divorce is not inherently a
negative thing. Sometimes people are escaping abuse, sometimes people are
escaping something like cheating, or people are escaping a situation
which just makes both of them worse people or less happy.
That's not a bad thing. So yeah, I mean Catholics
probably do do less cohabitation and less divorce, But I

(01:11:24):
would also venture to guess that Catholics would be less
likely to divorce when divorce might actually be a good
thing to do.

Speaker 11 (01:11:34):
Okay, So a question then, why does Why does it
happen after the marriage? The point of cohabitation is to
see if you're compatible and then get married. Why does why?
Why why more divorce? If you're waiting, if you're cohabitating
first to see if you're compatible, why doesn't the breakup

(01:11:55):
happen before the marriage? Because that's what that was what
people always told me, Oh, how can you marry someone
if you never lived with them? But if you live
with them first, you're most likely going to get a divorce.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Interesting. Well, so I've got a couple of guesses that
I would love to see kind of born out in studies,
But I think there are two big pieces there. One
of them is the sample set. I think if you
have somebody who has waited to live with the person
that they want to marry until they marry with marry them,

(01:12:26):
I think they're probably more likely to have taken on
a religious ideology that looks down on divorce. And so
I think that there might be some skewing of the
sample set.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
There, and I would agree it's a huge factor.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
And then second, I think that I personally know and
have known people who've stayed in horribly abusive relationships but
stayed with the person that they were with because religiously
they were not able to get out, they were not
able to leave that person they were with. I think

(01:13:03):
that if you do that, if you cohabitate with with
somebody and test that out and then find out it's
not working for you, maybe you might be just a
little more comfortable with going, hey, hey, Andrew, Yeah there's
some banging in the background, and you have I have ADHD.

(01:13:25):
If there's a way that if you're doing dishes or something,
could you hold off until after we're done.

Speaker 8 (01:13:34):
Yeah, for sure, appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
So Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
The other thing is is if you can go, oh, hey,
I don't need to stay with somebody, especially if it's
not working, then maybe that is a more accessible option.
And again I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
But did you want to talk about the other study
or did you want to talk kind of more on
the specifics of why.

Speaker 11 (01:13:57):
Yeah, we can do the other Yeah, we can do
that other study.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
It's it's your call. You should have the opportunity to
guide what's what's what's next?

Speaker 7 (01:14:06):
Sure, I think so.

Speaker 11 (01:14:08):
Corbentating couples report lower levels of relationship satisfaction, commitment, and
trust they're married couples, according to a study by Roads
and Colleagues Worlds GK. Stanley, a replication of extension and
previous findings. Oh Journal of Family Psychology.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I think that. Uh yeah, again, it's
it's a sample. It's a sampling issue there, and I
mean not an issue. Doesn't mean that the study is
not valid or something. But yeah, I mean people who
who cohabitate, let's say, people who live together in order
to kind of like try it out, may not be

(01:14:48):
in the same place within their relationship as people who
are married. Necessarily, I think that people who choose to
get married. It's pretty understandable that, regardless of whether they've
done this for religious reasons or not, if they're making
some sort of long standing commitment to each other, like
lifelong commitment, that kind of behavior probably selects for relationships

(01:15:10):
that are a little bit more confident. So it would
make sense that, Yeah, people who decide to get married
are people who have when they are cohabitating beforehand, are
a more confident, more stable relationship. So that's that's how
I would typically see it. It's not an effect of cohabitation,
and it's not an effect of marriage either. It's just

(01:15:32):
that what we're seeing in the married sample, there are
people who when cohabitating or maybe not cohabitating beforehand, we're
more confident in the relationship, had better relationship prospects in
the first place, so they chose to get married.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
I I'm not sure, what do you think, Andrew.

Speaker 11 (01:15:57):
I just if I see I'm just trying to make
the connection. Like, okay, atheism, Okay, I believe there's noodents
for God. Therefore, now cohabitation is a more positive outcome.
Or like if we see all these studies with negative
attributes of collabitation, then isn't it just better to just
say coabitation is not better? Like, what's the connection with

(01:16:19):
that and atheism or secularism?

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Sure, so, as a Catholic, I think that you would
probably agree that there's a whole lot more than just
the God question that's taught to you in church. Right,
of course, it permeates so many different parts of your lives,
including your politics, in a lot of ways. As a believer,

(01:16:42):
I was told that marriage belonged was something between one
man and one woman, and that was being taught in
the face of a lot of anti gay sentiment. Right.
My concept of marriage and what I thought made a
good or bad marriage, I think was something that after
I had left my religion no longer held a lot

(01:17:04):
of weight, because all of a sudden, the reason I
was basing my opinions on things, you know, because God
said it or because I heard it in church, and that,
you know, is part of what the community that I
was in espoused. That that wasn't there anymore, and so
I did have the chance to question it. And there
are a lot of atheists and a lot of non

(01:17:25):
believers who will leave their church but never question the
things that they learned in church that aren't just the
God thing like what you're talking about right when it
comes to cohabitation, even I think that you're going to
find that a lot of secular people and non believers
are going to vary in their views. But it does

(01:17:46):
appear to make a lot more sense in the long
run for people to get a good idea of what
they're signing up for before they sign up for it,
especially if they're going to you know, drive to keep that.
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Yeah, I would say that ultimately what I'm seeing here,
and thanks to be in the chat for kind of
pointing this out. I think with the reading of the
studies and you know, believing that you're basically seeing that
cohabitation causes negative outcomes and that marriage causes positive outcomes,

(01:18:27):
and also that atheism causes cohabitation. I'm not so sure
that there's a causal relationship there so much as a
correlational relationship there. And if you find research that says
that there is a causal relationship there, that you know,
marriage is actually just just the ceremony of marriage makes
things better and cohabitation makes things worse. There's an actual

(01:18:51):
causal relationship. I would love to see that that would
be very interesting and I think would probably make your
point better than the evidence that you have here. But
I wouldn't say that it's so much you know, atheism
promoting living together rather than getting married or before getting married.

(01:19:12):
I think that what you're seeing is the Catholic Church
and Christian Church generally promotes marriage as the exclusive option
of human like romantic or sexual relationships, when the vast
majority of cultures throughout time, you know, philosophical and religious

(01:19:34):
ideas throughout time, have not done that, like, have not
done the same thing. So it's not that atheism is
saying we need to live together before getting married, you know,
like I am married and I prefer it, and this
doesn't have anything to do with my atheism' that's how
it is. I just think that it's honestly more of

(01:19:56):
a human default to not go through a very ultra
specific religious ritual in order to bond yourself together with
another person. There's not a relationship with with atheism and cohabitation.
You're just seeing a contrast to the relationship between marriage
and Catholicism.

