Talk Heathen 09.30 with Scott Dickie and Richard Gilliver

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless,
and so is your faith. That's first Corinthians fifteen fourteen.
Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who
calls you to account for the hope that is in you.
That is one Peter three point fifteen. Okay, Christians, we
want to know if you have any good reasons to
believe that Jesus rose from the dead for real. We've

(00:23):
heard arguments before, and they've always fallen as flat as
a corpse rotting in a tomb. If you think you
can do any better, give us a call, because the
show is starting right now. All right, all right, Welcome everyone.
Today is Sunday, July twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. I'm

(00:44):
your host, Scott Dickey, and joining me today is my
brother from another continent, Richard Gilliver. Richard, how you doing today.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I'm very very good. I'm very looking much. I'm very
looking forward too, doesn't make sense. I'm very much looking forward.
So both doing a show with you because I always
enjoy working with you, Scott and taking calls on the
resurrection Christians. This show is all about the resurrection.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, and I can almost in almost senses if Christ
is in the room here with us, it's it's I'm
getting a kind of an odd feeling. It's just it's
just always. And I hear you've been talking some smack
a little bit this week too about throwing the garlet
down to these Christians.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Look, we have I have, and we have on lots
and lots of different occasions. Christian's saying two things to us.
One is that if you've just stated in your opening,
in fact, if the resurrection is not true, and then
Christianity is not true. And you know, I've had people
say that to mean debates before, I've had people just

(01:51):
on random social media say that to me. And also
one thing I get a lot is people just preaching
you know, the old Jesus loves you and you'll go
to health type of stuff. If you don't believe, that's
it's not going to convince anyone, right, right, it's not going.
That is not convincing. That is the least convincing thing

(02:14):
you can say to me. In fact, that suggests to
me that you do not have either evidence or arguments,
because if you did, you'd bring them instead of talking
at people. So Christians, I am calling you out specifically Christians.
You know, you're always telling us that we only pick
on Christians on this show, and we never we never

(02:35):
talked to anybody else of any other religion. It's always
Christians that we're having to go at. So Christians, I
am calling you out specifically, I am fulfilling your own
prophecy here, I am calling you out specifically. We want
you to call and gives your best evidence for the resurrection.
Because I have good reasons why I don't accept it.

(02:56):
Scott has good reasons why he doesn't accept it, and
we can go into all of them, but we also
want the reasons that you do accept it. And let's
work through all three positions and see which if NA
is the most likely to be true. So you know
the balls in your call. Call, give us a call.
Don't just sit there commenting on our social media telling

(03:19):
us that Jesus loves us, because that doesn't work. You know,
we want the evidence. Bring it's the most vital component
components of your religion. Give us the evidence.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, yeah, we're here. We're here. The gauntlet has been
thrown down, so we're going to see we're giving there's
what a couple of billion Christians in the world. Let's
see if even one of them will pick up that
gauntlet today. But before we do that, I just want
to remind you. Talk Heathen, of Course, is a production
of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five o' one
c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism,

(03:50):
critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government.
Talk Heathen is a live call in show, and we
do have open lines, although I see calls are starting
to I'm in, so give us a call at five
one two nine nine one nine two four two or
from your computer at tiny dot cc slash call THH.
We air live every Sunday at one pm Central on YouTube.

(04:12):
But remember you can't make If you can't make it
for whatever reason, you can find us wherever you get
your podcasts from. Make sure you follow us on Patreon
if you'd like, where our subscribers get access to bonus
content like the after show recordings and early releases of
our episodes. All right, so before we dive into these
calls that are starting to line up here, I would

(04:33):
like to bring up our guest or our backup post
this week, Jamie the Blind liemey Jamie. It's always good
to see you. It's always good too unintended there.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, it's always good to somehow perceive you too.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
All right, I'll take it. I'll take that.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
But anyway, so I'm being brought up because we uh
every week ask you lovely viewers a question and not
talk ethen to me seke. And last week we asked
you what is or name a creepy creepy Bible verse?
And we have three winners in at number three we

(05:12):
have seen not creepiest verse Psalms eighty one ten, I
am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of
the land of Egypt. Open thy mouth wide, and I
will fill it. That's the KJV, and one of the
one translations might be I am the Lord thy God.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
Blow me.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Tract that tracks. I think that that melds well with
the overall message of the whole book.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
I think let Jesus come into you anyway. Impromptutor mana
number two, Chuck Gaidos, Did Jacob really just wrestle with God?
Or was the real story to creepy.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
For boom right wrestling in a biblical sense.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Right to know in a biblical sense.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
So to speak right right exactly.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, I if you prefer to think of it as
actually just a wrestling match, but that's because I'm a
flipping Mark and Richard knows what that means anyway. And
Number one Colin Matts creepiest Bible verse Genesis ninete. Oh,
I know this one. Genesis nineteen thirty one and thirty two.
The firstborn said to the younger, our father is old,

(06:25):
and there is not a man on earth to come
to us after him, after the manner of all the earth. Come,
let us make our father drink wine, and we will
lie with him, that we may reserve the seed of
our father. Dear Penthouse, you'll never get what happened to me.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
The thing about that verse is that it does. It's
creepy enough. It doesn't even require any kind of massaging
on our no innuendo or anything like that. As it is.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Anyway, let us create, let us clean our brains of
that filth, and please please go to the next question
for next week. The prompt is why did Jesus come
back after he was crucified? Wrong answers only so do
either of you have a witty answer for that one?

Speaker 1 (07:22):
What are your thoughts there.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
I don't know, and I've not got a sense of
human so I've not got a witty answer. However, I
think I think this is a clear sign that you know,
you've just alluded to the Old Testament. I think Jesus
came back because after he'd died in those three days,
the message had started spreading. There was it was a
nice guy. All this Christianity is such a nice thing.

(07:45):
This greate christ is, you know, is such a lovely,
lovely guy. Help my neighbor and all that, and I
think he came back said no, no, no, no no no
no no, no, no no, the Old Testament is correct in fact,
as one and one with God. I'm a bit of
a twat. I'd like to drown everybody on earth. I
like to order people to go out and the murder

(08:05):
a whole people, including small infant boys, and take their
virgin dulters of spoils of war. That's what I am.
Stop misrepresenting me. So I think that is why Jesus
came back from the dead.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
That was That was a heavy, heavy answer there, Richard. Well,
you know, I'm not a I'm not a Bible scholar
or anything. But if I remember back from my from
my Sunday school days. I seem to remember something in
this story about how when the Roman soldiers were putting
up the people that were being crucified that day, they
distinctly asked, does anybody need to use the bathroom? Now

(08:43):
is the time to do it? And I seem to
remember a verse that said and Jesus said no, yay,
though his bladder runneth over. So I think Jesus just
need to come back and use the restroom. I think
that was it. That was that, that was the deal.
And and of course you know the Roman soldiers were
like every damn time, every damn time this happens.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Well, if Jesus was anything like me, he'd come back
after the resurrection and forget why he did it, just
like I'm sure I was supposed to be here for something.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
But anyways, if it's pay I feel your pain there, Jamie,
I feel your pain.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
So that's the prompt. Why did Jesus come back after
the resurrection? We'll come back to life Ryansa's only put
your answers in the comments below, not in the chat,
and we will pick three winners for the next show.
So take it away. Gentlemen. I'm sure you'll have a
wonderful show.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
All right, Thanks all much, Jamie appreciate it, all right. So,
and before we dive into our first call here, I
also want to take a moment to thank the crew.
There's a lot of people that work behind the scenes here.
Let's bring up that crew cam if we can look
at all those wonderful people there trying to help Richard
and I look halfway respectable here. So thank you all

(09:54):
for the for the hard work that you do. Let's
show some love for them in the chat as well.
And I don't know, Richard, are you ready to dive
into our first call here?

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
This first call I think is going to be one
that you are especially liking here, and that is we
have Cow's our friend. She Her from the Netherlands. Cows
her Friend, thanks for calling in today. You want to
talk about faith in Buddhism and I think that Richard
might have a few things to say about that. How
are you doing today, cows a friend.

Speaker 6 (10:25):
I'm doing well. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for taking my call.
It's good to speak to Bob here again. We actually
had a conversation a couple of months back about supernatural
aspects of Buddhism, and I think some interesting things came
up in that call. That's I would like to discuss today,

(10:47):
namely like the justification of my faiths and Tuddism and
maybe how it's different from other religions, if that's okay
with you?

Speaker 4 (10:57):
Two?

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Sure thing? Just one quick question before we dive into this.
What exactly when you say faith in Buddhism, what are
you talking about there? What do you mean by that?

Speaker 6 (11:07):
So faith in Buddhism, to me, is really the belief
that the Buddha was actually an alightened being, that he
actually attained the enlightenment. He was talking about that he
probably thought that to others, and that to this day,
like there's still sort of a living memory of that,
that it's still possible to follow his example in doing that.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Gotcha? Gotcha? All right? Well what what what specific part
of that did you want to talk about today?

Speaker 6 (11:38):
Yeah, So, based on the care we are having, I
was thinking over, like what could be the difference between
that and for example, faith in the Resurrection of Jesus
or like similar points and other religions. And I think
maybe what really sets the part is that in Buddhism,
faith is a starting point. So like rather than just believing,

(12:02):
and then that belief being the purpose behind Buddhism, that
is meant to sort of point to you in a
direction way, then undergo of practice, and that practice is
opposed to them, gives you actual direct insights in the
nature of reality. So through sort of observing, like in

(12:23):
meditation and things like that, like the way things happen,
that is the actual ground of learning. So whatever the
scripture say actual reality has experienced is above that. I
think that might be a bit of a different perspective

(12:43):
they would find in many other religions.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
But why would why would you take that step? Why
would anyone take that step? If we've got If we've
got let's say, five people who've all dog a hole
and they say, down my whole is the the truth?
You know, this religion, this hole is true. All the
other people have dug their holes, they are not true.

(13:07):
Mine is the only true one. But before you can
know this truth, you've got to take a leap of faith,
as it were, and jump in the hole and just
trust my word that it is true. We only have
a certain amount of time on this earth, and we
can't possibly cannot possibly investigate every single religion. So why

(13:32):
before we even start talking about whether, you know, the
practice of Buddhism confirms this faith, why should we even
take that leap to begin with?

Speaker 6 (13:44):
I think there are things in Buddhism that are beneficial
even if you're not ready to commit to it. Certainly,
like my approach to Buddhism wasn't one where I just
took a big leap of faith. I sort of dipped
in my toes as it were, uh uh and sound
of others, and I did some meditation, and I did

(14:05):
some reading and kind of liked what I saw without
immediately taking on this like this entire belief system, this
this huge doctrine, because you don't you don't really have to, Like,
you can benefit massively from meditation without believing anything about Buddhism.
So specifically for Buddhism, I would say, like that that

(14:27):
can be an envy, and it's an enpty that I
see less in other religions where I think it really
does start with a bland fade in a particular thing
before any of those benefits are supposed to happen.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Okay, well, we lost Richard for a second there. I'm
not sure if he's quite back yet. But what but
what Richard was asking you is why should we believe this?
Why should you why should you jump in this particular hole?
Why blind faith in this particular direction. You mentioned something
about the you saw benefits immediately after adopting these beliefs.

