Talk Heathen 09.32 with Dr. Ben and Jamie the Blind Limey

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'd like to give our feast callers the benefit of
the doubt, but I can't be evolution consciousness, the origins
of the cosmos, any phenomena that we have good naturalist
explanations for, plenty of evidence behind. I'm so so tired
of it always boiling down to I don't understand this.

(00:23):
Therefore it must be God. Your personal incredulity is causing
you to commit the God of the Gaps fallacy. And
more than that, you're making gaps to shove your God into.
God has never been in those gaps ever. But if
you disagree, call the show. It's start now.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Welcome everyone. Today is August tenth, twenty twenty five. I'm
your host, Doctor Bennon. With me today is Jamie the
Blind Liamy. How are you doing, Jamie?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
I am a act similarly of a copy of a
man in a place in a hat without a hat.
I'm FINEO.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, yeah, And especially talking about God of the Gap,
sounds like there's a lot of frustration with with more
years going back to this priest suppositional position of well,
something must be real there for God and not not
just being willing to say, you know, maybe we don't
know the answer to everything, So I'm definitely frustrated about

(01:30):
that as well.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, I mean people say that God, God is the
is the most likely answer, or the most logical answer,
or the most believable answers. Well, it's an answer, but
in my estimation, not a very good one, because I
like evidence, you know, to be to be provided for
such things rather than just but it has to be,
it just has to be. I find that not at

(01:53):
all compelling. And I've been at this long enough now
to now find it just grating, just tiring. There are
people who've been in this space a lot longer than
me and have a lot more credentials than I do,
and much like yourself, Ben, I don't know how you
haven't just gone completely start raving Bongers about it, having
to deal with the same arguments over and over and

(02:15):
over again.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, it's that idea that humans are very patterned sinking animals,
and we want to just into it that you know,
A plus B equal C, and will just jump from
A to C and not think about what the B is,
or we'll just not think about other possibilities of answers.
And when we're talking on this show, we're not saying,

(02:39):
don't have God as a possibility, like keep your options open,
but be willing to consider other possibilities and be willing
to be wrong. And if there's a good reason to
believe in God or spiritualism or any kind of belief system,
we should be able to arrive at that conclusion if

(03:01):
we considered other options. So it's just let's have a conversation.
How do we know that this is the one answer?
How do we rule out these other ones? And I'd
love some people to call in today and answer that.
For us, it can be about God. We can do
that same conversation about aliens or extraterrestrials. We can have
the same conversation about ghosts, about spiritualism, about pantheism, deism,

(03:28):
any belief system. Bring it to us and I want
to talk about it. Or even if you have a
story of something that happened to you that seems like
it isn't entirely natural, call in. We can talk about
why that may have happened, why we think that may
have happened. Because this is a call in show, this
is talking. Then we're open to all of your questions

(03:51):
about these topics and about morality, philosophy, science, secular humanism.
Bring us all the topics that you want to talk
about and we can discuss that with you. Talk Heathen
is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin, a
five oh one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the
promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation

(04:12):
of religion and government. And like I said, this is
a call in show. We want to hear from you,
So get your calls in at five to one two
nine nine one nine two four two, or you can
go to your browser at tiny dot cc slash call thch.
We're here live every Sunday at one pm Central on YouTube,

(04:33):
but you can also find us wherever you get your podcasts,
so look for the podcast. Also follow us on Patreon,
where you can get access to bonus content like early
releases of episodes and some other other fancy things that
you get. And also you might have your name right
out later on in the show when we get to

(04:54):
that section. But enough of that, we have somebody special
that we'd like to bring up on on the stage
right now, and that is our backup post. Eli here
to deliver us the question of the week.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Hey, guys, how's it on? So last week we asked
you guys, no, sorry, that's next news. What prayer will
God always answer? And here's the top three answers we
got from last week. So number three, see not what
prayer does God almost always answer? The one from priests, reverends, pastors,

(05:27):
et cetera. Oh, Lord, please make sure they don't actually
read the Bible themselves. Make them accept what I tell
them the Bible says.

Speaker 5 (05:35):
It's a pretty good one.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
That's great.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yep, then you're in trouble if they start reading it.
Number two X million, God always answers when I pray,
Dear God, please never bother me.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
That's fantastic. That is fantastic.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
The one hundred success right on that one. And then
number one also x million, well done. God always answers
when I pray, Dear God, please imbue your followers with
an impiously arrogant insufferability as great, pretty high success on
that one. So yeah, those are a pretty good well
done everybody.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
I'm sorry, Okay.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Next week's question is going to be what gap can
God always fit into? Jamie question?

Speaker 1 (06:20):
An answer for that one, Yeah, so you can fit
in the gap on the dial of your shower between
there and there, which is where the water is comfortable
between scalding hot and freezing cold. That's where God lives.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
That's a good one, Doctor Ben. Did you have an
answer as well?

