It's Been a LONG Week!| Skeptic Generation | Episode 2 Season 3 - Skeptic Generation

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hello, and welcome to the show. It is Sunday, February eleventh.
I'm Eric Murphy. This is Skeptic Generation, and we need
to talk. What has happened to my hair in the
last five minutes. Oh my goodness. Hey everybody, thank you
for making it to our second episode back to Skeptic Generation.

(00:46):
It has been an a really, really busy week. I
kind of want to get you up to speed before
I dive into calls. I do have open lines right now.
So if you want to call in, or if you
are a you know, especially if you're a believer you
want to talk about what you believe in want, or
if you just want to make sure this show doesn't
go short, give us a call at well, here's the

(01:07):
number four one two skep Gen. That's four one two
seven five three seven four three six. I still don't
have that link work, and so call the number please.
That's four one two seven five three seven four three six. Okay,
So a little bit of house keeping to get started.
First off, when I was talking about Athiopagans, I said

(01:31):
that ocean Kelto is Nathey Opagan, he is not. I
put a correction on the clip and all of that
but hey, I got that wrong. Regardless, I got to
hang out with the guy years ago who was a
really sweet left a really great impression on me. So cheers. Next. Look,

(01:55):
I don't want to share too much, but my partner
had VI had surgery this last week. Everything is okay.
I've just been really really tired just taking care of
everything at home, so please be patient with me. I'm
a little foggy brained today. The longest sleep I've had

(02:16):
since Wednesday has been for three hours. So I'm just
like doing my best to stay caffeinated and to get going.
And I want to have these conversations. I live for this.
This is something that I absolutely adore. So here I
am ready to go and ready to take calls. So
it looks like we still have some open lines, so

(02:38):
I'm going to talk a little bit. I would love
to talk about Oh right, I have a huge announcement,
you guys. So I was talking to a good friend
of mine who does not do Colin shows when we
were doing Skepchen before. They were like, no, I'm not

(02:58):
super interested, I just don't call in shows. Well, when
I said that I was restarting Skeptreen, he said, you know, what,
I'd be happy to come on as a guest. So
next week, genetically Modified Skeptic is going to be my
co host on Skeptic Generation. So make sure you tune
in next week for Drew a genetically Modified Skeptic on

(03:22):
Here with Me Live. I think that's going to be
a lot of fun. We'll be taking calls and yeah,
it's going to be good. Uh four one two seven
four three six, Please save me from this, you guys. Okay,
So I've got that. Let's see what else I can

(03:43):
talk a little bit more about the show. Let me
think I did not get the chance to announce the
caption contest winner. Just been way too busy this week.
But I do want to kind of let you know
what's going on. Just like before, if you are a
patron of the show, you know you can get ad

(04:06):
free version of the podcast and add free version of
this recording, all color corrected with better audio because that's
all fixed. So you get that, but also you get
some special content as well. One of the things that
I do is I set up a four K video
camera and I'll react to each section that the guests

(04:27):
called in about so that I can make my thumbnails
from it that goes out to patrons just as a
fun kind of you know, behind the scenes look. But
also I take a screen grab of it and you know,
whatever looks the silliest and put it out on social
media as a caption contest. And so I got something
that looked really stupid of me, out of context. I
popped it up on social media, and I want to

(04:49):
get the caption contest up and going. Did not get
the chance to grab the winner. I apologize. I'll make
sure that I do that next week. Okay, me see here,
it looks like we have a call, Brie. Please forgive me.
I'm stealing the caller. Hello, caller, you're live? Oh eric Hey, hello,

(05:14):
am I on here you are? Please don't please, please
please don't be a troll because I just stole you
from our call screener. How's it going today?

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Oh I'm doing so good.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Eric Us?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
It feel good to be back.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Oh, thank you. So I did not get did not
give breath a chance to screen your call. So I
do not have your name in info handy. Let me
grab that right now. So what's right? What's your name?

Speaker 2 (05:41):
I'm Mitch, Hi, Mitch.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
What are your pronouns.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
See him, you can just him?

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Awesome? And where are you going? Where are you calling from?

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Florida?

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Okay, let me pop that up, Mitch. What'd you want
to talk about today?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
One word skepticism. There's a whole bunch we can break
down with that.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, hit me, what do you got?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
I don't believe that skepticism. I feel like skepticism, even
of itself, is very self contradictory. Skeptic ideas don't really
fall in line with this kind of monarchy system that
a civilist society basically in nineteen twenties ran on since
the Golden Age, since we got cars to run on
the road. You know, we were I mean, we were

(06:28):
lit in the era where it was the wild wet,
there were cowboys, goddamnit. We were arriving on animals, riding
on animals. Man, we're driving cars. How does that happen?

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Mitchell? I think you lost me a bit here. So
when you talk about skepticism, I think about like the
ancient Greeks, you know, and and I think about Socrates
and so that wasn't eighteen hundreds, that's then. And then
after you know this this kind of questioning, Uh, you know,
you have a development there later on, I think it

(06:57):
was the eighteen hundreds of the nihilist philosophers. I'm sorry,
I'm just still trying to catch up. No, actually, before that, sorry,
well before that, you have Rene Descartes who really kind
of updated and and and solidified, you know, skepticism in
the way it's kind of viewed and treated. And he

(07:19):
you know, gave us cogatoryo some What about skepticism is
what about writing animals?

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Okay, I'm just saying we live in an era where
at one point we were writing animals. They were our property.
They got us from point A to point We were
riding them like they were not even a thing, you know.
But then in the next you know, life ten years,
we have cars that can move, produce saw inflation into
the air, suck up their resources, destroy the ecosystem. And

(07:50):
we're saying that skepticism has nothing to do with that.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
What what do you mean that skepticism? What is skepticism
to you? Do you do you think skeptics is industrialism?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
The negative? It's the negative towards all the ideas that
pushed towards any kind of supernatural development, anything discoverable that
we know is discoverable. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Got it? Got it? I? So there's you're talking about pessimism.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I don't believe what I don't I don't what is
that word? I have never heard that word.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
That pessimism, Like, yeah, being a pessimist.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
No, yeah, I'm not familiar with that word.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah. So pessimism is is that kind of assumption that
you know something's going to go wrong right, or or
that that negative view. When I was a Christian, I
actually thought that skepticism and pessimism meant the same thing,
this kind of negativity. But skepticism actually doesn't really have
anything to do with negativity. I think we're coming at
it from different definitions. So maybe maybe we can clear