(15:02):
Do you think that's a good reason to hold the
beliefs in the first place. Is it purely a consequentialist
kind of a perspective that you're taking here, or do
you think that there is is value and truth itself
or are you separating those two things here?

Speaker 6 (15:17):
So it's a quick correction there, Like, it's not that
I adopted the beliefs and then I saw a benefit.
It's really I adopted certain practices that to me at
the time, we're not already connected to all the beliefs,
and that's why I got benefits, and that's what made
me confident that maybe adopting more of this package that

(15:37):
we call Buddhism could be beneficial to me.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
But sorry, you're not addressing the question is about truth,
not about benefit, right.

Speaker 6 (15:45):
Yeah, But to me, benefit is the more important thing here. Actually, Like,
I think that following a particular religion, especially something like Buddhism,
which is very much a practice more than a set
of beliefs. It should be about benefits. If you're doing
the Buddhism and it's actually not helping you at all,

(16:05):
you should stop doing the Buddhism.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Do you think that other faiths also have followers who
who may have taken the same similar journey to you.
I certainly know, I know Christians and Muslims who have
converted to that religion from other faiths or nom and
they certainly, you know, it seems to have improved their

(16:31):
lives personally. They seem to be getting benefits from them.
You started this by saying that you know this faith
is Buddhist faith was somewhat different to other faiths, and
yet from what you've said so far, it seems that
we can see parallels to all of that in other religions.
But what about this do you think makes it distinct?

Speaker 6 (16:54):
We I think makes it distinct is that it does
not start with a belief, or it doesn't have to
start with it. So I don't know. Maybe you have
an idea about this, but I would not know how
you would start Christianity without believing in Jesus without believing
in the resurrection of Jesus, or without believing that believe
in Jesus being sure to heaven or any of that

(17:14):
like that seems to me like it's a starting point,
whereas many of the big belief claims in Buddhism they
come later. Like you can start with Buddhism without believing
in them.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Don't you think that people from you know, you're saying that, yes, yes,
you start without having this belief, But you did say that,
you know, you'd read a little bit, you'd taken on
a couple of practices which had benefits for you, and these,
a presume we're going to get to these have reinformed

(17:44):
your faith and strengthened your faith that Buddhism is true.
Don't you think that's possible in other religions that people
might who convert to the religion, they begin not with
the belief that it's true immediately, but they do see
aspects of it. They might read a little bit about Islam,

(18:05):
for example, and that makes sense to them, and then
you know, start living in accordance with the way that
Islam says you should live, and that brings benefits to
them and that informs that the religion is true. So
they're not their journey is parallel to yours. They're not
starting immediately from saying right, that's it Islam is true.

(18:28):
I believe in God. They are doing the similar or
the same thing that you're doing in the case of
what you've explained to your path was where they are saying, right,
this seems to make sense to me. This seems to
be giving me benefits. Maybe there's something more to it.

Speaker 6 (18:46):
Yes, I see your points. Yeah that I do think
that it could happen like that.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yes, So, just to clarify your position here, you're labeled
here as a theist. So you do believe in the
supernatural claim of the of the Buddhist faith. You believe
things like reincarnation, things like you know, the buddhas reincarnated
and so on and so forth. So you started out
along this Buddhist path because of the practices, and then

(19:13):
you eventually came to understand and appreciate and eventually believe
the supernatural aspects of it. Is that that's that's that
would be the first part of the question here. The
second part is, but we wanted to talk about the
truth of of the faith the truth of the of
the beliefs there, and so whether or not you think
the truth is important, that's really the question that we're

(19:35):
asking about. I think it'd be pretty easy to make
an argument that believing having true beliefs is beneficial to
the believer and to the society in general. How do
you how do you reconcile that, how do you reconcile
your particular path to attaining these beliefs, to prioritizing things
that are that you know, you said you had personal benefits.

(19:58):
I could again argue that they're personal benefits for believing
true things, and so how do you how do you
how does that mesh how does that fit together in
your perspective there?

Speaker 6 (20:08):
So, I think it is important to believe through things.
And if it was shown to me or if I
discovered that's something that I believed from scripture, or just
like for my assumptions about Buddhism, if I've discovered that
it was not true, then I would have to reject it.
And I would think that holding on to a belief

(20:28):
like that would not be beneficial to me, it would
be harmful. At the same time, though I do have
the confidence to trust in the teachings of the Buddha
when they're not shown false, but also when I don't
know yet that they are definitely true. So that sounds
like I would consider that the Buddha to be a teacher.

(20:50):
And just like teaching a classroom, you may not like
directly understand like all the theory behind, like the mad
thing that the teacher is explaining, but it would all
sort of trust to teach her about the match that
they're explaining on like the whiteboards. In a similar way
I approach the teachings of the Buddha. And in regard

(21:11):
to like my labeling as a theist, I'm a fraichuer.
Yourchanic system just doesn't have a good category for non
thiastic Buddhists.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, it's quite difficult, And I appreciate that you've you've
labeled yourself as a theist from my perspective, actually, because
it does as Scott, it gives Scott an indication that
you did believe in the supernatural aspects. So I actually
do appreciate that. I'm interested, I'm really really interested in
this kind of where do we draw the line? Where

(21:41):
do we draw the line on this? You you you know,
we've spoken before.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
You know that.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
I've studied both the script Buddist scriptures and have and
still do continue to practice meditation. I am not convinced
that any of the supernatural aspects of the Buddhist teachings
are true at all. I don't get none of None
of anything I've practiced, none of anything I have read,

(22:07):
have led me to that conviction. What do you think
I'm doing wrong? Where is the line? Where is the
demarcation line?

Speaker 6 (22:16):
I don't know what you're doing wrong. Maybe I'm doing
something wrong. Maybe I should be less trusting of ancients
text by guys to claim to have found something while
sitting under a tree.

Speaker 7 (22:29):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (22:30):
Like for me, it's really like I have that faith
and I can't really tell you right now where it
came from or like why I found that. But but
I really do genuinely believe that the Buddha was enlightened
and that this teaching is meaningful, and from that belief,
I'm willing to extend like this, this extra trust, even

(22:51):
though like I would have never done that without this,
this this faith in the Buddha. Yeah, I cannot tell
you why I have that faith.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
So it really is so it's almost literally blind faith
really is what you're talking about.

Speaker 6 (23:04):
Here, I guess at this point, yes, it is. I
think it would be just honest thing to say, Hey,
that for me it is right now, blind faith in
the enlightenment of Buddha.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Are you comfortable with that position?

Speaker 4 (23:17):
Well?

Speaker 1 (23:18):
That comfortable with following blind faith? I mean do you
think that that's a productive or reasonable or or even
safe approach to things?

Speaker 6 (23:27):
No? No, I'm not comfortable with blind faith. I would
much better, I know for sure.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
So how do those ideas all sit in your head?

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Then?

Speaker 1 (23:34):
How do those ideas on this hand here I have
this blind faith in the Buddha, and on this other hand,
I realize that I'm being that I have this blind
faith and I'm not comfortable with it. How does that
cognitive dissonance kind of play itself out? Does that How
do you feel when you think about that? Does it
kind of push you to avoid thinking about things? Does
it push you to you know? Is there an emotional

(23:56):
response there? And I know that you you feel comfortable
with the practices of Buddhism, many of which, as Richard
was saying, you can you can enjoy and engage in
without the quote unquote the religion, part of the religion.
I mean, how does that sit with you? Do you
consider yourself to be a skeptic?

Speaker 6 (24:17):
That's that's a difficult question. I mean, there are very
difficult questions, Like I very much hope to learn more
and to discover more, and I believe that the practice
that I'm doing, the part that I've chosen, is actually
one that leads away from blind faith to understanding. So yes,

(24:39):
I am uncomfortable with blind fate to the Buddha, but
I'm still willing to walk the spot further because I
believe that it will turn you away from that blind
faith to actual understanding.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
So how would you address Richard's question? What's the difference
then between you and him? Is he doing something wrong?
You said, you said you might be the one doing
something wrong here. I still want to I still want
to feel. I feel like you say you're you're on
a path, and I think that's wonderful. You say that
you're curious, that you want to investigate, that you want
to look into things. I think that's wonderful. Yet in

(25:13):
the meantime, you're you're professing this blind faith. Do you
think you know? Do you think maybe you got those
in the wrong order there, or what's what's what would
what would Richard be doing differently than what you've done?

Speaker 6 (25:24):
What is Richard doing differently now?

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Or or Richard's on a path of discovery as well.
Richard is a very curious human being. Uh he he
likes to study these kind of things, and I think
he's at least partially motivated by a desire to know
to uh, to believe true things? Is that is, is
he fundamentally different than than the way you're approaching it?

(25:46):
Or is or are these really minor differences? And maybe
you're just on a different part of the same path.

Speaker 6 (25:52):
I mean, I cannot speak for Richard obviously that that's
Maybe Richard can say why he read all this and
clearly has liked to steep into this in the early
Buddhist texts and in the practices.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
But yeah, Richard, why don't you believe in aspects of Buddhism?
You're what You're dropping the ball here, Richards.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
I'm not convinced that the true I'm not convinced that
there's any any evidence, any empirical evidence that the true
I'm not convinced that the practice I've undertaken has demonstrated
them to be true. I've spoken, I've spoken to the
habit of I'm not going to say who it is

(26:35):
or which monster. I spoke to the habbit of a
monastery a few years ago, and who was essentially my
meditation teacher at the time, and I asked him about this,
and I said, I don't believe in any of these
supernatural aspects. Why don't I believe in any of you know,
why don't I believe in these things when they are
told to us that they are true in the scriptures.

(26:57):
And his response was I considered it throwaway, if I'm
honest with you. His response was, keep practicing and it
will come to you in time. I've kept practicing, and
they have not come to me. So I'm not convinced
by them. Nothing in the scriptures themselves convinces me about them.

(27:19):
You know, the Buddhist scriptures. The text we're talking about
really really good. We're talking about the Parley Canon. I
happen to know that Cows of Friends is, you know,
is what school of Buddhism. I'm not going to say,
because I don't know if they have if that information
to be divulged, but I'm familiar with the school of
Buddhism they are from. I've you know, I've read those scriptures.