Speaker 2 (06:36):
My answer is very terrible and I'm kind of ashamed
for this, but the Bible made me say this answer.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Mary, that's good. It's a good answer. I just have.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
This is this is my answer. It's just my that's
my God of the gaps right there. Soh yeah, that's
that's it for me. The question for next week on
gap can always? Can God always fit in to and
put your answers in the comments not in live chat
you won't see it.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Than we are now approaching immaculate conception station. Mind the gap,
mind the.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Games, yes for sure.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
And some other people who uh may be fitting in
some kind of gap somewhere are the crew.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Let's see what the crew is doing.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Thank you so much, Crewe we have our video and
audio people as always, moderators, notes and stamps people, and
the call screeners. Thank you so much for working very
hard every week for these shows. We would not will
not be able to do this without you.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Truly, we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Absolutely giants that can also fit into the gap.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
But get some.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, we need a spackle for these gaps.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
We do have a theist caller on the line, Steve.
He him from Nebras. Sounds like you want to talk
about photographic evidence of artificial satellites. Tell us a bit
about your position.

Speaker 6 (08:09):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, Hi Jamie and doctor Benswigan. I'm
calling this week to discuss a very recent scientific paper
titled aligned Multiple Transient Events and the first Palmar Sky Survey.
And this research is led by astronomer doctor Beatrice Vral

(08:29):
and the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the research
study has uncovered photographic evidence found in an analysis of
nearly three hundred thousand photographic plates from the Polymer Sky
Survey that captured the images of pezens of transient objects
which will reflective of sunlight high above the Earth's atmosphere

(08:51):
well before a launch of the earliest satellites from Earth.
And the appearance of these non human technological artifacts hovering
in space above for coincides with nuclear testing events and
also coincides with a UAP math citing event that occurred
on Unduly twenty seventh, nineteen fifty two, when multiple UFOs

(09:13):
over Washington.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
D C.

Speaker 6 (09:15):
Were tracked by radiar. So I think we've got.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Can you share with me the study title again so
I can look for it.

Speaker 6 (09:22):
Yeah, So yeah, it's a very recent it's a pre
it's a pre print, so it hasn't been subject to
pure review yet.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
This is not so this is not a published view.
So this is not a published study. This is something
But you said it hasn't been period, It was not
in a journal somewhere.

Speaker 6 (09:40):
It will be. Yeah, hopefully it does get to that point,
and it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Get So we're in a position.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
We're in a position where the thing that you are
citing is not yet evaluated and vetted for accuracy and applicability. Right,
so we're already the impact the impact of the study
that that you're using already is not is not yet
to be deemed credible.

Speaker 6 (10:05):
It will be. It's it's you can't say that though.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
You can't just assert that something will be credible because
you say it is. Are you are you a peer
of these scientists? Uh? Like? Are are you an astronomer?
Are you a cosmologist?

Speaker 7 (10:21):
Like?

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Do you would you? Are you rating yourself as a
part of that.

Speaker 6 (10:24):
No, I study. I study, But I'm not I'm not
an expert, you know, Like like she is, she's an expert.
She's a physicist or an astronomer.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
So what's so, what's the title of this.

Speaker 6 (10:38):
She's a credible scientist, she said, They're a.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Credible They are credible scientists that say stupid things. There
are credible scientists that say stupid things and reach outside
of and field of expertise. So we can't appeal to
somebody's authority. Like I'm a physician, I'm not a surgeon.
I like, just because I say something reasonable about preventative

(11:02):
care does not mean that the same thing I say
about neurosurgery is true. I could be wrong, and even
even anything I say about my own field, I could
still be wrong about it. It does matter where I
get my information and what information I'm communicating. So, but
what is the what is the title of this study?

Speaker 6 (11:18):
So it is titled aligned multiple transient Events in the
first almar Sky Survey. Okay, and it's probably a link
if you google this on where you can find find
the preprint of the paper.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, I'm finding.

Speaker 6 (11:35):
The scientific community doesn't block this out and I hope
it does get period, you know, a hostile to scientific
community when when they're all saved by Steve government.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Steve, based on based on our conversations previously, I have
very good reason to doubt your intuition about whether something
is valid science or not, because, if I remember correctly,
last time, you were claiming that a paper said something
that was not set at all by the papers. So
I'm a little bit skeptical going into this. But we
can evaluate this kind of together. Is there a place

(12:05):
that you've been able to find, like the entire out
here there is a Oh no, I can't access it.
It is behind to pay Well, I can see the abstract, it's.

Speaker 6 (12:13):
Yeah, it's new. Yeah, the abstract that's exactly what I
saw too. You're probably seeing the same thing. Yeah, I
can see that.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
But other thing, Steve, Steve, you can't.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
You can't just go buy an abstract and abstract is
not a paper, it's not You can't tell anything about
their design just by the abstracts, like it gives you
such minimal information.

Speaker 6 (12:35):
Right, But there's some more information online on YouTube, your
YouTubers and YouTube.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
YouTube is not a credible source, Steve, Steve can I, Steve,
can I go to YouTube and find incorrect information?

Speaker 6 (12:48):
Well, yeah, but but it doesn't mean it's wrong to
you know, just because it's on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
It also doesn't mean that it's right. It doesn't mean
that it's right, Steve.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
So we can't say that because something is on YouTube
that it's correct. So how do we evaluate information to
see if it's correct? Like I think you're giving us
these papers, But I think the big underlying issue here
with the calls that we have with you is that
I'm not convinced that you know how to vet your sources.
So I want to explore a bit how do we

(13:18):
determine what is true information? And I want to let
Jamie jump in in here too, but maybe let's let's
approach that before we kind of get into the UFO stuff.

