Just Begging The Question! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 6 Season 3 - Skeptic Generation

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello, and welcome to the show. It is March seventeenth,
twenty twenty four. It's Saint Patrick's day. I've got my
green on. I'm Eric Murphy. This is Skeptic Generation and
we need to talk. Hey everybody, ope, you're probably here.
I have the show on on my cell phone. I'm
trying to keep messages up so I can see the
live chat. But hey, everybody, welcome back. Last week we

(00:45):
had a bit of a technical issue on my part,
so I apologize for the lapse in the episode. I
want to stay consistent and so I'm hoping that is
the last time we're going to have that issue. But
I am happy to be back, and I'm happy that
you're here with me. It's exciting. I've already got a
call in the queue. If you want to call in,
please please do. You can call four one two skep Gen.

(01:09):
That's four one two seven five three seven four three six,
or you can go to tiny dot c c slash
skep Gen s k E P G E N to
call toll free. If you do that, you can talk
to us and uh, well me today. And I really
really appreciate that. I was actually thinking about this for

(01:30):
the episode. It's just a thought. And what I was
thinking about was begging the question. Right. So begging the
question is when you you bake an assumption into uh,
into into a question.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So you're you're you're trying to front load your your
point or you know, certain thoughts that should be talked
about first, I think uh the the An example would be, hey,
does you know does your wife know you're cheating on her? Right?

(02:10):
Yes or no? You're the assumption is that you're cheating
on your wife, right? Not good? And so what I
was wondering is when it comes to methodological naturalism, methodological
naturalism is the kind of philosophic stance that everything has
a natural cause and that there are scientific explanations for

(02:35):
phenomena that we experience, right, and that kind of excludes
supernatural causation and kind of the religious spiritual causation. And
am I begging the question because I'm approaching it from

(02:56):
a you know, a a a naturalist worldview when I say,
provide proof, but that proof can only be scientific? Am
I begging the question? And if I'm not, can we
assume that our interlocutor is also approaching it from a

(03:16):
methodologically naturalist worldview. I don't know. I think it is interesting,
if anything, just to talk about. And so obviously the
show's open to religious callers first because I want to
talk about what you believe in why. But our most
recent calls have been from non believers. Our last episode

(03:37):
was just a parade of Athiopagans, which was interesting. I
don't want this to be an athiopagan show, but that
was definitely the theme of the episode last time. So
I don't know, just a thought, and i'd love to
see what you have to say about it. Do I
have any major announcements. I'm sure I do. I'll get

(03:58):
to it, but i'd love to talk to our first
caller again before I do one more time with the
phone number, because I want this to be a full episode.
Four one two skep Gen. That's four one two seven
five three seven four three six or online tiny dot
cc slash skep gen YEP. It is absolutely free and

(04:20):
i'd love to talk to you all right. In the meantime,
let's go to our first caller. Let's talk to Michael
in New York. Michael, you're on skep Gen.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Hey, Eric, how are you doing today?

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Hey? You know what I'm doing. Good, caffeine's hitting just right,
and I'm ready to dive right in. Hey, it's important,
it's important. What did you want to talk about today?

Speaker 3 (04:49):
So it's kind of it's kind of two sides of
the same coin. I'm dealing with this situation.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
I won't go.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Into too much detail, but the very short version is that, uh,
you know, I I suffered the being the target of
a false delegation and it absolutely destroyed my professional life.
That absolutely destroyed my personal life.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Oh jeez, it took me.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, it took me a full ten months to kind
of get to the bottom of it. These things are
very hard to you know, trace back. It's like they're
the reverse telephone game. But when I got to the
bottom of it, it was absolute nonsense. And so the
two things I've been dealing with are Number One, I
don't have you know, I'm an atheist, so I don't
believe that. You know, it's very easy for someone like

(05:30):
my parents to say, well, you know, these people that
did this will get what's coming to them. And there's this,
you know, there's this, you do have faith in the
corrective mechanism of God or gods or whatever that you know,
it'll de carmeral sort itself out. And I don't have that.
So I'm really struggling with lack of accountability for people
who were intentionally malicious and set out to damage me
and tear me down and it worked. And how do

(05:52):
you I don't have the ability to just go, well,
they'll get what's coming to them, like, I'm really having
trouble coping with that. And the second part of that
is I I you know now that I've gotten to
the bottom of it, and you know, being able to
approach a conversation and saying, look, I have material evidence
that these things you're saying are not true. I have

(06:13):
material evidence that these people who made this up planned
it and made like I have evidence of them playing
like I can if if you care about the facts
and evidence here, I can show you that the the
leaf that you're holding here about me or what I
did is not correct. But it's been like screaming into
a void because people really seem to have made up
their minds and they don't care about evidence, they don't

(06:33):
care about the facts, they don't care about my side
of things. And I'm an engineer, I'm a very you know,
process based, evidence based guy. And so I don't even
know how to start a conversation with someone who does
not care that they're wrong. So, uh, those are two
very big questions. And thanks for hearing me out, but
any any comments you have would be certainly well received.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Oh my, okay, yeah, that is quite a bit. Let
me let me break that apart a bit. So I
think the first thing is, like, I'll go into least
to most satisfying to hear. I think that's how I'll

(07:16):
break it up. I think something that really really sucks
is that, yeah, no, that there is no cosmic justice,
there is no hell, and terrible people who do terrible
things get away with it, you know, and I absolutely
hate it. It does help knowing that the other side

(07:41):
of it is that bad things happening to good people
isn't by design either, you know. And so one of
the things that I remind myself is that I live
in a world that you know, we just got to
watch out. It doesn't matter how nice of a person anymore,
It doesn't matter how how good of a neighbor you are.

(08:03):
Bad things happening to you is not because you deserve it,
but just because we live in a random world. But
as far as the concept of a cosmic justice, it
reminds me, you know, when I was first really interacting

(08:24):
with kind of non believer spaces and heard somebody say
that religion is an organization that tells you you're sick,
to sell you the to sell you the cure. It
breaks your leg to sell you a crutch. And the
idea of cosmic justice or of a heaven or of
a hell. Are these concepts that sound great, you know,

(08:45):
and you get sold on it, and even if it
was never true, you feel the loss. You know, if
I were to tell you that you're going to win
the lottery next week, and I really tell you to
the point that you believe me. When you don't win
the lottery next week, even though you were never going
to the fact that I promised you that, and you
believed that, you feel a loss even though you never

(09:06):
had it in the first place, And that is a
It is a type of damage that people don't think about,
you know, when people talk about Pascal's wager and oh, well,
you know you gain or lose nothing by believing you know,
you gain everything by believing you lose nothing. Well, what

(09:28):
you lose, what you have to deal with is the
religious trauma of needing to unlearn things. You know. It's
kind of the same as experiencing loss in death that
when I lost my religious beliefs, when I left the faith,
I had to grieve everyone who everyone who had died

(09:50):
in my life a second time. Right, there was a
time when they died and I grieve and I thought
I'm going to see them in heaven. And then there
was the second time I grieved when I realized I
would never see them again. And it's not fair. It's
not fair to be so.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
There almost seems to be a there's an even more
insidious side to this that I've found, which is that
if society at large believes that things will work themselves
out that way, it sort of seems to alleviate their
responsibility for having to do anything. You know, Like a
lot of people who are close to me said, yeah,
it really sucks that they did this to you, and
that's horrible, but they'll just get what's coming to them,
and I don't. I don't really want to speak up

(10:27):
and get like so people, there's sort of this Kantian like,
you know, category coemperative type thing where everyone just says, well,
that sucks, but I'm sure it'll I'm sure it will
get sorted. But that means it doesn't because it doesn't
happen automatically. If everyone comes together and says we don't,
we don't accept this behavior and we're not going to
tolerate this behavior and that's wrong, and there's a pushback,
these things get fixed, and so it sort of seems

(10:49):
like there's some sort of this religious undercurrent to people
just believing that it'll sort itself out that sort of
almost blocks people or dissuades them from trying to get
involved in trying to speak up for what's right, like
on their own kind of agency.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
I I agree, Yeah, I I think that. I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (11:11):
I was.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I was making adjustment to the the equ there was
a there was an audio issue. I hate having to
produce and and and an host at the exact same time.
I'm not able to give full attention. I apologize. Michael,
could you say that the last part of that again,
so I can pick back in, jump back in. I'm sorry, Michael.

(11:39):
Let me see, Michael, can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (11:43):
I can't now?