(08:53):
it up a little bit and kind of operate on
the same definition so we can have a meaningful conversation.
How about we can we start there, mitche.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, I think we were already having a pretty busy conversation.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I mean, well so so so I I think that
you were diving in further than I understood, and I
found myself kind of out of my depth, not knowing
how we got there. And so I'm trying to pump
the brake so that we can start somewhere together.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Right, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Okay, So to me, when I think of skepticism, you
know how like a two year old or you know,
three year old, well why why why? You know, why
is it this way? Why is that? And you just
kind of keep asking that why and it gets annoying
and eventually you get your that that parent that goes
just because right or I don't know, or because because
I said so. That is more like skepticism to me, right,

(09:46):
It's it's constantly kind of getting to well, why is
it this way? Well, why is it that way? And
and kind of at the at the root of it,
you know, I'm gonna go back to Socrates. Socrates was
questioning why the government at the time was doing things
the way they did. The fact is, there are a
lot of things that were being done just because it

(10:08):
was traditional to do so, not because it was the
best way of doing it right. And he pissed off
whole lot of people that way because he caused you know,
people to well, then let's change things. Well, governments don't
like to be changed that way, you know, And eventually
he was put to death. And so with that understanding
of skepticism does would you say that skepticism is ruining

(10:30):
things or do you think we should.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Use a different word, a different word I feel like
it should be. The word is very confusing and it misleads. Oh,
you're very misleading.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I get that when I when I was a Christian,
And I keep saying when I was a Christian because
I want to contectualize. My understanding is skepticism was used
for what I now say pessimism is. So I'm just
pulling up the fastest definition of pessimism online. Let me
read you this. Are you ready?

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
A tendency to see the worst aspect of things or
believe that the worst will happen, A lack of hope
or confidence in the future. That's pessimism. Does that sound
more like what you were thinking about? Yes, I I
kind of agree with you. So I think that I've
seen some really interesting kind of defenses of pessimism, things

(11:26):
that have, you know, people using pessimism to prevent catastrophic
failure because people didn't just assume, you know, you think
about like the Challenger spacecraft exploding, you know, And I
think a pessimist nowadays will go, Well, we might avoid
that if we were all pessimists, but personally, I'm not
a pessimist, so I don't think you're going to get

(11:48):
a lot of pushback from me on that.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Okay, well what about what about male shaving down there
there there? Gen?

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Mitch?

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Are you a troll?

Speaker 2 (12:03):
I'm trying, buddy, but sorry, Oh no, no, no, no, no, crack,
I crack, We're word, We're good. Get on my conversation
happens every now and then.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
I'm sorry, Mitch, my friend. I appreciate that you called,
and I I because like I don't, don't do it.
Don't do it, Mitch, be better, be better than that.
You can do this. Don't stick with me, stick with me.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
I'm still here, Eric, I'm with you.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Eric.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Okay, give me, give me something you want to talk
about that's not a troll thing. Come on, you can
do this.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
I'm right here, all right, ready, ready, one? Two, three?

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Oh, Mitch, I'm so disappointed in you. You know, I
thought I thought maybe since last time, he grew up
a bit. But it's sad. I feel I feel kind
of sorry for you. You know, it sounded like you
actually had something you wanted to talk about. But instead

(13:07):
of kind of diving in. You know what it is meant,
it's an uncomfortable feeling when you find yourself in a
place where you don't understand necessarily what's going on, or
you've questioned your worldview to the point that you don't
know where to go next. You know, I talked about
it last week, right, this feeling of of anome, you know,

(13:31):
when it comes to morality or of I've lost the word.
I'm sure I'll come up with it soon, but yeah,
you know, I get it. But the better thing to
do is to sit in that uncomfortableness because that's what's
going to cause you to grow as a person instead

(13:51):
of doing that. I'm disappointed that years later you're still
doing that kind of immature thing, but hey, you know what,
can't let them all right, bye, Mitch. I think Mitch
called in a few times last last season when v

(14:13):
and I were going on, and I think it was
the exact same thing. I have to wonder if these
kinds of assumptions are just because we're atheists because we're
into philosophy, or if there's something else, if it's kind
of tied into like a I don't know, a conspiracy mindset.

(14:35):
If anybody has an idea, give me a call, because
I'd love to talk about it. This is Eric, You're live.
I just grabbed you right out of the call room. Okay,
who am I talking to?

Speaker 5 (14:49):
You're talking to am A and.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
You e l thank you for spelling that. There's no
way I would have got that. Emmanuel. Yeah, how are
you doing? Emmanuel? What pronouns should I put down for you?
He is all right? And where are you calling from? Emmanuel?

Speaker 6 (15:12):
South?

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Austin South Where Austin, Oh Texas?

Speaker 7 (15:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Nice? I just left Austin actually this year moved out
to Portland.

Speaker 5 (15:28):
You're in Portland?

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah? Okay, So what did you want to talk about? Emmanuel?

Speaker 5 (15:36):
Just here to defent theism h and just try to
say that theism makes more as more consistent with like
it makes more sense than atheism. And try to say
that atheism seems to be a little bit inconsistent with

(15:59):
what observe that That's what I was trying to say.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
That is a really awesome conversation. Okay, so you're the
one who called in. I think that you should have
the right to, uh to provide the point. So what
exactly about it? Do you think is inconsistent or how
do you want to set up this conversation?

Speaker 5 (16:23):
Okay, first of all, I want to apologize for the
audience because I've been banned from different shows, from atheistic
shows that you actually used to go. And I don't
want to I don't want you to lose viewers if
I take up a lot of time. But for what
I'm trying to see is, uh.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
So.

Speaker 5 (16:46):
We have an observable world, right, So we observe nature,
We observe sure, you know, reality, our reality, the bubble
that we actually live in. So if I take up
on the world view of skepticism or agnosticism, I know
that those two are two different things. Let's say I

(17:09):
take a plant.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
That worldview and say that the observable doesn't have an
unobserved factor, so there is no metaphysical thing behind.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
It, can it? So that wouldn't offer a little bit
of can I That's okay. I just want to get
on the same definitions with you here. So I think
that and I promised this isn't me trying to be
like really pedantic, but I think it's important, especially for
people who are watching, who are following and trying to
kind of develop their philosophy a bit. I don't know

(17:44):
what the skeptical worldview is. You know, people say that colloquially,
but it sounds like you're talking about methodological naturalism, right,
Everything that exists exists in the natural world without any
kind of supernatural causation with that. Yeah, yeap, empiricism because

(18:07):
when you talk about things like agnosticism, right, that that
just has to do with someone's view about religion, and
an entire worldview is not made out of just that
kind of one statement, right, And skepticism, I think is
just a tool that everybody should be able to use, right, Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever.
I think we should all kind of question the grounding

(18:29):
under everything that we believe. But if you're just just
so that I'm kind of right there with you, it
sounds like you have a bone to pick with methodological naturalism.
So I'm here for it. So I interrupted you. You
were saying, you were describing it as the world existing

(18:51):
without any metaphysical.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
What like if if we say that, like nature, the
nature's cause is nature itself, or the observed observable world
came from the observe what we observe by itself, It

(19:13):
seems to be inconsistent because, like one, which one makes more.