(27:42):
The Parley Canon, which is that school, the scriptures that
belong to that school, is very good at saying you
can misunderstand things in practice when it speaks about what
are called the john as the john as a particularly
subtle states of meditation, and what it says about these
is you will get to a point in practice in

(28:05):
your meditation practice where you will enter a state of bliss,
and you will confuse this state of bliss for the
attainment of enlightenment. And you shouldn't get caught up in that.
You've got to be mindful when you're in these states
that you don't fall into this trap of confusing the

(28:26):
one thing for the other. And I think that's very good.
I think it's very good advice. The problem seems to
be that Buddhists themselves are doing this when when they're
practicing things and taking stuff on face without, you know,
without any evidence that this faith is actually true other
than well it feels good and certain aspects. And this

(28:50):
is why I mentioned the other religions earlier on, because
this happens in all religion. There's no evidence that it's true.
But certain things are true that have been said, stuff
that can be empirically tested. You know that community brings
happiness and support, and you know your practice is strengthened

(29:12):
by having a community around you. All these things are true,
they are absolutely true, but they're not the supernatural elements.
And it seems that Buddhists and other religious people from
other traditions all fall into the same trap of saying, well,
because that aspect of it is true, then this strengthens
my faith in this other supernatural aspects of which I

(29:33):
don't have any evidence for, and that is a really,
really big mistake. I want to ask Cow's a friend.
In the Mahapawer of Anama's a lot in Navana Sutra,
which was the sutra from the Buddha's deathbed, essentially, he
was asked specifically by one of his followers, how we
should follow the right path, how we should know that

(29:57):
what we are doing in pressice is correct when the
Buddha has passed away, and the Buddha said that you
should cross reference his teachings, what he has taught while
he was alive, with your own practice and the practice
of the sanger which is the Buddhist community of monks
and nuns. Do you not think that that methodology is very,

(30:21):
very circular, that you're confirming things with the community that
has this believe in what the Buddh's taught and your
own practice, which is heavily influenced by what the Buddha's taught,
and if you somewhat deviate. You talked earlier about not
having evidence that the supernatural stuff wasn't true, so you

(30:42):
were going to accept it until that's such a time
as you did. So, if you have to follow the
Buddha's instructions and you came across evidence that said X
supernatural element of Buddhism was not true, Let's say reincarnation.
I've come across evidence that reincarnation isn't true. How should
I follow this according to the Buddhist teachings, Well, I

(31:02):
should cross reference it with his teachings and the Buddhist community.
So you refer to the scriptures, you refer to the
Sanger the Buddhist community. The scriptures tell you that reincarnation
is true, and the Buddhist community who have faith in
the Buddhist teachings also tell you that reincarnation is true.

(31:22):
So if you are being a good Buddhist, what you
should do is reject your findings, because that is not
what you've been told to do in the scriptures. You
have been told to cross referencings to make sure you're
on the right path by cross reference in these re elements,
and if one of them is found to be out,
reject that. So CAW's a friend, And I want to
ask you, do you not think this is circular? Do

(31:44):
you not think do you not understand that this is
a really poor methodology for checking that something is true,
and it in fact entrapture in a way into staying
in something even if you did find that evidence that
it was not true.

Speaker 6 (32:00):
Yes, the way you describe it there is very circular,
and I think, uh, I don't avoid to be circular
in any sort of teaching. That the structured the way
buddhen is Buddhism is with like an original teacher, and
then the doctrine that develops out of that, and then
an attempt to keep that doctrine kind of stable over time.

(32:22):
I think another important aspect of the suitor that you name, though,
is the Buddha saying that we ought to make an
island for ourselves. So to make a practice it is
actually truly like self not self defender. That's actually very
bad word in Buddhism, but that that does not depend
on like all these other factors, like like all these

(32:45):
other peoples, all these views that exist in the world.
And I think going by that you would have to
abandon even what the Suna says, even what the Buddha
says eventually, but that eventually and of course up to them,
it's still like this sort of circlear thing. Uh So, yeah,

(33:06):
I would agree with you that that's sort of a
dangerous thing. But like, is it danger enough reason to
to not do it? Is what I ask myself, given
that right now it seems so beneficial to me, and
it seems so beneficial to so many other people. Uh,

(33:28):
is it really so bad to to work this party?

Speaker 2 (33:35):
They have to reject the practice because as you know,
I practice for this meditation. I just don't believe in
the supernatural aspects of it. Doctor Richard Firth Godby here,
who is you know, a very good friend of ours,
is an expert in emotion, and he, you know, he
puts out these things every day, these little snippet things

(33:56):
about emotions about good emotional health, and they often refers
to Buddhism and Buddhist meditation as being emotionally healthy things.
You don't have to reject the practice of it simply
to act knowledge that it is. Not that it's not
true in the larger sense of things, but it is

(34:18):
beneficial for you. You know, the aspects of Buddhism which
are true are really good for our emotional health, So
take them and reject those parts of it, the supernatural
elements that are not true and we have no reason
to think are true. You don't have to abandon the

(34:38):
practice at all in order to do that. And you know,
I'm often criticized by atheists on this show and in
other arenas where I you know, for saying that my
goal is not to stop any religious person. It's not
to stop Christians being Christian. It's not to stop Muslims
being Muslims. What I want to do is give people
the scaffolding to understan stand the importance of believing things

(35:03):
for good reasons. That's all I want to do, And
what they do with that information is entirely up to them. Now,
you seem, you know, when we're having these conversations. Both
in this call and the previous call you made to
the show, you seem to be able to grasp this
and understand this, and understand that actually, actually that is circular,

(35:24):
and actually there isn't a good reason for that, and
actually there's not a good reason for this, and yet
you have this cognitive dissonance going off where you're still
clinging to it being true. And I'm not saying to
you you must abandon all Buddhist practice. What I'm saying
to you is the intellectually honest position is to acknowledge

(35:44):
that there is no good reasons for believing the supernatural
elements of Buddhism. So what do we do. We abandon
this kind of grasping it as if it is true,
and then when we get on with the good elements
of it, the parts that are being official to us
and continue being beneficial to our lives. You can do that.

(36:05):
That's that's an absolutely fine thing to do. Nobody is
saying to you you should stop being labeling yourself a
Buddhist ephen or partaking in these practices. What we're saying
to here is build this scaffolding around the way you
assess believes because at the moment, I think you're an
amazing person, counsel friend. You know that we've had these

(36:27):
conversations many times on the discord, in the after shows
and what not. I really do add my ear. You've
come out, You've corrected me a couple of times on
things I've said regarded Buddhism, and I really really appreciate that.
But there is this cognitive dissonance that you've got going off,
and I think it's really important to acknowledge that cognitive

(36:48):
dissonance is there and then say to yourself exactly as
you would in meditation practice. Right, I have seen this
for what it is. I must now I should now
accept the true things, the beneficial things, and reject those
things that aren't beneficial. And I think clinging to supernatural

(37:08):
beliefs all the hope that supernatural beliefs are true is
not beneficial. That's my opinion on it. You may disagree.
I'm going to let you respond to me, and then
I'm going to let Scott jump in and have a
say as.

Speaker 6 (37:19):
Well, well, thank you. I think that's that's a valid,
very valid perspective, and I don't have a direct response here.
This is something I need to consider and sit on
for a little bit, and I might go in another
time to keep discussing it, if that's okay with you.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Absolutely okay, I think Richard. I think you made an
excellent point there there. We can separate the practices that
might have some beneficial side effects. We can separate that
from the supernatural belief. And one could even argue that
we should separate those because one can be justified in
cases where the other one is not justified. You mentioned

(37:59):
that you you are kind of in a in a
blind faith situation. You recognize the risk of blind faith.
I also want to point out that there was a
couple of times that you mentioned the idea of believing
something until it's proven otherwise. I think we know that
that that can be a risky approach as well. And
so to me, it seems like you're trying to trying

(38:21):
to cope with these kind of conflicts that are going
on in your mind, which I think is an awesome
place to be because you're in a You're in a
point where you stand to learn something about yourself and
about your beliefs, and possibly even about about the world
and about humanity in general. So I think that's a
that's an interesting and very good place to be. I
think I'm thinking we should maybe wrap up this call here.

(38:43):
We've been talking for over thirty minutes. Not that it
wasn't fascinating for me to listen to, but any any
parting thoughts on the idea of treating those two concepts,
the practices and the supernatural beliefs, any thoughts going forward
as as we get you're up for your next call,
next time you call in it talk about it.

Speaker 6 (39:03):
I think it's very silid to consider them separate, and
also that buddhus practice is really something that can be
done without idea of the supernatural believe I will have
to think about it more so.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
Okay, all right, well thank you much. Yeah, yeah, it
was our pleasure, couser friend, thanks for calling in. It's
always pleasure to talk to you. And I imagine we
might be seeing you in the UH in the after show.
Both Richard and I will be hopping in there, so
we can maybe continue this there. But I really appreciate
your call, causer friend, thanks.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
A lot, Thank you, goodbye.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
All right, So before we jump into our next call here,
I just have a couple of quick announcements we got
the Bat crews coming up, and Richard, I think you're
still a maybe? Is that right? Maybe? For the bad crews?

Speaker 2 (39:49):
I would if I could. Unfortunately I am I am
way too I'm way too far away and way too skins.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
All right, So we shot got Richard as a strong maybe.
So that's kind coming up August sixteenth at seven pm.
Tickets are selling quickly, so get yours today and join
people like Tim b, April W and Gabriel who already
have their tickets. If you're not able to attend, you
can still help out by donating underneath the live chat
to produce to purchase a ticket for one of our

(40:16):
hosts or crew. So visit tiny dot cc slash bat
Cruise to get your tickets and we'll see you on
the boat. I will definitely be there and I'm really
looking forward to it. It's a good opportunity to meet
many of the cast and crew members of our shows,
and it's always fun meeting people who like the shows.
And so if you feel like seeing some cool Bat stuff,

(40:37):
then come on down and join us for that. That's
August sixteenth, seven pm. Also a great way to support
us is by sending super chats, so get them in
and we'll read as many as you can. I want
to today, I want to focus our super chats on
shouting out, giving some love out to all of our
ACA members and show showcast and crew that are out

(40:57):
at nanocon in Tennessee today. And so we have a
lot of people out there, and so if you want
to send a super chat hug to one of them,
feel free and we'll read it on the air here. Also,
if you're in Austin, you can join our weekly watch
parties at the Free Thought Library on Sundays for live
viewings of Talk Heathen and the Atheists Experience every Sunday,

(41:18):
doors open at noon. It's a great place for building community.
And lastly, you can follow Talk Heathen on TikTok Talk
Heathen and join us for our pre shows live at
the ACA TikTok Atheist Community of Austin. And I think
Richard was even on there right before the show, trying
to drum up a little bit of business for us
there on Talk on TikTok. What kind of response I'm curious, Richard,

(41:41):
I'm not really much of a TikToker, so what kind
of what kind of interaction, what kind of feedback do
you get from TikTokers about the shows?

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, you know what, we have the people who pop
into those pre shows great, they really are. We have
a you know, sometimes a fast wants to do the
lives on them and prompt them or not taking lives
at the moment. But they can call the show. You know,
we've we've got quite a few calls from those pre
show tiktoks. But the interaction is great. You know, the

(42:10):
fans of the show put messages in there, and you know,
I'll read them out if they're appropriate to do so,
and it's great interaction. I love doing those. You get
to meet the people who are fans of the show,
get They very often show their appreciation and it's you know,
I love that. I love interacting with the people who
support us and who are fans and who want want

(42:34):
to watch these conversations unfold, right right, I love it.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Cool? Cool, all right, Yeah, I gotta get it. I
gotta get involved with that. I'm getting way behind the
curve here and this whole technology thing, but someday I'll
catch back up, I think. But we do have some
more callers on the line here. Let's talk next to
we have Michelle She her from New York, a theist,
wants to talk about the God question. Would we know

(42:59):
supernatural apart from alien or future tech? Michelle, how are
you doing today?