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yes, Ah, got it? Okay, So I apologize. It looks
like there was an issue. Okay, let me just make
sure that I've got this correct. One second, I'm making
a live adjustment on them.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
In no worries, Michael, can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yes? I can? Ah, right, good, Okay, sorry about that, Okay, okay,
no problem. So what I was saying was I had
to split my attention for a minute. Could could you
repeat yourself At the end of there, I had to
make an adjustment to the audio obviously, and and I
lost the end of that train of conversation.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, of course, no problem. I was just saying that
it seems it seems that everyone.

Speaker 6 (12:40):
Having this faith that you know, the justice will automatically
exact itself, it seems to sort of be a deterrent
or like an excuse for people not to get involved
and to speak up and say, hey, that's not right,
because if you believe that the melchanism is like, you know,
self exacting or whatever, and you know, I don't.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
I don't believe.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
I think we have to create justice, and I think
we have to speak up when something's not right. But
I've encountered so many people throughout the situation saying, yeah,
that's terrible, but they'll get what's coming to them. But
you know, I don't really feel like I should be
speaking up, and so I think it sort of causes
a bigger detriment to society as a whole, because it
seems to dissuade people from, you know, using their voice
when there's something.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
That's wrong that's happening.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Isn't it nice to know that
you know that it's just going to get taken care of,
and those bad people are going to get what's coming
to them, and those good people are going to get
rewarded in some other way. That's you know, it's this
karma idea. I think the only version of that that
I've ever really agreed with is when I was very

(13:44):
involved in other atheist communities, there are some really crummy people,
and I kept quiet. I didn't want to make things
worse for myself. I didn't want to get bullied, and
so I didn't say anything. I didn't speak up, and
I just sat back and wound up just kind of leaving.

(14:08):
But what wound up happening is those people who were
bullies turned their attention to others and bullied them instead,
and eventually they were found out for being the crappy
people that they were. And so, yeah, the only kind
of you know, karma quote unquote that I've really interacted

(14:31):
with is that people are going to be shitty. Shitty.
People are going to be shitty after they've been shitty
to you, and you're not if you know, even if
you're feeling alone now, you're not going to be alone forever.
I'm really really sorry that you dealt with that. But
what I can tell you is that those people who
absolutely fucked you over, they're not if that's in their character,

(14:55):
They're going to do it to others, and before you
know it, they're going to be seen for who they are.
But unfortunately it also means that people like you and
I have got to pay the price. The best I
can say is, you know, dwelling on it can make
it harder for you to move on. I know, dwelling
on it made harder for me to move on. So

(15:18):
you kind of have to balance between how much you
want to see that justice versus the toll that it
will take on you. You know, I do know.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Yeah, it's definitely you know, it's impacted my health, It's
impacted my you know, my intimate relationships. You know, there's
you know, looking at legal options and that is you know,
breathtakingly expensive, and so it's just it just sort of
consumes every aspect of your life and kind of like
exactly what you're saying. You know, there are other people
that were close to me, you know, professionally and personally

(15:50):
who kind of said, yeah, that really sucks, but like
maybe it'll blow over. And it's like, like you were saying,
these people who did this and were this malicious, they're
not going to wake up tomorrow and magically not be delicious,
still be like that. And to think that just because
you weren't the target of at that time, I think
that's a very naive position to take that.

Speaker 4 (16:08):
Well, at least it wasn't me, So I'm not going
to say.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Anything like, well, what if it is you next time, then.

Speaker 4 (16:12):
What are you going to do?

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Oh? Absolutely absolutely you You You see it with really
conservative politicians, you know, who have hardline anti transstances, is
you know, as soon as they get comfortable, they move
on to well, actually I really don't like the gays either.
You know, it's it's once they get they it doesn't stop,

(16:35):
it doesn't stop, right and and quitting leaving because you
got your own and not being there for everybody else
means that you're going to keep having to fight for
your own and and also everyone else loses. So no,
I think, I think socially that's a really really important
point to make. And I'm yeah, that well, that sucks.

(16:59):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
I mean, I appreciate it, you know, And there's a
there's a there's a part of me that's like I
have tried when I can to use my voice and
to speak up and to call attention to bad behaviors
or people are you know, corporations doing things that are
responsible with in my little tiny corner of the world.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
But but I think I think one of the things
that was really saddening to me about this is that
no one repaid that favor. No one stood up and said, hey,
you guys have crucified this dude with no evidence, Like
no one checked to see if this was true, Like
no one took that hard line. That everyone just ran
with it. And it was very disappointing to see people
I've known for literally years just run with it like

(17:38):
that and not even call me and say, hey, dude,
is this true?

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Did you do this?

Speaker 3 (17:41):
You know, and I would never do that to a friend.
I would never never do that to a friend without
having a conversation first. And I think that's what was
the most hard to deal with through all of this.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Oh absolutely gosh. I remember I was in my twenties
early twenties, and I was a supervisor for a small
company and our shared district supervisor was absolutely just the
worst and was doing some really really unethical stuff. And

(18:14):
so I talked to my peers and I said, hey,
if we stand up together, we can we can get
this fixed. And so I stood up and I was
right up at the front, and I led the charge
and I turned around and none of them were there
to get my back. And I remember I remember getting
together with them afterward and saying, Hey, when the time

(18:35):
came to stand up and do the right thing, I
want you to know that the kind of person you
are right now is the kind of person who wasn't
there the time came for you to do the right thing,
and you did it. And I honestly I don't I
did not miss those friendships. And for those people who

(18:56):
three you under the bus, there are better friends.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Friendships, right, I mean, I wouldn't use the word friend
for that. It's really kind of like, you know, there
was I If you don't have my back when I
need you, we're not friends. You know.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
You know this is going to sound really really really dumb.
Somebody shared with me this clip of you know, Tyler
Tyler Perry's Medea character. Yeah, there's a clip from a
play where someone, uh, you know, had had clipped Medea
saying that, you know, treat friends like branches, you know,

(19:35):
and some friends are leaves and when the season comes,
it's beautiful and they they blossom, but when the wind
blows they go. And others are you know, branches on
a tree, and those ones can support your weight, you know,
you don't. You don't hold your weight on the leaves.

(19:55):
You just appreciate them for what they are, you know,
and those branches can, but they're not going to be
there forever, and so you don't lean on them super hard.
And then you have those very very few friends, maybe
one or two, who are roots, who are there to
support you, you know, and and grow you no matter what.

(20:18):
And it's not necessarily about cutting everyone out until you
only have roots, but it can be about just understanding
that not all friends are friends who are going to
be there forever. You know.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, that's helpful, Yeah it is, you know, And there
were you know, I can name three people in my
life who said, hey, hold on a second, let's figure
out what's going on here. Let's talk to Michael and
see what he has to say about this. Let's see
if there's actually any evidence that he did this thing
that you're saying, you know, and then why are you
spreading rumors about this?

Speaker 4 (20:48):
Dude?

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Like, there were three people who took that position, And
obviously I'm credibly grateful for those three people, but I'm
just I'm very disappointed that it was such a small number.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
I guess, yeah, well, I you know, hopefully that can
inform the investment that you've given to those people that,
for sure, fair weather friends aren't going to be there forever.
You can appreciate them for that kind of flash in
the pan, beauty of the season. You know, it's green,
but it's flighty, you know. And sure, I know that

(21:17):
I had a lot of relationships like that when I
was at the ACA, that there were a lot of
wonderful people that I spent time with, But that doesn't
mean that there were people who were going to support
me during the hard times, and I didn't expect them to,
you know that I knew that they wanted to have
their community and be a part of that, and I
wanted to make sure they prioritized that, and so I

(21:37):
didn't ask them to follow me out right.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Yeah, So maybe it's some of this is it sounds like,
you know, if I'm kind of playing off of what
you're saying. Some of this is, you know, my expectation
of my relationships with these people didn't match reality, you know,
So so maybe I shouldn't expect as much from people.
And I have this very perhaps naive thing that you know,
people are inherently good and they will inherently you know,

(22:04):
you know, right, So it's funny, right, and I'm you know,
you know, I was raised like that and I'm thirty six,
so it's like I'm not a kid. But yeah, I
I you know, there were just so many bad faith
actors that it's like I'm sort of reevaluating that a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah. And and and in a world where there is
no cosmic justice, setting your expectations is one of the
few things that you can do to empower yourself in
the situation right, because you can control that. Yeah, I've
used that as a justification for setting strong boundaries. You know,

(22:39):
if I can tell somebody is going to be a
fair weather friend, I set those boundaries and I go, hey,
here's how I interact with you, here's how here's the
amount of relationship we can have. And that's as much
as I'm going to let happen.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Sure, I'm thinking of it like a sort of managing
band with just you. I'm an engineer, so you know,
you're you're allotted this much, this much of my emotional
bandwidth or whatever. Maybe that's the limit, you.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Know, absolutely, that's a wonderful example, you know, I I
whenever I think I another one is like a tap
for water, Like you can only get so much, you know.
And and if even if you're giving a little bit
of bandwidth to a lot of people, once it's full,
it's full. And you know, if I'm going to cap
your download speed so that you know, which in this example,

(23:25):
would be limiting the amount of access that you have
to me. It's because I need to or want to
have resources for hobbies of mine. Things that I enjoy
are other people who deserve, you know, some of my
time and attention as well, and yeah, you got to
advocate that for yourself because yeah, and I'm speaking from experience.