Speaker 8 (19:20):
Logical sense saying that you know, this world that we
observe came from a supernatural force, or would you say
that it's more logical to say that a natural world
came by nature itself.

Speaker 5 (19:36):
So I would say that That's why I think religious
or a theistic view makes more sense because it creates
an explanation that what we actually see came from with
what the end scene is. So everything that we observe
came from uh supernatural source that we can't actually observe,

(19:58):
we can't taste, we can touch, we can't kind of
like sense with our five senses. You get what I'm saying, right.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I do, And I kind of want to push back
in a couple different places. Okay, So first off, I
think that there are lots of things that exist quote
unquote that you can't test with your five sentences, you know,
when you're talking about metaphysics. I think that there are
a lot of concepts that exist, like friendship, kindness.

Speaker 5 (20:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
One of my favorite books is by Douglas Adams, and
it's The Hogfather, and in it, this character of death says,
you know, if you take the entire universe, and you
grind it up into the finest powder and sift it
with the finest They show me one atom of justice.
But we talk about justice as though it exists, right,

(20:55):
So I think that those things exist, but they exist
as concepts, and I don't think concepts that need to
be supernatural. Right. They are ideas that we propagate and
share with each other, and it aids in our communication.
And in that way it's a really useful tool. And
so to start off with right, taking concepts, I'm putting

(21:18):
that down there. Now I'm going to pick up something else.
Unless you want to respond to.

Speaker 5 (21:22):
That, No, I have nothing to say that.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Cool, Okay, So moving on to the kind of the
bigger meteor issue here, and that is explanatory value, right something,
an explanation feels way better than not an explanation. It
really does always, And it would be really amazing if
we did have explanations for things that we don't have
explanations for. Right. We weren't there when the universe began,

(21:52):
or at least, you know, our version of the universe
had some kind of inception, you know, whether or not
there was anything before it, or we don't know I
don't know. You don't know, none of us do. We're
kind of in this place. And so when we're talking about,
you know, proposing causation, well, what causes things? I know
that when I touch something or move something, it gets caused, right,

(22:15):
And I'm physical, right, I exist. I know that concepts
can't directly interact with things. So we can talk about justice,
but justice itself as a concept can't actually like act
on its own. And so if I think about the supernatural,

(22:36):
how many examples do I have of the supernatural causing anything? Right? Like,
what if we discovered magic tomorrow and all it could
do is make you pop tarts? You know that's that's
not enough power to create a universe. Right, So what
I don't understand is this kind of assumption that magic
or the supernatural could create a universe has has has

(23:01):
any really any real substance to it. Because of that,
I can't give a determination about whether or not it
possibly did. Does that make sense?

Speaker 6 (23:12):
That makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 9 (23:15):
But wouldn't you say that even if theistic, well, you
have different sex will set off beliefs. Who didn't you
say that they're similar and in a kind of way
that they repeat the same model of saying that a
specific creator created those things and how the universe came

(23:38):
to existence.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh, hold, antherer had a drink. Take a drink of
caffeine because I'm a little sleep deprived. Well not really.
I think the big faiths that we have kind of
spawn off of the same tree, right, the Abrahamic faiths. Right.
So you've got all the different brands of Christianity, Judaism,
and the US Live Faith, and they all kind of

(24:03):
spawn from this this Old Testament, you know, story that
happened to the Middle East, right, And I think that
due to imperialism and and and you know, different countries
spreading out and and forcing their religion on everyone. That's
kind of the environment we find ourselves in. But they're
not all the same. In fact, listening to different creation

(24:23):
myths quote unquote, a lot of them have to do
with animals or you know, some other story. But I
think that's because we as humans are storytellers. I don't
I don't think that there's necessarily a through line there
that you can point to as evidence.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
So you're saying that there is no evidence for those stories.
Those are just stories that we can actually prove or
disprove necessarily some of them can be disproved, right, some
of them right. So, but you can't actually disprove the
premise of saying that there is a creator who created

(25:01):
all things. Right, So if you want to disprove that plaim,
how could you find yourself in an atheistic position, Because
in an atheistic position, there is no deity according to
that world view.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Got it, got it, got it, got it okay, really quick,
Just as like a little aside I think the atheist
position is just has to do with the religious aspect.
I don't necessarily view it as like a worldview that
I take into the rest of my life. But let's

(25:38):
let's go from there. So I define atheism as the
rejection of assertions that a God exists. Right, So, every
version of a God that has been presented to me
so far I've rejected, unless you're somebody who says like

(26:01):
God is like the universe or whatever, But all supernatural
deities that I've interacted with when it comes to like
people talking to me, I reject all of those. And
I think that the agnosticism is the idea that it
cannot possibly be known. But I think that I'm doing
the work of somebody who is an atheist, and that

(26:22):
is I'm interacting with everyone that I can and finding
out what their definition of God is and finding out
whether or not that definition checks out.

Speaker 5 (26:31):
I'm searching, so you might you might find yourself an
atheistic position as well.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh, absolutely, this spectrum, of course, I think everybody should be.
I think that if you're not willing to have a
conversation with an open mind, then you're just listening to
yourself talk. That's not cool, right, Like I think we
should all be generally good interlocutors and and and truly

(27:01):
listening to each other. Yeah, what about you? Do you?
Are you a Christian?

Speaker 5 (27:09):
Uh? I? I believe the Lord Jesus.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Okay, so usually those people call themselves Christians. But whatever
you wanted to find it as, that's fine.

Speaker 5 (27:22):
Yes, I'm a Calvinist, a Christian?

Speaker 4 (27:24):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Cool? Are you open to possibly being wrong? Do you
listen with an open mind the same way that I do?
Or do you just call in to hear yourself talk?