Speaker 7 (01:20:15):
I think, okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
I I was not expecting this, this degree of communication.
I thought this might get more heated. Andrew, was there
was there anything else?

Speaker 11 (01:20:30):
I know that he did call it for more exciting,
but I no.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
No, I So this is what I am trying to
make this trouble about, Like, this is what I want
to see, so please please no, this is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
I I yeah, Andrew, did you did? You did a
good job, like presenting the studies, you know, giving us
the reference stating you know what it said. I think
you did great. I've actually seen those studies before, which
is one of the reasons I don't doubt those that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:55):
You did it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
You did a good job. And uh, I appreciate that.
And you also seem to understand you know what we're saying,
and you want to talk about this again, and yeah,
I'd love to.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
I will take that as a chance to maybe invite
Drew back another time. Uh, and Andrew, I, yeah, you're
definitely welcome to call again. I have so many other
like little nippicky questions about you know, what motivations are
are behind you know, wanting to see a move away
from cohabitation and that kind of thing. And I know

(01:21:26):
that we don't have time for it today, but I
would love to get the chance to explore that again
in a future call.

Speaker 11 (01:21:32):
Sounds good.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Yeah, awesome, Andrew, have an awesome rest of your day.

Speaker 11 (01:21:40):
Take care, gentlemen. How about go on you too?

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
Is wasn't that just the absolute antithesis of Colin show tropes?

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
That is, like, go ahead, when you get you get
too atheists on live, you know, trying to flex for
the audience, and then you have a Catholic guy call
in using insider lingo that atheists can find irritating and
then citing studies to back up his point, like that's
a that's a recipe for disaster or actually for very

(01:22:17):
entertaining but not actually productive conversation. And I think that
I think that was good. I am very proud of
Andrew and of us right now.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Right I would gladly take the lower subcount and the
lower views to have those more meaningful and more nuanced
conversations because I feel like this is these are the
small steps that we take toward building a community together
that doesn't always have to believe the same things. So yeah,
cheers to that. Okay, I'm so sorry I was so

(01:22:48):
involved in that I didn't get to read through all
of these. I do have one here that I think
would be really fun. It is Brian in California. Let's
go ahead and talk to Brian. Brian, you're alive with
Eric and Drew.

Speaker 6 (01:23:06):
Hey, thank you. I'm a fan of Drew.

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
Eric. I think I might have.

Speaker 6 (01:23:10):
Watched one of your videos before, though I don't quite remember.
I saw Drew's posts about it and I was like, oh,
I like to Collins, I haven't done that since I
was seventeen.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Yay, that's awesome, And no worries, Brian. I'm just some
asshole on the internet. So you're good. So it says
in the description for your call you want to talk
about neo atheism and post new atheists and Brandy talk
to us. What's what's going on?

Speaker 6 (01:23:39):
Yeah, well, so it doesn't like have to be called
neo atheism. It can be called second wave the atheism.
But I feel like I have noticed that, like there
are a lot of atheists nowadays that want to disassociate
from that kind of new atheist form that came about
post nine to eleven. Yeah, guys like you know, like Drew,

(01:24:00):
who are more like about understanding religion and the benefits
of it and you know, and also getting away from
like anti theism, and so like, like I said, I
feel like, you know, we should try to find some
kind of label to like so that people start knowing like, Okay,
we're not like the new atheist, We're like something else,

(01:24:22):
something different. And I just said neo atheist because I've
also noticed a trend online that like, if you can't
say new, the next thing to say is neo. But
I'm not trying to invent language here. I'm just saying
I think we need some kind of some kind of
new labels.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
Totally understood. Does that make sense?

Speaker 9 (01:24:42):
I crazy?

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
Oh yeah, yeah, I feel that I get that. And man,
I so something that I have realized with my career
in doing this, I didn't, first of all, expect to
get the viewership that I have now, or even that

(01:25:04):
I had by the end of twenty eighteen. One hundred
thousand subscribers was my was my biggest goal in my
entire life when I started doing this, and I went
full time and reached that in like five months, and
so I've just been like riding the wave, trying to
do my best, like realizing that I'm getting a lot

(01:25:26):
more kind of I have more influence than I ever
really prepared myself to have and so because of that,
I try to make it really slow going. I've been
doing this a while. I know how to get more views,
I know how to get more subscribers. I know how
to grow aggressively. I know how to form community around me.

(01:25:49):
I know how to get the audience to defend me
no matter what I say. That's something that you learn
as you become like an influencer and community leader and
you know, whatever else you want to call it. And
a lot of that time that power is not actually
good to exercise. You know, there are people that get

(01:26:09):
involved in controversy and they have such a relationship with
their fans that their fans defend them when they've done
things that they need to apologize for or need to
just get off the internet after they did. And so
for me, I say all that to say that I've
realized that my channel is big enough to start a
new label, to come up with a new term for this.

(01:26:31):
You know, I talk about calling myself a pluralist. I
talk against the label anti theist and my content like
you said, but I have really shied away from coming
up with a new label because I, in the end
don't want this community to revolve around me. I don't

(01:26:52):
want it to revolve around my content and my channel.
I want to be one voice and people can point
to that and be like that, resonated with that. For
this and this reason, I do not want people to
point to me and go, that's the guy that we
need to follow, because inevitably I'm going to lead you
astray somewhere like that's it. That's just how it works.

(01:27:12):
I'm not going to be able to be this great
grand leader. And the vast majority of people who fancy
themselves an incredible new thought leader are actually people with
quite low empathy who enjoy power and are also charismatic.
They're not people who actually need to be in leadership.
So I would say, I'm assuming you're You're a guy,

(01:27:35):
You're regular guy. You have about as much influence as
anybody else who's in like a forum. You are the
kind of person where labels need to come from. You
are the kind of person that need to start conversations
about the language and we need to be using. If
it comes from me, that label is going to be
about me, and it doesn't need to be about me.
It needs to be about what you're what you just
said so having these conversations with other people and coming

(01:27:59):
to consensus based on that, based on a lot of debate,
like the New Testament can informed. You know, That's that's
the best way to do it. I think.