(23:48):
I I have definitely let myself be a a a
doormat in the past.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Uh, And so it's a it was a hard line
us and learned, I'll tell you that. Like, I mean,
I'm glad I learned that lesson. I wish it wasn't
at the price of such trauma. Yeah, you know, to
kind of cap this off, and I know you have
other stuff to move on to, and I'm definitely appreciate
your of your time, but it's to me, you know again,
because I'm so tactical minded, I want to go in

(24:18):
and fix and so to me, it's like this person
thinks this thing about me that's not true, and every
cell in my body wants to go fix that and
have a conversation and say no, here's the information. And
I think the difficult thing for me now is realizing
that those people don't care and they don't give a shit,
and if they cared about factor what was true, they
wouldn't be holding the position that they're in. And yeah,

(24:39):
I'm just getting myself to let go of you know,
just well, just part of my friends would to just go, well,
fuck them, like they obviously don't care. They don't care
about you, they don't care that they're correct or not correct,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, and you can say fuck on this show. You're
you're okay.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
The only reason, the reason I haven't done that always
in the past is I know that I want to
attract like religious callers who can sometimes have their sensibilities upset.
But sometimes a good fuck is exactly the right word.
And so I you're you're super good, Michael. Thank you

(25:16):
for calling in and and and man, I'm sorry you're
dealing with this bullshit. That's that that that really really sucks.
I what else can I tell you? Is there anything else?
I mean, just maybe a little bit of of absurdism,
you know, a little bit of nihilism in that none
of it really matters, you know, And uh, I don't know,

(25:39):
I don't know. It helps me sometimes it makes other
people more depressed than it helps, but helps me. Michael,
I have a wonderful rest of your day. And thank
you for calling.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Thank you, Eric, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Take care. That was sweet. I like that. So, oh
my other caller has dropped out, so I am vamping
in the meantime, if you want to call in, please do.
A lot of people in the comments were saying, oh, hey,
the audio is wonderful. Why was the audio wonderful because
Michael called in with the link tiny dot cc slash Skepchen.

(26:14):
That's tiny dot cc backslash s k E P g
e N and just using an online connection got rid
of a lot of the extra stuff that happens when
people call in on a landline or a cell phone.
And yeah, no, the connection can be really, really wonderful.
So I'm glad that the audio is working out, and
in the meantime, I do kind of want to speak up.

(26:35):
There are people on this sorry in the live chat
who were saying, Eric, where are your producers? Let me
tell you something, There are none ever since v and
I started Skepchen. It was just the two of us.
We have a ton of support outside of the broadcast, right.

(26:58):
We have wonderful call screeners and people who help us
on managing the discord where we do Discord after shows
that are that are managed. If you want to join
the Discord, I will be doing an after show after
this episode and I'd be happy to join. And there
we kind of you know, take the jacket off and
get a little bit more you know, intimate in details,

(27:20):
and I open up a little bit more, and it's
it's nice to kind of have that hangout. So if
you want to see who volunteers and helps, you can
see in the outro for the show. Everyone is thanked
and it is incredibly appreciated. So yeah, that is a thing.
But as far as actually producing the show, I'm doing

(27:41):
that right now. On either side of this camera, I
have two screens. One of them is wirecast, which is
the streaming software that is communicating out to YouTube. On
this screen, I've got the YouTube live feed, making sure
that the connection is up and everything's going out okay.
And then call in studio, where I look at the

(28:01):
calls that have been screened and pick our callers. But really, honestly,
oh good, it looks like somebody who's trying to call in.
I hope they continue to keep trying because that is
a really cool topic. Also, if you want to talk
to me, there is a prompt that I gave for
this episode, and it's about begging the question. So if

(28:23):
anybody does have a thought or disagree with me, please
please call in. Is it begging the question to only
settle on a naturalistic response or a naturalistic evidence for
the existence of a god? Right If somebody says I
believe in a God and you say, provide me evidence,
and they give some kind of supernatural evidence we don't
accept it, is that begging the question? Is trying to

(28:43):
bake in a worldview that our interlocutor doesn't have, and
how do you navigate that? I think that'd be a
really really interesting conversation to have if somebody wants to
call in about that. Anyway. Yeah, so everything is done live.
If I ever sound a little bit distracted, it's because

(29:05):
I am at any given time that you were watching
the show before, and now I'm only able to give
about seventy percent at best, because I'm monitoring the audio levels,
the stream health, and all of these other things that
are going on to make this show happen. In time,
I will be getting a producer. Before we took our hiatus,

(29:29):
we had an Amazon wish list where we gathered together
the parts to create a producer computer. That's what I'm
using right now, but eventually, when I can afford it,
I am going to pay somebody to come down and
sit behind this computer, and I'll be having the camera
pointed elsewhere where I can just focus on calls. And

(29:50):
so while that is a long term goal, that is
definitely the goal that we're going to be going with.
So stay tuned for that. Oh good. Once SR talks
to Evan, I will take them In the meantime, let
me check the live chat and see if anything else

(30:11):
is going on. John, forgive me Eric for the producer comment.
I didn't realize you were the only producer, John, No
worries Eric is going to take some clothes off and
get worried. No, I okay, So first off, there's nothing
to apologize for. If anything, I think that it provides
a little bit of context into why this show is
different from others. Then that's because I don't have someone

(30:32):
who's handling that stuff. I'm doing all the heavy lifting.
There's no way that I could do it without your support.
As an example, let me see if I can bring
this into view. It is because of patron support that
I was able to get this stream deck, and this
stream deck lets me do this. And for people who

(30:59):
are going to be listening to the podcast, what did
Eric just do. I was just showing how the transitions
are done, and without being able to load those in,
there's no way I'd be able to do all of
that on my own. So thank you all for that.
Oh let me see here one moment. Oh, it looks

(31:23):
like Evan is having trouble connecting. If this is the case,
then I may not be able to do a super
long show today. It's not that I don't want to,
it's just that without these conversations, without the bounce back
and forth, there's not really much to go on. But

(31:43):
I'm doing my best. Okay, let me see any other
comments or questions in the comments that I can answer
one moment while I take a look. Nathaniel Thompson asked,
I'd really like some clarification on the closing comment you
made to Michael speaking in regards to nihilism. Yeah, I'd

(32:05):
be happy to so. I feel like nihilism has provided
me with, honestly some hope in certain ways for people
who have not been following me for a really long time.
I have something called clinical depression. It's just my brain

(32:25):
does not create all the chemicals required to not be depressed.
It's just a thing that happens. And so in combating that,
I've found that, you know, realizing I'm not special and
none of us are. But that fact that we're not special,

(32:48):
you know, somehow uniquely chosen by some grand designer, means
that we don't have the pressure. You know. We can
just create value in me, for ourselves and each other
and live up to those things and that be enough.
And I think that's beautiful. When it comes to relationships,

(33:11):
I don't think that there is a the one because
I don't think that there's some unique puzzle piece that
naturally fits me. I think that relationships are special because
when we connect with somebody else on an intimate level
and open ourselves up to developing you know, that relationship,

(33:31):
you build something unique. It isn't so much that you're
trying to live up to some grand design that was
made for you. Instead, everything you are doing is building
that platform. It's not that you find somebody who's perfect
for you. It's finding somebody who is willing to grow
together with you because you're not going to be the
same forever and they're not either. But growing together is

(33:54):
a really, really beautiful thing. And in that way, people
who lose those relationships, you know you're in a long
term relationship. I was in the same relationship from nineteen
until twenty nine. I thought I had my forever person,
and then I realized I wasn't in love anymore. And
instead of trying to force it, I realized that, you know,
I could respect it for what it was. We built
something and that was beautiful. But leaving that didn't mean

(34:17):
that I was doomed to be alone forever. I didn't
lose my forever person, and it means that there's hope there,
you know. And so when it comes to tempering nihilism
with getting shot on by coworkers and peers, the fact

(34:39):
is that your neighbor doesn't give a crap about it.
If you were to tell your neighbor about what you're
dealing with, they don't care. If your neighbor doesn't care,
do you think the person down the street does? And
if they don't, do you think someone in another state does? Now? No,

(35:00):
And that's kind of beautiful. It's kind of beautiful to
contextualize that when it feels like the world is falling apart,
you can justify and go, hey, you know what it's not.
It might seem like that to me, But it's not.
One of the things I'm loving about living in Portland
now is there is a tree nearby backyard that is,

(35:22):
I has to be eighty to one hundred feet tall.
It is so big that I think it would take
four to five people holding hands arms outstretched fully to
fully like go around the trunk of this tree. And
I look at it and I feel so small, and

(35:45):
it's beautiful that in the life of this tree, I'm
just a moment and all of my problems, all my
stresses or fears and frustrations, when viewed through the lens
of that tree, puts me in a context that makes
me feel that it's not all the end of the world.