Speaker 5 (27:37):
I'm sorry if you if you feel that I just
call this let's just hear myself though?

Speaker 1 (27:41):
No, no, no, but I'm asking you like you asked me,
and so I gave you my definition of you know
how I interact, and I want to give you the
same opportunity. I'm just I'm not taking that as like offensive.
I'm just could you be wrong? Do you listen with
an open mind or or not?

Speaker 5 (28:00):
Yeah, I've been wrong too many times. Like I used
to believe in eternal hell, for example, I don't believe
that that anymore. I used to believe in the infallibility
of Scripture. I don't believe in that anymore.

Speaker 6 (28:16):
I used to.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
Believe in the virgin birth. I don't believe in that anymore.

Speaker 6 (28:20):
Like there are a lot of things that.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
I do not believe where I used to believe when
I used to be a different sect of Christianity. So
of course I have to open myself and say that
there might be things that I might be wrong. And
when I find out that I'm creating errors of my.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Position, Emmanuel, my friend, No, that is not an of course.
That is a big position. That is something that should
be commended like rock on, and don't say I was
wrong too many times, because you're going to be wrong
about a lot of things for the rest of your life.
It's not about being right the first time. You know,

(29:04):
and being stubborn about it. It's about having the humility
to go, oh, I was wrong about that, and getting
better and growing from it. That's what's beautiful. I mean
you're doing I mean, sorry, Emmanuel, you're doing great. Okay.
So yeah, I just think that the you know, supernatural

(29:25):
doesn't have really any explanatory value. It just feels good.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
I would love for that to be the case. You know,
I would love to not blink out of existence when
I die. But me hoping that I don't blink out
of existence when I die doesn't. It's not evidence of
something else, you know that. It's it's an argument propped
up by hope, and that doesn't have any value to me.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
I mean that's a good explanation. I I kind of
like at the Star and a shift.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
So hey, I try to truly appreciate you calling in
like number one. Uh, since you've called in, I've got
five more callers. You have saved me from ending the
show early, and I absolutely love this conversation. So Emmanuel,
you are not banned from this show. You are welcome
to call back anytime.

Speaker 7 (30:22):
All right, Thank you, Eric.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Hey, thank you have a good rest of your day. Okay,
you guys, why was Emmanuel band on other shows? I'm
so curious. I need to know, but I don't want
to watch other I hm, I don't know. Unless Emmanuel

(30:45):
was like a real jerk before, I don't know how
listening with a level head would cause somebody to want
to ban them. We'll find out. Maybe maybe maybe Emmanuel
calls in, but the same thing every time. We'll see.
But moving forward, I have not spoken to a meat
in over a year. A meet you're live.

Speaker 6 (31:08):
Hey, hi, Eeric, how's everything.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
God, I'm so glad to hear your voice. How's it going?

Speaker 10 (31:16):
It's going on. I don't know if you know this,
but about a year or so ago, I made an
effort to step away from well not step away, but
to take a step back from the American atheist movement
and bug myself a little bit more into the Indian
atheist movement. Just still see what's happening on the other

(31:40):
side of the world. And that's kind of what I
wanted to talk to you about.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
I would. I'm I'm so here for it. Yeah hit
means yeah, like.

Speaker 10 (31:50):
So it's a bit of a bit of a different
topic from what you're used to hearing about, but some
of the basics are the same. I will start by
acknowledging my privilege in that I grew up in an
English speaking family. My first language was English. I was
exposed to, you know, all of the different religions in India,

(32:10):
and then I moved here where I became an atheist, right,
so that there is a little bit of a And
I'm from an ex Christian background, right, So from a
Christian background, and I decided I wanted to plug myself
back into like the Indian atheist community just to see,

(32:31):
you know, how is it different, How is religion affecting
places there? And as you might imagine, being a country
where Christianity is not the major religion, Yeah, you end
up seeing a lot of oppression of minority religions there.

Speaker 11 (32:47):
Right.

Speaker 10 (32:49):
It's sort of like being say an ex Muslim in
the United States. Right, you end up being a minority
within the minority in the country. Right. And you see
how the majority religion once again is influencing society in

(33:11):
very many of the same ways. Uh. And I was
I'm struggling with my ability to give back there simply
because of my privileged background. I don't know if it's
right for me to speak on certain topics like, say,
for example, the cost system, which I heard a lot

(33:32):
of Hindu speaking about ex Hindu speaking about, but being
an ex Christian, I don't. I've never experienced that right,
and I'm wondering what your thoughts on something like that
would be.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Oh my gosh, me, that is such a good question.
So I'm I'm sure you know. I'm biracial, half white,
half friends again, and I have spent most of my
life around white people. Just with the way my parents

(34:07):
are divorced and all of that, I just did not
get the same kind of like Mexican childhood that a
lot of people that I know who are Mexican and
even have Mexican have had. And because of that, it
took me a really, really long time to speak up
even just about my heritage, because I was afraid that
I was misleading people because culturally my understanding was not

(34:29):
the same kind of cultural understanding as other people right
who have those backgrounds. And so I was actually once
I was already doing atheist work, I talked to doctor
Hector Garcia. I don't know if you've heard of him,
but he's an atheist author sociologist. Really cool, dude, and

(34:54):
it is Mexican. And he said, Eric, how did he
say it? He said that my experience, whatever it is,
is a Mexican experience because I am Mexican, right, And

(35:15):
because of that, you know, in the same way that
you know people view gender as well, like there's not
a uniform gender experience and because of that, whatever gender
you are, that is what that experience is, because you
are that. And so that's kind of my take on that. Now,

(35:36):
when it comes to your observations, it could be that
you have a unique view because you're from the outside.
So as long as you're comfortable talking about it from
your standpoint and understanding what your views are and how
you came to them, I don't think it's wrong for
you to talk about it that way. But if it
comes to like needing to represent a view that isn't

(35:57):
your own and you're afraid that you're not going to
do it just us, I would understand not wanting to
talk about it too much.

Speaker 10 (36:06):
Yep, yep, no, completely agree. And it's interesting kind of
looking at India because just like well just like any place,
right there are the the there is a portion of
the Indian the Hindu religious community that is anti queer

(36:31):
rights and the portion that is pro queer rights right
LGBTQ plus rights, And as an ex Christian, my community
tends to be like at least the Christian community. My background,
my family tends to be more on the anti side.