Speaker 1 (01:28:10):
And then well, Brian, do you want to get a
chance to respond before it happened?

Speaker 6 (01:28:17):
Yeah, And I guess what you're saying it does make sense.
I will say that as like, as someone who studied
communications for PR and advertising, It's like, what you're telling
me is also like really like I get from your
your standpoint, Drew you and I think that is very
responsible of you. But you know, it's like it's so

(01:28:37):
much harder for like people like myself to to have
that influence and stuff like that. But I know, I
think what you're saying is very well thought out.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
And Brian, are you aware that it has been tried
and had really really disastrous failures in the past.

Speaker 6 (01:28:58):
I generally tend to think if I I'm up with
an idea, it's probably it's probably already been come up
with somebody smarter.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
No no, no, trust me, not smarter. So just just
for fun looking up the first thing that would I
would say is Daniel Dennett wanted to rebrand atheism, and
he called it the Bright movement. And so, if you
are a non believer and you've kind of come to
this place of not just you know, the guide question,

(01:29:27):
but I've moved into kind of a liberal view of things,
you are a bright. How cringey is that it was
bad because because what's what what's the what's the alternative?
If you're not a bright, you're dim. Yeah right, it's
just horribly cringey and got really really did not do well.

(01:29:50):
And then later on I think it was like the
the early twenty teens, I heard about atheism plus. Yeah,
like a subscription model. I mean, you know, oh, the
atheism plus movement. And the fact is that from what
I've seen historically, when it comes to non believing communities,

(01:30:13):
you know, and we do we organize ourselves into communities
because we're humans. But it's like wrangling cats. Yeah, you
just are hurting cats. It's it's so difficult to find
and label that kind of thing because you have a
whole bunch of people who fought really really hard to
get out from under a label in the first place.
That there are a lot of people who will find

(01:30:35):
it kind of morally superior to get out from under
that label just so that they could say that they did.

Speaker 12 (01:30:43):
But if you, oh, go ahead, I was gonna say,
I would say the problem with bright and what was
the other one that atheism plus that he said is
And this is the one thing that is kind of
coming from my background and my studies that that just
sounds like it's terrible because it's not actually using things
that are familiar to people, or in the.

Speaker 6 (01:31:04):
Case of atheism plus, it's using a context that people
are are just like they already associated with something else,
like you said, like a subscription model. So well, that's
why I called it neo atheists. I was trying to think,
like what do.

Speaker 3 (01:31:18):
People already know?

Speaker 6 (01:31:20):
How are people already speaking, and how do I combine
words that people are already using in a way that
like they're going to hear them together and it's going
to make sense.

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
I would say neo would be a bad prefix there,
because like neo conservative and neoliberal tend to be ascribed
pejoratively to them as a way to describe them as
a radical. But if you want to see some cool conversations,

(01:31:49):
instead of looking for the word atheists, look for deconstruction.
There are some incredible communities are that are being built
online around deconstruction that are both believers and non believers,
people who are really really intent on getting into the
nuts and bolts of what they believe and why and

(01:32:10):
breaking down those pieces and finding out whether or not
those pieces are worth believing. And I've seen that it
is less vitriolic and more interesting to see those conversations
being had. So maybe looking there would help.

Speaker 6 (01:32:29):
Yeah, I'd say for me, the problem with like I
get what you're saying, I don't know. For me, the
thing with deconstruction is that it feels like something like,
obviously I'm where I can deconstruct my own beliefs in
my own background. But I also I don't come from
a religious background, so I just I hear deconstruction so
often associated with Christianity. It doesn't feel like there's a

(01:32:51):
place for me because I was never a Christian.

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
I mean, I definitely feel that it does kind of
it does. It is that in a lot of ways
that said you will you will find people that I
think that you would get along with. I mean, if
you if you're the type who would want to have
a conversation with Eric and I, you know you're you're

(01:33:18):
probably the type who would want to have a conversation
with someone in a deconstruction space. But it's I don't know,
what do you think, Eric, is there is there room
for people who were never religious in the deconstruction sphere?
Do they have something useful to contribute? And can they
identify under that?

Speaker 5 (01:33:35):
Is that?

Speaker 2 (01:33:35):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
Abs frecolutely from an epistemic point of view, I mean,
the tools that you're using to deconstruct your religious beliefs
are tools that should be in your toolbox, And if
you've never had that religious belief you should still have
those tools because it's going to help you break down
everything else in that world around you. So I feel
like if you wanted to get involved in that space,

(01:33:59):
you can really developed those tools that that that that
epistemic groundwork to take elsewhere. So even if you're not there,
And and plus I mean not just in atheism spaces,
not just in in you know, in in deconstructive spaces,
but just you're going to find places people in both

(01:34:20):
who just want to have wonderful, navel gazy conversations around
morality and ethics and and and you know, how did
we get to where we are and where should we go?
So yeah, no, I highly encourage you to get involved

(01:34:42):
in those communities simply to develop the skill set. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34:48):
Yeah, yeah, I'll try to look and warranto that I have.

Speaker 6 (01:34:53):
I have tried, although I've always kind of failed. I
don't know seem to know why. Maybe it's because I'm
using Reddit as a medium.

Speaker 8 (01:35:00):
I've tried like.

Speaker 6 (01:35:02):
Inviting people onto a small podcast that I have and
always seem to fail. I don't know if it's my approach.

Speaker 3 (01:35:10):
Like last time, I tried.

Speaker 6 (01:35:11):
Approaching it like I wanted to talk to younger creationists,
and everyone just seemed offended, even though I thought I
was being polite by saying I've got like an anthropological
interest in younger creationism and want to talk to one.

Speaker 1 (01:35:26):
Yeah. So this is where I think you get a
lot of people who want to replicate the things that
they say on TV. There are a lot of atheists
who watch Colin shows like this that are really really
aggressive and really really shouty and really vitriolic, and they go, oh, man,

(01:35:50):
that'd be fun, And so when they get the opportunity,
they want to replicate that. And so finding those it
can be really tough having those conversations because of what
happened there. Don't give up. I think that over time,
if you keep doing your podcast, you're going to create
a community that's going to be the kind of community

(01:36:11):
that you want. But it is going to take that
time and work for sure.

Speaker 6 (01:36:18):
All Right, I'll I'll keep that to that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
Yeah, and keep doing it. You seem like a sweet guy.
I think you should absolutely create that content, build that place,
and and and in form that community. Just keep doing it,
you know, don't don't be discouraged. Keep going for it. Okay,
all right?