(36:08):
So I hope that helps. But yeah, when when you
live in a world, when you live in a universe
that wasn't created by some grand designer, and you don't
have some special plan that was picked out just for you,
you know, you don't have that expectation that you're going

(36:29):
to fail some grand thing bigger than yourself. It's it's
kind of wonderful and I absolutely love it. I've got
a few callers and I'm really really grateful for it.
Let's see tighten your A says that's what I call
a mature sense of perspective. Ah, I don't know. Let's
talk to Evan in Washington. Evan, you're live, hey, so

(36:55):
give you just a second. Because I am doing this
live and producing it. I was not able to talk
and fill out your lower third to get your name
in here, so let me just get out. Yeah, thank you,
I appreciate it. Let me just type this in and Evan,
what did you want to talk about today?

Speaker 4 (37:14):
Well, it wasn't last week, but the week before there
was a mild mentioning of Discworld. Oh yeah, and and
into this week we're also talking a bit about self
worth and manner. At least for me, that's what's ringing.

(37:36):
So the Discworld. I was raised in Mormonism and was
highly illiterate. Okay, I was education to crib. But after
I got married, after my mission, I started reading and
the Discorld novels is one of my now wife loved

(37:58):
the Discold novels. Yeah, I was really excited about this.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Right, yeah, Terry practicing.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, he's amazing, really amazing and dynamic in drawing out
how people can be diverse. And one of the characters
I can't is a witch, okay uh? And she was
born with all the traits of evil, and her twin
sister was born with all the traits of goodness. And

(38:29):
the one, the evil one, chose to do good things,
and the one born with all the good power sows
to do bad things. In any event, we chose to
name our children with the with their middle names of
a character from a book who was dynamic, that chose
to be good anyway in spite whatever, And as me

(38:51):
was the name of this witch and anyway. Yeah, inside
my head it feels all big and powerful into the listener.
Probably really not. But for me where this all linked
into was from birth up, my worth was predicated upon God.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah, there it was.

Speaker 4 (39:23):
I was quite young, I mean not even for when
I understood that there wasn't really anything I can do
beyond pleasing him. Even that wasn't sufficient to mark my value.
It was all just predicated on being obedient to him.

(39:43):
And when I started having kids, you know, and we're
throwing out these ideals, it really throws a wrench in
your psychology, you know, because that was a healthy platform
be good despite the whatever and anyways. Self worth was

(40:04):
the pivot it's the one thing, in spite my abuse
of my childhood, I always knew, granted it was because
of God. I knew that I was worthy of love.
No matter how I was treated by my parents or
anybody else, I was worthy of love. And it was

(40:25):
a quandary that that was the pivot that allowed me
to let go of God, that even if he didn't
find me worthy anyway, I was worthy. And it was
in part not I don't want to say, the discold novels,
but my children and watching them grow and while they
didn't understand the deepness of those names who gave them,

(40:48):
as parents who did, and we worked hard to guide
them towards that, and it really is pivotal towards my
health now as an adult. So anyways, that's my ramble,
that's my feet sent.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
I think that's so beautiful. I love that, I I
I I yeah, it is absolutely a head trip. And
speaking to people who were really really deep in the
church and and felt that they only had a value
because of you know, the God who gave them value.

(41:26):
It's it's it's tragic, you know, when you base your
self worth on that. And I I, I definitely do
think that a self worth that's grounded in what we
are creating for each other and what you create for yourself.

(41:47):
It's it's it's just it's so much more cathartic. Isn't
the word that there's there's a there's a tangible quality
to it, you know, And.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
Yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. A word is
eluding me as well.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Right, still the spot, but you know what I'm Yeah, there's.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
A nostalgic that comes to mind, but that isn't quite
right either.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
No, I'm sure the life stret will get will get it,
but he brained. It's a visceral vesceral is the word visceral. Yeah,
there's a there's a visceral quality to creating value for
yourself and recognizing the value in others and seeing that
the value others have is the value that we are

(42:35):
giving and creating for each other.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
And beautiful, Well, you know, one of the Eric One
of the things I like about your show. I like
even Matt Dyla hunts. You love him, love the platform
he provides he has in a wreath. I don't want
to degrade his work, but I want to shine a
little light on yours and even mind shift I can

(42:58):
see it in his work and as are. But I
think it's easy for us to forget what we're indirectly
asking people to do when we even conveyed the notion
that we don't believe God exists. What we're asking them
to do is basically challenge their self worth. Yeah, absolutely,

(43:23):
and where that comes from then in the moment from
my perspective, when I was a believer, I mean, it
was very it felt very aggressive. It felt like something
I need to stand up and fight like a lion
or something. You know. Yeah, on an emotional level, you know,
that's where it was at, you know, because it's your
whole year. Your existence is all credited on that right now,

(43:47):
isn't your existence after?

Speaker 2 (43:48):
It's your existence?

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Yeah? And also you go through the hardest part of it,
right when when when you're deconstructing your faith, you're coming
up against all of the the watson whys and and
starring them can be so difficult that when you finally
do get those answers, you know, and you're finally ready,
you know, odds are you've interacted with people who have
thrown your lack of knowledge in your face as a

(44:13):
reason for you know, oh, well, you don't believe just
because you haven't done the work, you know, and and.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
And you get a lot of that. Oh, absolutely, you're
angry is the biggest one. You're just angry. Well, you know,
however they phrase it, that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
You and and and it's and it is justified. It
is understandable. You know. We just also grow through it.
And I don't think that it's necessarily throwing shade at all,
because I feel like it we it needs all of us,
you know. You know, people do have that angry reaction
often when they leave their faith at first, and honestly, like,

(44:50):
I'm not Matt dill Hunty and I couldn't yet and
I could never be Matt dill Hunty. And there is
a need for that. And I'm grateful that he's doing
that because I couldn't. And I'm glad that I'm here
and me doing what I'm doing because I think that
there's value in what I'm doing as well.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
So right well, I know that I needed it even
after i'd left. You know, there are other people besides you,
like I've mentioned that that try to nurture this arena,
and I'm glad to see it growing. I got one
more signe. I'm sure you got other callers. But aside
from like in the sick of the debate, okay, that's

(45:33):
not the arena that I think we're going to have
fruit on an individual level. It's it's literally going to
be with your neighbor. It's going to be with the
clerk that's ringing up your groceries. It's going to be
for the person who just did a nice thing, waited
for you in line to let you go, or this
that's you know. And the further I've gotten away from
believing in God, just like people could spot me out

(45:56):
as a Mormon, people can kind of spots you out
as an atheist. Things you don't say, you know, and
and that provides a degree of tension. You know, when
the teller lady that's eighty says God bless you and
you don't say it back, it can create a problem.
And I've found I'm unwilling to walk with who I

(46:19):
am if I don't believe, I ain't gonna be tender
for you, you know, but I ain't gonna be rude either.
And so here's what I found Here's what I found out.
I'll finish this, and then I went here is this is.
I'll say to that little old lady, she'll say, bless you.
She was great with the groceries. I'll say, gosh, you've
been an angel. I don't even believe in all that,

(46:39):
and I think.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
So, yeah, oh my god, I'm an angel.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Especially that generation of people. You got to mark. A
sixteen year old wouldn't take it the same way, but
you know, adult is gonna receive that most of the time.
That's been my encounter and what that has done for
my community over a year or two or for your
four Your community absorbs that and it kind of emanates