(36:51):
And when I bring up those when I try to
speak about those things and try to, you know, advocate
for treating people equally, I'm often met with both sides
of the both sides of the discussion, which is, you know, oh,
India has always been very fluid with gender and sexuality

(37:14):
as well as no we are traditionally two genders and straight.
And I feel like I can only speak for my
minority community and push back against that, and I feel
like I'm not in a position to criticize that that

(37:35):
element of the majority that is anti LGBTQ plus rights got.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
It okay, So I'm gonna split that a little bit right.
First is the next here, and that is that India
is fucking huge and is only that way currently because
of imperialism and and and and you know, the just
awful way that India was treated. You have such a

(38:05):
huge group of different peoples that any single like description
that would label just doesn't make any sense. So yep,
right off the bat, I think that yeah, no, making
like a sweeping judgment about all Indian people and whatever
it is. It people are just way too diverse, so

(38:28):
that doesn't make any sense. That said, you still can criticize,
right Like, if you think that something is wrong and
you have a you know, a have a valid or
nuanced opinion that you want to talk about, you should
be able to. I think that's just fine. And the

(38:50):
other side of it is that are you also talking
about like x Hindu non believers who are anti LGBT
that there are votes. So, in my experience on the
Christian side, and as an ex Christian, I'm sure you
understand as well, leaving your religion does not mean that

(39:11):
you have left all of the other worldviews that you had.
And there are a lot of atheists that I've met
who are still just as died in the wold Christian
on everything else except for the God, you know statement,
as they were when they were believers, you know, from
their politics to their their views on sex, on how
to raise children, on the role of government, on you know,

(39:36):
everything from from you know, eating meat to GMOs to
to you know, all of it, Like every single one
of those things needs to be deconstructed one at a time.
You need to take a look at you every one
of those things. And so it seems like, yeah, no,
that would totally make sense to me that you know,

(39:56):
people who have left their religion would still have really
you know, kind of religious influenced views. M I don't
think that's necessarily a Christian or an an ex Christian
or an ex Hindu thing. I think that's just a people.

Speaker 10 (40:15):
Thing, human things.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, yeah, so maybe contextualize it like that.

Speaker 10 (40:22):
Yeah, true, that does make sense now and.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Really really you know, oh sorry, go.

Speaker 10 (40:27):
Ahead, Oh no, no, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
I was going to say, if you really want to
piss off a non believer, tell them that their their
their religious views are showing. You know, that is the
best way to end a conversation. Tried, it does not work.
Learn from my mistake. I mean, do not do that,
you know, but yeah, no, it's just people needed to

(40:50):
get through in doctrination. And even then, you know, people
going to have justified views and that's why we have
these conversations. But I don't know, I feel like you
may have been scared off of having conversations because it
may have been disrespipt or you felt like you did
not have a place, But you good because you you
should be able to have those conversations as long as

(41:11):
everyone involved wants to.

Speaker 10 (41:15):
Mm hmm yeah all right. And just for context away
this this like the Indian atheist space does affect me.
Is you see a lot of the ways religion is
tied up in you know, the government. We don't have
Christian nationalism in India. We have Hindu nationalism, right, which

(41:37):
is strange to say for people to hear. But you know,
I actually got engaged recently, thank you, uh to a
person from a Hindu family. Uh not. She doesn't believe
she's not religious, but she doesn't like claiming a label

(41:59):
one or the other. So I like, in effect both
of us are atheists. However, because of the way the
Indian governments create is like set up and the laws
are set up, we are technically I am still technically
classified as Christian and she is still technically classified as Hindu.

(42:22):
And our marriage is going to be an interfaith marriage,
which has like three times the amount of paperwork required
to actually fuss.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Yeah, oh no, that sucks.

Speaker 10 (42:34):
Yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I wish you the absolute best
and all of the happiness in the world. And I
would love to hear updates. But thank you for calling
in and truly congratulations.

Speaker 10 (42:56):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 6 (42:57):
Eric.

Speaker 10 (42:57):
It was great speaking to you. It's great to hear
your way from the air again.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Great talking to you too. Take care o, bye bye.
What a sweetheart then and now I meet good people.
All right, let's move on. I so normally I go
by topic, but I'm also paying by the minute, so
I'm gonna I'm gonna grab our Canadian collar. Next, h

(43:25):
I have Tug in Vancouver. Tug, you are live on
Skeptic Generation. How's it going, Hi?

Speaker 6 (43:35):
I was wondering about like I watched well, I used
to watch a lot of call in shows in me too,
and a lot of times I said that the conversations
are not, I don't know, as engaging. Well, when I
watch you, it's I actually model a lot of my

(43:57):
conversations around how you kind of handle them, yeah, which
is I think very understanding. And you you, I think
you listen first and respond after, which is very different
than some individuals. Uh. I was wondering kind of do

(44:18):
you have like a sort of list of rules or like,
how do you how do you approach it to be
as ethical and and uh productive as possible?

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Got it? Okay? So I can think of a couple
off the top of my head. So the first big
role that I would have is something that I said
with the last caller of meat, and that is all
of these conversations need to be consensual. Both both parties
need to consent to having and being involved in that conversation.

(44:55):
There are too many people who've reached out to me
and going having this conversation with my family during the holidays,
and it was awful and nothing worked, and it turns
out that they were forcing the conversation on family members
that just wanted to eat their meal. You know. Yeah,
So make sure that everybody involved wants to be there.

(45:16):
Number two, operate with charity, right. Charitable listening is really important.
Even if somebody says something off the wall, being charitable
means giving them the best interpretation possible that you can think.
I'm getting a little bit of wind. Not sure what
that sounded.

Speaker 6 (45:36):
Oh, I'm sorry, my mic is awful here, I'll move.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
It away to worries. I appreciate it. I have ADHD,
so I'm just like trying to concentrate. Okay. So the
principle of charitable listening is give people the best interpretation possible.
If someone says something, give them as much leeway as
you can. Right, let them live up to your best
expectations or your best hopes of them. Just brand them

(46:01):
as the worst you can think of. Number one. You're
going to find that more often than not. Even with
our troll caller earlier, right, they had pessimism and atheism
or pessimism and skepticism mixed up. Those definitions were wrong,
and often it's things like that that get in the
way of meaningful conversation. So listening charitably is going to

(46:22):
get you way, way further. Next, it's not all going
to happen at once. When it comes to people changing
their mind about things, they need to reinteract with it
over and over again from different places, maybe, you know,

(46:45):
with a good, better meal in their stomach, or a
little bit more sleep. Maybe they thought about a counterpoint
and all of a sudden, everything's kind of undone and
they're coming back at it from square one. Ongoing conversations
that may seem repetitive are really useful and changing people's
minds of the long run for good reasons, which is
why I've always tried to have ongoing conversations with callers,

(47:07):
because over time, I think I've seen more lasting change.
And then yeah, and then what else? Model the behavior
that you want to see. If you're wrong about something,
admit it and honestly be as positive about it as possible.