Speaker 3 (01:36:35):
Thanks?

Speaker 6 (01:36:36):
Yeah, my coast and I he's a he's a Catholic.
He We certainly do try to have like more like
you know, just casual conversations about the weird topics like
aliens and supernaturalism.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (01:36:49):
Yeah, we were talking about cohabitation.

Speaker 3 (01:36:53):
We actually we hadn't.

Speaker 6 (01:36:54):
We had another podcast where we talked about we were
all we were so much more off the wall.

Speaker 3 (01:37:00):
We talked about stuff like that. Yeah, rock on.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
I hope to hear in the future that you're continuing
to do it. That's awesome. All right, Hey, Brian, thank
you for calling in.

Speaker 3 (01:37:16):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:37:20):
That was a that was a GM skeptic viewer. I'm
glad that that was somebody who called in. Have you
talked to them before? No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
I don't believe. So it is interesting to hear someone
talking who has a pr in marketing background because they
they almost definitely see what I do in a way
that's a lot in a way that most viewers don't.

(01:37:48):
I guess I should say a lot of people don't.
They're very blind to marketing. And that's very scary because
marketing is it's easy to pull one over on people,
and so yeah, talking talking to a person who's aware
of that kind of thing, and I can say, yeah,
I don't want to actually do marketing in this way,

(01:38:10):
and they're like, oh, yeah, I understand that. I understand why.
That's that's nice and refreshing. So I appreciated that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
Yeah, me too. I I having moved into the corporate
world for a while and seeing marketing from the corporate side,
it has blown my mind. I've done it now for
about two years, and I just resigned from my position
in marketing because I can't it just it's so different

(01:38:40):
from what we do.

Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
Drew, Yeah, so different.

Speaker 1 (01:38:44):
But I have a couple more callers, and I know
that I only have you for so long, so if
you've got to go, just let me know. Sure, let's
scoot right along and talk to John in Texas. John,
you're live with Eric and Drew.

Speaker 3 (01:39:01):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
Hello, Hello, thank you for waiting. I know you've been
on the line for a while. It's at It says
in the description that you want to talk about the
idea that people need to have faith in something. Is
that about right?

Speaker 7 (01:39:15):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):
Well, it's just that I know a lot of people
who like to say, well, it's good to have faith
in something you got to have, like a higher power.
I've been an atheist since August and and I guess
I'll admit I am one of those aggressive atheists that
you were talking about. But I guess it's just because
I'm so angry from being indoctrinated into Christianity and subscribing

(01:39:41):
to dogmas for so long that I guess I just
have been attacking a lot of Christians recently, mostly in
the comment session on videos on atheist channels. But I
run into this a lot. It's like, Okay, maybe God
doesn't exist, but why don't you just let me believe?

(01:40:03):
And it's like well, because I don't like what Christianity
has to offer. I don't like what it says in
the Bible. In fact, I really liked it whenever you
tore up that Bible and said, well, now the Bible
is a whole lot better than what it was before.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
I remember that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:18):
Yeah, yeah, And so I'm just I guess it's just
that there's just so many people that I've talked to
that just keep saying, well, you got to have faith
in something. And then I remember at one point I
was going to therapy for alcohol and the first thing
they would talk about really was well, you've got to
find your higher power. You got to have faith in

(01:40:40):
something so that you don't get back into drinking. And
I'm just like, why do we need a higher power? Why, like,
why do we need to have faith in something?

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
And I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
I guess I just wanted your opinion on that. Like,
if somebody told you, hey, just let me have my faith,
what would you have to say about that?

Speaker 1 (01:41:01):
I have thoughts, Drew, Can I take this one first?

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
Yeah, go ahead, Okay, So if.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
Somebody says just let me have my faith, that is
a red flag for me that this person does not
want to have a conversation with me about it. And
if that's the case, the best thing to do is
walk away, because that is something that somebody who is
not willing to have or listen you have that conversation
or listen to you. It says you can only have

(01:41:29):
conversations with people who consent to having them with you,
and so recognizing that is going to make sure that
you don't put a bitter taste in other people's mouths,
especially when they think about atheists, because you don't want
to shove that on them, no matter how much you
want them to change. And I know that that might
sound easy to do with strangers, but it is incredibly
difficult to do with family. But it's something that you

(01:41:50):
got to do what you can. What you can do
in return, though, is have strong boundaries. You know, if
you have a family member who wants to have a
religious come conversation with you, then that's fine, but you
are entitled to have your part of the conversation. If
someone just wants to have the talk with you so
that they can talk at you, you have the right

(01:42:12):
to say no. You know, if we're talking, then I'm
going to be a part of this as well, right,
So the first, my.

Speaker 3 (01:42:20):
Father is a preacher, and yeah, he talks at me
all the time, and he really does not let me
tell them what my views are or why I don't believe.
And it's just like, no, you need to believe in
this is why. And then it's just like and it
just comes down to faith really, and honest, I'm just
getting getting really tired of it. And I guess I'm

(01:42:42):
just really tired. Okay, Isaiah was a great Christian caller.
I will admit I wish every Christian were like Isaiah,
keeps their ideas to themselves. And I think, really the
problem is that Christians don't keep their ideas to themselves.
They're trying to impose their beliefs on us. Well, I
guess that's really where the problem is. And then I
guess I'm trying to do the same thing, and I'm

(01:43:04):
trying to deconvert them.

Speaker 1 (01:43:06):
It's it's well, number one, they're commanded to. The Great
Commission is something that they are.

Speaker 3 (01:43:10):
Commanded to do exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
But you got to set those boundaries and you have
every right to. It is not selfish of you to
say when I'm having a conversation with you I wanted to.
I want to be treated as an equal. I want
equal airtime. And if you expect me to listen to
you with an open mind, you need to be listening
to me with an open mind. And if you're not

(01:43:33):
willing to do that, then you should not have the
expectation that I'm going to be the only one doing it.
That is not there and setting those boundaries. Setting those
boundaries with the family, like I said, can be incredibly tough,
you know, speaking from experience, I've had to do it,
and I've.

