God-Hating, Logical Necessity, and Dealing with Dogma | Talk Heathen 09.47 - Talk Heathen

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I cannot count how many times I have been told
by Christians that I need to read my Bible. It's
almost as if they want me to discover how completely
illogical their religion is, how immoral their gods are, how
inhumane and therefore tragic. The concept of Christianity is Read
your Bible is probably the worst advice you can give

(00:23):
to somebody, because there's a high likelihood, at least based
on the number of former Christians, that I know, that
they're going to walk away with less belief. That was
certainly the case with me as a student minoring in
history and or excuse me, studying history and minoring in
religious studies, I was forced to reconcile the acceptability that
Abraham impregnated his slave and then banished her and her

(00:45):
child into the wilderness only after attempting to murder his
second son, who he had with his wife. This is
the man we look to as the patriarch for Judaism
and Christianity. I'm supposed to show deference to a god
who kill an entire nation's firstborn children, to compel a
pharaoh to release Hebrew slaves for which there is no

(01:07):
archaeological record to support, no the evidence or lack thereof,
that Christians try to use to prove their God actually
demonstrates the fallibility of their harmful dogma and significantly decreases
the likelihood that their beliefs are true. But do you disagree?
If so, please give our show a call because it's

(01:30):
starting right now. Yes, yes, folks, you know what time
it is when you hear that tune. It is one
pm Central. It is Sunday, and it is time for
talking than Today is November twenty third, twenty twenty five.

(01:50):
I'm your host today, Jimmy jun you're joining me? Is
my good friend, the wonderful Scott Dickie Scott. How the
heck are you today?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I'm doing great, Jimmy doing great? Excuse me, My wrote,
how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (02:02):
I'm doing great? I am Yeah, I am enjoying my weekend.
I am happy to cap it off this fine Sunday
with some good calls. I know that we have somebody
in the queue right now waiting for us, waiting for you. Scott,
you have a fan, and I'm not surprised because slash stalker.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Maybe I don't know. Yeah, yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I'll go so shout out, shout, out to uh to
Scott's fan there. We're going to get to your call
in a second, but I just want to remind me,
remind everybody. The Talk Heathen is a product of the
Atheist Community of Austin. We are a five oh one
c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism,
critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government.

(02:43):
And we are a live call in show. Folks. We
have lines open, so please get your calls in right
now at five one two nine nine nine two four
to two are from your computer at tiny dot cc
forward slash call t H. You know, I have been
in the comments of my my late YouTube promo for
this week. I've seen the post on the ACA and

(03:07):
talk he than Facebook. There's a lot of people commenting.
There's a lot of people that don't like what I
or we have to say about the character of God
and Jesus in the Bible. They don't like what we
have to say about their evidence. They've got an awful
lot to say in the comments, and they are always
always invited to call, and they never never do. And
that just goes to show you how crap your arguments

(03:29):
must be if you're just unwilling to defend them. I
think that their God wants them to defend it, isn't
I mean, isn't that true? Doesn't the Bible say somewhere
they think.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
That's in firs Peter? Right? Yeah, you should always be
ready to give good reason for the joy in your life,
and here we're waiting. We want to hear the good
reasons lay it on us.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know we're not only
open to just discussing Jesus and God as immoral characters
as they might be, but we're ready to talk about
whatever you want to talk about. So if you have
questions or comments on any god, any religion, secular humanism,
atheistic morality, you name it, history, science, whatever the case

(04:10):
may be. We've got a show and we're willing to
give our opinions. So give us a call and let's
see if we can, I don't know, provide you some
some insightful tips in any case. You know, Scott, I've
been up to a few things lately. You know, you
and I hosted about a month ago together, right, and
this is part.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Two, Yes, this is part two. Ready, let's bring it.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
And so I want to. I want to let you know,
like what I've been up to lately.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, what's going on.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
So so we've had, you know, some talk about building community,
building atheist community. We did a nonprofit show if you
maybe about a month ago, talk about the importance of
building community. So I have really good news, as you
may know. And you're a teacher, you're an educator just
like me. The university that I teach at is actually

(04:58):
religiously affiliated. I don't want to get into d tell uh,
but I have been working with the Secular Student Alliance
and with the school itself, and I was just approved
to start a chapter at that school.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
So all right, congratulations.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Thank you so much. I am super thrilled about it.
So a religiously affiliated school. They've got an LGBTQ group,
which is great. They've got a Muslim Students Alliance, They've
got Christian students and and and different sects of Christianity
will have their own groups there. And I thought, well, heck,
what am I doing here? And I'm not. I'm not
doing anything for the secular students that are out there.
So that is that is big news. And I am

(05:34):
so does your.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
College have a good sized secular student community.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
I don't know. I yeah, hey, at tomorrow morning at
zero eight hundred or eight am, I should say, all
the students and faculty are going to get an email saying, hey,
join me in starting the new the new SSA chapter.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
So uh right, you're ready for the title wave of
support that's going to come your way. I sure, for
sure that's going to happen.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I cannot wait. So yeah, hopefully that goes well. But
you know, we have got other things to do, don't we.
So I wanted to give everybody an update. You know, folks,
if you are not sure what you could be or
should be doing, just get on your get on the website,
you know, secular, secular group near me, Atheist group near me,
Humanist group near me, and just see what comes up.

(06:21):
I've been attending an Ethical Society lately. I've been going
for about the last month, and so that's been good.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
I've been reaching out to groups to see where I
can be helpful, and I'm finding, you know, inroads of
my own, and I think that you can all be
doing that. You don't need to feel like it would
be too hard or too complicated. You know that you
can't do it, you can definitely do it. So in
any case, folks, we are going to go to our
first caller. We got Donald on the line. Donald, you've

(06:50):
talked to us before, you've talked to Scott before, and
you're about to talk to us again. So you're on
the line with Jimmy and Scott. How the heck can
we help you today?

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Donald?

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Hey, I wanted to go back to previous arguments uh before.
One of the objections that later on happened uh after
was the indefinite causal order. So I need to I
need to clarify this of of there's different types of

(07:21):
cause causation. Indefinite causal order show shows like if you
have a superposition of particles, you can't say, oh, which
which one caused the other? In linear time, like which
caused it first? But that's that's linear causation. That's like
causation like in time, this happened before before this. What

(07:44):
I need to clarify is I'm talking like hierarchical causation
like it it it it exists, like like taking the example,
you have two particles in a superposition, for for and
you don't know which cause the other. There's still dependent
on the hierarchy of oh there's space. There's space, so

(08:09):
there's so there's different positions that make that, make that,
that make that a possible, that get that give it
it a reason. So there's a difference between like causes
and like linear time and like causes hierarchy. But the
problem I do I probably shouldn't have gone with the
causation way because there's other objections to framing as causation,

(08:34):
like bertrand Russell.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Uh, when you're sorry to jump in here, down, I
just want to clarify a couple of things here before
we get too deep into this, are you. So this
was all to give a little context for for our listeners.
Here we were talking about you were making the claim
that there's at least some aspect of mathematics that is prescriptive,
in other words, kind of forcing the universe to be

(08:56):
a particular way or directing a universe. You're when you're
talking about causation and a hierarchical causation, do you mean
like like a meta causation, like what is causing the
system the causation system that we have to be enforced
or or are you saying something else here?

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. It's like the it's
like the structure of of of causes. So like an
example is like okay, like to do an analogy music
depends on a minstrel's outgoing performance or or back with

(09:36):
what we were saying, like you have a superposition and
of particles an indefinite causal order that's in definite causal
order in like linear causal in time, but it's still
it still has the reason of of of the structure
of space of different positions that make it possible.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
So there's okay, I'm not really sure how this is
connecting to what you were talking about before. Are you
saying that this this causation structure is kind of forcing
the universe to be a particular way, because I remember
from last time that we spoke, and by the way
I was joking about the stalker thing, you're definitely not not,
So I don't want to. I wanted to make sure
that that was clarified there, but I appreciated that you

(10:18):
called back in and I was really looking forward when
I saw your name on the list here today. But
last time we talked about whether or not there is
prescriptive laws or guidance in the universe. And because we
know that at the very least that mathematics and science
are descriptive. We know that because that's what they're based on,
that's what they were developed on. If we want to

(10:41):
suggest that there is something prescriptive, there's an additional thing
to be demonstrated, and you need to show that that
you know that things could not have turned out some
other way and or you know what what is causing
this this prescriptive aspect of it. I mean, there has
to be that was the step that you were missing before.