(47:30):
Because if you can show that it's okay to admit
you're wrong, it gives them permission to be wrong about
things too. People are more likely to want to reciprocate
positive behavior that they see and interact with, and so
if you are showing them that, they might be more
willing to grant that as well. There's room to make mistakes.
It's not the end of the world. Those are the

(47:56):
big ones that come to mind. I think. Last is
if you get flustered or if you find yourself out
of your depth, use that as an opportunity. You can
actually make a bonding experience with that person. What you
can say is, I have no idea about that. How
about we you know, how about we both look it
up and we come back together later and talk about it.

(48:17):
You know, Oh, I didn't know that. How about we,
you know, take some time and I look into that,
and then next time we have a conversation, I can
have a have a more understanding kind of talk with
you because I will have looked into whatever it is
that you said, or you have time to look into
whatever it is that I said. Right, I think all
of those things will really help. And also walking away

(48:40):
when it's time to walk away, when you're done or
you feel like, hey, you're out of spoons, you can
hurt the conversation that you've had. You can go backwards
by burning out. So when it's time to stop, it's
time to stop and think. I think if you do
those things, and if I had my head together enough,

(49:00):
I would have numbered them for you. I'll try and
do that in the post when I've posed the clip.
But hopefully that helps.

Speaker 6 (49:07):
Yeah, just last question, this is all I have, which
is how did you get here to the place that
you're at a conversation.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
By screwing up a lot?

Speaker 6 (49:24):
That's very fair.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
So do you mean just in the way I have
conversations or do you mean like doing shows.

Speaker 6 (49:32):
Like this, in the way that you have conversations, Because
like I said, I see a lot of people in
the same position as you that aren't as charitable. It's
the words aren't as charitable, aren't as say productive.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Oh my gosh, if you go back and watch some
of my early stuff, I was a prick. I mean,
I'm still kind of a prick. I'm working on it,
you know. But I was awful. I I think one
of the only times I was ever on the atheist experience.
I was just foaming at the mouth.

Speaker 6 (50:08):
It.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
It took time. It took a little bit of patience
and compassion, and honestly, it took me looking back at
those conversations and going that's not the conversation I want
to have to move forward. So again, make mistakes. It's okay,
you'll grow from it. In the long run. I am
not any.

Speaker 6 (50:28):
Different, right, Thank you very much. Was really insightful.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Thank you, hey, thank you for calling. I really really
appreciated this episode was light on callers, and I really
needed that. This was good. This was really good. All
rank you take care you do. Thank I like it.
I like it. That was nice. I'll try and see
if I can number those for the clip. Okay, somebody, Isaac,

(51:02):
I can't believe it. I love that so much so
Isaac is calling in about the paradox of tolerance. Isaac,
you're alive on Skeptic Generator, Eric, Hey, how's it going? Honestly,
I am doing my best. Like, in the last week,
the longest amount of sleep that I've had has been

(51:24):
three hours.

Speaker 7 (51:26):
That's rough. I real.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
I am like holding on and there's no way that
I'm not doing the show. So I am just like
doing my absolute best. And you wanted to call in
about the paradox of tolerance, which I love. Yeah, well,
what do you want to say.

Speaker 7 (51:42):
I've watched that. Yeah, I watched that Patreon video that
you made, and I don't fully remember exactly all the
points you made because it's been a while, but I
was curious on how much of a paradox you actually
think it is, or do you think once you start
adding the nuance of human expe it really kind of
dissolves away. Like my perspective on it is the like

(52:06):
if you're intolerant of someone else's intolerance. I think once
you add in the concept of like a social contract
or just societal expectations in general, it's perfectly fine to
call out the people who are being you know, intolerant
or bigoted or whatever. Does it seem to disappear that
quickly for you or does it still remain a paradox

(52:28):
for you?

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Yeah, So let me set it up a little bit
for people who are watching that didn't watch that video. MM,
so the in a nutshell, I'm probably gonna butcher this,
but the paradox of tolerance basically states that at a
tolerant society needs some level of intolerance because as and

(52:49):
and I'll bring that back of it. So let's say
you want to create a tolerant place, so you you
build up this environment, but if you bring in intolerant views,
they're going to push down other people and make it
a less tolerant place. So the best way to have

(53:11):
a tolerant world is to not tolerate intolerance. I said
that words so many times it probably lost all me.
But but that that's it is. Intolerance of intolerance is
the only way to preserve it. And that kind of
is the paradox there. And so when you're talking about
like social contracts and all of that, I absolutely agree,

(53:34):
I understand, but I think those are justifications for you know,
why it's okay to not tolerate intolerance, And while I agree,
I think that's still what it is. It's a justification.
Now when I brought When I brought this up to V,
V had a very different view.

Speaker 7 (53:56):
They share their view or no, I don't mind share
their view, or yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
They looked at me and they said, Eric, why do
you want to tolerate people? Is that the world that
we want, where we tolerate each other? It's like, well,
what do you mean? But at the same time, it
is true that we cultivate communities around shared experiences. You know,
we cultivate our friendships and the people that we count on,

(54:25):
the people around us based on things that we have
in common. And it's okay to not tolerate shittiness in
the communities that we're cultivating for ourselves. And in that way,
at least from what V had told me, they're just like,
maybe we shouldn't try to be the most tolerant, Maybe
we should just cultivate those communities that are best for us.

(54:49):
And I kind of vacillate on it. I go back
and forth because while I agree, it also does not
resolve the kind of question about what we should do
in bigger terms about society and how a better world
is going to be shaped. It just seems in a

(55:10):
way to be kind of a red herring. But at
the same time, it was important enough that it really
left a mark on me and I remembered it.