Speaker 6 (13:30):
Well, they have the photographs. You can see those photographs online.
They have all these plates, these transient images on them
that's online.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Okay, by that we have a collection of photographs that
and again we have to start assuming things that they've
been vetted and verified to be authentic and not timmeled
with and things like that. And He's one of the
issues that I have with the conversations that we have, Steve,
is that you come to us with a paper, a
paper that we didn't know existed until you tell us
the title of We know nothing of content of it,

(14:01):
and we have to take your word for what's in
it and the interpretation thereof we are a calling show.
We can't just stop it for fifteen minutes to skim
the paper that you are presenting us at so, as
Ben alluded to, we have no way of verifying how
well you're interpreting the paper, If the paper itself is

(14:23):
even credible that kind of thing, it's going to be
very difficult for us to make comment on it because
we don't know its content, or its context, or its veracity.
And so what I'm wondering, and not to derail the
conversation slightly, is that what do you hope to get
out of these courts? Why are you calling us with
a paper we haven't read and didn't know existed. What

(14:46):
are you hoping that we say or do?

Speaker 5 (14:48):
Well?

Speaker 6 (14:49):
I am caring to present the evidence of extra terrestrial
intelligence and volved with humanity.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
But that's not what you're doing. You're calling to your
interpretation of some possible evidence that we have no reference
for right now, so we're literally taking your word for
it and the actual citation is trust me wrong.

Speaker 6 (15:10):
Well for now, but it won't be long before this
gets pure reviewed. So maybe I'm jumping the gun and
I don't want it. Maybe I should be jumping the gun,
and maybe we have to wait and for further you know,
they probably need to get more photographic evidence from other telloscope.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, but you're also jumping the gun because I did
find the full paper. I did find the full paper,
and here's here's again a disconnect for what you are
expecting the study to prove and even what the study
is expecting to prove that it's disconnected from what the
evidence actually is.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
So we have these.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Pictures that show transient events that we don't know what
they are. This is it's just people who can't see
this image like it's a picture with a bunch of
like random dots on it, and it does look like
they're I'm not a physicist, but essentially it's the photographic
evidence is this picture of a bunch of dots on

(16:05):
a on a white page. So the issue I have
and they're asserting that there's they're asserting, they're asserting that
that these are UFO and that they they even mentioned
in their discussion like that they are artificial objects. I
maybe need some more, maybe someone to explain to me
what all the physics is that they're doing here, what

(16:27):
exactly they're measuring and not like I need to analyze,
like I need to read through this paper because it's
fairly dense. But what I'm gathering is there's there there's
pictures of a bunch of dots that we were able
to obtain.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
We don't know what these are.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
They were there before like Earth had released satellites, So
it's not that, but could it be something else?

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Like it's it's just up.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
In the air of what this thing is and you're
jumping from we don't know what this is to extra terrestrials,
like we know.

Speaker 6 (16:59):
They're satellites before satellites were launched from Earth. What else
could it be?

Speaker 2 (17:03):
How do we know that their satellites? What part of
the paper says that their satellites.

Speaker 6 (17:07):
They reflect, they're reflective of sunlight. They resemble exactly they appeared.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Everything that reflects sunlight is everything that reflects sunlight. A satellite,
the water is satellite is a mirror.

Speaker 6 (17:20):
Satellite geosynchronous orbit. Yes, synchrono in geosynchronous orbit around Earth.
Reflective of reflecting sunlight.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
How do you know that celestial bodies are often made
of things? They're reflective, Comets are made of ice.

Speaker 6 (17:36):
These these are these are these images are not streaking,
They're not comets or not. If they were on a
photographic plate and they were they were moving like an
astrog you would see a streak on the on the plate.
These heard pinpoint light images. He heard exactly how satellites.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
My point is that reflective materials that may seem to
look like the reflective surfaces. I'm assuming you're you're assuming
things like solar panels or metallic structures, ice crystals can
look like that. There's metallic elements out there in the universe.
It is not impossible for a completely naturally occurring chunk
of something to have settled into an orbit around Earth

(18:14):
that is just shining.

Speaker 6 (18:17):
In stationary orbit, not not moving in a different speed
than then the Earth is rotating. That doesn't happen naturally.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
How do you that's a declarative statement. You would have
to back up with some kind of evidence that it's
not possible for something to settle into a geostationary orbit.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
These images are the objects, these transit transient objects appear
exactly how satellites would appear today on these Uh. But
this happened before. This happened before spucknet. These images were
taken before for you.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Here's here's the same problem we keep running into. Is
that we have an unknown variable. And what you could do,
what you could do in this moment is say, hey,
this paper is showing some unknown thing that has these
particular properties that seems unnatural to me. And instead of
staying there and saying I don't know what this is,

(19:07):
you're jumping a huge leap to say these are extraterrestrial
things like these are are like unnatural extraterrestrial made satellites,
And I don't think we can get there. Like why
are you so against like waiting for things to be demonstrated,
Like why are you so hesitant to say I don't

(19:29):
know what this is, but we can keep investigating. Well,
I'm not thinking you want your answers. It seems like
you want all of your answers right now, and we can't.
We can't always have that, and there are answers were
not going to have.