(11:03):
You know, how do we make that leap from descriptive
to prescriptive? From what I've heard so far, and I'm
not sure where exactly where you're taking this, it doesn't
seem like they're like you're establishing that particular connection. And
I do want to give Jimmy a chance to jump
in here to Jimmy, do you have anything you want
to add before we before we let Donald kind of

(11:24):
tackle that that one hurdle that that's kind of been
dogging him last couple of times. He called in.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Well, I when he came on originally, I you know
this call. I got the feeling that he was going
to present something other than a linear cycle. Okay, and
it doesn't you know, he started saying, but yeah, that
was that was a linear process. And so I thought
maybe you were going to introduce something other than linear,
but I haven't heard that, so I think I'm just

(11:52):
a little bit lost. And yeah, please Donald, clarify on
what you're getting at.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, specifically clarify the connect between the phenomena that you're
describing and the the existence of a of a prescriptive agent,
which is I think is what you're implying. And so, uh,
that's the connection that i'd like to I'd like you
to expand on.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Okay, So okay, I was I was just trying to
different I was just trying to clarify. And I probably
shouldn't have used cause and effect and I should have
structured and I should have done it more off of
like structures and said reason instead, But I was I
was just trying I was just trying to deal with
like Kelly's uh object objection when he brought up indefinite

(12:41):
causal causal order at the at the end. But to
to get to in the the actual argument, the let
me put it is saying saying the unit. Okay, necessary
things if we say these have are those some of
these proper these like are necessary properties like the law

(13:03):
of non contradiction. It cannot be part of a contingent
thing like the universe. Some something that exists by necessity
has modal independent like if it were if it were
simply a part like if if the if it was
a part of the universe, then then by the universe

(13:27):
being contingent contingent, it would it would also follow that
the some of these necessary rules would also would also
have to be a contingent.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
So Donald, what is the universe contingent on?

Speaker 3 (13:43):
Okay, okay, the the universe, the well, aspects of the
universe are contingent, like let's see some of the some
of the constants, well, I mean know some of u uh,
some of the co when we do equations, and some
of the interactions that uh, their their contingent their contingent property.

(14:07):
And many physical physical phenomenon and physical objects are contingent,
like they have they have that trust.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
On what like what you're saying that things are contingent
the universe, your your argument is that the universe is contingent, right,
the universe contingent on what and and you know, I
know that you're you're kind of responding to past, past conversations,
past arguments that you've had, and uh, you know there
might be some people tuning in right now that that
aren't familiar with those. So let's just kind of say,

(14:37):
you know, you had this idea that we have the universe, right,
and the universe operates based on something that is prescribed, right,
what is that thing that's prescribed? What is what is
the universe contingent on?

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Well, Okay, from from this, I was going to say,
it's possible that you could reinterpret a version of like
a a extremely extremely powerful conscious omnipresent consciousness, but I
would but that's not what I believe is the most
likely explanation.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Well, we could posit. We could posit a lot of
different possibilities, couldn't we. I mean we could we could say, uh,
we could make up whatever we want. I mean, a conscious,
a conscious, omnipresent or omnipresent consciousness is basically what we
are given right when we are told that religion is
the way that we should be viewing the world. You know,

(15:33):
through dissecting that, we kind of find that that's probably
not the case, or at least there's no evidence to
support it. And so when you make this leap from
the the more descriptive aspects of the universe and what
might be dictating the way the universe works, how do
you arrive on a consciousness? And why would you introduce that?

(15:55):
Then if that's not what you really believe, I need
we need a little bit of consistency here. So, so
you have been phoning in right for weeks saying that
the universe is contingent upon something, there is a set
of rules that causes the universe to be and to
behave right, and then you're still not giving us what
that is. But then you're giving us things that it

(16:16):
could be that you don't necessarily believe in. So that
doesn't help your argument. And so okay, clarify please.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
We'll want to answer it in here about what Jimmy
was just talking about before you start getting into the details.
Can you give us the broad strokes of your argument first,
because nothing that you what you've said so far to
me seems to be related at all to the difference
between a descriptive universe and a prescriptive universe or a
descriptive set of quote unquote laws of the universe and

(16:45):
a prescriptive set of laws. I would like for you
to start from there. See if you can give us
the broad strokes first, and we'll give you time to
kind of expand on those. But I want to kind
of see where this argument is going, because I don't
see it going anywhere at all, at least not anywhere
near what you where you claimed it would end up.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Okay, okay, I'm I have a number of arguments. Would
you prefer one that.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Rely on best one the best one theory or.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
You seem to be you seem to be talking about
something like a first cause kind of style of argument.
Is that kind of the direction that you're taking this
as a first cause type of type of thing or
a prime mover? Yeah, okay, I mean to me, those
are all kind of dead in the water. So you're
going to have a big uphill climb here in addition

(17:33):
to adding the extra information about this prescriptiveness of the
prescriptive nature of what we're talking about here. So yeah,
so i'd love to hear so give us the broad
strokes and then we can we can attack or pick
apart or look at or examine or whatever you want
to call it different parts of what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
Okay, if we define the universe as a set that
contains everything, including all sets in all their property, then
by definition it must contain itself. UH this uh, this
is going to result in a in a self referencing
in paradox. So the when we say the universe contains

(18:17):
the axioms of laws of logic, we imply that logical
principles like non contradiction are objects within the universe. But
those same principles are preconditions for the definition of containment
and set in the first place. It's in this becomes
a circular and uh self refer referential UH set, and

(18:42):
it uh creates a paradox. To escape this paradox, UH,
mathematicians try uh uh and philosophers have a couple of
strategies they try to do. They try to separate by
levels of uh individual jewels and then sets of individuals

(19:02):
and sense of sets and proper and proper classes, and
eventually we get to like Grouth in d universe that
doesn't contain all the laws of a lat object, but
it's it's a set of all of sets that can
that you can do all of uh, all right, mathematics.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I gotta stop him.
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta jump in. So Scott,
are you are you good so far?

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Or or do you in nothing that what he just
said has anything to do with prescriptive.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Donald, I can't let you just carry on, okay, Like
I I want you to have your time, and you
keep saying, well, I need to I need to make
this argument, and which argument should I give you? And
that's not up to us to decide. You have to
make your argument, and you have to give us the
one that makes sense to you, that makes you believe
the thing that you believe, which I don't even know
what that is, to be honest with you, because you

(20:01):
keep you keep dodging it. So so, first of all,
you're saying that the universe contains itself. You know, I'm no,
I'm no philosopher or expert philosopher or anything like that.
But on that note, I would just have to say
that all you're saying is that everything that exists is
what we term the universe, right, I don't know that
I necessarily need to say that the universe contains itself.

(20:23):
We just have a word for everything, and that thing
is the universe. So now we've got this thing, this
thing the universe, which you say is contingent upon something else.
What is that thing that the universe is contingent upon?
And how do you know? That's what we need to
get to because you're not you're not saying anything. You're
not saying anything that's supporting that. And I'm gonna be

(20:44):
honest with you, I don't really know where you're going.
You're now you're talking about Well, different philosophers and different
people try to do different things. I don't care about
what they want. I want to know what you think,
and I need the best argument, the thing that convinces
you that it's true.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Okay, Okay, before before uh we're talking with Scott, I
we I thought we had come to the agreement that
there were some necessary and universal or uh universal uh
uh information and law rules like the law of non

(21:20):
contradiction that that the universe that is necessary and and.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, I wouldn't say that those are the way I
talk about the universe. I would not say that those
are necessary, but I would say that would I would
say that they are in fact the case in our universe,
at least from what we've seen so far. But necessary.
The difference, the distinction between necessary and contingent is different
than the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive. That's why. That's

(21:49):
why I I'm curious as to it, because you seem
to be confusing those two those two types of differences, right,
And so what I want to know is the last
line of your argument should be, Therefore, there are some
aspects of the universe, there are that are prescriptive. What
is it that you say immediately before the there for?
I mean, you know, how are you building this up?