Speaker 7 (55:22):
Yeah, I'm curious. Yeah, the cultivating communities idea is great,
and it treats people with the respect they deserve in
their communities, but it doesn't really grow to like national level.
It's hard to counter the national level of intolerance. So
it's kind of an isolationist which isolation is in a

(55:44):
good way because you get a positive community. How I
don't know how. You probably just have to start getting
more and more of those communities to show up. You
don't really agree, and once enough of them are out there,
then it could tip the perspective of the people who
are kind of in a negative worldview, and maybe we'll

(56:06):
just trend better over a period of time. But I
don't think. Yeah, I don't think it has a clear route.
I think that's a tough path.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Hey, Isaac, I'm just right there with you, and I
think you nailed it on the head. Though maybe maybe
having a country as big as the United States is
just not a good idea.

Speaker 7 (56:29):
Well, I mean, we're about the same size as Europe
and they're totally different, you know, countries all over there.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
And I've also lived all over the United States, and
I got to tell you, like, culturally, the differences in
regions of the United States are you might they might
as well be different countries.

Speaker 7 (56:47):
Oh they feel I'm from I'm from the Midwest originally,
and yeah, it feels like a totally different place for sure.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Yeah. So I don't know, but how does that all
impact the the uh thedox of tolerance. I think that
implicit in the paradox of tolerance is, uh, do you
know what the Oh my gosh, I'm going to forget
the title, it's the Veil of ignorance.

Speaker 7 (57:15):
Oh I'm blanking at the moment. Detail.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, well, I would do it anyway because people are listening.
But the veil of ignorance is the idea that if
you want to build the best society, then build it
in a way that you do not know where you'll
wind up. Yeah, if you're going to build.

Speaker 7 (57:39):
All that, that.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Go ahead.

Speaker 7 (57:44):
Well I was just gonna add, like, that's the perfect
way to do it, because not everybody knows, you know,
you never know where you're going to end up even
when you're as a child or anything like that. But
now let alone like pre existence, you know.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Yeah, And the idea is is maybe you're going to
treat the disadvantage better if you do not know if
you're going to be disadvantaged. You know. That's kind of
the that's kind of the crux of that whole fale
of ignorance piece. And implicit in that assumption is that
you're creating a society for everyone everywhere. And I think
that's the same as the paradox of tolerance. Is there's

(58:21):
this implicit assumption that you're building something for everyone everywhere
at all times.

Speaker 7 (58:25):
And so the veil of ignorance is more of a
thought experiment because we never start with that blank slate.
We always start with the histories and the negative views
and positive views that we have of other people as
a society, however good or bad they are, we always
start with.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Those, and the same is true with the paradox of tolerance.
It as a thought experiment. I just think that it's
I just think that it's interesting because I've heard it
used in a way to shut down communication, to shut
down thought.

Speaker 7 (58:57):
That's what I think that the than tollerant people that
want to remain with their negative views would use the paradox. Yeah,
and they do, well, you're tolerant too, and then they
stick your tongue out and blow raspberries or whatever.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what happens, which is why
I think we should talk about it a little bit
and understand it better. Because if you do understand it,
then you know the justifications that you gave Isaac right
at the beginning. You know, this is the kind of
world that I want to live in, right, I want
to live in a world where people are kind to
each other and this and that and the other thing.

(59:34):
And I think that you're going to I think you're
going to discriminate, justifiably, you know, between the people who
get to be a part of that. But I think
that implicit in that is the understanding that it's not
for everybody. I don't know. I find myself confused, and

(59:55):
when I'm confused, I bring it up. And I know
that gets a lot of people, like, you know, scratching
their head because I'm supposed to be a communicator. But like,
what better way to try that out? You know, try
out those ideas and talk to people about it. I
just I don't know. It tickled me and I wanted
to represent it, and so that's what I made that
video about. But I don't know if I provided any

(01:00:19):
any clarity, but hopefully a little bit more context.

Speaker 7 (01:00:22):
I think we're on a very similar page there. I
think I think we both realized that the paradox isn't
used in a sincere way most times, and it's usually
used as a shield for shittiness. And I think we
can all adapts more of a view that he has
and trying to build, you know, communities that are kind

(01:00:46):
of carrying and respectful, and hopefully other people pick it
up on how good that can be and start spreading
it around.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
They're a smart cookie. I'm still holding out hope that
we can do better, but until then, I think that's
where I'm left to.

Speaker 7 (01:01:04):
Well. I know it's a hard battle to do better
on the national scale, but I think we can do
what v was talking about on a local scale, all
across the country in pockets a lot more successfully than
changing the whole country.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
I'm right, is I'm right there with you.

Speaker 7 (01:01:23):
I agree, all right, Well, I think we're in a
similar point here. I think I think you have much
more to add.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
I think you're absolutely right. Thank you for calling in.

Speaker 7 (01:01:35):
Thanks Eric, have a good one too, Right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
That was nice. So somebody posted a comment about the
paradox of tolerance and I just want to vail of
ignorance original position. You're asked to consider which principles you
would select for the basic structure of society with no
knowledge ahead of time, what position you would end up having. Yep, Okay,
I think I got that. Let's move on. I want

(01:02:03):
to talk to Alda in South Carolina. Alda, you're live
all skeptic generation.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Hello, it is wonderful to see your beautiful things.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Ah, you liar, how's it going? Thank you for calling.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
I do not lie. I appreciate all forms of beauty,
including the loud.

Speaker 12 (01:02:24):
Dog that it's next door.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Come on, man, I just would have a conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
You know what. I'll agree with that. I think I'm
beautiful in the same way with loud dog. Is what
did you want to talk about to that?

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
Now I'm going to migrate away from the loud dog,
so you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
I know the podcast listeners appreciate that.

Speaker 12 (01:02:46):
I'm going to try to stay away from the actual
YouTube channel that is playing for my husband. I was
curious what modern philosophy books.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
You had that you would recommend, because, don't get me wrong,
I love my Plato, I love my Socrateese, I love
my Voltaire and all my old light dead men.

Speaker 11 (01:03:09):
Yeah, but I also love my newer.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
White dead Men like Terry Pratchett and Tolkien.

Speaker 11 (01:03:16):
And you know, then there's Frederick Douglass like, yeah, you know,
what do.

Speaker 12 (01:03:26):
You recommend for more modern?