Speaker 5 (43:04):
Doing you very well? Mister Dickey and mister g.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Well, what's on your mind about the God question here today?

Speaker 5 (43:13):
You know, I've been a fan of the shows around
on YouTube that discussed this question quite a bit, and
I see a lot of enthusiasm over the years from
the host like still have that core enthusiasm. Can I
mention some of these shows that, okay if they're on
your line and like you, I.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Mean, well, what about just describe the enthusiasm that you're
talking about, Enthusiasm about talking about.

Speaker 5 (43:39):
The odd question, enthusiasm about continuing does God exist?

Speaker 4 (43:46):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (43:46):
I mean you guys have been so hammered by the
same old argument, like if someone's not going to the
teleological or going to the ontological or it's some a
nane thing. To me, I can't really think of any
good avid answer other than like I would say, maybe
the myriad of life that exists on Earth and all

(44:10):
the numbers that went in and all the everything, the physics,
just everything. It doesn't seem it just seems to me
more likely that God, it doesn't seem to be more
likely that big gang.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
Michelle.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
So presumably you have been persuaded by this stuff, So
what is it specific you know, what is it specifically
that has persuaded you?

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Michelle us Michelle here?

Speaker 5 (44:39):
No, I'm here. That's a that's a good question, mister Deliver. No,
I didn't answer correctly. I'm sorry, mister g. Deliver. I'm sorry.
I'm fully puchering your name there.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
It is fine.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
But yeah, there's been a lot of things that have
persuaded Would they persuade anybody else? I don't think so,
So why share them?

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Do you think that they shouldn't persuade you? Are they
things that you think should be persuasive to you?

Speaker 5 (45:03):
They have me, not convinced, but they have me a
little bit in pai.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, And that wasn't my question. My question was do
you think things that persuade you? Do you think that
they should be persuasive to you?

Speaker 5 (45:18):
They seem to be persuading, make they seem to be
making me believe, So I can't just simply excuse them,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean there's lots of reasons that people believe.
We know that confidence and belief is an emotional response.
When you have confidence in something that was said or
that you hear, that's an emotional response. And we all
know that emotions can come about for bad reasons. Maybe
we can we get angry at somebody because we're hungry
or tired, or because for whatever reason, maybe something bad

(45:50):
happened earlier that day. So we know that emotions can
come about for bad reasons, and so I think it's
important to examine those reasons. If there's something in your
life that's convincing you to believe that God exists. It's
really a red flag to me when I hear somebody say, well,
there's this thing and it convinces me, but it's not

(46:11):
going to convince anybody else. And so to me, that's
saying you don't necessarily accept that it should be persuasive.
Are you being persuaded by for a good reason? Do
you think that you believe for a good reason, or
do you think maybe you have some of these other responses.
Maybe you were raised to be religious, maybe you're in
a religious setting. Now there could be maybe you had

(46:34):
some kind of difficulty in your life so you were
vulnerable at a particular time and you adopted this. You know,
your mind associates a change in your life with this,
with the adoption of a religious belief. Do you think
do you think that the reasons that are convincing to
you are good? And if you don't think that they're
good reasons, do you think that maybe you should rethink?

Speaker 5 (46:56):
I'll give you one reason I think is decent good decent?
The Earth is how big compared to the Sun? Beard,
I always forget how many times it can spit inside
the center of the sun if the Sun was hollow,
and literally the Earth is less the size is it's
much less than the size about basketball and so compared

(47:19):
to the Sun. Yet we're in a perfect orbit around
the Sun to h to elicit nice temperate weather in
the most popular, densely populated areas.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Mm hmm, it's called Dicad's a mathematician. Would you like
to address this? Uh, which clearly falls into the lower
of very large numbers.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
I mean, I would just say gravity. Is that what
you're talking about? You're saying that gravity is a is
a is a reason to believe? Or are you talking
are you talking about like how the Earth is in
quote unquote the Goldielots zone. Is that is that what
you're looking at there or what? I'm not really entirely
sure what it is you are saying? Was your reason
to believe not only.

Speaker 5 (48:00):
The Goldvilock zone but also the sheer size of the
Sun compared to the Earth. I mean, the Sun the
Earth is less than the size of a basketball.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
How they get the Earth obviously is not less than
the size of a basketball. But I think I think
what you mean is that it's very if if the
Sun was represented by like, you know, a beach ball
or something, then maybe the Earth would be the size
of a marble. Or is that kind of what you're saying?
So that so something there's things out there that are
bigger than the earth? Is that? Is that the argument
that I'm in here.

Speaker 5 (48:30):
But so so tangimountly bigger than there, so tangimountly, so grandiose.
I mean, the universe seems like something that's grandiose, like
it's and everything was all set in place just so
so at this time we apes could say, we could
rise up on our legs and say and keep saying, WHOA,

(48:53):
this stuff keeps amazing us. No matter.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
I mean, I think when Richard was alluding to earlier
with the with the idea of large numbers, is that
there's lots and lots of big stars out there and
in the in the grand scheme of things, our star
really isn't all that amazing. It's really not all that spectacular,
and it's not even really all that big. But there's
going to be lots of stars out there that have

(49:15):
planets surrounding them that many of them are in the
Goldilock zone. There are are scientists today that are looking
for that kind of thing. They found lots and lots
of planets out there. Why do you, I mean, why
you would think that life turning out this way? You
could even argue that it's almost inevitable. And so if
that's the case, how does how would that lead you
to the existence of a god? I mean, it seems

(49:37):
like you're it seems to me like the argument you're
trying to make, and please correct me if I'm wrong.
The Solar system is just so awesome there must be
a god. Is that kind of what your argument is?

Speaker 5 (49:47):
But not just the Solar system, I'm not the whole cosmos.
I mean, we got to thank bolling around and in
our space that are called black holes. A black holes,
I mean, okay, but that like that's there just because.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
And so that's also a productal gravity. So gravity is
a thing.

Speaker 5 (50:04):
Gravity is just there. Gravity is just there just because
we need it to function, and it's just there just.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Because, Michelle, earlier, earlier in the call, you said that
you thought God was more likely than the Big Bank.
You've done a lot of talking about space in the universe.
Is it that you don't is it that you don't
accept the Big Bang at all? Or is it the you? Okay,

(50:33):
That's what I'm trying to clarify. So so what why
why did you mention your thought God was more likely
than the Big Bank? Then what's specifically about that?

Speaker 5 (50:44):
I mean, like I think, I think how how he
did it was the through the Big Bang, like when
God said let there be light, Big Bang? Why or
why emanating and going out from one source to the
ends of the consules And it's still continuing speeding up.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
You do know that the guy who mentioned this on
the show a couple of weeks ago, it seems to
be like my main talking point recently. The guy who
actually came up with the Catholic priest who came up
with the Big Bang theory actually rejected this idea that
it was done through God, don't you he actually there
was a kind of the Pope Pious came out and

(51:25):
said that God had created the universe through the Big Bang,
and the Big Bang was evidence for God's existence. And
le Metro was the guy who came up with the
Big Bank theory, said no, this is not the case.
He says, I disagree with that sentiment. We should separate
the science from religious faith and we shouldn't be making

(51:47):
statements like that. What do you know that the guy
who came up with the Big Bang theory himself rejected.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
Well, it's interesting. I mean, I do I say, do
I agree, do I disagree? Does it change my position
at all?

Speaker 4 (52:08):
I would have to think about it. I'm not going to.

Speaker 5 (52:10):
Say that I'm going to change my position based on
that solely and SOULI alan though, I was, well, I'm.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
What's what's different about what you know than what about
what he knows? Do you know something that he doesn't?

Speaker 5 (52:26):
Probably no, he probably knows a whole lot of the
guy probably knows a whole lot more than I do.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
I'm just a.

Speaker 5 (52:32):
Layman, and if that, but that's just that was my opinion.
And if a if a god, if a god that
was even less than maximumly powerful, had the ability to
create a universe or dimension or.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
Realm or more than one of them, and.

Speaker 5 (52:50):
Wanted to and decided to, he most certainly could. And
if he wanted to do it via a big bang,
he most certainly could.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
If he could, so.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Why he is my together? Right, But that can only
be true if God exists. If God doesn't exist, then
God can't do any of those things, right.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
I agree with me.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
So do you think that that is an important point?
I mean, we're talking about we're talking about taking the universe,
which you have, you know, some knowledge, but to using
your own words, you're not you know, you know much
less than say, you know, lamtre did. So do you
think that's good to then go on to that next
step and say, oh, well, then it must be God.
I mean, do you think it's because I haven't noticed

(53:31):
in any of the things that you've said, none of
the sentences that you've said have ended in therefore God.
And so it sounds like you're just trying to talk
about a situation and then to feel comfortable about the
conclusion you've already made. And I apologize if I'm mischaracterizing
what I'm hearing here, but please clarify that it's not
the case. Or are you just are you looking to

(53:52):
justify a belief you already hold for irrational reasons? Are
you trying to kind of wedge something in there?

Speaker 5 (54:00):
You'll have to forgive me. I'm running on not much
sleep and I think i'm a little lucy goosey at
the moment. So if I don't, if I if I'm
lacking a certain decorum, but please you.

Speaker 4 (54:13):
Know, hear me.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
What what is it? What is Michelle? Sorry further interruption,
But what is it about this idea that God could
set the Big Bang into emotion? What is it that
makes you think that's the case? If you were to say,
if you would to say someone, I think that God
created a big Bang, set the Big Bang into emotion,

(54:36):
set everything into motion. And I think this because what
explanation would you give for that? Because?

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Right, yeah, because he loved.

Speaker 5 (54:45):
Us, he wanted us to be here, because he knew
we wanted to be here, no matter how much we
had to suffer to get here, and all the ruling
and the suffering that we have to endure day by day.
Not to mention all the children who I have hunger
each day.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
I mean, it's a story. It's a story that makes
you satisfy? Is it because it's a story that you like?
Is that what you're saying because your reasons for believing
in God? That you're just the way you just answered
Richard's question is because he does this. So the answer
that you gave presupposes the existence of a God. And

(55:22):
so if you are actually trying to justify that belief,
you don't start by already believing it. Do you see
the fallacy there? Do you have a problem with that?
Do you think do you think having do you think
holding very important beliefs? And if you're a theist, I'm
assuming that you feel that your beliefs in your God

(55:43):
are important in your life. Do you think that you
should approach that kind of belief in such kind of
a slap dash way or do you think that that's
acceptable to you?

Speaker 5 (55:52):
Well, let me ask you a question. Why is supposing
or pre supposing, when it comes to scientific method, that
there is no God? And therefore trying to prove your
wrong via that direction.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Is that?

Speaker 5 (56:05):
Okay? But when I say I want when I presupposed
to God?

Speaker 4 (56:09):
WHOA You can't do that? Man?

Speaker 1 (56:11):
What do you mean? So, who's presupposing there's no God? Here?

Speaker 5 (56:14):
The atheists?

Speaker 1 (56:15):
Which atheists? You're talking to two of them here? I
don't presuppose that. I don't. I think I can speak
for Richard. I don't think it comes into it. You're
pre suppose that there's no God?

Speaker 4 (56:24):
So are you?