Speaker 3 (01:43:49):
Had especially whenever they are convinced that I'm wrong and
that I'm going to hell if I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:43:54):
Repent absolutely, and I unfortunately what that meant for me
in some cases is saying, hey, you're not respecting my
boundaries and because of that, I'm going to be limiting
the amount of time I spend with you, and you're
going to have less of me in your life until
you respect my boundaries. And then that's on them, right,

(01:44:14):
They're going to be making the choice to whether or
not to have a relationship with you or to be
talking at you. So that's that's that's I think the
most important thing that that there's an entire other conversation
about people need to have faith in something, and like,
while I thought that was the conversation we were going
to have, it sounds like your particular instance is one that, Yeah,

(01:44:37):
you got to you gotta lay that down. You do
not You do not owe your father or anyone else
room to just just wail on you like that. It's
not fair, right, I No, it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:44:54):
It's not fair at all. And honestly, I feel bad
because I don't really have a good relationship. Well, to
be honest with, I've never really had a good relationship
with my parents, even when I was a believer, but
now it's just gotten so much worse and they hardly
ever want to talk to me anymore. And I really
don't talk to them that much. And honestly, I want
to have a relationship with my parents, but my dad

(01:45:18):
is just way too deep into Christian dogmas. I mean,
he preaches as a living yeah, and he's just absolutely
convinced that he's right, I'm wrong and that if I
don't repent, I'm going to go to hell. And I
mean it's like I'm a bad person just because I
don't believe in a sky.

Speaker 6 (01:45:39):
Daddy anymore.

Speaker 7 (01:45:41):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):
I think all three of us on this call were
believers at a point, And I think that you're being
incredibly charitable and empathetic to your dad. Knowing that he's
having this fear of you going to hell would motivating it.
But understanding the reason doesn't excuse the action. It just

(01:46:08):
context It just contextualizes it. But I've been, I've been
totally hoarding the conversation, Drew.

Speaker 2 (01:46:16):
Did you want to know you've been? You've You've done
a fantastic job. And I would say that, so something
that I was very encouraged to hear you say was
And I guess I'm just doing the same thing, trying
to deconvert them. There are very, very very good reasons

(01:46:38):
to try to sway someone away from a dogma that
makes someone scream at their kid like this, right, Like,
we agree on that. But the idea that we need
to convert someone to, you know, our brand of atheism
or whatever, actually kind of does come from a Christian paradigm.
We don't we don't actually know that a person is

(01:47:00):
going to be a better person if they become a
non believer. They might become a better person going to
a kind of different kind of belief. If they became
a non believer, maybe that wouldn't be the right path
for them, Maybe it wouldn't improve their relationship. The further
I have gotten from when I was in your shoes,

(01:47:21):
the more years have gone on, the more I've kind
of gotten away from the idea that I could presume
to know that another person could parallel my journey out
of faith. You know, my journey out of faith was
one where I started caring about morality at the systemic,
systemic level much more. I started caring about having empathy

(01:47:43):
for minorities, more, caring about social justice a lot more,
caring about people who were not me a lot more.
And that's just not the case for everyone. I mean,
look at at the callers that Eric and v have had,
where have been used in air horns and all those
kinds of things, and it's not like it's not like,

(01:48:05):
you know that they believe or don't believe in God
that's causing that they have other problems. But I think
that really the ultimate thing here is really something that
Eric hit on.

Speaker 1 (01:48:18):
It is.

Speaker 2 (01:48:20):
You have to figure out the balance of how much
conversation to have in order for you to prioritize your
mental health. For me, it was really, really, really important
that I refined my ideas about different arguments, that I
had conversations with people about these things sometimes, that I
debated about these things. I am the type of person

(01:48:42):
that likes to dive into things really deeply. I like
to learn a lot. I enjoy dissecting different arguments for
different things. I'm very verbal, so that's a big part
of it. And so for me that was a part
of me becoming healthier when I was going through like
a fan crisis. And your journey might look like mine

(01:49:06):
in that way. But I will say that you know
from experience, when you do need to debate, when you
do need to argue, be very very careful about and
not just for other people's sake, but for your own sake,
when and where that's happening, the context that that's happening in.

(01:49:27):
You know, it might even be a good idea at
times to get a friend who empathizes with where you're
at and just ask them if you can have a
conversation or a debate, or you know, ask them to
play Devil's advocate. At the very least, talk to people
where you're more anonymous online, where everybody's wanting to have
this conversation rather than having it specifically with your dad,

(01:49:48):
call in to shows like this and talk about it.
I think that this was a really good idea for
you to to talk about this stuff with people who
have been through it. I guess my main advisory is
my main advice.

Speaker 3 (01:50:01):
I mean to talk over you.

Speaker 2 (01:50:04):
Yeah, yeah, I know you're good. Take care of yourself,
and when you have taken care of yourself, then be
concerned about what your family believes.

Speaker 3 (01:50:17):
Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:50:18):
Yeah it's going to hurt you.

Speaker 3 (01:50:20):
Yeah, oh yeah, And I do applause. I really was
not meaning to talk over you, but yes, I do
appreciate that advice. And I guess part of it also
comes from I remember when I was a Christian. I
was a home I was homophobic, I was transphobic. I
also thought terrible things. I even told people, well, I

(01:50:45):
hope that you have fun in hell if you don't
repent of your sins. And I just remember being a very,
very toxic Christian because you know, that's the Bible says
that certain people will go to hell, and I believed
it at some point, and I was pretty much an
extremist about it, and I guess that's how I view
Christianity and what I once loved I now hate so much.

(01:51:08):
Yeah and yeah, nowadays I'm a completely different person, and
I feel like I'm a much better person. I'm no
longer homophobic, I'm not transphobic. I support the LGBTQ plus
community greatly, and I just feel that now that I'm
free from the change of religion, I'm a much better person.
And I guess I want to help people liberate themselves
as well. I want to help liberate others.

Speaker 1 (01:51:29):
I recommend having those individual conversations if because here's the thing,
atheist communities still have really like they're still really really
bad groups of anti trans, you know, anti feminist, you
know people. And I think that even if you're not

(01:51:54):
having the God conversation, you know, as much as you
are comfortable in adding to those other conversations are worth having.
And it does not necessarily mean you need to deconvert
from your religion to not be an asshole in those
other places.

Speaker 3 (01:52:13):
Well, thank you very much, Eric, and I do have
one more question I do want to ask you, but
it's gonna be real quick. Have you heard from Thomas
Westbrook recently? Or anything like that, because he hasn't really
uploaded in a while, and his last video was kind
of a little concerning. So I'm just trying to make
sure that he's all right. Have you heard from him?