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Uh so, yeah, by by ancient Greek standards. I think
Bertrand Russell is pretty pretty modern, so if you haven't
checked out Bertrand Russell, definitely do. I think that Daniel

(01:03:52):
Dennett is pretty damn interesting and is pretty recent. I'm
currently working on a book about Aztec philosophy. You know, yeah,
right absent all of you know the kind of ways

(01:04:12):
that we think about it, And I'm not far enough
into it to give you any nuanced takes, but once
I get there, I'm definitely gonna talk about it more.
And then generally I carry like the myth of Sisyphus
and also the philosophy of mathematics. I've got them on
my shelf right now, just kind of wherever I go,

(01:04:34):
because they're both so dense that, you know, rereading and
kind of going over it bit by bit helps me
kind of take in the information better. But maybe that's
a good starting place. What do you think.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Yeah, that's fantastic and chunky, and I like it good.
I have never met a book that I'm afraid of
unless there's multiple translations and know English, in which case
then I get annoyed because I have to go find
it from whatever language to English and I know I'm
losing stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Oh that So that's exactly how I feel about the
Myth of Sisyphus. People go, oh my gosh, well it's
so much Well, yeah, it was written in French and
not even modern French, like, of course it's going to
be different, because that's not You're absolutely right. There are
other books by people who are still alive who have
disappointed me, and so I'm hesitant to recommend them. But

(01:05:36):
when it comes to just material, I think I learned
more about kind of the response to the Watchmaker argument
and about evolutionary biology than I did by The Blind
Watchmaker by Dawkins. Not a fan of Dawkins's, not a

(01:06:01):
fan of Dowkins as a person but the Blind Watchmaker
was really really great and kind of shifting my understanding
about evolutionary biology because that is actually his profession and
so correct. Yeah, and unfortunately just just because.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
He's an asshole, but he didn't get something right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Once right and and the same same is true, uh,
regrettably when it comes to mathematics, and and Stephen Pinker
a universe, Yeah, I know, but a universe from nothing
really did help me. And I think that me taking
what was beneficial from that book and then not offering
that to other people as kind of, hey, this is

(01:06:42):
what helped me is unfair too. So I'm in a
really weird ichy position there. But I can't say that
it didn't help me because a bit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
I know, yeah, yeah, because like you know, I like
to look back at Uh. I've been rereading lots of
ancient myths okay and going through the different cultures and going, humph,
how can I relate this the things that I'm experiencing today,
because uh, PBS Stories has an awesome YouTube channel where

(01:07:16):
they show ancient myths and they talk about like why
we why we created these myths to begin with, and
then what would we do with them today?

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
I mean we we are doing that in a way
if you think about like the MCU.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
Exactly. So I mean you know you had because you know,
for the my favorite memes from that is you had
Steve Rogers who met multiple gods and is still Christian.
Then you have uh, you have h Bruce Banner, atheist
met multiple gods, still an atheist.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
That's just dumb. I I so one of the things
that drives me nuts. I love playing D and D
and I haven't in a while. But what drove me
when I was really involved in like eightious Circles is
being playing with people who are just like my character
is an atheist. I'm like you, You're playing in a
world where gods are very very much real, you know,

(01:08:21):
so why would you? I don't know. It's it's it's interesting.
It is very very interesting. But yeah, I'm sorry, I've
lost the train there.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
It's okay, but train be real. Do you still love
the Chupacabra as your favorite hmmm? Or has it shifted
to Sasquatch or Missy?

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
I definitely have to put down the Trip of Cabra.
I feel like I feel like people stick me with that.
But you know what, I actually didn't know a lot
about was the not deer.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
We're so fantastic And.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
What's really interesting is the actual reason why, you know,
those kinds of things happen. And it's not less horrifying actually,
but I think that's my favorite cryptid right now.

Speaker 12 (01:09:26):
Maybe I would have to crochet.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
You, and no, please don't. I don't I something nice?
Maybe not not a something nice? Yeah, not a not dear.
I don't want to be creeped out by that. That
would no, thanks, well, maybe I would. I don't know.
I trust you all the I trust you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
I give eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Okay, maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
And you could shake him things when they're not being
what they should be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
That's really sweet of you. All the thank you for
calling in. I I don't know if I was useful
at all in this conversation, but this was fun.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
You were highly useful. My husband has written down all
the books and after this I will be going to
attempt to crochet and angry screaming possible.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Have fun.

Speaker 10 (01:10:10):
Thank you you too, by bye?

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
What a sweetheart? All right? Who I've got one more collar?
This might be a short episode, but that's totally okay.
These some of these conversations were really, really useful. I
had a lot of fun. Let's move on and talk
to Connor in Ohio. Connor, you're live on Skeptic Generation.

(01:10:36):
How does that feel?

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
Eric?

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Oh? Okay. For the live viewers, I am so sorry.
For the podcast listeners, you might be wondering why did
everything get quiet? And then you said, ooh, because it
sounded like somebody sprayed an air horn into the microphone.
That was that was awful? Well, it said Connor wanted

(01:11:02):
to talk about dealing with teachers pushing hardcore religious beliefs
in college classrooms, which would have been a really interesting conversation,
but that was just terrible. Wow. Okay, so I think
we've found a new low here, all right for the again,

(01:11:23):
for the live years, I'm so sorry about that. I'm
going to cut out that loud screeching sound for the
Patreon only version of the video, and with that, I
do want to say that if you do want to
get an AD free version with the audio cleaned up
and things like that taken out, I do put out
a Patreon version of the podcast ad free, and a
Patreon version of this video AD free every single episode.

(01:11:48):
On top of that little extras that I wind up
checking it out. If you want to check it out,
go to patreon dot com slash Skeptic Generation. And every
little bit helps, especially because since I'm getting things rolling
right now, it is like out of pocket and for
the most part, and I'm trying my best. But every yeah,
thank you, thank you for sticking around. It is time
to read super Chatsy guys, I think we might have

(01:12:12):
one more caller. We'll see Nope, okay, so Georgie George
Off says, love you guys, Thank you. Georgie. The Eagle
fans say is welcome back, thank you so much. It
is good to be back. And Melody Kate says, it's
nice to see you back. Happy to be here. You guys.
I do have one more person in this call screening

(01:12:34):
room and I might take them let's find out. Nope,
they're gone. I think that's gonna be it. Then, thank
you for joining me. This has been This has been
fun and weird and all kinds of stuff. I forgot
last time to say the tagline for the show, so

(01:12:54):
I'm gonna remember it this time. Make sure that you
tend in next week because genetically Modified Skept is going
to be joining me live hosting the show with me,
so I'll try and put something out for that, but yeah,
we'll see you next week. And in the meantime, I'm
Eric Murphy and I'm glad we had this talk.

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It's Been a LONG Week!| Skeptic Generation | Episode 2 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;}It's Been a LONG Week!| Skeptic Generation | Episode 2 Season 3