(47:05):
from you as a persona of who you are, and
it has opened up doors for me to have conversations
with the people at the library later, Hey, I saw
you talk with that lady. Literally that kind of thing
happens to me. Because so that's what we need to do.
I think it's just literally, stand firm with who you are,

(47:25):
but let it be safe for them to believe.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
Let it be safe.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
It would be good when when appropriate. There are times.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
When appropriate, Yeah, challenge the belief, absolutely, challenge that it's
even real or not, but let it be safe for
the individual to express themselves to you personally.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
I so I, I okay, I what I what I
will say is like when someone says bless you to me,
or they say I'll pray for you or God blessed
you know, I'll pray for you. Can be mean, some
mean spirited sometimes by.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
It it's a weapon.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Yeah, But one of the things that I'll say is, oh,
I don't actually believe, but I want to take that
in the spirit that it was given. And I appreciate
the kindness you're expressing there, you know, and and calling
that a kindness that you're recognizing and seeing in that
other person making them feel seen. I've never actually had

(48:24):
a bad experience with that. I've never had somebody pushback
or feel bad about that. And you're absolutely right. Gosh,
before I was ever on YouTube, I was really really
active in the community that I was living in. In fact,
I was really active in the school district. I had
a Santa suit and I would dress up as Santa

(48:45):
and go read stories to the kids at the libraries,
and I, you know, would help the police department collect
toys for kids who weren't going to get toys on Christmas,
and so we'd hand out toys or you know, worked
with a local church to collect food for Thanksgiving for
families who couldn't necessarily afford a Thanksgiving and not saying oh,

(49:05):
you need to come in and get preached to. But
I found churches who were collecting food so that you
give it to them, right, you could give it to
that family and need, so they could go home and make,
you know, a meal with their family. Right. And doing
that I often was it was, you know, told, oh,
you know, you're doing the Lord's work. Oh it's oh,

(49:27):
it's beautiful, God bless them, you know, and and we're
reflecting Jesus's love. And I'd say, oh, I'm actually a
non believer, and just just that, you know, what are
they going to say, how can you be a good
person when you're standing there helping others arm in arm,
side by side, shoulder to shoulder, working to make the
world a better place.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
It opens up conversation, It allows it allows for it
in in a manner it calls for it, you know,
you with how you calling the conversation, You being there
calls for the conversation to happen. But I think too,
you know, when it's especially when it's used as a
weapon when someone's just trying to rub it, you know,

(50:08):
rub the wound as that were. Uh, maybe not these
exact words, but all just say thank you and just
say may all that is good fall upon.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
You, hmm I, you know, like.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
May all that is good fall upon you, because you're
not invoking any blessing from a god. You're just stating
what you hope and that's just your own heart. And
what are they going to say?

Speaker 1 (50:31):
You know, Evan, your Christianese is still very fluent. You
know that.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Oh yes, I'm very good my Christianese. I have not
forgotten the lingo.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
No no I. It's so funny being in non believer
spaces and not hearing say, oh this is on my heart,
oh walking with a thing? Oh you know, like all
of those pieces are just so telling of the community
that you were in. I think it's really fun. I
see you, Evan, and I'm grateful for you. And if

(51:04):
if someone says I'll pray for you, I think I
think the most confrontive that I've been is I'll say,
I want to take that in the spirit that it
was given, and that does not appear to be in
a very kind spirit. And I don't appreciate that, you know,

(51:27):
the the the the intent that you have behind what
you said. I think is really really uncharitable or unkind.
And what are they going to say, Oh no, no,
I meant it, uh uh uh.

Speaker 7 (51:41):
No.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
You know.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
I think I think you're right that there is there
is a time and place, there's always the person, right,
it's going to be the person where you know, you
don't have to be all prickly and lower yourself down
to the level you can just be directing straightforwarhand and
just take this for what it really was. Yeah, I
don't receive, you know. And on the other hand, though,
sometimes that's just all they're wanting. That's what they're wanting.

(52:07):
And and so you got to read the room, you know,
is it just doing them or is it everybody? And
and who is it that's listening? Are they going to
be able to grasp the depth to what you're saying
or not? Yeah, you know, but I think you're right.
I think you're right because I don't want to convey
that we need to just always be la la everything's

(52:27):
good and pretend sometimes we just do need to say no,
I know.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, So I think you And also it totally depends
on you know, where you are in the context. Because
I lived in Texas for a long time, and being
in Texas it was a big deal just to admit
to someone that you were a non believer. And now

(52:55):
I live and now I live in the Pacific Northwest,
and I specifically of in Portland, and I can be
a lot more detailed in things out here because it's
not it's not the same as living in Texas. It's not.
I know, I've got a couple of other callers that
I'd love to talk to. Yeh, But Evan, thank you

(53:17):
for calling.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
I really appreciate it absolutely.

Speaker 4 (53:20):
And I'm just across the river. We might bump into
each other.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Oh my gosh, are you Are you in the cove?

Speaker 4 (53:26):
I am, We're on. We're on. I would tell you personally,
but I'm basically in Vancouver. I'm not yet.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
Okay, Evan, go to the discord. I'll see you in
the after show.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
We'll talk, all right, I'll do the disc I don't
do that stuff. I might even have to download they
half my frame, but I'll do that.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Okay. Yeah, the show is going to be going around
for at least another half hour. I hope to see
you there exactly.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
All right, bye, bye, take care.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
All of that from a prompt of wanting to talk
about discord, it is just so fun. If anybody has
not picked up Terry Pratchett, I do recommend you check
it out because that is a really really just it's
just nice. You know, sometimes you just need something nice

(54:16):
like that. But I do want to talk to Ooh,
let's talk to I have two John's, but I want
to take the John in Canada because I both like
John's question and Canadian phone numbers are a little more
expensive for me to pay for. So I'm just going

(54:37):
to jump in on that. John. You're live on skeptic generation.
Oh I'm doing well. I'm just getting your name in
here so that you can be on the lower third.
And while I do that, talk to me. What did
you want to talk about today?

Speaker 7 (54:57):
Don't know? I know you, I know that you are
a practical well I didn't know what made you lose
your faith?

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Oh my? So first off, do you are you coming
at this from the stance of someone who currently believes
or like what I'm trying to think of the context
around this to help you know inform my response.

Speaker 7 (55:18):
Well, I was. I was raised Catholic and hard to play.
I was raised Catholic and I tried to believe, I
really did, but there was always a doubt.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (55:28):
And then when I became a changer, I realized that
there were other faiths out there, and I said to myself,
how can how come chat can I do the right one?
If there are other faiths? Are they're all pretty much
saying the same thing. And then I found out the
illusion and stuff. I just thought, okay, just can't be real.
But there was still the element of faith lensing. And

(55:49):
now at this very moment, I'm really not sure.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
You know, it is so scary to be in that
place of not being not sure. I first, I want
to commend you for actually being honest about that, because
the type of Christianity that I was in not knowing
was one of the worst things, you know, So I'm
glad you're here. What to me is most important is

(56:16):
that you have good reasons for what you believe, Not
necessarily that you come out of this agreeing with me,
but that you have the epistemic justification, that you have
that toolbox for understanding and believing what you believe for
good reasons. And understanding why you believe the things you
do the zone wanting to know how I lost my faith.
Let me let me see here. It was kind of

(56:38):
a death by a thousand cuts, if I'm going to
be perfectly honest. So it started out with questions as
a believer that I just didn't understand, you know, like
the logistics of Noah's ark, you know, when you're when
you're a young teenager, you know, you you kind of
want a little bit more detail, and then you know,

(57:01):
kind of really roughly formed versions of the problem of evil, right,
why do bad things haupen to good people? That kind
of stuff? In my church, questions like that got put
down in a way that was not I wasn't given
satisfactory explanations, and eventually I was kind of alienated more

(57:27):
and more, not talked to, and treated more and more
like an outsider by my own church. And so at
that point I still was a full on believer. I
just thought that my church probably didn't have it right,
So I'm going to go find where God is. And
at that point, I was in high school and I

(57:49):
had a little bit more wiggle room, and I was
able to go to church with different friends I had
a Mormon friend. I went with them to their their
their their church. I did Methodist, Catholic, Southern Baptist. Was wild,
you know. I did, let's see a good number of

(58:14):
Christian And then I started kind of moving outside of that.
I had a really good friend who was behind that.
I spoke to a lot. I would have had a
Taoist friend. She was in her sixties and I adore her.
She spent a decade on a nudist colony in the
Pacific before moving back to the States, and she lent