Speaker 1 (01:52:33):
I heard from him a couple of weeks ago. Last
I heard. He is traveling the world, jumping out of
helicopters and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:52:42):
Oh okay, well that's good to hear.

Speaker 1 (01:52:43):
Yeah. I think I think he was in like Singapore recently.

Speaker 3 (01:52:52):
Okay, Yeah, I was just wondering because like his last
video that he uploaded about his date with death, I mean,
it just seemed like that he was really depressed and
then he just has not up little bit. Hey, if
he's traveling, that's great.

Speaker 8 (01:53:02):
Good for him.

Speaker 3 (01:53:03):
Actually, he was the first eightiest YouTuber that I really
subscribed to back in August. He's the one who helped
me deconvert the most. Now, of course, I mean you've
also done that Matt Delahunty arn Rath and so many others,
But he was the one that I discovered first and
the one that really helped me see that I was

(01:53:23):
subscribing to dogmas for my entire life, which were making
me a horrible person.

Speaker 1 (01:53:28):
Yeah, he in real life he is a total goofball And.

Speaker 2 (01:53:35):
I appreciate that comment.

Speaker 1 (01:53:36):
Yet, oh absolutely, and I act the sentiment I hope
he's doing well. I think we all just hope he's
doing well.

Speaker 3 (01:53:46):
I do too well. I do appreciate you'll taking my call.
I know that you'll prioritize I'm theist callers, so I'll
go ahead and leave now. But y'all really did make
my day with this advice, because honestly, I've been very,
very depressed about losing my relationship. Well I didn't really
have much of one left anyway, but yeah, honestly, I
just have felt so depressed being a strange for my

(01:54:07):
family because of the fact that I just choose just
because I don't believe what they believe anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:54:13):
Yeah, I think that I recommend that possibly a good
boundary would be just we don't talk about religion, and
if they talk about religion, then you go, Okay, you
have not respected the boundary that we agreed on before
I came. And so I'm going to go. And that's
probably going to you know, prepare your heart to maybe

(01:54:35):
have to do that once or two eyes or three times,
and either they're going to get the message or they're
going to find their invites going down to things to
do with you, and that's on them. But I know
we're going way over John, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:54:49):
For calling, all right, thank you, And the calls have
been great today, no yelling. Hopefully it doesn't get to
that point now.

Speaker 1 (01:54:58):
It has been in a fantastic day. And absolutely blame
my cohs for bringing the good people in. Now we've
got we've got great people in our community too. But
I'm just it gives me warm fuzzies and when my
friends are here. Anyway, John, take care all right, I
have a good day. That was really sweet. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:55:17):
Yeah, so you're you're in very good company. A lot
of people have been in your situation, including myself.

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
I have definitely been exactly there.

Speaker 1 (01:55:29):
Okay, So Drew it is it has been two hours
if you got to go, totally understood. I do have
two other callers that would love to talk. One of
them as an atheist on the board of a Methodist
church and the other wants to ask how much anti
how much an anti theism should respect believers at all?

(01:55:50):
Would you like to talk to either of them or
should we wrap it up?

Speaker 7 (01:55:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:55:54):
I can take at least one more. I know that
I have a I have an appointment somewhere today. She
just texted my wife to ask if it is an
hour from now or two hours from now. She'll get
back to me and we'll see whether or not we
can take both. Let me see. Let's let's take the
anti theism one first.

Speaker 1 (01:56:12):
All right, sounds good. Connor in Virginia. You're live with
Eric and Drew. Oh, how are you doing well? I
I know we don't have as much time to give
you know, topics as we probably would hope, but we
do want to jump through here. So it says in
the description for this call anti theism and anti theism

(01:56:34):
and how much respect we should show to believers and
the healthy discourse between differing beliefs. What's up?

Speaker 5 (01:56:40):
Yeah, I grew up in a Protestant church, and I
was raised in you know, the Bible belt, and I
also attended a private evangelical institution, and so I have
a lot of empathy for theis and just how you know,
how psychologically inclined people are to believe that kind of stuff,
because you know, I've walked way more than a mile

(01:57:01):
on their shoes, and you know, during that time I
deconstructed myself probably halfway through my time in college. And
I so, I just I still find myself surrounded by
those kind of people, and I just I still feel
myself kind of feeling empathetic, crisis kind of people. And
I just want to know because oftentimes when I talk
with atheists, people who have never really had the faith,

(01:57:23):
for maybe people who have had very traumatic experiences. Mine
was mostly intellectual, philosophical in nature. There they they often
say like, oh, man, it's like I'm talking to a theist, Jane.
I'll kind of be bashed because I don't have a
I have a lot more empathy toward towards a lot
of people.

Speaker 3 (01:57:39):
I know.

Speaker 5 (01:57:39):
We've talked about this a lot today. Yeah, but I
don't know what your thoughts are on, uh, you know,
extending that grace towards believers, allowing them to believe what
they believe, and kind of how you should brush up
against people who you know agree with you but don't
agree with how you should go about handling discourse.

Speaker 1 (01:57:55):
Got it?

Speaker 2 (01:57:57):
People say the same thing to me. I constantly get
comments being like, oh, you're regressing to your former fundamentalist Christianity,
And I'm like why is that? And they're like, because
you're being tolerant, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
that's not that's not fundamentalist Christianity. Me, me having empathy
and understanding religious people is informed by how I grew

(01:58:20):
up just like you. But no, no, we know that
religious fundamentalism is not known for its tolerant attitudes. But yeah,
it's we for various reasons. Because, like you said, people
have not experienced a religious community before, or religious belief before,

(01:58:41):
they don't have empathy for it. They they can't imagine.
I think that they're the closest analog is probably believing
in Santa Claus a lot of the time, and they're like,
I can't imagine having a belief that is like my
belief in Santa Claus, it endures past the age of
seven or something, and that's their closest analog to it. Honestly,

(01:59:04):
I think the answer to that is probably them just
learning about the history and psychology and sociology of religion.
Not the philosophy of religion. That is not going to help,
but people learning about how religious history has occurred, how
religious psychology works. I think it will increase their empathy.
So if you can educate yourself and be a conduit
for that, that's very helpful. I would say to the

(01:59:27):
people who probably struggle with maybe not empathy but moderating
themselves are actually people who have had experiences like our
last caller. Our last caller had a lot of empathy
and had a lot of patience and tolerance, and he
was very cool headed and honestly. Just even just seeing that, like,