(22:10):
Because because like I, like I said earlier, none of
what you're saying you haven't mentioned the word prescriptive once,
and so I don't see how we're getting there. I
don't see I understand that you're making an argument. It's
not it's not an argument from prescriptive laws. It's an
argument from you know, from uh, from contingency or you know,

(22:31):
those kind of If you want to switch to that,
that's fine, but that's not an argument from prescriptive laws.
And so there's there's a characteristic about a prescriptive law
that separates it from a descriptive law, and that is
whether you want to call it intent or some sort
of rule enforcement aspect to it. But so there's a

(22:53):
difference between those two and that's the connection that we're missing.
And that's the connection. And I've mentioned this last couple
of times. You call do you need to make that
connection between a discripsive, descriptive and prescriptive, because even a
contingent universe could all be descriptively contingent. It could just
be the way that things are. It doesn't necessarily mean

(23:14):
that something was making it that way. And so that's
the connection. And I think Jimmy is asking for the
same thing. We want to know, you know, if if there,
if there are prescriptive laws in the universe, then there
must be a prescriptor, as the argument goes, right, And
so we want to we want to understand how what
kind of connection you're making, whether whether you can you

(23:34):
can do that by describing the thing that you are
are claiming as the prescriber or by you know, talking
about the nature of the laws of the universe or
something like that. I mean, I want to see a
connection between how to make the jump from descriptive to
prescriptive unless you're changing your argument, And that's fine too.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Okay, I okay. I was saying, because there because the
universe is con hingent on these on these laws, and
but and then I was making the argument that it
can't contain it contain these necessary, these necessary and universal laws.

(24:13):
It can't fully it contained them. It's just instantiated by them.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
That So are you assuming that there's these universal laws?

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Well, I thought we had I thought we had established
that if a if you have a if you have
the opposite of an idea, and by consequence is self
it self contradicts it self in the gates it and
it doesn't follow and doesn't follow the law of non contradiction.

(24:43):
That that that that that means that is that uh,
it's since.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Its opposite is not a let me let me.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Uh contradiction it's necessary.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Okay, So let me let me posit this on you.
So are you saying that because the universe? So, so
you're still not giving us what the universe is contingent on.
And you know what, I have no problem with you merging.
Hold on a second, I have no problem with you
merging the concepts of being contingent and descriptive and relying
on something to dictate the terms.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
You know.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
The thing is, you're not giving us either one of
those things. I see that you're trying to and I
respect that, but I'm still not following how you're doing that.
You're saying right now that because the universe is contingent
but it contains universal laws, that the that there must
be something else creating the universe due to the existence

(25:39):
of universal laws that exist whether or not the universe,
I guess would exist. Right, So these universal laws essentially
could exist without the universe. Is that what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Yes, I was trying. I was trying to say that
these laws have to who exist will be able to
exist without the universe, and it's the the universe is
contingent on them, and they can and they exist without
the universe, then then they are prescriptive. That was I
was just trying to say, show by contingency and its

(26:13):
property of necessity that then that makes it prescriptive.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
So these laws exist within the universe, right, They exist
within the universe. And you're saying that the universe is
contingent on something and these laws exist within the universe,
they would exist if the universe didn't exist. Therefore, they
must be prescriptive for the universe. But my question to
you is, like, what comparison are you making, Like is

(26:41):
there is there a universe that you can compare our
current universe too that doesn't have these laws, Because if
you're saying that the universe is contingent and and it
contains all these laws, well, how do you know that
these laws exist outside of the universe. There's you have
no reference point for that, and and you're again taking

(27:01):
a very big leap. You are failing to show how
they're prescriptive to to direct the universe to behave the
way that it does. And so you can't just say, well,
there are things within the universe that operate a certain
way that I think would have to operate anyway even
if we didn't have this universe. My question is, how

(27:23):
do you know that there is a possibility out there
for universe, for our universe or any universe to not
exist and these laws still exist?

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Okay, I was okay, to be to be necessary, it
has to be able to exist, and it has to
it has to be exists in all possible worlds. And
the you take the uh, you take the rules of
of non contradiction and if something and if it's, if

(27:52):
it's and if it's opposite, like if if the thing is,
if the thing, if it's false, then by it's then
by it being false, would talk, would would contradict, would
contradict itself it would it make it and make it true?
Then you can say that it's that it's necessary and

(28:16):
it's possible in all possible worlds.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
But so can you can you show us then? Can
you show us how a merely descriptive set of of
universal laws would be self contradictory?

Speaker 3 (28:28):
Oh okay, wait, a merely descriptive set of uh yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Because because because again you're using you're using arguments around
a contingency argument, and the the there's there's a difference
between saying something is prescriptive and saying something is contingent. Okay,
even even in a causal contingency, it's it's a different thing.
A prescription is saying it's a it's a it's a
more of us just systemic uh rule. Right, it's saying

(28:58):
it has to be this way. Electrons all have to
do this, and like there's something making them behave that way.
And so that's the connection that we're missing and that's
not that's not something that comes about with your arguments
from contingency. That's that's a different thing. You can be
can you can have a contingent outcome even in the
case where you have merely descriptive laws of the universe.

(29:21):
Descriptive laws describe what happens. If we know that X
always follows why, even in a descriptive sense, we can
still talk about the contingent relationships between X and Y.
We can still talk about causation between X and Y.
What we're saying, and we don't even have to say that. Uh,
it could be the case that X always follows why.
But there's a difference between saying X always follows why

(29:43):
and X must follow why. See the difference there. It's
a it's a it's a it's a it's a common
miscon misconception and probability. If something has a probability of zero,
that doesn't mean it can't happen. That means it won't happen, okay,
And so what that means is that that's called a
modal difference there or a modal scope issue. Right, We're
talking about a modal scope issue there. And so you're

(30:05):
you're encountering that same difference. Here, we're not talking about
whether or not one thing is caused by the other.
We can talk about that if you want, but that's
a separate issue. We're talking about whether the rules that
we observe, the patterns that we see happening in the universe,
are they a pattern that is an emergent pattern because
of the way the universe is behaving, or is it

(30:27):
a directive pattern forcing the universe to be this way?
There's a Do you see the different you think? Do
you understand what I'm asking for?

Speaker 3 (30:35):
I think so, But I had earlier said that you
can get you can show that if if if there
are there are rules that uh that everything is contingent
on their universe, everything is universally contingent on and they're necessary,
then I can then I can show that they have
to exist outside a universe making them prescriptive. That's what

(30:57):
I said.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
It doesn't make them prescriptive, That just makes them logically necessary.
That just makes them a will happen. That does not
promote them to a must happen.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Wouldn't it be? Wouldn't it Scott? Would it be? Can happen?
Versus must happen.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
That can happen. Yeah, that would be fine too. I
mean it depends on if we're looking at historically at
the way the universe unfolded, or or if we're kind
of stepping out and looking at at the universe is
like a sandbox, you know what, what could happen? Yeah.
The difference, though, is the same. The difference between can
and must is the same as the difference between will
and must. It's just will just says gives it a

(31:33):
probability of one hundred percent. Something that's going to happen
has a probability of one hundred percent. That's different than
saying it must happen. That's logically different than saying it
must happen. And that's the same. And like I said,
it's a common I do teach interest stats. I'm not
an expert on statistics or anything like that, but that
but that's a common misconception is they think of a

(31:54):
probably something as a probability of zero. That doesn't mean
that it can't happen or that it or that it
mustn't happen. It just means that it won't happen. Can
you add so you need to add something to your
argument here to introduce that concept of prescriptiveness. You just
threw the word in there. I mentioned that you hadn't
even said the word yet, and so now you throw

(32:15):
it in. But you're throwing it in in a place
where it's there's no support for that. Even if something
proves to be logically necessary, Even if something turns out
to be logically necessary, that's not the same as saying
that it's being forced to be logically necessary. It's being
influenced by some external reasoning. In fact, you could even

(32:36):
argue that if something is logically necessary, it doesn't need
to be forced that way because it can't be any
other way logically. And so even though your argument is
not not only is it not supporting what your your conclusion,
it's actually in a way eroding any kind of foundation
you think you have for that argument or for that conclusion. Rather,

(32:56):
it's the difference between things have to happen this way,
something making things happen that way, versus things just turning
out that way or thing. Even if things are guaranteed
to turn out a particular way, that doesn't mean they're
being forced into that. Does that make sense, am I?
I could be just totally missing your point here, which
is you know, of course an option here, And so

(33:18):
I'd love to I'd love to hear what you have
to say. But do you understand the contention that I
that I'm bringing up here?