(58:35):
me her copy of the Doo, and so I read
the Dow. I had a friend who was going to
a local Native American sweat lodge and we're doing kind
of spiritual practices with the the indigenous you know group,
you know, the first First Nations people uh in the area.
And so I was invited and talked to a lot

(58:57):
of people, and then I started really kind of getting
really wooy right, So I each of these places I
went and went, Okay, I understand these people have a
relationship with God and and but it's not right. I'm
trying to find where God is and God isn't here exactly,
you know. It feels like everybody here has has something,
but it's not it's not right. And so I started

(59:20):
getting really kind of out there and changing my definition
of God so that I could try and still work.
I didn't want to let go of the God belief,
so I needed to shift what that God was so
that I could keep it. And I said, well, maybe,
you know, maybe God is some permeating force that just

(59:40):
is the universe, you know. And so I would do meditation.
I did. I did. I did some drugs, you know,
as respectfully as I could, and you know, tried to
get in touch with that that that concept of a
of a collective unconscious and yeah, and so eventually I

(01:00:03):
kind of went, Okay, I'm messing with my brain chemistry.
That's fun, but messing with my brain chemistry is not
a good way to come up with, you know, answers
to what the real world is. I'm taking drugs, So
I put that down. And I remember I had a friend.
I was living in California, and I had a friend

(01:00:25):
who was going to UCLA and at UCLA he was
in the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pie, and I would
go and party with them on the weekends there were
great guys. Everyone there was just super, super sweet. And
there was a rabbi there who I would talk to,
and you know, he was there to kind of be

(01:00:48):
there for the for the students of the fraternity. And
I had all these aggressive questions that I'd built up
over time that nobody, to my satisfaction, had added. You know,
at a certain point, I felt like I was a
broken and like I was a TV with a broken antenna,
you know, or radio with a broken receiver. You know,

(01:01:09):
that maybe I'm just broken because everyone else can have
this wonderful, beautiful thing called faith and I just don't
have it, and what is wrong with me? And I
was asking these questions and this rabbi looks at me
and goes, Eric, if you don't believe, then just don't believe.

Speaker 7 (01:01:29):
A rabbi told you that he did, Oh he did.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Well, you got to understand that rabbis aren't necessarily like
they don't have the great commission to convince you to believe.
You know. He said, if you don't believe, just don't believe.
That's fine. And I thought to myself, I didn't even
really consider that as an option, like I could do that,
you know, And so after that I put it down,

(01:01:58):
and I tell people I became an apatheist. I didn't care,
you know, I was apathetic about religion. And it wasn't
until later that I got back into it and really
kind of fell in love with reading the Bible actually,
which is funny and counter apologetics and the philosophy behind

(01:02:19):
arguing against some really really bullshit arguments for the existence
of God. It became a hobby, is something that I
really loved, and that kind of one thing led to another,
and here I am interesting.

Speaker 7 (01:02:34):
So does that death five thousands?

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Right? I know that's a really long story, but I
kind of I don't want to, like, I don't want
to make you think that it was, you know, just
one random thing that happened and shifted me. And I
wouldn't want it to be one random thing that happens
and shifts you, because if you change your mind on
a dime, you're likely to change your mind again on
a dime instead ground what you believe in in good

(01:03:02):
reason and evidence, and when you do that, you're able
to back it up and defend it. And I feel
like those are the the views, the the the the
those are the things that I think can be held
most strongly is true, you know, because you can back
it up and you can you can you can argue

(01:03:23):
for it. So anyway, does any of that help or
or kind of contextualize anything for your own journey?

Speaker 7 (01:03:34):
Yeah, it does help, because I want to know where
it is I believe, and know exactly where it is,
like you said, be able to defend it, but not
just do those people myself, because there's a make sense
to believe that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
You have what evidence for right? Oh yeah, but but
but here's the thing is, if you take a look
at oh my goodness, live chat help me with the
this philosopher Christian who responded to nihilism with this this

(01:04:11):
Oh my goodness, what is his name, Kirkerguard, so soaring
kirk of Guard. I believe it was Careguard. The live
chot will correct me said that, you know, believing without
good reason, right, and believing even though there's not enough
evidence to support it, made you a better Christian? Oh,

(01:04:36):
I know, right, and and and he he felt that
making the decision to take that leap of faith and
accept that a God exists even when there's not good
reason for it really kind of showed your dedication and
and and really truly showed you as a great Christian.
So I feel like, John, you might be taking for

(01:04:59):
granted this idea that you know you should have good
reason for what you believe. Not everybody thinks that. So
cheers to you for being there.

Speaker 7 (01:05:08):
Okay, I just have one question.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Yeah, what's up? Yeah, I'm sorry, say one more time?

Speaker 7 (01:05:17):
I want. Do you miss it sometime?

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Do I miss it? No?

Speaker 6 (01:05:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Okay, no, No, I'll just contextualize for you. I missed
the community that I felt that I had because I
felt like I was a part of something where there
were people I could spend time with and have things
in common with. And when I learned that I could
get those feelings from other communities that I was a

(01:05:43):
part of, and I realized that like the religion did
not have a stranglehold on feeling like you belong, that
was the last piece that fully let me let go.
So no, I don't miss it.

Speaker 7 (01:05:58):
Oh you have a new family now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
And just you know with I'm into a whole bunch
of a whole bunch of things. I got into building
my own vapes, I got into a community around that,
I got into magic, the gathering. There's a massive community
around that. I got into, uh, metalworking. I got into
blacksmithing for a while, and the people there are incredible

(01:06:25):
leather working right. These maker communities, these these fan communities,
world of warcraft I got into, and I got to
tell you I made some friends for life. Final Fantasy fourteen.
You know, I you know music. You know there's some
people who are just so die hard when it comes
to music that they they create these amazing connections that
last them for the rest of their lives. And they
get this this sense of belonging that that I was taught,

(01:06:49):
you only got from church. So I missed it until
I found out that I didn't need it and I
could get those things elsewhere, and then I didn't, and
then I stopped missing it.

Speaker 7 (01:07:01):
Oh, I'm happy for you really to me, really been
very helpful. Have a good day.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Hey, you too, and good luck in your journey and
I I I so appreciate that you're going through what
you're going through, and just take your time with it,
and I hope to hear from you again. Let me
know where you wind up, even if we disagree.

Speaker 7 (01:07:23):
Okay, I'll get a good day, all right, you too?

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Bye?

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
John O.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
That was sweet. I know that's probably a lot for
people who followed what I've done for a really long time,
but hopefully that helps. All Right, let's go to the
next John, because they've been waiting for a long time.
John in Texas, you are live. Oh Hi, Hello, Eric,
Oh hello, I'm sorry I had to turn the volume

(01:07:52):
way up for the last caller, so you blasted my
ear drums out. Can you say something again?

Speaker 5 (01:07:58):
Oh, I'm very sorry about that. I was saying, hello, Hello.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Okay, I've got it adjusted. No, it's not your fault,
no worries. So let me just change the name here
and get you going. In the meantime, John, what did
you want to talk about?

Speaker 5 (01:08:14):
So I called a few weeks ago and spoke to
you and Drew, and I just really wanted to thank
you for the advice that you've given me, because it
really has worked, even though it was a struggle at first. Yeah,
gave me advice on setting boundaries with my fist family. Eh. First,
it did not go as I was planning, like they

(01:08:35):
were just really really angry, they were mad. In fact,
they didn't want to see me for a few weeks.
And I even get to see my kids for about
two weeks. But then they reached out to me and
they're like, you know what, we really do miss you,
and we understand that you don't believe and we still
think that you're going to go to hell and stuff
like that. But they just kind of reached out and
were like, well but we still love you.

Speaker 4 (01:08:55):
Kind of a thing.

Speaker 5 (01:08:57):
That's a start, So I think that that's gonna kind
of help out. And even my five year old son
was asking, well, where's my daddy? Where is he? Why
can't I see him? And I think that's really what helped,
is that he really wants to see me. And even
though they are afraid that I'm going to turn my
son into an atheist, I think they're just kind of

(01:09:19):
starting to accept the fact that, you know what, this
is our son and we need to be in his life.
And even though the mother of my kids is like,
you need to be in your kid's life, and I
one of percent agree. So I'm really happy about that
advice that you gave me. Yeah, having to give them
that talk about boundaries.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
And you're going to find that you're not going to
need to tiptoe as much as you did before. And
it's really really wonderful I will tell you because you'll
probably find yourself in this situation. I remember when I
first started setting those boundaries a scenario where I was

(01:10:02):
with those people for a holiday and they all got
together around the table and they all joined hands and
then they looked at me so awkwardly. It was so
uncomfortable then, yeah, and there was this no, no, no,

(01:10:23):
and there was this feeling from them of like, are
we allowed to pray in front of you? You know?
And I remember I took that as an opportunity to
show grace, and I said to them, please don't let
me interrupt you doing your faith traditions, like faith traditions
I understand are really important to you. Please please go ahead.