Speaker 6 (19:41):
Well, I think it's not. It's just a matter of time.
I think it's going to be very soon this work
will be verified.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
So but so the answer hasn't come yet though, right,
And so instead of saying this is what the answer
is going to be, why not stay in the moment
and say, you know, this could be an answer.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
But it might not be.

Speaker 6 (20:00):
Well, find that. I'm not saying it's aliens, but you know,
it does look like it.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Steve, this might be a slightly odd question, maybe slightly
out of left field. Do you want aliens to be real?

Speaker 6 (20:10):
Do I want? Yeah, I'm rooting for them.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Okay. So this is something that I encounter quite often
in my day job. I work for a cancer charity.
Many people call in having seen something in the paper
or having seen some new miracle treatment that's been studied
in a study and it's got it and it's been
published in some paper or whatever, and they want it

(20:34):
to be true so badly because it's life and death.
So they are presupposing the outcome and just hoping that
the evidence will fit. And I'm feeling a similar vibe
from you that you're presupposing what it is and trying
to find evidence to fit it. Because that's how you
want the world to be. No scientist wants an outcome,

(20:54):
No true scientist wants something to be true. They are
compelled to follow the evidence and whatever it points them to,
and to stop when the evidence runs out. No one
wanted gravity to be real. No one wanted evolution to
be real. No one wanted atoms to be the component
part of the universe. They just are. So I would

(21:15):
strongly advise you to remove that really quite glaring bias
from your reasoning when it comes to your interpretation of
these papers. Because even if and let me give you
all the toy, let's say that we don't have a
reasonable explanation for these phenomena, and that it is an

(21:36):
interesting phenomena that should be studied further. If the paper
itself has not yet mentioned anything to do with extraterrestrials,
and you're plugging that in, you're already jumping the gun,
and you're exemplifying this thing that I am frustrated with
with people calling in, I have a presupposed reason for
this happening, and I'm going to shove it in to

(21:58):
that gap until at such time as it's either completely
indefensible or proven true. And I think that is not
a particularly great way to go about thinking. So so
what do you say to that.

Speaker 6 (22:11):
Well, I realize I have some maybe I have a
little bit of confirmation biased there, I'll have that. I
don't think that means I'm wrong.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
It doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong. But you have to again,
I'm asking you for a little bit of empathy here.
Look at it from our position. We are skeptics, and
we're pretty hardcore skeptics as well. Both Ben and myself
are trained in some sciences, medical science, on computer scientists,
that's not really science, but anyway, but we pride ourselves
on skepticism. We pride ourselves on going where the evidence

(22:42):
takes us and making as few assumptions as possible. And
the thing is, when you come to us with an
obvious assumption as part of your argument, you must understand
that it's going to harm your credibility with us and
many of the people who are intellectually aligned with us. So,
if you want to make your argument compelling to someone
you on their level, think what is going to convince

(23:04):
not what convinces me, what convinces you, What's going to
convince them? Because every time you've called, and I've spoken
to you a couple of two or three times now, Steve,
I don't find any of your arguments compelling because you're
falling into these intellectual traps, these fallacies, and it's killing
your credibility. So if you want to be a credible
person who's credibly arguing, then stick to the facts. Keep

(23:25):
your biases out if you can. It takes introspection. It's
not easy. I understand that I've made lots of claims
as a younger, dumber man that turned out to be
false because I was so certain of what the truth was.
So do you think you can do that? Maybe you're
a little bit more introspective there, Steve, Well.

Speaker 6 (23:42):
I think yeah. I mean I just think this is
interesting and it's I mean, it's something that work that
you know certainly that warrants further study.

Speaker 7 (23:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Absolutely, couldn't agree with you more, but that's it. It
warrants further study, and it warrants to be taken at
its own value, inserting no extras.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Yea.

Speaker 6 (24:00):
In this state, I mean, people just tend to just
miss this, you know, the aliens, without without being you know,
without serious study. This warrants because there is there is,
there is evidence, it's out there. The truth is out there.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
I don't think they're missing it. I don't think they're
missing it, Steve. What the difference is, we're withholding our
belief until the evidence comes out. That's what we're doing.
So we're not saying that we won't ever believe in aliens.
It's just I don't have any reason yet to accept it.
But what we've noticed you're doing is you're accepting it
before the evidence comes out. And that's where our disconnect is.

Speaker 6 (24:38):
Okay, we'll always serve my judgment until she gets peer
reviewed and that maybe there's some other explanation, but it
just it seems to me it's pretty compelling evidence.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
I mean, I'm assuming you have studied a lot of
issue you're very interested in, you are, I'm asuming you're
aware of the Drake equation and the Fermi paradox.

Speaker 6 (24:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, the great equation on
what the probability years were technologically.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Alien life out there somewhere, and then the Fermi paradox
of why haven't we seen them yet?

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Right?