Speaker 3 (33:26):
I am I towards the end I got, I got confused,
But back I already I would try. I had already
said that by modal by mobil the modal logic to
be necessary, it has to exist in all possible world

(33:46):
and I right, had and I had we agree? Can
we agree on the you said the law of non
contradiction is a non Uh?

Speaker 2 (33:57):
We can stipulate that for the sake of the argument here.
That's fine. We can. We can proceed as if that
was a necessary law.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Okay, So if if you have, if you have have
a rule where it's opposite, where it being false would
then mean that its opposite would would negate itself like
it would make the contradiction with itself, then the then

(34:24):
the then the by proof by contradiction. The rule before
is is true and necessary in all possible.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
World Right now, how do we know that there's something
making it true in all possible worlds? Or if that's
just the way that it turned out.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Okay, well I don't.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Let's say we have two facts we're looking at. Let's
let's uh so, as long as we're getting hypothetical here,
let's say we're looking at two universes. In one universe,
there's something making the equation force equals mass times acceleration.
There's something making that relatelationship between those quantities to be true,
maybe a god or whatever. And in the other universe,

(35:06):
where there's a situation where that's just the way matter behaves,
nothing making it that way. But anytime we have a
particle being acted on by a force, that relationship holds true.
Force equals mass times acceleration. How do we tell the
difference between those two universes.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Well, well, first you wouldn't be able to. But I
don't see how this because you're talking about forces and
contingent and contingent laws. While I'm trying trying to say
there are necessary, there are necessary laws of logic that.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
But the necessary the necessary contingent distinction is not what
you're arguing for though. That's not what your conclusion is.
Your conclusion is that the laws are prescriptive, not that
they're necessary. And what I'm saying is if we have
two universes, one where the law is necessary and prescribed,
and another universe where the law is described but nonetheless

(36:03):
is still logically necessary. In other words, it's true in
all possible worlds. And you already you just agree that
we can't tell the difference between those two worlds. And
if that's the case, your conclusion is not supported. If
we can't tell the difference between those two then functionally
there's no difference.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
If you have something that's that's that's necessary for all
possible worlds, the world have to have to obey it
to exist. Otherwise they they can rescriptive.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
But but are they obeying because that's just the way
they behave or are they obeying because something made them
to behave?

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Okay, I'm saying that these rules are outside of the
universe and they make they make them behave because otherwise
the thing can't exist.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Well, how I disagree with that?

Speaker 1 (36:53):
How do you know that they're How do you know
that they're outside the universe? You know, we're we're making
a comparison between two different worlds. But we were too universes.
But we can only really point to one universe as
a reference. One universe where in which the rules that
you're talking about are contained within it. So to say
that it's outside of the universe, there's really no way
to test that. And if there's no way to test it,

(37:16):
and you can't cite a difference or point to a
difference between something that is happening because it's dictated and
something that's happening because that's the way matter interacts, then
how are you able to make the argument that it
is either of those things right? Or at least, how
are you able to make the argument that those those

(37:37):
laws are prescriptive? And you're using the word obey again,
where you just you just you threw that in and man,
that kind of yeah, kind of you snuck that in there.
I mean, we talked about, we talked on our last
conversation obey.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Maybe I should have said it has follow or.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
We we've talked on our last conversation about you sneaking
in the word obey, And then when you came today
to have an explanation for what that might mean in
supporting your argument, and you didn't come with that and
just kind of yeah, Trojan horsted right in there. And
now that adds a different element to the conversation. So
I think the grounds that we've covered today in the

(38:17):
fact that you you were essentially merging something being necessary
and something being prescriptive, which again I don't really have
an issue with that, even though they're different, you're not
really in either argument. You're not providing a link to
show how that's possible. Right, But then between what's prescriptive
and what's necessary, there's no you have no way to

(38:39):
demonstrate one or the other. So how do you how
do we know that something out there is prescriptive? And
we're still waiting for that explanation.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
So again going on theory and great, they have to
exist outside because otherwise you get self reference and scene of.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
The that's still different. That's that's a different concept that
you're arguing for. And I think that when you when
you use the word obey, the reason that that we
bring it up is not to say, you know, Zinger,
Oh we got you. You said obey. You know, it's
that's not that's not it. It's not I mean, I
don't think that you were intentionally trying to smuggle something

(39:18):
in by using the word obey. There what But what
it does is it shows it. It shows us your
thinking process.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Right.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
It shows us that you're in your brain. There's a connection.
There's a hurdle there that you're that you're failing. It's
knowing the distinction between something that is necessary and something
that is prescribed. And I think that's a hurdle that
we might not clear in this call here. And I
could be wrong too, and so and I'm open to
hear you know, arguments, you know, in reasoning why Scott

(39:48):
you don't know what the heck you're talking about, And
that's fine. I'm open to that possibility. But what you
presented so far does not address the issue much less
make your case. And so I think I think we're
kind of at a dead with this calle Jimmy. I
don't know if you have any more questions that you'd
have for Donald, but what I what I would suggest
is that you address that issue, Okay, the connection between

(40:10):
something being logically necessary, something could be logically necessary just
because it happens to be true in all possible worlds.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah, you know, I do think being that we kind
of concluded with not being able to tell a difference
between those two types of universes, I think we're going
to use that as a stopping point. So Donald, thank
you so much. If you want to talk to Scott again.
So Scott correct me if I'm wrong, but you're going
to be the next time you're on is January twenty sixth, right,
I have my schedule up here? Are you on in
December at all?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
I think I have a December Let me just do
a quick check here, sorrry my calendar up here. I
do have December seventh.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, dimber go.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
So Donald, give that some thought. We're going to let
you go. Thank you so much for calling in again.
This is the third call in a row where you've
been able to kind of continue this conversation with Scott.
I think it's great. But yeah, check in on December seventeenth,
or excuse me, December seventh. And right now, before we
get to our next caller, shout out Lisa, Lisa, stand
by for a moment. We are going to get to

(41:07):
you after we do some housekeeping, and what that means
is bringing up the people that make this possible. We
have to go to the crew camp, and I want
to say thank you very much to the crew who
I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Awesome crew.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
I don't know why you would choose to spend your
Sunday with me, well, particularly with Scott. But but you
know me too. You know, I thought I was the
only one crazy enough to hang out with Scott, But
it looks like all you were here. So thank you
so much for supporting us. Thank you so much for
being here every week. We got call screeners, audio video folks.
And speaking of all the different types of folks we have,

(41:42):
we got one guy who's very versatile. I want to
bring up Morgan. Thank you Morgan.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
So before the show, right, Morgan just lurking in the darkness.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Did you guys know that not only is Morgan a
video technician and dabbling with learning audio skills as well well,
he supports all of our shows in the ACA. Used
to be a veterinarian.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
And he lives he lives in Switzerland. So Switzerland might
be a neutral country, but Morgan is certainly not neutral.
He is on the side of Talk Heathen and the ACA.
And uh, dude, thank you so much for for everything
you do. I really enjoy logging in every week and
chatting with here for sure and knowing that you're back there.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
So with that, and Morgan is a funny motherfucker. By
the way, he's got some good jokes in there.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
So I was like, Hey, Morgan, what should we talk about?
And He's like, I don't know what we should talk about,
and then proceeded to talk and not stop talking, and
I was like, dude, I can't I can't fit all
this in. All right, we got to cut it off
at Veterinarian or Switzerland. But in any case, our backup
or excuse me, our crew is making sure that everything
runs smoothly, and in doing so, we have another caller.

(42:53):
They've guaranteed that we have another caller.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
I see it right there.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, we're gonna jump to Lisa. Lisa, you are coming
up and you are here with Jimmy and Scott. How
can we help you?