(01:59:53):
I'm very encouraged and kind of amazed, because it's I
know from experience, it's really really hard to be as
calm and as you know, even handed and honest and
straightforward as our last color was when you've experienced that,
and when you're still experiencing it, and you know, for
those people, it has to do like we said, you know,

(02:00:15):
coming out of that, becoming empathetic and becoming compassionate has
a lot more to do with taking care of your
own mental health first and foremost, and revisiting the subject later.
A lot of the time, lack of empathy comes from
lack of education, and so for me, I'm trying to
spread empathy through what I do, just by making educational

(02:00:36):
videos about Christianity, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:00:41):
And then on the other side when it comes to
talking to people who are just dicks about it. The
general role that I have is people deserve respect. Ideas
do not. Easy is that if somebody's first if the
first thing somebody says in a conversation is you know,

(02:01:03):
a pejorative against the human and not the concept or idea,
you absolutely have permission to walk away from that because
there's nothing of value there. And you know, for people
who are angry and want to be frustrated and upset
and here's this asshole doing this, they're an asshole because
they said and data thing that was awful, not because

(02:01:25):
they are necessarily Like, when you can separate the person
from the idea, you give that person the opportunity to grow.
You give person the opportunity to change their mind and
to be a better person in the future. If you
label that person as a bad person, they're going to
shut off and you lose those chances to see them

(02:01:48):
become better versions of themselves. So how much respect do
they deserve? They deserve as humans, lots of respect. But
if they have terrible ideas, calling out those terrible ideas
are exactly where you bring them in. I think that
one other other thing because I know we need to
go quickly. But I've talked to a lot of people

(02:02:10):
who haven't had these types of discussions who equate themselves
with their ideas. They say, oh, you're upset about the
way I think about this. You're upset about me, right?
You think that I'm an asshole because the view that
I hold is ass wholeish. That person needs to mature,
And I see it in atheists and I see it
in Christians. There are a lot of atheists who don't

(02:02:31):
know the difference, and so that's why they attack the
person and not the idea. And that is just the
other side of the exact same coin. So hopefully that
context helps. Don't be the don't don't be the guy
that attacks at hominem that attacks the person, and don't
I don't think it's empathetic necessarily to respect bad ideas.

(02:02:56):
Calling them out doesn't make you a bad person, so somewhere,
but yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:03:01):
I think that's a great way of looking at it, definitely,
because I'm very committed to like truth and truth above
all else, and you know, getting to why something actually
is the way they are. But you know, sometimes you've
can hold ideas or you know, not so great, maybe
and just looking into understand why they have those ideas.
It's usually how I try to look into the situation.
So yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:03:23):
Yeah, absolutely, Drew, anything else.

Speaker 2 (02:03:28):
I don't think so your answer was fantastic as always
as was yours.

Speaker 1 (02:03:33):
I okay, Connor, have an awesome rest of your day.

Speaker 5 (02:03:37):
Thank you, Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (02:03:40):
Okay, Drew, I know I need to let you go.
David has been waiting for.

Speaker 2 (02:03:44):
Over Yeah, I have time. You have time for one more? Yeah, okay,
we can do this one.

Speaker 1 (02:03:54):
David in North Carolina has been waiting for an hour
and twenty minutes on hold.

Speaker 2 (02:03:57):
Wow, Okay, Yeah, I wants to.

Speaker 1 (02:03:59):
Talk about community building, and so I know we don't
have a whole lot of time, especially given as much
as you have waited to be on this call, David,
So if you want to hit us with it, we
can try and address it before we got to go.

Speaker 3 (02:04:11):
All right, beautiful, Drew, Eric, thank you so much. It's
been a great show, informative. That's why you guys have
the community you have. But I just want to prime
there was that talk of the higher power than the
faith thing man from our caller John just a few
seconds ago, and that is a thread that got dropped.
That is a recovery thread because he had mentioned he
was in therapy for alcohol. So I just as a

(02:04:36):
Smart Recovery meeting facilitator, I need to time in now
and say there is a secular alternative to recovery, and
it's called smart Recovery. I have my meetings Sunday, United six.

Speaker 1 (02:04:47):
I love that. I so, David, can I just like
staple your call to his call when I put this
out as like their own.

Speaker 3 (02:04:54):
Yeah, man, chop us together, buddy.

Speaker 1 (02:04:56):
That sounds amazing. Oh So, if people want to learn
more about smart rect how can they find out about it?

Speaker 3 (02:05:02):
It's a national nonprofit organization and Smart Recovery dot org.
Smart stands for self management and Recovery training, So they
remove spirituality from the process of recovery and use R, E, B,
T and CBT tools to help you build motivation, m

(02:05:22):
cope with your urges right, manage your thoughts, feelings and behavior,
and then eventually build a new life where you're free
of that addictive behavior.

Speaker 1 (02:05:31):
That is incredible. I love this community so much. And
and for people listening, that's CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, not CBD.
I know they sound similar.

Speaker 3 (02:05:46):
It's perfectly go ahead, go ahead. Now, it was perfectly
ties into why I'm calling you. Why I've been invited
to join the board of directors of a United methodistrict
because it is a recovery focused church and our ties
in serving the community through recovery services have what build

(02:06:08):
what brought us together. So, yeah, I am a former
Southern Baptist minister, and you know, I've been removed from
my faith for like three over three years now, wow,
But in that building up community, I've found myself in
a lot of those religious spaces. And I got sober
through AA two. So I'm still actively involved in my

(02:06:31):
original home group. You know, they helped me get sober.
So I've stayed plugged in so now because of our
ties through the recovery community, and I guess my heart
to help the community. I've been invited to join the
board of directors of the church, but I feel in
conflict because it is a church.

Speaker 1 (02:06:51):
So as far as I'm concerned, show you have no
reason to feel in conflict. In fact, people like you
are the people that I want at the front where
people can meet. I think that I had this concept
of you know, a good pastor is somebody who wants
to care for their flock, you know, somebody who wants
to get involved and really be there and serve their community.

(02:07:13):
And it is not something that religion has a grasp on.
And someone like you, David, is a great example of that.
Wanting to be there to support and care for your
community transcends so many other things. And I think that
is incredible that you've kept the heart for it, and
I deeply admire that. That is incredible, and I would

(02:07:35):
love to hear more of your story, but I know
that this isn't the venue for it, and we don't
have the time, but I absolutely love that, Drew, I
can tell you want to jump in.