Speaker 6 (25:08):
Because I think they're there in plain say, and we
just don't want to see it.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
I think you are very much denigrating the entire scientific
field because many discoveries that people would prefer to have
not have discovered, truths about this universe that are not great,
have come from scientific inquiry, and the concept that scientists
would on the whole suppress something that's true. I mean, yes,

(25:37):
we have examples of government sometimes getting involved, but it
doesn't last forever. And we've been doing SETI for nearly
one hundred years now. We've been looking to the stars,
to the sky to see if there's anything else out
there for as long as we have been able to,
and we've been doing it really in earnest since the
seventies and still and that data is publicly available, and

(26:00):
there's little anomalies, and there's the wow noise and all
this kind of stuff and things that you've told talked
to us about before. But all you've ever given us
is like individual papers and fringe things that are from
people who aren't particularly well credentialed. It isn't particularly compelling,
and the and the thought and when we challenge you, like, well,
why hasn't the consensus of all of the other astronomer

(26:22):
astronomers and all of the other physicists and all of
the other researchers in this field come to this conclusion,
you start going, oh, well, they'll just cover it up
they don't want to see And I'm like, oh no,
not conspiracy theory again, because again, a conspiracy of that
magnitude to obscure what you're saying is obvious evidence of

(26:43):
extraterrestrial life that we are seeing with plainly, it will
take orders of magnitude more organization and resources to keep
that stub than basically anything else. And if you're thinking, well,
there's been plenty of conspiracies that have come out though
were really big, it's like, yes, they've come out, we
know about them because you can't keep these things secret forever.

(27:05):
So again you kind of torpedo an incredibility.

Speaker 6 (27:09):
I think we need congressional investigation on this. I know
we've had some progressional investigations about laps and extraterrestrial intelligence,
but we need to look into this some more. These
images too. Interestingly enough, little side know these plate images
were taken back in the early fifties. Well they were
the Harvard or the guy that ran this that was

(27:30):
in charge of these plates had them destroyed later on.
So the plates like from nineteen fifty seven into the
nineteen sixties were destroyed. Why that happened, boom, I wonder.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Why because the storage resources that required often outweigh their
apparent use at the time. There were just plates that
were studied and discarded. I mean, the BBC deleted entire
series of Classic Doctor Who because they couldn't be bothered
to store them. And that's a pretty trivial thing. No
just basic snap their fingers. An entire series of a

(28:02):
beloved t what was to become a beloved TV show
went into the ether just because they didn't want to
store the tapes. And also storage media of the time
was notoriously fragile. You know, everyone thinks that data is
an immutable thing now because we live in the data age,
But even now we have things like bit rotten and

(28:24):
stuff like that. Like how credible were those plates? How
well preserved were they're what equipment did they use to
take the photos? I mean, camera technology has come a
long way since then. I mean, maybe we should redo
the sky search with modern technology. That's possible, you know,
if we get the funding. I'm all for science funding, yes, please, please,

(28:46):
please please, And I agree that these things should be investigated,
but assumptions should be left out of the equation. And
that's again where you seem to come in, like it's aliens.
It's got to be aliens and what it might be,
but it might well not be.

Speaker 6 (29:04):
Okay, well, my people will just have to wait and see.
I mean, it's still what some more needs to be done.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
Any less tools they've been now.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I think I think we're on the same page as
far as like we need to see more information, and
I think, like, I do really appreciate you bringing the papers.
I appreciate you bringing what you believe is evidence, and
I want more callers to do that as well. The
thing is, though, I kind of want to take these

(29:34):
papers and instead of just synthesizing the information into what
we believe, they say, like, maybe we can break them
down into what like what does the paper like, what
is the hypothesis of this paper, what are the methods,
what is the data they actually collected? How how did
they collect this data, how did they analyze the data?

(29:55):
What are the stats that they use to determine the
significance of this data? And then what are they actually
saying the significance of this paper is? And that'll help
help us kind of avoid inserting claims into the paper
that maybe weren't there and just evaluating it for what
it is. So I encourage you, like keep calling in,

(30:16):
keep bringing this stuff. I just think we're getting a
little bit disorganized in how we're like relating things together.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Forgive us our incredulity, we do have quite life standards
of evidence because we're just decades long.

Speaker 6 (30:30):
Yeah, thanks, thanks for how far doctor beach. Uh this
astronomer gets with trying to get plates from other telescopes
of that air other other plates and what kind of
roadblocks that show run into on that, so that that
will tell us a lot.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, well, well we'll see and if more information comes out,
definitely call back in and we'll we'll revisit. But I
hope you have a great rest here Sunday, Steve.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Thanks, ma'am.

Speaker 6 (30:54):
Yeah you usual world. Thanks.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, I mean right. I think one of the reasons
I find Steve so frustrating is the he's obviously kind
of like he's got like he's got the spirit he
wants he wants to know a truth, what's true, but
that it is that presupposition of wanting a particular truth
to be true and anyway.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, for sure, but some exciting things to talk about,
which I'm I'm super pumped for this upcoming week because
it is the Back Cruise twenty twenty five. Is this
upcoming weekend August sixteenth at seven pm. Sounds like there
are still tickets available, so get them as soon as

(31:34):
you can, because I think they're going to sell out
if they aren't already. People like Caitlin, Jonathan R and
Kelly K already got their tickets and so I'm looking
forward to meeting them on the Back Cruise. But you
should totally, I'm totally not peer pressuring you into coming,
but it's a it's a fun time and I think

(31:54):
you'll have a great time if you get your tickets
and come join us. But if you're also, if you're
if you want somebody else to enjoy the Back Crewise,
but you know that you can't make it yourself, you
can also give a donation in the live chat to
help purchase a ticket for one of the hosts or
one of the crew members so that they're able to