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (43:04):
There.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
I heard you say in the beginning that you have
a minor in religious studies, and.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
I did, yeah, okay.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
Anyway, I just wanted to say that that's pretty cool
because I have a that's what I majored in. But anyway,
I have a kind of a question, since I do
like to get into kind of maybe like informal debates
with theists. But the thing that I guess, the thing
that is difficult is they seem to think that being

(43:36):
atheist is not about disbelief, it's just about hating God.
And it's kind of like, if we can't even come front,
if we can't even agree on what atheist means, how
can we have a fruitful discussion on this?

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Right?

Speaker 4 (43:52):
Like, I feel like people think that being atheist equals
no morality and that they're just being agree at, you know,
blank God. And it's kind of like it would be
like if I said to them, to a Christian, for example,
well you know, you do believe in Zeus, you're just
angry at him. You do believe in the God of destruction,

(44:14):
You're just angry at him.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
But it is And they laugh when you say that, right,
They laugh when I mean, that's a funny thing to them.
It's like, oh, what a ridiculous thing to say. But
they don't realize it's exactly the same thing that they're saying, right.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
And I think it's just how do you what would
be your best way to clarify the difference between someone
who is like anti God versus someone who just doesn't believe,
or maybe I just explained it.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Well, so I think both of them are a form
of atheists. I guess, uh, you know, it's just to
what level do you take your activism there? You not
only did you just explain the difference between you know,
somebody who is kind of anti anti theist or anti
religion versus just atheist, but actually the beginning you talked
about a concept called itheism, which I'm relatively new to understanding.

(45:05):
About a year ago a colleague of hours named Kelly
Laughlin first first introduced that concept to me, and that
that basically is what you said, how can we have
a conversation about God if we can't agree on what
the definition is? And that speaks to the idea that
you know, while there may be I don't know, let's
just say, what is it, like three billion Christians or

(45:27):
something in the world, there might be very well three
billion different concepts of God. And if we can't agree
on what that means, you know, how do we have
a conversation. And so you're kind of identifying multiple different
definitions of atheism or non belief. I should say, you know,
there are people that vehemently object any form of religion

(45:50):
and want to see it, you know, out of commission
to the max extent possible. There are others that just
say I don't believe, and they're indifferent. You know, they
kind of just go about their day. They're non religious,
but you know, they don't get involved in any kind
of active activism. And there are others that you know,
are kind of somewhere in between. You know, the question

(46:10):
you ask is not a matter of what is the
standpoint or perspective of the atheist. What you're really highlighting
is a misconception and probably a deliberate one of theists.
And they give those perceptions or those those misconceptions to
the youth, and they they cultivate them in their congregations

(46:31):
and in their small sects of society. You know, they
do that to maintain some credibility of their own lines
of thought and to maintain their their tribalist outlook, their
tribalist demeanor, if you will, and try and keep people
away from atheists, because if you engage with people like us,
you may very well start questioning the things that you

(46:52):
have been told are true. And that seems to be
the case with a lot of people in our community. Hence,
you know why I started the introduction today the way
I did. The worst thing that a theist can do
is tell an atheist or tell somebody else to read
the Bible for themselves instead of having their clergy member
read it to them. Right, go ahead and open it
and read it for yourself and try and get past

(47:14):
some of the awful things that are in there. I
think that a lot of atheists I know have come
to atheism because they read the Bible for themselves. And
so on that note, you know, the theists tend to
demonize us rather than turn people toward questioning the religion.
It's let's question the character of the people who don't

(47:35):
believe us or don't align with us.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
And I think the thing that kind of pisses me
off as someone who has like as someone who went
to post secondary education, I find that and not not
all religious groups are like this, but some will say
that going to university is like an indoctrination institute that'll
that will make you atheists. And like, for me personally,

(48:00):
like I started questioning, like I'm thirty eight years old,
and I started questioning things as early as I was
like eight, and because I'm thinking, you know, when you
learn about Pangaea, I'm like, well, that doesn't make sense.
How is it we have fossils that are dated sixty
five million years old, but the Bible says it's only
I guess, like what ten thousand at most years old, Like,

(48:22):
I mean, these are just this is not even post
secondary education that I that we're talking about, right, Like,
this is just looking at claims that based on the
findings of geology biology. It's not rational and.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
You're not going to get an argument for me, the
one of us.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're preaching the choir here, pardon the pun.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
I just I guess, I just I just feel like
the more how I'm trying to say this, I want
to be able to have productive dialogues with people who
are a theist, But I think they confuse. I think
they confuse the anger. Like, we're not angry at your god.
We don't believe in God. We are angry at your

(49:06):
behavior in which you are trying to force your views
onto us. That is where the anger comes from.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
It's not like but you can be angry at a
fictional character too. You can like really hate the big
bad wolf and you know, and stuff like that. I mean,
but you know you were asking, you know, how do
we deal with this? How can we You know you
want to you want to have conversation, You want to
have communication, and I think that's very important. And you know,
to me, this is the most asinine kind of pushback

(49:36):
you get from from theists and from atheist too, is
arguing about this. No, this word means this, and so
that means you must believe that and X, Y and
Z and no. No, I mean if don't tell me that,
don't tell me what I hate. If you're asking me
if I hate this god, I'll say, well, I don't
believe that the god exists. But the description that i've

(49:59):
I've read about it is an unappealing description. I mean,
you can talk about it in those terms. But another
way of approaching it would be, Okay, I don't I
don't hate this character. I just think it doesn't exist.
What would you call me? Right, So, rather than them
saying no, no, no, you're not an atheist, you're an agnostic,
or you're this that or the other thing, just you know, okay,
for the sake of this conversation, I'll use your words.

(50:21):
Here's how I describe myself. I don't think that this
that this being exists. I have no you know, it's
not that I hate it. It's not that I don't
that I love it, It's that I just don't think it's real.
What what would you describe me as if? Are you
going to describe me as being an atheist? Are you
going to describe me as being a path atheist? Path atheists?
Is that what they are? The lethargic or lethargy or

(50:45):
there's there's a variety of different tweaks on on the
word atheists, and and you know, just I don't care
the sounds that come out of your mouth when you're
describing me, as long as the concepts in your mind
match up with the concepts I'm trying to convey. I'm
tellingelling you I don't think this being exists. You know,
whether or not I hate it is a separate issue.

(51:06):
What would you call me? If you want to call
me an atheist, cool, let's go with that. If you
want to call me an agnostic, that's fine. I'm cool
with that too. If you want to call me any
of these other flavors of atheists, that's fine. As long
as I know what you mean when you're saying it,
we can still have a conversation. If the words are
blocking your conversation. Then you're doing words wrong.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Right.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
The whole point is to, like you said, you want
to have a conversation, and much of what they've learned,
either on purpose or on accident, shuts down conversations. You
want to know why they think we hate God because
their Bible tells them that non believers hate God. That's
why that's you know, that's that's the main reason. There's
a side effect of that that it's convenient for them

(51:47):
to be able to dismiss things that we say, or
dismiss arguments that we make, or dismiss points of contention
that we bring up in what they're saying. But still
it's a it's it's a defense mechanism. And maybe that's
why it was made it to the Bible, who knows.
But you know, if you keep the focus on the
concepts rather than the words, and I think that usually

(52:09):
the conversation just breaks down because they don't really want
to have a conversation. But you know, that's just my
experience and your experience might be different. But what are
your thoughts on that as far as keeping the focus
on the concepts rather than just the words.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
Yeah, I agree, I think people use words without you
without thinking about how they may be interpreted. Like I
had a debate on social media earlier today and with
a theist and his life was just about I think
his life. His prompt was something like Christianity is objectively true,

(52:43):
and so I kind of went up and I was
cordial and I wanted to make it a good face
kind of thing. And they said, you know, where's your
proof that God doesn't exist? And I said, well, I
don't know if this is just me being insensitive or
whether or not do is I struggle with because I'm
on the I'm on the spectrum, so I sometimes they

(53:05):
say things that are maybe too blunt. And they said, well,
you know, I can't prove like it's like asking me
to prove to you that the tooth fairy doesn't exist.
I can't prove that to you. There's no like it's like,
are you seriously compared? And I was like, I'm just
trying to say, like, you can't. I can't prove to
you that leprechans don't exist.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
There's no Well that's that's not so am I From
my perspective, there's there's nothing wrong with that. Okay for
somebody who fails to grant you the space to speak openly,
right and objectively. They're just trying to discredit you so
that the conversation will stop before it even starts. Okay,
they fall there are these pitfalls, uh that they get

(53:50):
stuck in. Uh, these these biases, right, so like there
or excuse me, these fallacies that they would rather throw
at the conversation so that they don't have to answer questions. Okay,
So the special pleading fallacy for example, you know you
might say tooth fairy and leprechaun and they would go, well,
how dare you right? But that is just avoiding further conversation.