Speaker 2 (02:07:46):
Yeah. So first of all, in atheist spaces, it's really
really common too. You know, if someone observes that a
nearby church closed, or a church building is abandoned, or
you know whatever like church building, church community has dissolved
or disintegrated, that's something to inherently celebrate for a lot

(02:08:07):
of people, that's how they feel about it. And I
understand if you've been traumatized by religion or you see
that the way religion is used as a cudgel against
minoritized communities in US. I get that. I get that sentiment.
I don't celebrate that though. That's not something that I
look at and think is an inherent good. What I
look at and see as a preferable option is exactly

(02:08:33):
what David is talking about. If we can take church
buildings that have the space, that have some of the
people that want to minister to the people around them,
and they can bring in people of diverse ideas, all
focused on a common goal of creating better community, of
giving people relief, providing resources for people who are the

(02:08:56):
most disenfranchised, that's exactly what we need. I mean it is.
It is a kind of idea of people are more
important than beliefs, which is something that actually the Oasis community,
which is kind of like a secular church community, says
and uh, yeah, David, I just I just want to
say thank you for calling in and letting people know

(02:09:17):
that this is a thing you do. You you keep
going awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:09:20):
Yeah, and give us updates. I want to know how
it works out.

Speaker 3 (02:09:23):
Yeah. Absolutely. The last time we talked, Eric told you
about how he tweets on the shitter, So I'm glad
we could have a full circle here.

Speaker 1 (02:09:31):
Wait, I told you about how I tweet on what on.

Speaker 3 (02:09:34):
The shitter when you're on the can buddy.

Speaker 1 (02:09:39):
Yeah, thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (02:09:41):
No problem. Hey, over year. I'm glad to see you
back in operation.

Speaker 1 (02:09:47):
Happy to be here. Thank you so much, David.

Speaker 3 (02:09:50):
All Right, guys, I appreciate the input and keep on
fighting the good fight. We have to build these communities
together no matter what our individual beliefs are. Right, But
I still feel a bit incompon being you know, an
out and out atheists who who denounces faith decisions of
all kinds, being involved in something that is called a
sin community. That that's where my internal conflict is.

Speaker 1 (02:10:12):
If you are helping people, then you are putting a
good face on on on this discussion, and I'd love
to see that. I would rather more people think about
you than about the angry, frothing at the mouth, frustrated, yelling,
fedora wearing uh. You know stereotypes that that are that

(02:10:32):
are propped up about us. So take care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (02:10:35):
The outcomes, the outcomes of what we do are so
much more important than the specific labels. I mean, you're
you're you're doing great. I don't know. To me, it
doesn't matter that the other people on the board are
Christian or not, or you're atheist or not. The outcome
of what you're doing is the measure of the man
in this in this situation.

Speaker 1 (02:10:55):
So mm hmmm. Also a good Star Trek episode David,
take care of yourself.

Speaker 3 (02:11:01):
Brother, beautiful, Take care guys.

Speaker 1 (02:11:06):
Sorry, I was getting to mushy okay really quickly before
we go and meet Matthew says how do we use
a community to get better at reading scientific papers? Seems
like many people don't understand sample sizes, methodologies, different types
of papers, etc. Some people don't read past the headline
and the abstract. V actually put out a really good
video on their channel. I'll see if I can link
it in the comments about kind of how to do

(02:11:30):
better research? Is there anything you wanted to chime in
on that one? Or should I just shoot right down
the rest of these super jats?

Speaker 2 (02:11:37):
God, the only thing I can say is protect our
public schools. That's where it starts.

Speaker 1 (02:11:42):
Damn straight goodwill thinking says good to have you back,
keep up the good communication with exceptional empathy. Learned a
lot from you and like to learn much more. Thank you.
Goodwill empathy respects says Hey. Eric. I didn't get the
chance to say, but I was trying to say, please
give my regards to V. Hope they heal well. I
will definitely send you regards to V. Thank you. They
also said also, thank you for taking my call. Genetically

(02:12:04):
Modified Skeptic is amazing and very handsome.

Speaker 2 (02:12:06):
I agree that one was making me smile earlier. I
won't lie.

Speaker 1 (02:12:10):
Ah, terrible liar says I found skept gen through Genically
Modified Sceptics video with V on Midnight Mass. I also
watched Midnight Mass just so I could watch that video,
So thank you for both watching You too, just geek
out about that was so much fun. Oh, terrible liar,
I'm glad you found the channel. And then Sean Isherwood says,

(02:12:31):
either some square are either some squares are round or
not every circle is round, case in point the taxicab
metric in the real plane. That is a fun little
rabbit hole to go on that I have personally gone on.
I have no idea how that relates, but thank you, Sean.

Speaker 2 (02:12:50):
I think that that. I think that comment was left
when we were talking about the cohabitation bit. God, so
I don't know if it has to do with the
the you know our ideas of atheism and cohabitation, having
a relationship that is direct or you know, all marriage
being this way or that way.

Speaker 1 (02:13:08):
Or really good call, good call. Okay. So, as always,
if you were frustrated by the ads on this video,
totally understand. You can go to patreon dot com slash
Skeptic Generation to get an ad free version of this
and the podcast and behind the scenes stuff. Feel free

(02:13:28):
to check it out. Every little bit goes to help
the show, especially since we got started. We had a
whole bunch of patrons drop understandably, but yeah, that and
a whole bunch of other goodies would be Yeah, it's fantastic. Drew, Dude,
I took you for two hours, over two hours, and
I told you this is going to be a ninety
minute thing. I'm so sorry, and I so appreciate you

(02:13:49):
being on Hey.

Speaker 2 (02:13:51):
I mean, I appreciate all the help that you have
given me with my content, both with helping me out
with streams and editing. Recently, surprise, surprise, people who enjoyed
my last video also enjoyed Eric's work and no, I
love collaborating with you. So this was nothing but a pleasure.
Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (02:14:10):
Hey, thank you so much. I could not ask for
a better friend and I am so grateful. So take
care of yourself brother. For everybody else, I'm going to
be going to discord after the show, so if you
want to talk after the show, you can go to
our Skeptic Generation Discord link in the description until next week.

(02:14:36):
I'm glad we had this talk.

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Featuring Guest Host Genetically Modified Skeptic! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 3 Season 3

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Featuring Guest Host Genetically Modified Skeptic! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 3 Season 3