Speaker 5 (56:26):
So when you say you're not convinced, are you pre
presupposing that you're not convinced? Or are you supposing that
you're that you're not convinced?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Because it's an observation of one's own inner state, I mean,
we can all we can all stay say things with
relative certainty about our own psychological state. If I'm not convinced,
I can I can recognize that. If I'm not sure,
I can recognize that. If I am convinced, I can
recognize that. It's if you're asking us, are we presupposing
our own psychological state? That to me, that's kind of

(56:55):
a ridiculous question. Do you see why?

Speaker 5 (56:58):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (57:00):
You care to rephrase your question?

Speaker 4 (57:02):
No?

Speaker 5 (57:02):
Because I so you you really watched the holding it
and you you got a bazooka there.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
You picked it up.

Speaker 5 (57:09):
You got a zuka, you picked it up, and you
fired it through my argument, And god damn it, I
feel quite as I quite feel quite naked right now.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
I'm going a bum birthday because of that bazookie.

Speaker 5 (57:19):
As fired at me. But I'm fow this song.

Speaker 6 (57:23):
Guys.

Speaker 5 (57:23):
You guys are treating me nicely.

Speaker 4 (57:25):
Thank you. I feel you guys are treating me nicely.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Go, I think, I think, Michelle, go and get some
rest so you don't have to keep running on coffee
and so to us. I have a think about listen
back to the call. I have a think about it.
And when you've kind of had to go think about it,
give us a call back and kind of let's follow
it open and see where where you go from here.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Yeah, all right, thanks so much for your call, Michelle.
We really appreciate your calling in. I enjoyed the talk here.
All right. We do have a couple more calls on
the line here, but before we do that, I would
like to address our top patrons of the week. Richard,
would you here to read off our top patrons this week?

Speaker 2 (58:08):
I would like to very much, Yes, the top five
patrons for this week are Oops All, Singularity, Dianne Kerns, Dinglebridge,
Jackson Kleeve, Helvette and j A. Carlton. J A Carlton
honor mention goes to number six. People of a certain

(58:29):
age in Britain will remember an advert and know exactly
why I said that, like that, honorable mention Number six,
Number six Cyber Underscore Squirrel. Thank you to everybody who
supports us on Patroon and if you want your name
read on I please do consider supporting us at tiny
dot c c slash patreon th and we do record

(58:53):
for the patrons, for the paid patrons, specifically and exclusively,
we do record the talk heathen after shows. So if
you if you don't have discord, if you don't get
over there, if you don't get a chance to go
over there, and you want to hear those after shows,
you can do by becoming a paid patron member at
any level and you get so. We get into some

(59:15):
really good conversations over there and get some really good
insights into into the different subjects. We often follow up
on what we've been talking about and go into more detail.
We very often share links to studies and things that
relate to the stuff we've been talking about, and you know,
you get to know a little bit more about the
horse as well. The hosts very often share no details

(59:37):
that they don't share on air, so it's a it's
a really cool place to be. So you can you
can come and join us live after the show in Discord,
or you can if you want to listen to them
after the fight. You just joined Patron and you get
to listen to all of the after shows there as well.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
All right, thank you, Richard, And before we move on here,
I see that we do have a few super chats
that have come in, although I'm not seeing all of
the text here. We have Narcissa for nineteen ninety nine
with no comment, So thank you Narcissa for the for
the donation there. We really appreciate that. We also have
a super chat from Miranda Renzburger has been a member

(01:00:17):
of one year, a very big fan of ours. For
ten dollars. I've broken a commandment because I'm jealous of
the people who got to go to Nanakon. But Richard
could get to the back cruise if he starts swimming.
Now that's a very good point, Richard. It's a matter
of gumption, will.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Find me in the say logo, there's things that live
in there that you can eat you. I don't go in.
I hope it's to go on the same well in bulls.
I'm not going in the say you'll not find me
in that, So I'm swimming no way. Sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Remember, I'm pretty sure we have boats that cover that
distance too. I'm pretty sure we have that. But yeah,
we also have a super chat from Truth six sixty six,
member of one year a donation for nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
There.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
I don't see any comment there, So Truth six sixty
six thank you for that donation. And another one here.
This might be a repeat of Narcissus from earlier. Here
for nineteen ninety nine. Narcissus says, Lol, I'm in a
lot of psiatic pain right now. I'm going to have
a smoke and in an hour is my next pill.
Love being here with you, Damn Heathens. Well, we love

(01:01:23):
having you here. I'm sorry to hear about your back
pain there. You know I'm getting I'm an old man,
so I definitely have a small hint of maybe what
you're feeling there. So take care of yourself and then
come back and listen to some more heathenry here right
on the Talk Heathen Show before we have a couple
other calls here, Richard, but I wanted to we kind

(01:01:43):
of you talked us up about talking about the resurrection here,
and so I want us to at least address that
a little bit. I see we have one one caller
in the queue here who wants to talk about the
resurrection of Jesus. But I just wanted to get a
little hint, a little taster of you mentioned that you
had an argument against the resurrection of Jesus, and I

(01:02:04):
wonder if you can kind of sum that up for
us here, just to kind of give some maybe we
can kind of grease the wheels on some Christian callers
who are just about ready to call but they're not
quite sure. What do you have to say to that?

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Yeah, Look, it's not an argument against the resurrection as such.
It's an argument from psychology that we have explanations for
Even if we take every single Gospel account as eyewitness
and accurate, I don't think we can. But even if
we extended that out of the theists and said, right,

(01:02:38):
we're going to accept them as eyewitnesses, We're going to
say yes, they were definitely there. Every single aspect of
the Gospel accounts that talk about the resurrections, every single
one of them has aspects in it that psychology can explain.
So different fields of psychology have done lots of work

(01:02:59):
in not specifically of studying the resurrection. I'd like to
see a paper that does talk about this, but in
lots of different fields of resurrection. Lots of works being done,
very important work that addresses real life issues.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Some of them. Some of them relate to kind of
eyewitnesses and call into question whether that's a good thing
to have in courts of law or how they're treating
of courts of law. Some of them relate to trauma
and how we respond to trauma. All of these different
psychological fields. When we apply the work that's been done

(01:03:38):
and the work that is accepted by the consensus of
experts in those fields, what we find is that when
we apply those to the resurrection accounts, it actually explains
all of those things that those eyewitnesses, if we're to
take them as eyewitnesses, go through, and it actually gives
an explanation that these people might believe this to be

(01:04:02):
true because of X and we have that for every
single aspect of the resurrection accounts, right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
And you know, I also have somewhat of an argument here,
and it's kind of building on what you were talking about.
Mine is regarding the idea. So we're looking at the
What we're really trying to decide is, Okay, we have
this story about the resurrection. We want to decide is
the story correct or is it not correct? And you've
been talking about very various psychological phenomena that can explain

(01:04:34):
maybe reasons why people might have thought that or why
they might have believed that, And I want to look
at it for more of a mathematical perspective. Some of
you might know that. During my day job, I'm a
math teacher, and specifically I want to look at something.
Whenever I hear a Christian make an argument for the resurrection,

(01:04:55):
my first question to them is always the same. It's
always how do you do how do you determine that
a supernatural explanation was more likely than a more mundane explanation.
Or sometimes they'll they'll phrase, they'll phrase their statements so
that it's not really about a miracle, it's just about
the resurrection in general. And again I would adjust my question,
how can you justify the claim that an actual resurrection happening,

(01:05:19):
that the story was true is more likely than the
other possibilities, that the myriad of ways that they could
be wrong, and they always give me answers like, well,
they were strongly motivated to tell the truth, or I
want to read a specific and I don't want a
straw man my interlockertors here, So I want to read

(01:05:40):
just one response here that I that I was given
these let's see establishing that the resurrection happened, and less
concerned with establishing that it was a miracle, but against
the idea that it was wrong. There are several issues.
These come from the fact that the resurrection is multiply attested.
The witnesses demonstrated a willingness to die for their belief
in the resurrection, so lying is off the table. Red

(01:06:02):
flag number one, and the character of the testimony is
such that it would be nearly impossible to be honestly
mistaken about touching Jesus or eating with him in a group,
setting flag number two here, these points collectively rule out
the story being wrong, and my argument is, well, obviously
they don't rule out the story being wrong at best.
What they can do is argue that the story is

(01:06:23):
very unlikely to be wrong. But what I want to
point out here is that is a prior probability. And
if you want some more details about the type of
argument that I'm giving, I thought that doctor Blitz was
on The Atheist Experience last week, and I thought gave
a very very nice application of this kind of argument.
What I'm saying is, in order for you to say

(01:06:44):
that and the resurrection actually happening, you need to show
that it's more likely than the alternatives. And you can't
just say, well, the alternatives are unlikely, so this must
there's only other possibility, so it must be likely. I
can make that same argument from the other side. I
could say, well, going into it, we know that at
best resurrection has happened. I don't know zero times that

(01:07:07):
I can see. But even if we grant that it's
happened a few times, even if we grant that all
the other resurrection stories in the Bible were correct, that's
what five people out of one hundred billion people that
have lived on Earth. And so if we're talking about
prior probabilities, if you're saying that the stories are unlikely
to be wrong for X, Y, and Z reasons. I

(01:07:28):
can also say, well, resurrection is actually also very very unlikely,
and therefore the alternative must be likely. So by using
that same approach from two different sides of the argument,
you get conflicting, conflicting results, and that tells you that
there's a problem with the way that you're applying that method.

(01:07:48):
If the same method can lead you to contradictory results,
then the problem is in your assumptions, is in your approach.
And I think that if you approach it with that
in mind, that prior probability, then it really falls apart.
It really falls apart. And so I would love to
go into that deeper, but I know we have some
calls that have been waiting, and I want to make
sure that we get we get to those, so I

(01:08:10):
think we'll go next to Luke is he him in
Canada is a theist and says that the resurrection of
Jesus is important or is not important. I'm assuming that
you're responding to our poll question in the chat today,
is that Luke, are you with us here? Can you
maybe expand on what you want to talk about the
resurrection of Jesus? All right, I'm going to return Luke

(01:08:30):
to the queue here. Then we do have another caller
on the line. This is Tucker Agnostic from Iowa. Tucker's
friend of the show here, so we're well familiar with
talking to Tucker. Tucker, what's on your mind today?

Speaker 6 (01:08:44):
Hi, guys.

Speaker 7 (01:08:46):
So, Richard and I have been emailing of the last
couple of weeks, and he believed that the calling the
show again would be beneficient. So here, I am.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Okay, I understand that you want to talk about because
you so you label yourself as an agnostic, but you
don't believe in a god, but you have other supernatural beliefs.
Is that kind of what the direction you wanted to
take this?

Speaker 6 (01:09:13):
Yeah, I am.

Speaker 7 (01:09:15):
I don't actively seek out supernatural experiences, but I am
open to them, okay, because of experiences that I have
had in the past.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
And so does does that lead you to would you
say that you have a supernatural belief Is that what
you want to talk about? Or do you want to
talk about your approach to dealing with these experiences or both?

Speaker 7 (01:09:36):
Well, Richard said that he thought that it would be
beneficial for me to call and let him lead me through.
I guess examining my openness to supernatural things.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Let's try to find Let's pick a concrete point to
start at. Can you can you name one supernatural belief
that you hold that you'd like to examine today?