(32:14):
go for those who maybe wouldn't have been able to
go otherwise. So go to tiny dot cc slash back
crewise to get your tickets and we'll see you this
next Saturday. I'm so pumped, and don't forget as well
for a back cruise weekend. It's not just the back cruise, right,
there's also the Sunday. Let's say you can't you're in Austin,

(32:35):
the Austin area and you can't afford to go to
the back cruise. That's okay because on Sunday we're doing
live shows from the library, So show up, come say hi.
We'll be doing Talk to Ethan and XP with multiple
different hosts playing musical chairs, and it's going to be
a great time. So I want to want to see

(32:57):
all of you there if you're able to get in.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yep, ye all the there's a lot of the hosts
coming into town. It's going to be great. It's always
a good fun party. It actually all starts off on
the Saturday and the game all the way through to
the Sunday's a weekend long party. And even if hosts
aren't going to be on those Sunday shows, they'll be
in the building, like we'll all be here. So it's
a unique opportunity. We often get a rush on tickets

(33:21):
in the final week, So yeah, do get yours in quick.
I'm bringing you a couple of friends with me who
are awesome, and yeah, I can't wait to Pesta forest
Alqai in person and make him squirm and you know,
play with j Mike's beard and that kind of thing,
usual shenanigans.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
It's going to be super super fun.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Also, just as usual, you can send in your super
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(34:01):
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(34:23):
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Speaker 1 (34:33):
I love the fact that the EMO that they made
for me as a host. Emos mean that, don'tlin As.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
It's hilarious. I love it.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
It's great.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
So we have a Yeah, we have another caller, and
this one actually is a great one, I think for
both of us. This is atheist Lisa. She Her from
Canada wants to talk about what atheists slash the science
the community can do about religious beliefs interfering with medical care. Lisa,

(35:05):
you are alive on Talk Heathen. What is your discussion
topic today?

Speaker 5 (35:11):
Hi?

Speaker 7 (35:11):
So I'm a little nervous problem, so I can of
just give like an example of what I mean by that.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Absolutely, Okay.

Speaker 7 (35:23):
I volunteer with a mental health organization in my city
and we deal with people, you know, from all different
kinds of mental health disorders. And what I mean is,
how do we, like, let how do we stop religion
from interfering with people getting proper health care. There was

(35:43):
someone there was someone who we were trying to help
in the past and they were living in a group home.
They needed some help taking care of themselves. They had schizophrenia,
and all was going well until the people who are
running that facility, thought that they should do an exorcism
on him, and you know, things like that not only

(36:05):
do not only are they bullshit, but it causes I
think a lot of emotional damage to people. You know,
some people don't want, don't won't take their kids to
the doctor, you know, thoughts and prayers kind of thing,
you know. Or maybe we're just being tested and our
faith needs to get better and they'll get better. But

(36:25):
I think sometimes that religion interferes in more areas than
we think it does, and it's the religious people who
suffer as a result of that. I'm not saying that
all religious people are not I'm not saying that all
religious people have medical neglect. Obviously that's not true. But

(36:46):
I do think that religion can interfere with our physical
and mental wellness. And how do we as atheists try
to try to put a stop to that from interfering
into some one getting medical services.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
It is a conundrum, and I don't just take it
from an atheist standpoint. It can become a broader topic
of people who do not properly engage with medical services
due to misinformation. Of course, religion and religious doctrine is
very powerful but you've also got things like the anti
vaxx movement stuff like that. There's two things. One if

(37:25):
it's the caretakers of people who are not engaging with
the medical field, that are on behalf of the person
they're caring for, especially parents. We do have laws and
things around that, but one of the most sacrisanct things,
in my opinion, is bodily autonomy. And unfortunate as it is,

(37:47):
we cannot force someone to undertake a medical or mental
health intervention without their permission unless we can declare them
unable to make those decisions themselves. And that's very important
to me that patient autonomy and dignity is preserved. And

(38:09):
yet we have religious denominations that in their very doctrine
prohibit things like blood transfusions for Jehovah's witnesses, that kind
of thing, And there isn't really a very easy way
to do it on a broad scale. We can't ban
these religions. I wouldn't want to ban them. I wouldn't

(38:29):
want to make it illegal to refuse doctor's orders or
to have people compelled to undertake a medical procedure that
they don't want to do for whatever reason. Now I
am only secondhand in this I work parallel to the
healthcare system in my role in a cancer charity, but

(38:50):
these issues pop up now. I've also seen the flip side,
where people are in bold and to keep going and
to engage with the medical things when things like really
horrific side effects keep people feeling sick and chemotherapy is
briillt off on some people. But their faith is one
of the things that keeps them strong enough to keep going.
So I'm not saying that religion as a whole is

(39:13):
entirely detrimental to people's ability to seek the best medical outcomes.
But I haven't done a medical ethics class. I think
you talked about might have a bit more insight on that.

Speaker 7 (39:24):
Yeah, like I said, maybe I was referring more to, like,
you know, stopping kind of these I don't want to.
I'm trying to figure out how to say it without
stopping kind of like religious Like if someone's a caretaker,
like you said, and they're religious, like there has to
be I just think that it.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
May I ask a quick question for the example you
gave about the exorcism, was that a group home that
was explicitly like labeled as a religious institution or was
this like like a group home that services the public
and serves as you know, not a specifically religious entity.