(54:16):
And if I had a shit argument, I would probably
try and avoid it too, although that's that's not how
I operate. That's why I'm an atheist, you know, because
I had shit arguments when I was a Christian and
couldn't support them anymore. But you know there's something else
going on when somebody is refusing to have it open
an honest conversation with you, and they're probably more concerned
about protecting their image and not insulting people close to them,

(54:41):
and so they demonize you instead of engaging good faith
with you and to be honest at that point, why
have a conversation with them anyway? And and my question
for you, Lisa is why do you want to have
these conversations? Like I don't really you know, and this
is just me. I know that there are movements and
there are a lot of people out there saying, well,
we should talk with not not like minded people and

(55:03):
try and find some common ground. Why I don't. That
might be applicable in some areas, but I don't think
that I'm going to go speak with a Catholic clergy
member and be respectful of them. If you are complicit
in Catholicism, then you're complicit in child molestation and you're
complicit in the oppression of women. I have no reason
to want to have a conversation with you. In fact,
I'd rather not be in your presence. And so that's

(55:25):
just my perspective. And I don't know that you're going
to get a whole lot out of trying to change
minds when somebody who comes to a conversation clearly already
made up their mind that they can't be an honest
interlocutor with you, and they would rather insult you and
give you ad hominem attacks than have an open and
honest conversation. And so that's that's what I have to

(55:47):
say about that.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
I guess my objective is not to is not to
change a change someone's mind. I think it's more for
me because I really a lot of the things that
I have learned have been talking to other people, not
just through reading textbooks, and I think sometimes it's good
to just share a different perspective of things. You may

(56:10):
not agree with it. There may not be, you know,
I even like I'm open to the idea that there
could be. There could be a god. I don't know.
I don't believe there is with the evidence that human
beings have presented, given with the scientific community and what
they have observed. But that doesn't mean that I am

(56:33):
right when I say there's no uh, there is no creator.
Like I have respect for people's beliefs just as long
as they are not enforcing.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Them why they're Lisa, why why do you have respect
for people's beliefs? Do you have respect for people who
for men, for male Muslims who want to perpetrate Sharia law?
I mean, do you respect that I don't have to
respect that belief? Do you do you have respect for
for people who think that women should not, you know,

(57:06):
have an independent life and they should instead be subservient
to their husbands, because that's what many religions think. And
so I don't respect people's beliefs.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Go ahead, Scott, and when you say that you respect
their beliefs, unless you mean that you're respecting their right
to have a different belief than you. You know, because
I agree with Jimmy, you know, beliefs on their own
don't warrant respect unless they're unless they're productive, unless I mean,
they have value in and of themselves, right and so,
But and so when you say you don't respect somebody's beliefs,

(57:38):
I agree. I totally agree with everything that Jimmy just said.
But there's another way of asking that question. If you say,
do you you know you should respect someone else's beliefs,
do you mean that you should respect their right to
be different from you? And I think that's a that's
a healthy approach there.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
I think I think that's what I'm trying to say,
is that I respect that they're allowed to have a
different opinion. I don't always agree with their with the
the arguments that they make. I think I genuinely think
there is a moral inconsistency within within the Christian scriptures
and the Jewish scriptures. But I do respect that they

(58:18):
are allowed to hold their own set of personal beliefs.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
That's awesome. And then so if you're feeling frustrated that
they're not offering you the same charity with that, then
you can at the beginning of the conversation just ask them, say,
you know, just tell them I respect your right to
believe differently than I do. Do you respect the same
right and me? And they'll say either yes or no.
And then you can also ask them do you want

(58:43):
to have a productive conversation? Because part of the reason
that they deflect the conversation is because it's a face
saving technique, right, It's a psychological defense mechanism. They don't
want to face that that cognitive dissonance that comes when
when they see the actual conflict in the thing that
they're saying, and so that's a defense mechanism. So you
can actually use that tendency in the human psychology. You

(59:07):
can use that if you tell them do you want
to have a productive conversation? And if they say yes,
especially if it's in front of other people, then they're
going to feel socially motivated to have a good conversation
with you. So if you get them on the hook
for that early, then that can help you. That can
help alleviate that. Or if it gets to a point
where they're refusing to actually follow through on what they said,

(59:29):
then you can just say, well, you know, you said
earlier that you wanted to have a productive conversation, but
here you're trying to tell me what I believe and
how I believe it and so on. I think maybe
this is just not going to happen. So then it's
not your fault that the conversation failed. They didn't live
up to their commitments, and it's not that you were
tricking them. It's just that you were making it obvious

(59:50):
what everybody knows was already happening, and you make it
obvious in a way that they can't deny that even
in their own mind. And so then they realize, yeah,
I did say I would have a productive conversation, and
now I'm deflecting. You know, I'm not following through. And
so then then they can feel like, oh, that's kind
of a loss of face in front of other people,
and you can use that, and so there there are

(01:00:12):
ways to finesse a conversation. And by the word finesse,
I don't mean like anything underhanded. I mean like finessing
out the productivity, finessing out the jewel inside of the
piece of coal. You know, try to try to find
that diamond in the rough, and it's going to take effort,
and you're going to get people that lie to you.

(01:00:33):
And and but if but if you can, if you
can put attack in that lie at the beginning of
the conversation, then you can have an informed decision on
whether or not you want to keep talking to them,
because sometimes you know, I I am very much in
favor of talking to people that have different beliefs, and
I think that that's really one of the best ways
that we can save the division in our world is

(01:00:55):
to know other people. And the best way to know
somebody is to is to find out, is to talk
to them. But there are people that don't want to
have that conversation, and so you know, if you learn
how to recognize those people early on, then you can
move on to somebody else that might want to talk
to you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Yes, yes, I do have boundaries, and what I'm willing
to tolerate in what I'm not in a conversation about anything.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
So that's that's a that's really good. I like that
word boundaries And to Scott's point, I think setting that
up early would be important.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
Okay, okay, well, thanks so much for answering my question.
I really, I really love your channel. I think you
guys are really insightful.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Oh cool.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Well yeah, hey, if you like Scott and I man,
you should check out some of our other hosts because
we got some brilliant minds on this channel. So feel free, please, Lisa,
if you haven't already, just share, share us with your friends,
and you know, like and subscribe to our channel. We're
on TikTok you know we do. Uh we do live

(01:01:52):
tiktoks on Tuesdays and Thursday nights, so you can you
can tune in there.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
And yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Appreciate the call, you know, uh, thanks call it. I'm
gonna let you go. But yes, Scott, you know, when
it comes to trying to give people advice on how
to talk to people who believe differently, you know, I'm
at a loss for words, especially when you want to
do it on the internet. You know, I mean because that's.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Where that's where it makes it heard.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
That's where it's so easy to be, you know, dishonest
and fall into these uh, these pitfalls if you will,
you know so. And it's one thing, you know, to
do it in person or to do it like this, uh,
but it's a it's a completely different thing to do
it behind the screen where people are just typing, you know,
because they can they can retreat a little bit easier.