(01:10:47):
I'll be right here. And doing that prevented them from
trying to browbeat me into joining them, and it also
made them feel comfortable doing what they were doing and
recognizing that I was, you know, just just right out

(01:11:07):
there rooting them on. They could do whatever they want
to do and that was fine and it really helped.
So if you do find yourself in that position, advice
for me, that's what worked for me.

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):
Well, thank you, it's kind of working for me now, yeah,
I mean it does kind of feel weird to, you know,
be at the dinner table with them, Like yesterday, I
went and spent some time with them, spent the whole day,
spend some time in the pool, but my dad grilled
some burgers and hot dogs, and yeah, yeah, it kind
of felt weird to be holding their hands during a prayer.

(01:11:38):
But I was just glad to be able to spend
some time with my family and they can just see
me as a son, even though that they think that
I'm going to be going to hell and they're still
trying to give me those little sermons when I'm just like,
we're not, I don't want to talk about this right now.
We'll talk about this later, and later is basically going
to turn into never. But while we're starting to respect
the fact that I really don't want to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
Yeah, and if they do really want to talk about it,
they need to be open to listening to you and
hearing what you have to say. That talking to you
is not evangelizing to you, And if they want to
evangelize to you, that's inappropriate. But if they want to
talk to you, that conversation goes both.

Speaker 5 (01:12:14):
Ways, right, But I do feel like that they're trying
to raise my son though, and I do have an
issue with that. And in fact, yesterday my son even
asked my dad, who is a preacher, by the way,
is God real? And I was really proud of my
son for asking that question because he's only five years old.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
Wow, But my dad.

Speaker 5 (01:12:33):
Started going into like this whole speech of oh, yes,
God is real and you can see him in every
little things like well, why can't I see him well,
because he's invisible, but he's there. And I'm just thinking, son,
whenever you grow up, I'm going to tell you all
about evolution. I'm going to tell you all about skepticism,
and I want you to become I basically want you

(01:12:55):
to be a skeptic. I want you to be a
successful person, but I want you to be happy. I
don't know thing like I don't want him to be
in doctrin needed like I was. Even though that, I
think my parents are trying to have more influence over
him than I would like. But that's that's something for
another day.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
I think a good goal would be hoping that you're
hoping that your child has good reasons for believing the
things that they believe.

Speaker 5 (01:13:19):
Personally and Also another thing is that my wife or
my ex wife basically is also a Christian, so that's
another issue. Yeah, but but she's starting to accept the
fact that I don't believe. At first, whenever it came
out through that I wasn't a believer, she started threatening,
will I won't let you see the kids if you
don't believe, as if like that threat would make me

(01:13:41):
start living and God again?

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Right, yeah, no, that that's a funny one. But I
keep with it. And also, you know, when it comes
to evangelizing to your kid, you know, as they understand

(01:14:03):
you more, talk to them and say, hey, you know
what you're doing by preaching to my kid? Just think
about if I were to pull them aside every time,
even in front of you, and tell them, you know
that I that that God believe is silly and not true.
How that would make you feel?

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:14:23):
I didn't talk to my son about it, just simply
because I don't want to cause any problems. Right, So
he's not at the age of reasons yet.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
No, No, I'm thinking about your your father, Oh yeah, yeah, right,
that there is an impact to what he's doing, and
that impact, right I. I I will give an example
that's kind of close to home. But I feel like

(01:14:52):
it's okay. Is when I when I was, Actually it
might be a little too close to home. I'll put
it this way. You talking about being an atheist may

(01:15:14):
make them uncomfortable, and them talking about their Christianity might
make you feel uncomfortable. But I feel like the best
thing is to recognize that it's uncomfortable, for everyone to
recognize that, and for everyone to help share the carrying
the weight of that. That way, you don't have to
be the only one carrying all that weight. That if

(01:15:37):
it's going to be uncomfortable, that they can be uncomfortable
a little bit too. It's not just on you.

Speaker 5 (01:15:44):
Right, because I mean, we have different points of view
and so they conflict with each other. Yeah, so obviously
there is a little bit of discomfort. But you know
what really does grind my gear as.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
An atheist, though, what's up?

Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:15:57):
Whenever a theist tells me that since I don't have
anything to base my morals off of, that I am
a horrible person, that I have no morals and that
I approve of horrible things like yesterday to some person
yesterday was like he kept telling me, well, if you
don't believe in God, or if you don't believe in anything,
you can't base your morals off of anything. So you're

(01:16:17):
okay with child trafficking. I'm like, no, I am not
okay with that. In fact, as an atheist, my morality
comes from empathy and from common sense.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:16:27):
So my rule is that which I wouldn't want done
to me, I don't do to others. So, man, just
as I wouldn't want my old children to be trafficked,
I don't want other people's children to be traffick because
it's a horrible thing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
Right, So, John, you're not gonna believe this, but this
is the action. This is actually the full topic of
what the next caller is calling in about. So oh wow, yeah, no,
this is a perfect segue. So I'm gonna I'm gonna
take advantage of it. John, Thank you for calling in,
and I hope you stay tuned because this next conversation
that I'm gonna have has everything to do with well, right, says.

Speaker 5 (01:17:00):
All right, that's fine. I don't want to steal to
go next guys thunders them with a different topic. But
thank you for taking my call. Oh and by the way,
thank you for giving me about that producer comment. I
didn't realize that you were the only producer and that
was me who made that comment.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
But thanks, oh that there's no offense. Honestly, I think
the best thing I can do is be proud of
it because I'm I think I'm I agree kicking butt,
but there's no there's no offense taken. You're super good,
no worries. If anything, it gave me the opportunity to
bring that up and let people know because yeah, like
right now I'm talking to you, I'm having this conversation,

(01:17:35):
and I'm also checking the live chat, the chat from
my moderators. We have got a private chat so that
they can send me messages, checking the audio levels and
the connection to YouTube. So like it's always this constant,
you know, juggling act but doing my best.

Speaker 5 (01:17:51):
All right, Well, keep kicking this out there. Man, you're
doing a great job.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
Appreciate you, John, Thank you for tuning in.

Speaker 5 (01:17:57):
All right, by bye?

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
What a sweetheart. All right with that, sad, let's move
on to our next caller. They're using a pseudonym philosophistry.
I absolutely love that you are live. How's it going awesome?

Speaker 8 (01:18:17):
I'm doing well. How's your day going today.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
Doing well, I'm just trying my best. It says that
you want to talk about the atheist atrocities fallacy, which
is kind of exactly what I was talking to the
last caller about. Do you want to kind of tea
us up? Uh?

Speaker 8 (01:18:36):
Yeah, so I guess you know. I talked to a
lot of Christians through multiple platforms online and also people
of other religions, and one of the things that they
bring up often is, you know, they'll say things like, oh, well,
you atheists, you've you've killed the most. You know, your
worldview isn't tenable because of Hitler, because of Mao, because

(01:18:57):
of Stalin, because of pol Pot, because of you know,
any other name that they can think of to throw
in there. And you know, I just I got to
push back against that when I hear it pretty much
every single time, because you know, there's if if you
actually zoom in, if you if you if you are
a student of history and you look at all the details,

(01:19:19):
it's like Germany at the time was like a eighty
nine to ninety something percent, you know, Christian nation. And
one of the first things that Hitler did was band
membership in Free thought community in the freethought communities. I mean,
he did that even before I think the the signing

(01:19:40):
the reis concord out with the Catholic Church. So it's
always just really interesting to me and I kind of
wanted to get your take, Like, am I off base
in pushing back against some of this stuff because none
of it was done in the name of atheism. But
if we actually look back at the atrocities, you know,
there's like, uh, the what was it the Pope Nicholas,

(01:20:03):
the edict that he did saying that you can you
may enslave non Christians, or if you go back all
the way back to like the fourth century when they
when Constantine said that, yeah, it's really cool for Christians
to you know, destroy the pagan temples, to kill the
worshippers of idols and stuff like that. So pretty much

(01:20:25):
ever since Christianity's formation, it's been like a bloodbath, right.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Oh, it's even worse. It's even worse because it's been
around since before Christianity. It was around in in in Torah,
it was in the Old Testament, I believe it was uh,
I think it was Genesis or Exodus where it says
take your slaves from the from the people's around you, right,
you have in the conquest of Canaan, you that they

(01:20:54):
were commanded to to, you know, absolutely eradicate. And I
mean we're talking like genocide, the the Amalek Heights, the well,
I mean huge you know, groups swaths of Canaanites and
all of that was done. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:21:15):
No, So.