Speaker 7 (40:10):
I'm not sure if it was religion based.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
I don't think it was, because if it wasn't, if
it wasn't a religious institution, like if the patient wasn't
consenting to be placed in a religious group home, that's.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
A big legal problem.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Because even if you are a minor, or if you're
an adult, or if you have whatever condition, it doesn't matter,
Like you should have the ability to consent to what
religious procedures are done for you in the same way
as medical procedures, like if this is a group home

(40:50):
meant to help take care of you and keep you safe,
make sure you're getting your medical treatments, et cetera, and
you are not explicitly and apparently a religious place. They
should not be forcing an exorcism on anybody. They should
not be doing that at a at a public institution.
So that's that's one facet of this.

Speaker 7 (41:11):
Like I just think that personally, just my opinion, I
don't think that religious organizations should have like their own
hospitals and be selected based on that religion's morality.

Speaker 6 (41:24):
Yeah, I agree, or to disclude.

Speaker 7 (41:28):
Certain right, Like, there was a case in my province
a few hours north of here, and there was this
they had. One of the things that we're kind of
struggling within the West in Canada is they're creating more,
you know, hospitals that are kind of like run by
religious groups. And you know, and I don't care what

(41:48):
anyone's opinion is on abortion. My opinion is that it's
part of healthcare. I don't know the reason, it's none
of my business, but you know, to to not offer
you know, I live in a province that there's only
two cities. Everywhere else is a rural place, so there
aren't a lot of options. But to deny someone like,
you know, they could possibly be a life saving procedure.

(42:09):
But you know if they say, like they're miscarrying or something,
but the nearest hospital is Catholic run and they refuse
to do that procedure.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
Right.

Speaker 7 (42:18):
I just don't think that medical groups should really be
involved in medical care. I think it's wrong. And I
also think that and this is just my opinion, right.
You know, when people are suffering, when people are desperate,
sometimes they do turn to religion. And that's not like
to criticize them. You know, we've all been there where

(42:39):
we want something to grab them to because we're afraid.
And I think that along with and I'm not saying
all religious organizations you don't do that or manipulate them
or whatever, but there is an influence with ulterior motives
in some places that I've seen. And I also think
that as a result of that, there's a lot of

(43:00):
emotional abuse that goes on. When I was when I
was thirteen, I grew up in a very Catholic household,
and when I was thirteen, I was diagnosed with epilepsy.
I just started having seizures and I didn't grow out
of it. Some people grow out of it, some people don't.
And I didn't grow out of it. And you know
what my Catholic mom told me was, you know, this

(43:22):
is a test from God. And I thought to myself,
a chronic illness is a test from God. What could
I have as a thirteen year old, What could I
have done to have some sort of you know, need
to be tested this way for the rest of my
life or you know, some people will say you're sick
because you're sick, because it's a punishment you did something wrong. Well,

(43:43):
I don't. I don't know. I just think that it
doesn't just cause physical harm, it doesn't just cause harm
in the medical system. But I also think it's emotionally abusive.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
Oh.

Speaker 7 (43:56):
Like, and when I was twenty two, I went to
I was traveling, and I don't know if you've heard
of this before, but there's this place in France called
Lords and they have like apparently there was this miracle
where the Virgin Mary came down and by the Lord's
fountain and healed people. And so I went there, not
because I believe in God, is I wanted to get

(44:18):
some water from there. As a president for my Catholic mother.
I just thought I just thought it would have meaning
to her. And yeah, I see people, you know, they're
from all over the world bringing human you know, humongous
jugs to I almost said it out loud.

Speaker 5 (44:35):
I didn't.

Speaker 7 (44:35):
I'm glad I didn't, but I almost said it, Like,
you know, it's just water, right, and like, can you
imagine like funding someone from South America with religious donations
to fly all the way to France just to get water,
and then these people are going to be disappointed because well,
obviously they are not cured.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
And money, and that money and the money could have
been used to give them evidence based treatment, like it
might not cover all of the treatment, but it could
at least give them a head start in getting a
specialist evaluation or something that's more tangible and more likely
to succeed. And yeah, I'm I'm with you on how
frustrating this whole thing is. I've worked with a fair

(45:19):
number of religious physicians I've worked at I did rotations
during med school at Catholic facilities, and it is very
frustrating when you have this disconnect between, you know, religion
and evidence based medicine. And I wholeheartedly agree that I
don't think that churches should be able to have like

(45:41):
basically a monopoly like they do on community health. They
have it on like rural health, and a lot of
the more service based medical charities are run through religious institutions.
And I think kind of the one of the big
ways that we can fight this is by establishing more

(46:02):
secular organizations that can do the same thing without requiring
people to adopt a certain belief system, that won't require
people to sit through a sermon in order to get
their medical care. We can have more people with initiatives
setting up evidence based groups in secular groups to go

(46:23):
out to these communities who may have only had missionary
groups show up. I mean, if you have a missionary
group of doctors show up and you get treatment that
you need, of course you're more likely to lean on
a religious belief after that because that's the only group
of people that gave you help. So if we start
kind of getting on board and establishing services like that,