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
Well?

Speaker 7 (01:10:03):
No, uh, not specifically, because I don't, uh, like I said,
I don't I don't seek I don't seek them out actively.

Speaker 6 (01:10:17):
I'm just open to them is and when they happen.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Okay, well, let's let's take a let's let's do a hypothetical.
Then here, Let's say we come across somebody who says
that they believe that they can speak to their dead relatives. Okay,
I understand. I understand that in the past you've you've
felt attacked by other by other skeptics, and you know

(01:10:41):
that's kind of what what I what I thought you
were interested in addressing today. And if you want to weekend,
and if you don't want to, that's fine. But what
if you came across such a person, How would you
interact with that person? What would you what would you
talk to them about? How could you examine their belief?

Speaker 7 (01:10:58):
First of all, I am you know, no, I don't
feel attacked.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Okay, Okay, well, good I'm glad. I'm glad that I
was wrong about that.

Speaker 7 (01:11:08):
That's the conversation that I tried to have with you
and Christie a few weeks ago, because.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
Well, the impression I got that that you felt like
you weren't being treated fairly. And you know, whether or
not that happened may or may not be relevant here.
But what I want to look at specifically is I
was under the impression, and please correct me if I'm
wrong that you were unhappy with the with the interaction,
and I think that that can be good. That can

(01:11:38):
be good. Example, I don't think that you're alone if
that's the case, if that's the way you were feeling,
I don't feel that you're alone. I would imagine that
when interacting with self professed skeptics, it can be challenging
or even isolating if you if you're somebody who has
a belief that you feel you can't justify or that

(01:12:00):
you classify as a supernatural belief, or or maybe feel
like you're you're not getting a fair shake. If that's
not the case, then then that's fine. What do you
think would be a good way to approach that. Let's
say let's say you did come up to somebody who
had a supernatural belief, how would you interact with them?
Even if we want to take this completely separate from
your personal situation, do you have any recommendations or how

(01:12:23):
do you think what do you think would be a
productive way of interacting with somebody who has a belief
that you think is not rationally held.

Speaker 7 (01:12:34):
So, yeah, I'm not I'm not against talking to you, Scott.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
But where's Richard?

Speaker 4 (01:12:42):
Where is Richard?

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Richard's here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
I'm just listening to the conversation. Yeah, I'm here, Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:12:48):
I called in response to your suggestion that I call,
and you said to walk me through.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
So I asked you to call when you were ready
to call an kind of have these conversations about your
supernatural experiences, you know, and if you are ready for
those conversations, we can have that conversation. If you're If
you're not ready for those conversations, that's fine. As well,
as I said to you in the emails, you know,

(01:13:17):
there is no there's no pressure to call if you're
not ready to call, if you're not ready to have
those conversations. But if you if you do want those conversations,
if you feel you are ready to share those supernatural
experiences or some of those supernatural experiences and let us
examine them and walk through them. Then we can do that,

(01:13:38):
but you have to want to be to do that
and be ready to do that.

Speaker 7 (01:13:42):
I guess I must have misunderstood your intention.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Then what go on? Sorry, Scott?

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
I was just gonna say, there's a couple of different
relevant points here that I think are valuable for us
to look at. First of all, we want to examine
can a skeptic have an irrational belief? Another thing would
be how can that skeptic interact with other skeptics are
e that particular belief? And is it important to do

(01:14:11):
so in a way that is not name calling and
not pointing fingers and not laughing. Is it important to
do that in a way to be more productive? I mean,
there's a few different routes that we can take with
this call. If you'd like to address any of those
things today, we certainly can. If you would rather we
talk a different time or in a different context, that

(01:14:33):
we can do that as well. I mean, we just want,
we want to explore some thoughts that you might be having,
and we're not really sure what those thoughts.

Speaker 7 (01:14:40):
Are Okay, So I misunderstood the basic thrust of what
Richard had in mind.

Speaker 6 (01:14:50):
So I'm going to let you guys go, Okay, thank you, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Well, I hope that we can pick this up again
at some other time when when you're feeling a little
bit more solid in what it is that you want
to talk about. So thanks Tucker for calling in. Any
thoughts on that, Richard, any reflection on that interaction.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
There, Yeah, it's I love the fact that Tucker was
confident enough to bring to the table this all started.
And I don't want to kind of say too much
because they've gone and I don't want to say things
that they're not in to respond to. This all started
because they were unhappy, as I understood it, with an

(01:15:30):
interaction that had taken place with I believe it was
you and Christy on the show and the way you'd
responded to Tucker, and you know, they had the confidence
to contact us, and we've had a conversation about that,
and you know, my suggestion to them was, when you

(01:15:51):
are ready to call the show to discuss those things,
please feel free if you are ever ready to call
the show and discuss things, give us a call and
let's kind of walk through them, because I think it's
much more beneficial to have the conversation on a on
the show than it is kind of behind closed doors,

(01:16:12):
as it were, because it allows for first of all,
it allows for the it's a recorded conversation. It's a
conversation you can go and this This doesn't just apply
to this applies to anybody. This is a recorded conversation
that you can go back. You'll have heard me tonight
suggest so one of the callers go back and listen
to the call. It's something that you can go back

(01:16:34):
and listen to and digest the information that you can't
always do in the heat of the moment when you're
having a conversation. And secondly, because it's also it can
also be very beneficial to other people who might also
be going through the same thing as you are. So
someone might be listening to the show and say, you
know that that applies to me. That's really helpful for

(01:16:55):
me as well. And I think it's much more beneficial
to have those conversations in this space than it is
kind of via email or vary. And anybody's welcome to
message the show and email the show, and you know,
raise concerns, and that's fine. You know, I welcome people
doing that. And as Tucker says, you know, we've had

(01:17:17):
these emails. I understand that Tucker's spoken to you as well. Uh,
And you know about that call that was made that
they weren't happy with, And I think that's great, and
I think Tucker was very brave to do that and
take that step in, you know, raising those concerns. I'm

(01:17:37):
not sure what what Tuker misunderstood, what they thought I
mean to call for today. I'm a little confused about
that myself.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
But I'll tell you what I think about when I
see when I talk to Tucker, or when when I
hear calls that they're calling in on. I see somebody
who is first of all, curious, okay, somebody who is
wanting to understand things, who's wanting to learn it. To me,
that's a that's a prime quality there, that's a that's
a you know, in my eyes, that's a virtuous quality,

(01:18:07):
the idea of wanting to learn, wanting to know things.
And I also see somebody who is not only struggling
with their own beliefs, they're also struggling with ways to
convey those beliefs that can be also a challenge as well,
and also to understand one's own perception in one one's
own experiences. And so so my hat's off to you, Tucker,

(01:18:31):
for for being brave enough, as Richard was saying, being
brave enough to take that step into the spot, into
our little spotlight here and putting yourself out there and
having these discussions because there's lots of people that are
confused about their own beliefs. There's lots of people who
are having difficulty resolving those beliefs with other things that

(01:18:53):
they might believe about the world, and also having difficulties
communicating those beliefs as well. And so just the fact
that you attacking what you see is an issue in
your mind rather than glossing it over and pushing it
to the side, that's, you know, to me, that's a
big step. So I really appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
And we've seen that. We've seen that today as well
with when Cow's our friends call, when when when someone
you know, when we walk through people's beliefs with them,
it is exactly to provide that scaffolding for them to say, right,
I can climb this tower, I can examine this brick
work for myself, and I can see that it is.

(01:19:34):
In fact, it's a little bit shoddy, and I didn't
understand that before. So so let me now do that work.
And I think that's very very important. I think it's
very important to do, and I think it's very important
to want to do. Our callers are lots of different
stages of their journey, and I think it's I think

(01:19:54):
we've got to acknowledge that. Anyway, we need to get
to this last call. Uh so let's try to look again.
This from Canada wants to talk about the reservation, the
low resurrection of Jesus.

Speaker 4 (01:20:08):
Is it better now?

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
All right? Welcome, welcome.

Speaker 8 (01:20:13):
Yeah, the guy at the holding told me there was
something about my microphone. Sorry about that. So yeah, I
heard you well correctly the way before. And the reason
yeah called was because of the question that was in
the chat. Well, is it does it matter that Jesus resurrect?
That was the question that was in the YouTube chat.

Speaker 4 (01:20:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
So I see that you're a theist. Should we assume
that you're that you are a Christian?

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
Yeah? Who's that? That's Scott? Right? Yes? Yeah, okay, h Scott.
We talked to.

Speaker 8 (01:20:43):
Charge me I think we already talked before. So I'm
a casic and uh yeah, so I'm asius and yes,
that's matter, I would So.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
Why so why does it matter? Why? Why does that
make a difference. I mean, we can under I can
understand why it might affect your you know, the depth
or the breadth of your religious belief, but why does
it matter in general, like to the world.

Speaker 8 (01:21:06):
So recession is what allows us to know that God
won't against death.

Speaker 4 (01:21:14):
So you know, the reason.

Speaker 8 (01:21:18):
Like she says, tye and resurrected is because of all things, right,
So to you signify this victory against sin, we need
this resurrection. If it was death and no recess, it
would have something missing, a show of victory, something that
proves that death is not the end in the end.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
I get, I get. So it was like a kind
of a victory lap kind of thing, or maybe like
a cosmic flexing, right, just saying look at what I
can do kind of thing, more.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
Like a score.

Speaker 8 (01:21:49):
And when you have a you know, like I hate
the middle of the in the seable, I would have
to say that in I don't remember, but you right
in the middle of the what's the thing that you
try the two. Anyway, you have to have a way

(01:22:12):
to measure that you indeed did what you did.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Okay, so it's kind of like the fulfillment of big
talk that came a little bit earlier, right, is that
what you're saying?

Speaker 8 (01:22:22):
Yeah, so just I said I'm gonna win against Sin.
This is why I die. And because I'm going to win,
SIN will not win and I will take all of
your since and win against them. And that's how you
know that he wanted. If he didn't PI, you wouldn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
Let's cut to the chase here, let's cut to the chase.
I'm going to ask you if you have any good
reason to believe that this resurrection actually happened. And I
already you know, we kind of already showed our hands
a little bit earlier. I'm going to ask you, how
do you know that it's more likely that it actually
happened then the stories are just wrong? And so yeah,
what is your thoughts on that you have?

Speaker 8 (01:23:03):
The reason why I believe it is the case. It's
because every time I have this conversation with people who
don't believe it is the case, they are presenting me
what it could be. Right, they are claiming that it
is more likely that this was what happened. For example,
you said, psychology explained that people will do that in

(01:23:25):
that way, and this is more likely to be the
case I'm making. No, it doesn't make it more likely.
Why aspect is explainable, But psychology is a claim that
is unfalsifiable right now, there is nothing Why.

Speaker 6 (01:23:40):
Why is that?

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
Why is it less likely?

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
Why is it?

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
Why is it less likely that somebody who is the
psychology which has explained these things? These are real world examples.
For example, one of the things that have kind of
applied to this criteria is the study of memory. These
these are real applicable things. It's the study of memory.