Speaker 1 (01:21:17):
If we want to get into like the the nitty
gritty of it, I think that it's I think it's
good to stand up against that. I remember one of
the worst debates I'd ever been in. You probably still
find it online. I was invited to a two v
two too on two debate with It was in Nashville, Tennessee.

(01:21:42):
I remember they paid me nothing. It cost me like
over one thousand dollars just to get there and get
a hotel, and the moderator wound up turning it into
his own podcast. So it was just it was just
really cringey. But the person, one of the people that
I was debating against, they said that, you know, oh

(01:22:03):
well atheists. Being an atheist means that you need to
be okay with you know, genocide and all of that stuff,
because what's to stop you, right, There's no there's no,
no objective morality. And I think that pointing things out
like oh why you know what? What makes something objective?

(01:22:27):
You know? The the the old line of argument there
is are you good because God tells you to be?
And if that's the case, are you good at all?
Or are you just being a good follower? And the
other side of the other side of that is if
you say, if you see that God is good because

(01:22:49):
of the good things that are that are you know
that are becoming evident? Then is God good or are
you just are you like, are you giving God that
quality of goodness versus that God having goodness you know, intrinsically.
And so it as a thought experiment for non believers

(01:23:11):
just navel gazing, I think it's it's really like cool
to bring up, and especially when you're talking to believers
who are willing to listen, it's important to to kind
of bring those things up. But ultimately, recently, I so,
I'm I'm sorry, I'm scattered all over the place because
there are so many different places I want to jump in,
I'll say, recently.

Speaker 5 (01:23:32):
Adhd, I'm all over.

Speaker 1 (01:23:34):
The same here, same here, Okay, okay, so so you
understand me. Okay, one second, M Okay, So recently I
was interacting with oh, uh, an internet Christian apologist who's

(01:23:55):
just a pain in the ass, and and the uh,
the line of reasoning that they were giving was, oh,
if you're if you believe in evolution, then you believe
in survival of the fittest. And to be consistent, you
must also, you know, be against adoption and taking care

(01:24:18):
of the sick because they're a drain on society. And
you know, also if you don't believe in a god
and you believe in evolution, then you have to be
against charity or helping the elderly because they're all a
drain and you know, and just kind of creating those
those awful, those awful comparisons and ultimately evolution, Right, the

(01:24:41):
theory of evolution is not social Darwinism, right, Darwinian Darwinian well,
absolutely Darwinian evolution has to do with outside factors influencing
successive generations and being able to survive the best that

(01:25:03):
they can and that eventually leading to speciation. That is
a conversation about, you know, describing what you're seeing. Right.
Social Darwinism is people trying to trying to take that
and make it and ought and go, we ought to
have survival of the fittest. And that's really kind of
what informed Hitler and those people when it came to

(01:25:26):
thoughts of genocide is kind of developing that uber mensh
mentality and and the fittest and the strongest have deserved
to survive the most and recognizing that that's not evolution,
that's social Darwinism. Pointing that out is important. Let's see

(01:25:49):
what else. Narcissism is a thing. You know, you're not
talking about evolution or atheism. We're talking about narcissism. You know, Oh,
you can do whatever you want. You can be cruel
to people. Not everyone wants to be cruel. And if
you're assuming that that's a really really weird narcissism that
you're placing on everybody else, But you are discussing narcissism

(01:26:10):
and not the topic that you think you're discussing, or
you could be discussing, Oh, I had a whole list
that I was working working on recently, but just every
step along the way, recognizing those things for what they
are and pointing them out, defining them is better. But

(01:26:34):
if you want a fallacy at the heart of it,
what you can point out is it is the appeal
to consequences. I believe the the consequence the appeal to consequences,
the ad conse equation. I forget how to pronounce it.

(01:26:57):
But essentially, if they are trying to like, even if
you grant the consequences that they're trying to provide, which
are terrible, right, even if you were to give them
the vast version of their argument that you can, what
it is is it's a It's an appeal to consequences.
So essentially this thing is bad. I don't like it,
therefore it's not true. So point that out, say, okay,

(01:27:23):
well you want to talk about if you want to
talk about holocaust and genocide, let's talk about it. So
it was terrible, right, You don't like that it was bad,
so therefore it never happened, right, right, And and they'll
they'll they'll shut up real quick because you know they're
not go most people are not Holocaust deniers, but regardless,

(01:27:45):
but yeah, at the heart of that argument is the
I don't like it, therefore it's not true. And pointing
that out has helped me.

Speaker 8 (01:27:53):
Sure. If we go back to when you had mentioned
the objective morality that they that they feel like they
have some sort of objective morality. One of the things
that I often like to point out is that just
because your book doesn't change doesn't mean that the ways
that you interpret it don't change. And so if it's
subject to interpretation, then your morality is no longer objective,

(01:28:18):
and by definition it is subjective.

Speaker 6 (01:28:20):
Now.

Speaker 8 (01:28:20):
So like way back, who was a Giordano Bruno who
was burned at the stakes for teaching a bunch of
things that now we just accept as commonplace. But at
the time when he was burned at the stake, it
was because they went against church teachings. It's like, well,
but you wouldn't do that to somebody now, but you
would do it then because he was going against the

(01:28:42):
Church's teachings. Therefore, you do not have objective morality. Your
morality has changed between then when that was okay and
now where you wouldn't do that at all.

Speaker 1 (01:28:54):
You're absolutely right, Yeah, from God, from from from the
from the apostles to the first members of the Christian Church,
to the councils of Trent and Nicea to to uh

(01:29:19):
to Thomas Aquinas you know, all the way through to
you know, uh Rat Singer and uh you know Martin
Luther King, right, each of them they think that they
pray to the same God, but the God that they
believed in was one that closely aligned to the principles
and moral viewpoints that they did. Their God changed with them,

(01:29:40):
because that is what ultimately they're doing, is they're creating
their God and it is constantly being adjusted. And while
while that is to me, to me true, it's not
going to get you anywhere in conversation with Christians, unfortunately,
I've tried it. But I do want to affirm to

(01:30:01):
you that, yeah, I know you're right, you are cool. Yeah,
but uh yeah, thank you for calling in. And it's
it's such a distasteful argument. Ultimately, you can also view
it technically as as a straw man argument, right that
I want to talk about what you are talking about. Instead,

(01:30:23):
They're going to create something that they can easily tear
down and attack that instead, right, So that's a straw
man And yeah, we can, we can go on, but
I hope to hear from you again. This is a
good topic. Yeah, have a great Sunday, you too, Bye bye. Okay,

(01:30:47):
So I do have Brendan in the queue, but I
got to tell you when it comes to hosting and
producing at the same time, and and and all of that.
Not being able to walk away means that when you've
got to go to the restroom, really gotta go. So
I sincerely apologize, and Brendan, I hope that you call

(01:31:07):
in next week because I really would love to talk
to you, but I am human and I have got
to go to the restroom. So that said, I'm going
to start wrapping things up. I want to, as always,
read these super chats and it looks like Terrible Liar
said here to help pay those pesky Canadian phone calls.
Terrible Liar, thank you that five bucks absolutely does help

(01:31:29):
and I sincerely appreciate it. Thank you all for sticking around.
I hope you all have a wonderful Saint Patrick Saint
Patrick's day today. And yeah, for those of you who
want to join me in the after show, hop onto discord.
Link is in the description to this video. I hope

(01:31:49):
to see you there and stay tuned because in the
outro I do thank our patrons. If you want to
become a patron, uh, you can go to patron dot
com las Skeptic Generation and get access to all kinds
of cool stuff. And every little bit helps to make
this show happen. So thank you for for your support,

(01:32:12):
and also stay tuned for the volunteers because also in
the outro, I think the volunteers and I would not
be able to do it without them, So thank you
for joining me. I hope you have a wonderful rest
of your day. I'll see you in the live show
and see you next week. Oh, I gotta remember to
say our, our, our, our closing line I always for

(01:32:32):
I've been forgetting it. I'm Eric Murphy and I'm glad
we had this talk.

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Just Begging The Question! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 6 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;}Just Begging The Question! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 6 Season 3