(01:02:37):
And so it's just a tough you know, if if
your if your chosen path is over the internet, that's
gonna be tough. That's gonna be tough.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
But yeah, I like the idea of knowing that we
are both on the internet right now as we speak.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Yeah, but you know, at least at least we have
live like real time conversations. Yes, yes, and we don't
get we don't get caught up, like even in the
comments to some of the videos we put up. You know,
people can say what they want and never respond, or
go off for three days and and come up with
some some popular answer within their circles and come back

(01:03:14):
and try and positive, you know, or they can insult
you and not have their their feet held to the
fire because if somebody is on the show with us
and they insult us, they're they're actually usually a little
bit more likely to be like, all right, I'm sorry
I did that. But in any case, you know, it's
conversations between people. You know, I don't know who said it, uh,
and so I'm misattributing this, but somebody once said, you know,

(01:03:37):
it's it's not easy to tell people that you believe
they've dedicated dedicated their life to a lie. Yeah, and
I think it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Was Daniel Dennett. I think it was.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Yeah. So, uh, you know that that is kind of
you know, to to talk. To Lisa's point, actually, crue
can we get can we get Aaron up here? Let's
bring up Aaron. So it's since we're gonna just sit
here and shoot the ship for a second. But but
toalse point, you know, what's it called? What's up man?
To Lisa's point, you know, she came in with the question,

(01:04:06):
you know, do people confuse atheists with you know, like
anti theists or haters of religion? And that is a
deliberate approach that many of them take. And so it's
kind of hard to have a conversation with somebody who
coming into the conversation has been told their whole lives
that people who don't believe in God are bad people.

(01:04:29):
And so yeah, I mean, Aaron, you've you've been back
sitting watching us talk. What do you think? I mean,
what do you think about Lisa's question, anything you wanted
to bring up?

Speaker 5 (01:04:37):
Well, I think, you know, anti theists are a subset
of atheists. I think you can't be an anti theist
without being an atheist.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Maybe it can be like a self hater or something,
or maybe I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:04:49):
I mean, it's easy to look out in the world
and say, oh, religion is the problem. Religion does awful,
evil things. And I take the position that it's actually
deeper than that. It's more fundamental that it's just us
being humans. It's humans that can be rotten, and religion
just kind of gives us an excuse. If we were
to waive our magic, want to get rid of religion,
it would just get replaced by something else. I think

(01:05:09):
the fundamental problem is humans' tendency to be dogmatic and
just to say this is the way the world is,
and just to fight tooth and nail for what they
for that dogma. Even atheists can be dogmatic for sure,
but I think it's I think anti theists have their
place too. I think it takes all kinds, and it's
Christopher Hitchins is the canonical example I think of an

(01:05:30):
anti theist, where he just wanted to get rid of religion,
and he makes really good points, and listening to him
is really fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
And then.

Speaker 5 (01:05:41):
Then I don't quite call myself an anti theis because
I think we just need to have conversations with people.
I think we need to be genuinely curious when we
engage and just try to find out, hey, what do
you believe? Why if we just try to jump on
people and have a debate with them, unless that's what
they want to do, But typically if we're just having
a conversation, just being curious and trying to understand what
people believe, because just challenge people's beliefs, just to challenge

(01:06:04):
their beliefs, you're not really going to convince anybody of anything.
That's not how human beings work. If you really, if
you get aggressive towards someone, we have a tendency to
double down regardless of what our beliefs are, and so
you just have to be curious and ask questions and
try to get people thinking. And that's what will change
people's mind is to get their minds thinking and ask
really good questions.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
And so, you know, on that note, like, I know
that there are people that you know, I consider friends
and colleagues in doing this kind of thing that we do,
who are out there encouraging conversations with people who think
unlike them, and that's great. I don't know me personally
what I would even do that for. Like, I struggle with,

(01:06:47):
you know, finding and maybe I'm just a different type
of atheist. I struggle with finding a reason to even
talk to somebody who subscribes to a religion and and
you know, I understand that that might not be productive,
but then what am I trying to produce? You know,
I don't feel and maybe I'm surrendering before the conversation
could even start, But I really don't feel like I'm
going to get anywhere, like to convince somebody, hey, you know,

(01:07:09):
why don't we think about what you've been told your
whole life by people you trust and who protect you
and maybe see why that's not a good idea to
have it in government? For example, is there really is
that a conversation worth having for you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
To me, I, I, you know, any conversation with somebody
can be productive. But I do appreciate that you know,
different strokes for different folks, right, I mean things, different
things are going to work for different people. Somebody might
for me. I love the word that Aaron mentioned twice
in his little bit their curiosity. To me, I'm a

(01:07:43):
strongly person. That's I'm strongly driven by curiosity. I just
want to know everything. Basically, I want to know what
people are thinking. I want to know why they're thinking it,
and and and you know, I just want to understand
how they come to those conclusions. And for me and
I catch flak on sometimes on you know, in the
comments on our shows here that you know, was I

(01:08:05):
talking to somebody for too long, or was I you know,
in encouraging them to you know, expand on things that
are off track and things like that. I just want
to know. I want to understand what they're thinking. So
if you ask me if it's worthwhile to talk to somebody,
I would say almost all the time yes, or at
least to give them a chance to have a discussion.
It can become clear as as you know, some of

(01:08:28):
the cases like that Lisa was talking about, where you
get in a conversation and it's clear that they don't
want to have a conversation, and so then you have
to step back and reassess, Okay, what was your objective
with this are you? Are you just having a one
on one conversation with this person? And if that's the case,
then maybe you're wasting your time? Are you having this
discussion in front of other people?

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
So in the in that case, you know that your
goal might not necessarily be to reach this one person
or even to discover what they're actually thinking, but more
to help them lay out what they're thinking in front of,
you know, in front of other people. And and maybe
maybe you're set, you're missing something that was a strong
point that they made, and having other people watch that
they can kind of chime in and give their opinion.

(01:09:13):
And as is often the case too, they can it
can expose you know, it can expose flaws in their
thinking and can it can expose flaws in their logic.
And so you know, I'm always of the uh you know,
I like to talk first. Well I'll not talk first
and ask questions later. So talk first and ask questions first,
and then you know, if if that fails, then you know,

(01:09:34):
maybe things can break down. I'm fine talking to somebody
even if they have ideas that are repulsive to me,
and it's not because I want to know what their
ideas are, Like, I want to know what can cause
what can motivate a person to hold those ideas, you know,
I want to know what kind of person that is
that I'm dealing with, because that means there are people
out there that are like that. And so the more

(01:09:54):
you know, I really really strongly believe in this idea
that knowledge is power, and so the more or you
know about the people that you're with, the better you'll
be able to interact with those people. Learn about those people,
show respect where it's earned and and not show it
where it's not deserved, and you know, to kind of
at least get humanity moving in a positive direction where

(01:10:17):
we at least know each other. You know, we've seen
so many times, you know, with the LGBT community. Uh
expect acceptance from the for them became much more widespread
when people started knowing and realizing, hey, these are just
people too. They just want to get through life just
like me. They just want to find love just like me.

(01:10:38):
They're not out there, you know, doing, you know, doing
all these bad things that are that are ascribed to them.
And so if you know somebody you're you're that much
closer to loving that person. And I think that's a
good thing. And I and at least from my perspective,
since I can handle having conversations like that, not that
it's a big accomplishment, but my personality is such that

(01:10:58):
I want to keep going, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
I think that's a great point. So like, yeah, I
have to consider the fact that I there are people
that I care about that if I can change the
way that other people see them, you know that that
is a conversation worth having, right so, and for myself too,
I don't want to. I don't even wear like I have.
I've talked about this before, but I have a shirt
that says atheist on it, right, and like, I don't

(01:11:23):
really wear that around town, you know, I don't. I
have some some things that I would just like, yeah,
right there you go, you know, because I know what
the connotations are. They are incorrect as they might be,
but I just don't feel like dealing with it. But
I would love to be able to explain to people like, Hey,
you know, I'm a good person because of these things,
So why don't you tell me what it is the
perceptions that you have of me are because I don't

(01:11:44):
believe in God, and I can tell you where you're wrong.
And so yeah, I guess I guess that's worth having,
you know, in the same respect, though, Scott, you and I.
You know, a few weeks ago, we're on a call
and there was a there was a guy who called
in who you know, switched to Catholicism, and then you know,
when he described the child molestation person problem, excuse me

(01:12:07):
that the Catholic Church has described it as a rumor
and said that you know, he's not well versed enough
to know anything about it to make any changes, et cetera.
But he considers himself a protector of children. You know,
I find it very hard to conjure up the strength
to even be in a room like with somebody like that,
you know, that's willing, that's willing to brush that kind

(01:12:30):
of atrocity under the rug. And so I don't know
where the balance is for me, and I don't I
don't know how I have these conversations and so, but to.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
Your point on that, on that particular caller, he emailed
us after the show. I don't know if he saw that.
He emailed us after the show and he said and
and he finished it by saying, you've given me things
to think about and so and so, whether or not
we felt that was a productive conversation, that person is
at least one step closer to, you know, to realizing

(01:12:59):
the harm that he's and the awful ship that he
is supporting in his religion. And so, you know, it's
it's not a it's not a breakthrough moment, you know,
deconstruction story, but it's a you know, it's a step
in the right direction. And if it if it causes
him to question his support of the Catholic Church, then
I call that a victory.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Yeah. I wasn't gonna bring up the email because I
was a little annoyed that he said God bless you
and then plug.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
It passive aggressive ship in there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Plug the end of the email with his uh, his
own personal podcast, which I'm not gonna I'm not gonna watch. Uh.
But in any case, you know what, guys, I have
to pivot. Aaron, what do you why do you tell
us you know, give us your your final thoughts, and
then I got some stuff to do that we just
haven't done because we have been taking calls.