(01:24:04):
It's not just it's not just talking to people like
the old idea of psychological is psychology is psychology these
days takes in a lot of neuroscience as well. It's
not just a case of you know, talking through stuff
like it used to be. You know, they take into
account neuroscience. They look at how the brain actually functions
and operates. And in memory studies, the you know, are consistent,

(01:24:29):
they are consistent.

Speaker 5 (01:24:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
One of the kind of heavyweights of memory studies is
Elizabeth lost Lofters she has done so so much work
in this field of memory study. Her student, who was
herself gone on to become a massively prominent psychologist in
the field of memory study. Julia Show. She's she works

(01:24:54):
with police departments. She works with police departments so that
they can kind of cater their interviewing techniques so they're
not falsely implementing memories into people. This isn't just stuff
that's unfalsifiable. This is stuff which is both works, you know,
we know we can correlate it, so the actual way

(01:25:16):
the brain works through kind of neuroscience, and it is
stuff which is applied on the ground in lots of
different fields. So it's not just a case of saying no, well,
psychology disproves the resurrection, you know, and I accept it.
This stuff works. It works again and again and again.

(01:25:38):
And when we apply those fields of study, those experiments,
we can see that people in traumatic situations, for example,
people who suffer traumatic things like litter misremember. So if
we are taking the gospel writers as eyewitnesses, even if

(01:26:00):
we just accept that their eyewitnesses and don't even have
the conversation about that they might not be, then we
can apply this psychological kind of methodology to it, and
we can see that well, if they were in that situation,
they've suffered a traumatic experience, they are likely to mis remember.
There is so many studies done on the ground. There

(01:26:22):
was a study done I think it was by Elizabeth
lost Us and a team and a couple of other
psychologists where they actually studied the aftermath of a train crasher.
I think it was a subway crash in New York.
And everybody there who witnessed it, all of the eyewitnesses
or they were talked to, were themselves professionals in their field.

(01:26:45):
There were people who worked on the trains every day.
There were police officers who were used to doing this
sort of stuff, who you know, taking in this information
and they found that it was a traumatic event, and
they found that they misremembered. They found that they had
misremembered it. We've got other aspects like, for example, lots

(01:27:09):
of people witnessing the same thing. Theists will often argue
that that's evidence that this is true. This adds way
to the evidence that this is true. And once more,
in psychological studies, again and again we find that multiple
eyewitnesses aren't necessarily better. It's not the case that they're

(01:27:32):
necessarily better. So it's not just a case of saying, well,
psychology is unfalsifiable, and this is more likely because what
we've got is a claim that somebody has risen from
the dead. We have never had one single in the history,
in the history of medical science, we have not had
one single confirmed case of people coming back from legal death,

(01:27:55):
whereas when we've got these psychological studies, we've got time
and time and time again, this stuff has been verified,
it's been put into practice, and we know that this
is true. So just on that basis alone, taking out
anything else from it we've got, don't see how you

(01:28:18):
can possibly say it's more likely that Jesus rules from
the dead than these psychological studies are talking. I've got
it right, because these psychological studies have got it right.
This has been found time and time again, and we've
never had an example of someone coming back from legal best.
How do you make that connection that it is more

(01:28:41):
likely that Jesus rose from the dead, that this is
a miscognitive mistake made by people. Explain your reasoning, talk
through your reasoning to me.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
I want to before you do that, though, Look, I
just want to sharpen a point that Richard was making.
I'm going to stand on the shoulders of this particular
giant here by me, Richard Jiliver. There's probably a Jill
of Travels joke in there, and I'm going to stand
on the giant shoulders of Richard. And So what he
was saying is that we know that some of these
phenomena are possible. We have there's a long recorded history

(01:29:12):
and scientific investigation of these different types. People misremembering things,
people adopting other people's memories, people being influenced by strongly
held beliefs that were you know, from beforehand, and that
kind of thing. So we know that these kind of
things can happen. And so when you say that we're
saying that psychological psychology proves that that that the resurrection

(01:29:35):
didn't happen. No, that's not what we're saying. We're not
saying psychology proves the resurrection didn't or can't happen. What
we're saying is we have an explanation for this story.
We know that the kind of things that happen in
our explanation can happen. Now, what I want to ask
you is, do you have any reason to believe that
or any reason that we should believe that the explanation

(01:29:58):
that it really was a rextra resurrection is more likely,
and by saying that our explanation is extremely unlikely. The
quote that I read earlier from a Facebook poster was
saying that it even goes so far as is saying
it's impossible, which I think is obviously ridiculous because we
know these things can happen. How is it more likely

(01:30:20):
that the resurrection actually happened is a better explanation because
we don't even know if that's even possible. We know
these psychological phenomena are possible, we know that they happen
fairly frequently. Okay, And even in the case of people
that have religious belief they would also agree that religious
beliefs that other people have are also wrong. So you

(01:30:41):
would agree, would I would think, please correct me if
I'm wrong that people can make strongly held religious beliefs,
can make statements based on those beliefs and be wrong
about them. So, given the fact that we know the
story could be wrong, how can you come to the
conclusion that it's more likely a better explain that the
resurrection actually happened? And to do that you can't knock

(01:31:04):
down our side. You can do that all you want,
You're not going to be able to prove it's impossible,
because we have hard evidence that it's possible. So what
you need to do is take your side of the
argument there and raise it up. Do you have any
way that you can do that? And I'll stop talking
here and give you a chance to respond, Luke either,
Are you with us?

Speaker 4 (01:31:23):
Luke? Yes, I am still here. So the point that
Richard pointed.

Speaker 8 (01:31:29):
Out it goes with the claim that I made, which
was the reason why I'm putting it out, is because
your claim the mis misremembered what happened is unfonsifiable. Okiin
there are other things like scouts you asked me that
could go towards it's being more likely than not, the

(01:31:50):
reception being more likely to be true than not more likely.
But the main reason why am I am seeing this
in this conversation is that all the claims that I
received from the eightiest side, they are unfalsifiable. There is
no way to falsify their position right now.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
Do you cover a lot of ground in doing that
by proving the resurrection occurred.

Speaker 8 (01:32:14):
There is no way for me to give you evidence
of something that will falsify the train or the table
that you made. So miss miss Burns, miss remember remember rants.

Speaker 4 (01:32:27):
That we're having trouble.

Speaker 8 (01:32:30):
The fact that we cannot remember correctly thinks it will
always be there. There is no way to say, oh,
we have the proof that the remember correctly.

Speaker 4 (01:32:39):
The reguaction there is not because.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
You can't improve. Just because you can't prove what Richard
said was wrong doesn't mean it's unfalsifiable. Yeah, you can't
falsify it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
We cannot interview the people who witness the resurrection. We
don't have dialects. But what we can do. What we
can do is we can take what we do know
from psychology psychology with the things that we do know
the human brain does, and we can apply it but

(01:33:12):
after the fact to these resurrection accounts, and we can say,
is it possible that in this situation this person misremembered? Well,
yes we can if we apply that psychology to that,
we can do that. We can say, you know, for
want of not being able to interview the person directly,

(01:33:34):
we can look at the evidence through it. We do
have the testimony that we do have in the gospel
and apply it to that, and can we say, is
it possible that after a traumatic event, this person misremembered
what they have since related and is now in the Gospel.
And the answer is yes, we can it is possible

(01:33:54):
that that occurred. As Scott said, this doesn't prove the
resurrection didn't happen. But what it does do is it
gives us a good argument to say that that account
of the resurrection is not reliable. We can say for
a fact that that account is not reliable. So if

(01:34:15):
that is not with it reliable, let's put that aside
as evidence for the resurrection. Which, and I'm not saying
you're doing this, but many, many theists do use the
gospel accounts as evidence for the resurrection. Let's put that aside,
and let's say, right, that's not evidence for the resurrection.
What else is there? What else have we got? What
is evidence for the resurrection?

Speaker 8 (01:34:36):
Yeah, I'm again, what would consistent evidence for it? You
say memory is not evidence, because we can have false memory,
and we have evidence that to bring down create false memory.

Speaker 1 (01:34:51):
Said what he said, Okay, what he said was what
the psychology tells us is that we have a possibility,
we at least have a possibility that this could exp
blame the stories, that the people could that these psychological phenomenon,
misremembered memories, et cetera. We know that this is possible,
we have evidence that it's we have clinical evidence that

(01:35:11):
this kind of thing can happen. Okay, And so what
we're saying.

Speaker 4 (01:35:16):
Is were there two thousand years ago?

Speaker 1 (01:35:17):
Say that again.

Speaker 8 (01:35:19):
Are you sure you're talking about bringing of people that
were there two thousand years ago?

Speaker 4 (01:35:22):
Your evidence?

Speaker 8 (01:35:23):
Is it based on things that happened two thousand years
ago or is it based on things that happened a
hundred years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:35:29):
We're assuming that the psychology of a human being is
roughly the same roughly. Do you think that's an unreasonable assumption?

Speaker 4 (01:35:37):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (01:35:38):
If you think that's an unreasonable assumption, then your entire
thought process goes out the window, because then we have
no way of interpreting what those people wrote. If we
can't if we can't come to grips, if we can't
accept there is at least some basis of common psychology,
we have no way of addressing what they've said. Now,
if that's your claim, then you're often the chaos. You're

(01:35:59):
off floating and the ether with no argument for anything.
You can't make an argument towards anything based off of
that because you're admitting or there's no way of us knowing.
So if you're saying that it's unreasonable for us to
make assumptions about the psychology of people two thousand years ago,
you are severely undercutting anything in the Bible. Is that
your intention?

Speaker 8 (01:36:19):
So right now, right now, I've got the trouble I'm
having is about the specific claim about an event that
happened and how you remember misremember an event that happened.
It is not a claim about other kind of psychology
behavior that happens two thousand years ago. I'm talking about

(01:36:39):
this specific one. Okay, do you understand the difference?

Speaker 2 (01:36:43):
So what's the difference between this specific claim about misremembering
and all the psychological fields and other psychological aspects. Why
do you think if you think this, why do you
think that that might be different to peep from between
us and people living two thousand years ago, whereas other

(01:37:05):
aspects of psychology might not be different between us and
people lived two thousand years ago.

Speaker 8 (01:37:11):
Okay, So, for example, somebody who is claiming something that
they remember and they remember in faults in two thousand
years for now in the place of Jesus, they were
possible to death.

Speaker 4 (01:37:25):
The lie or the.

Speaker 8 (01:37:28):
Misremembering has the consequence of death at.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
The time, And how do you think that affects what
you're saying if they were if they were being threatened
with death. Now you're saying that we can't know anything
about the psychology of these people, So what does what
does adding the threat of death to anything, How does
that affect anything that you're saying, because now you can't say, well,
they would be honest because they didn't want to die.
That's there. You're making assumptions about psychology.

Speaker 8 (01:37:54):
Wait, I'm sorry, but when I asked, do we agree
that it is about the spit if your kids and
not in general?

Speaker 4 (01:38:01):
And then in your in your.