Speaker 5 (01:13:42):
Yeah, context is important the conversation you're having. If it's
a debate in front of people, I'm gonna speak differently
than if I'm gonna engaging in a conversation one on
one with somebody. We all have different thresholds for things
that we can handle in a conversation. And if you're
gonna get in any conversation, if you're gonna get, it's
gonna raw up and get your emotional probably best not
to have that conversation. So, especially as we're going into

(01:14:05):
the holidays, set good boundaries. Make sure you're if you're
engaging conversations that you can manage emotionally. If not, then
it's okay to go take a walk or step outside
or excuse yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Yeah yeah, fine, fine point there. Heck, even in that
call that Scott and I took a few weeks ago,
I was talking to him and I had to just
take a step back.

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
In fact, I think I even said I need to
take a step back for a second.

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
It's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
So guys, look, I don't know if you know this,
but I have a wonderful new shirt on Talk Heathen.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
All right, it's amazing, listen.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
I'm not even I'm not kidding. I ordered this a
few weeks ago or a couple of weeks ago, and
when it came in the mail, I was like, holy smokes,
the material is great. It fits great. I am not
saying that because I am on Talk Heathen. I am
saying that because I genuinely feel that I that was
money well spent. You're also a client, Yeah, well I'm

(01:14:57):
not only I'm not the president either though, so I
get none of the money. I get none of the money.
But I love the shirt. And actually we have a
merch slide that we're going to show. Folks. Oh, who's
that guy in there wearing that shirt? I told you
it was a nice sweatshirt. I told you so. Listen, guys, folks,
we have talk even swag out there. It fits well,

(01:15:19):
it feels good, it looks good, and you should go
on our website and check that out and go get.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
Your fist slash model.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
Yeah, you know, I do it all, folks, I do
it all. And so let's read. We did have a
super chat come in but I don't see it on
my script, so I'm just gonna shout out I did
catch it, oh and Johnson and Johnson, I honestly don't
understand what Donald is trying to say. You guys are
so patient. Thank you for the ten dollars. You know,
we are giving Donald the space to say what he

(01:15:49):
wants to say, and we each time, I think did
a pretty good job of leaving him with something to
think about to come back with. I think Scott very
skillfully identified a flaw in the logic that he was presenting,
and you know, he's got an invitation to come back
and try and do that again. Always happy to take
a follow up call and reattack these conversations. For our

(01:16:10):
top five patrons, Folks, if you did not know that
you could follow us on Patreon and get access to
special content, well now you know, and you could also
support us. Because we are a five oh one c
three nonprofit organization. We thrive off of donations. We cannot
do what we do without your support, and we want
to thanks some people who support us. Every week on Patreon,

(01:16:32):
our top five patrons, we got oops All Singularity, Dingle,
Barry Jackson, Coleevi, Helvetti, Ja Carlton, Casey, Kickindall and honorable
mention Steve McDougal, thank you, or Steven. I don't know.
I feel like I know Stephen after reading his name
a few times, I could call him Steve.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
Steve, Steve Reno. If you're not into the whole brevity thing, right.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Folks, make sure you check us out tiny dot, cc
forward slash, Patreon on Patreon. We actually do a TikTok
every week Tuesdays and Thursdays, like I mentioned earlier to
our caller Lisa, and those get uploaded to our Patreon
and so Patreon subscribers can get those conversations. We actually
had our buddy Flabbergasted run the Talk Heathen last Thursday,

(01:17:16):
which I hear went very well. And speaking of things
going very well, crew, I'm going to ask you to
plug the nonprofits if I may. The nonprofits is going
extremely well. In fact, we have a new host. We
had two new hosts relatively recently.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
We had a guy named Truss but Verify. He has
made a couple of appearances. He was just on Truth
Wanted the other day. We have somebody by the name
of common Sense cult. Go check both of them out
on TikTok. But Common Sense Cult will be making her
debut this week. And you know what, our friend Sophia
Spina from Talk Heathen actually came and yeah, did a

(01:17:55):
recording with myself and flabbergasted, like two weeks ago. Actually
this past week is when we released the content. Some
of the most fun that I have ever had. And
in fact, I think Sophia, she doesn't mind me quoting,
or said that was some of the best recordings she's done.
The episode. The episodes this week on nonprofits are legit
and so you should go check those out, folks, go

(01:18:17):
to YouTube type in the nonprofits. We are also on TikTok,
So check us out there, guys. That is going to
bring us to the end of the show. Aaron, I
want to thank you for hanging in the background, listening
to those calls, being able to come up have some
further discussion with us. Thank you to everybody who tuned
in today, who watches us, tune in next week, who's
on next week? Let me, I don't have you know what.

Speaker 5 (01:18:40):
I'll be in the background next week.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
Let's say so, Aaron, next week.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
I'll be taking your calls and ignoring your questions.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
You know what, I've just you know what, I just realized.
So I don't have last week or earlier in this show.
I said Scott will be on on January twenty six
That was from twenty twenty five. So I just told somebody, man,
I told somebody to go back in time to check
you out, which means in our archives there's a show
from January twenty sixth of twenty twenty five that you

(01:19:11):
can go look at Scott on. But next week is
going to be Richard and I'm the Skeptic. Richard our producer,
our main man, and John the Skeptic, a familiar face
around the ACA. Don't want to miss that one, Nope,
And then yeah, Aaron will be back. Aaron. You can
catch Aaron almost every week. Aaron's always hanging out with us.
But yeah, so John the Skeptic and Richard next week, folks,

(01:19:32):
so tune in for that. That should be a lot
of fun. And I think it's about the time where
we do our lover rings, Scott, who you said, the
Loover rings.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
Out to all the people out there that are questioning
their beliefs. I think that's a positive thing. For the world,
for us to have a little bit of self reflection.
So my love today is going on all the people
out there that are willing to have the guts to
stand up to their own thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
Yep, yeah, Aaron. As the lover rings come from your mouth,
it looks like, who do you want to send them
out to?

Speaker 5 (01:20:03):
I'm going to send out love rings to all of humanity.
I want everybody to know it's all made up. Let's
treat each other with kindness and respect, and let's compromise
and get along.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Yep, yeah, I want to send love rings to all
the people who might be struggling. You know, we are
coming into the holidays. It's a lonely and depressing time.
I just want you to know that you can get
through it. There's probably somebody out there that's thinking about
you or loves you more than you know, and so
do yourself a favor. Pick up the phone, send an email,
do what you got to do. But keep in contact

(01:20:40):
with people you know, stay connected, and you know, let's
get through it. So I hope everybody has a wonderful Thanksgiving,
if you celebrate that sort of thing. I'll be eating
turkey with my family. I don't know about you guys,
but that is going to do it for talk Hethen today. Remember,
if you don't believe, this is your community and we
appreciate you being here. But if you do not believe,

(01:21:03):
we don't hate you.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
We're just not convinced.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
Thank you, everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
I'm not convinced.

Speaker 5 (01:21:46):
We want the truth, So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays
at seven pm Central Call five one two nine nine
two four two, or visit tiny dot cc forward slash
call tw

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God-Hating, Logical Necessity, and Dealing with Dogma | Talk Heathen 09.47

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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;}God-Hating, Logical Necessity, and Dealing with Dogma | Talk Heathen 09.47