Speaker 8 (01:38:03):
Question right now, you you said something about psychology in
journal and feel I am we are not in a
sick page right now, but.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
We have to we have to talk about psychology in
general because when we're talking about you've you've just brought
another aspects of psychology into it because you didn't talk
about memory. What you said was, well, if people believe
something and they might be killed for that belief, that's
going into a different area of psychology, So you can't
you can't bring a different area of psychology into it

(01:38:33):
and then expects us not to talk about different areas
of psychology and insist we only talk about this one.
So are we are we talking about the memory of
people two thousand years ago or were we talking about
a wild wider psychological perspective from two thousand years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Unless you have a reason to think that people back
then were different in one way and not different in
another way, which I'm guessing might be difficult to a
case to make there.

Speaker 8 (01:38:58):
That's that's what I talk to you. That that is
the point, Scott. I think that's what Scott who intervened
at the end, So that the point I'm making is
that they have similar points that we do in psychology today, that.

Speaker 4 (01:39:12):
They have a different point.

Speaker 8 (01:39:13):
One of those points is about the claim that they
make based on memory right now today or when from
now when you have a fourth claim about.

Speaker 4 (01:39:22):
Memory, there is no death involved.

Speaker 8 (01:39:25):
When when you claim I remember seeing that guy that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
Place, why is why isn't there? So you suggesting perhaps
in certain countries where you know, let's use Islam as
an example, because we can use Islam for both sides
of this argument. In some countries, Muslims have been absolutely
horrendously persecuted for being Muslim, and you know they are

(01:39:54):
under fear of death from that. In other countries, Muslims
are horrendously persecuting other people, and those people are under
fear of death. Are you suggesting that those people somehow,
you know, which is the same situation you're alluding to
from two thousand years ago with the Christians? Are you
suggesting that those people the way memory works is somehow

(01:40:21):
different in those people who've been persecuted by Muslims or
those Muslims who have been persecuted by other people, memory
works different in them because of that persecution to how
it does to people who are not being persecuted now.
And if so, where are the studies that show this?
Because that would be an absolutely fascinating, fascinating field. Any

(01:40:45):
psychologist would be over that, all over that in you know,
if they thought, well, be people being persecuted, people believing
something to be true and being persecuted for that belief
that alters how we remember things. I can tell you
a non psychologists would be all over that. Where is
that work? Where would those papers look?

Speaker 4 (01:41:06):
All? Right?

Speaker 8 (01:41:07):
So I cannot give you any papers right now.

Speaker 4 (01:41:11):
If you see on during the post call.

Speaker 8 (01:41:15):
What I have to underline here that there is a
difference between an idea and an event. Right now, you
choose the Muslims that are defending an idea, and they
are persecuted because of the idea, not an event. Those
two things are different. Do you understand the difference between
those two.

Speaker 1 (01:41:34):
So you're saying that it's an event, that doesn't make
it an event. We're talking about the idea of the event.
We're talking about other explanations for the story. Okay, we
agree that there's a story about a resurrection. We don't
agree that there was a resurrection. That's the conclusion, not
what we're talking What we're talking about is the explanation
of the story. What Richard has pointed out is that

(01:41:55):
we have reason to believe that humans, at least recent
humans can could support such a story, even if it's
not true. If you're talking about death, we have lots
of situations where people have died for things that turned
out to be false.

Speaker 4 (01:42:08):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
Really, the only thing that would motivate somebody there is
if they believe it to be true, okay, and they
could be false in their beliefs. Their beliefs could be wrong, Okay,
And so what we're saying, what we're saying is that
we have reason to believe that a story like that
could come about due to the people telling the story
being wrong, whether it be intentional, whether it be accidental

(01:42:30):
or whatever. Okay, we know that that could happen at
least today. We are making the assumption that we can
make reasonable conclusions about the psychology, about the psychological makeup
of people back then. We can assume that they can
roughly do the same things that we do, and there
are reasons that we can believe that we have, you know,
some evidence that shows that the people you know two

(01:42:52):
thousand years ago were not significantly different than the way
we are today. And so so we're saying that this
is at least the possible outcome. This is a possible
explanation for the story, not for any actual event. Okay.
And so what you're saying is what makes most sense
for the explanation of the story is that there was

(01:43:13):
an actual event that occurred. Now, if our position is unfalsifiable,
then obviously the other than your side would be falsifiable
as well. Okay, we can't. We don't have any direct
evidence of the psychology of the people that told this story.
We also don't have any direct evidence of any resurrection. Okay,
and so no, go So where you're going to ask

(01:43:38):
what could be resurrect what could be evidence of a resurrection?

Speaker 8 (01:43:42):
That's the thing, that's the main question. But that, Jesus,
is the main question I asked thesist.

Speaker 1 (01:43:50):
And so what you're saying, then, what you're saying then
is that you don't have any evidence. And this is
why explaining why you don't have evidence is not the
same as saying you don't need evidence. If you if
you can't think of a way to come up with evidence,
then that just explains to us why you don't have
any evidence. And we're running up against the end of

(01:44:10):
the show here, I want to give you the last word. Look,
I'll go ahead, Please go ahead and say what's your
last comments on this?

Speaker 4 (01:44:17):
All right?

Speaker 8 (01:44:17):
Thank you very much, because so, yeah, the question what
would you need to observe so that you are proven
fault in your claim is the question I ask many
atheists people say I don't need that, you need to
prove your point, and I will observe your arguments and
destroy your arguments, and that's it. I will not question
my position. I will not question my claim. If you

(01:44:41):
try to question my claim, I will bash you on.
I will make fun of you. This is what you
do with the picture that you chose behind you in
your live stream right down. Thank you very much to
allow me to finish. Look are you think Jesus wearing

(01:45:02):
a brat? Which is a mockery too.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
Look I've muted her because I was trying to interject
and you didn't seem to be listening. So just bear
with me minute during the conversation. Ignore the picture of
Jesus behind us. During the conversation, you said that when
you talked to atheists about this when you were when
you ask them for their claims and they give you.

(01:45:25):
Instead of giving you their claims and defending their claims,
what they do is they start mocking you. What I've done,
and what Scott did before we took the call, was
explain our position. What I've done during this is try
and try to defend that position. I've not stopped defending
that position and started mocking you instead. So I don't

(01:45:47):
know who these people are. You referring to when you say,
when I talk to atheists, but it's not us, please
talk to us. We are getting really up to the
end of the show. I'm going to unmute you just
to say your last little bit and then you know,
we'll say, oh, goodbyes. You are unmuted. Luke.

Speaker 8 (01:46:04):
Oh, thank you very much. Okay, So I am not
saying that you were mocking me. The thing is, as
long as I'm talking to you, I have this picture
under my notes, the picture of Jesus wearing a brack
when you talk to me.

Speaker 4 (01:46:18):
This is what I see every time that you talk
to me. Do you understand?

Speaker 2 (01:46:22):
So what has that got to do with what we're
saying to you?

Speaker 4 (01:46:25):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (01:46:26):
When I say that you use people use mockery, it's
because every time you say the thing that you say
are with this image of Jesus wearing a bra, All
the things, all the explanation that you gave are a
company is with something that is that I considered Moncurry,
something that is my pray towards every Christians, everybody who

(01:46:47):
believed that this really happened. And that's why I say
this is what most it is too. I'm not saying
that this is what you did during this goal. Be
careful about that. I agree with you. You weren't mocking me
at all. I haven't had the chance to talk much,
but thank you very much forgiving me this end of
this last work so to finish my thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:47:10):
There was just broning about this addressed.

Speaker 8 (01:47:13):
There was this claim that you pointed out, which is psychology,
and I pointed out how the brain doesn't work the
same way because the context that people were two thousand
years ago, it's not the same context that happened that
was when the study that you cited were made. The

(01:47:34):
psychology study that you that that were made, the context
is different. People were afraid to die at the time
when the remembered misremembered events. It's really important to make
the difference between idea and events because when I ask
the question to people in general, not to you, but
to people, what was the event that caused other people

(01:47:58):
to die? So that would present to the decision either
you say this didn't happen, or you die and these
shoes to die instead of saying this didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (01:48:10):
So sorry, I'm sorry, Luke. I'm going to have to
break in here we do have to wrap up the show.
I apologize for cutting you off here. I hope that
you feel comfortable and that you were at least able
to get out what you were saying. I appreciate your call,
and I boy, I wish we would have been able
to get to your call earlier. You know, there's lots
there for us to dig into, and I would welcome

(01:48:30):
another call from you in the future, and if you
want to come to the after show, we can continue
our chat there. But Luke, thank you very much for calling,
and I appreciate that. Before we wrap up the show here,
I want to bring Jamie the Blind Line me back up.
Thank you for helping us out today. Jamie a great show.

Speaker 4 (01:48:46):
Guys.

Speaker 3 (01:48:46):
I know we're a little bit pressed for time, so
I won't take up too much. And that last call,
Luke's call just basically just blew all the rest of
the calls out in my mind because I found it
actually significantly frustrating. One The claim is falsify. The claim
is not the resurrection didn't happen. The claim is is
it possible for people to to misremember things, and and

(01:49:11):
so to falsify that, you know, falsify that show that
the psychological reasoning or the studies that we've been done
were false, that the memory problems of that nature are
far more rare than we think they are. You know,
you can you can go against the methodology as all
that kind of stuff. Secondly, I've experienced memories that I'm

(01:49:31):
certain they're real to this very day, and I can
find no evidence for them, and I would.

Speaker 8 (01:49:36):
I would.

Speaker 3 (01:49:37):
I'm so convinced. Maybe I wouldn't die for them. But
it's like, denounce this memory or I'm going to tase you.
I'd still well hit me with the tases because I'm
so convinced it's real. One particular on it's so weird.
I'm convinced there was a beer advert in the UK
that comprised a fast motion, you know, like the time
lapse of a bunch of people playing pool in a pub.

(01:49:59):
Why well Sean Bean read the poem if by Rudyard
Kipling while a remix of Limp Biscuits my Way playing
in the background. And I've never found any evidence that
this advert has ever existed, but I am convinced that
it did so, and I would take physical pain for
that belief. Right, Plenty of people die for false beliefs

(01:50:20):
all the time we can evidence in so I would
challenge Luke to this. I will hold you to the
same standard evidence I can prove. I can evidence that
people have false memories and will die for incorrect beliefs.
Prove to me that once, even once someone has come
back from clinical death like proper legal death after three

(01:50:43):
days dead, even once, you don't even have to explain
how they did it. You don't have to explain whether
it was divine or scientific.

Speaker 1 (01:50:51):
Once.

Speaker 3 (01:50:52):
We've got millions of examples of people. But all you
have to do, Luke, is give me one just why
on person who was dead and was confirmed dead by
legitimate medical terms and teams, and is that and then
came back provably alive three days later? Can you do that?
I don't know anyway, Thanks for letting me.

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
Get that out.

Speaker 1 (01:51:16):
Right, all right, I'm glad you were able to purge there, Jamie.
While we're While we're doing that, let's throw some loverings
out there. Anybody special out there need loverings today? I
know I think we could all use them. So we
want to send our love out to all of our
fans and viewers. And also I want to say that
if you don't believe this is your community and we

(01:51:36):
appreciate having you here. But if you do believe we
don't hate you

Speaker 2 (01:51:40):
We're just not convinced to see you next week,