(46:45):
I think that would help. As far as the autonomy issue,
I'm one hundred percent with Jamie and the fact that
we can't force people to not make or make decisions
based on their own religious perspective. There there's kind of
some nuance with how you play out these conversations, and

(47:06):
I think a lot of this is related to education
and how we present the information. Of course, there's always
going to be people, for example, Jehovah's witnesses who won't
accept a blood transfusion. There's informed consent that you have
to have with obtaining a medical procedure, but there's also
a degree of informed consent with declining a procedure, and

(47:28):
there's a very detailed discussion that you should be having
with patients either way. Like I can give a recommendation,
and if somebody is declining the recommendation, I should be
having a good conversation with them, making sure that they
actually do understand the risks of not accepting this particular
piece of care. Ultimately, they do get the decision. They

(47:51):
get to make the decision of whether or not they
will accept or decline. But we should still try to
answer the questions, make sure that they're not declining because
of misinformation, and if there is misinformation, we can address
it there and then, because sometimes it is on me.
Sometimes that lapse in communication is because I phrase something inappropriately,

(48:13):
or if I thought that the person knew something that
they didn't know. A lot of that does fall on
the way I'm presenting info, and I will admit there
are times when it is useful to rely on a
bit more religious wording for things, knowing that this particular
issue isn't going to be what deconverts them. But the

(48:35):
important thing is in the here and now for that person,
maybe saving their life so that later on they can
evaluate their belief system. But you can kind of almost
take like a little bit of a straight epistemology stance
with this and just kind of ask ask the questions
that maybe they didn't think of before. For example, if

(48:55):
they think that an exorcism is going to cure them,
but then they also might have a belief that doctors
are put there by God and have been blessed by
God in order to do their job. Where's that disconnect
at that point? Why are you if you believe that
these experts exist because of your faith and because of

(49:18):
your God, why is that seen Why are these people
seen as like the secondary option, or why are they
seen as less credible? Why are you not trusting them
in the way that you are trusting the exorcism. There's
some inconsistencies that you may here with religious people in that.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
I don't know if any of that helped.

Speaker 7 (49:39):
I am and I just I just you know. In concluding,
I just wanted to say, like, I don't care what
a person believes in. I just when it comes to
essential services like hospitals, I don't think they should be
church run. I don't think there should be that religious influence,
especially if it's in a rural place where whether you're

(50:00):
a Christian or not, that's the nearest hospital to go to.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, And for example, like another thing, because I've kind
of been in between jobs lately. I was looking at
ways to do some more community medicine, and pretty much
the only organization going out well, I guess there's two
organizations going out on ships like big hospital ships. The

(50:25):
only one that's like not military run is a Christian
organization And if you apply to work there, they require
a statement of faith, So they require you to share
your testimony and to be sure that you believe the
right things before you go work on this hospital ship.
So that kind of calls in a question, is your

(50:47):
agenda to actually heal people or is your agenda to evangelize?
And so we need, we definitely need to step up
our game on the secular humanist side and say, you know,
we can have a boat too, not only have a
boat and go out and do the same things, but
just not have the faith statement question, just have what
are your credentials and like, can you do the job

(51:09):
that we need you to do.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, in an ideal world, it would be great to
be able to excize like religious bias from these things
that all hospitals and secular run and nonprofit if possible
and these kinds of things. But if we just as
the world stands right now, just excise religion from medicine. One,
we're cutting off a massive source of resources and funding

(51:34):
for everything from the medical care itself to research and
all that kind of stuff and charitable care. And secondly,
we are cutting off community outreach. Like if, for example,
the organization I work for refuse to work with religious
organizations because of their potential biases, more women out there
would have missed their breast cancer screenings and their cervical

(51:57):
cancer screenings, because it's those Sundays groups after Mass where
the ladies get around and pass out the pamphlets and
talk about when they should get their mammograms, and it's like,
is it ideal? No, but it's kind of it's the
world we live in, and the change is going to
have to come incrementally and really quite painfully slowly. So

(52:19):
I don't think it's an easily solved issue. I don't
think it's one that's going to go away anytime soon.
And as Dr Ben was saying, it behooves us in
the secular humanist community to try and provide better alternatives
to allow people to just get what they need without
any of the whole and don't forget to thank Jesus
for for this healing that you have received.

Speaker 7 (52:41):
Of course. Okay, well thanks for the conversation. I just
wanted to know your opinion on that.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, I think we're very much in agreement with you.
We're very much in agreement with you, Alisa. Yeah, we
are very frustrated to.

Speaker 7 (52:58):
Okay, well, thanks so much for us. I really do
appreciate the discussion because I don't think people sometimes I
don't think that people consider like different ways religion can
harm people. And I'm not saying that all religious people
are like that.

Speaker 4 (53:12):
That's not true.

Speaker 7 (53:14):
It's mostly when you see things like that, it's mostly
just kind of people who are on the extreme side.
And yeah, anyway, I gotta go, but thank you for
answering my question. And I do hope you guys have
a good weekend.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Intend Thank you so much, Lisa, have a great rest
of your Sunday. And with that, it is it is
that time. It is that time of the stream, Jamie,
would you like to do the honors and read the
top five patrons.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
These names of those that have given of themselves for
our cause. Champions, heroes, every jack of them, and they
are at number one oops all Singularity and at number
two still it's been two years, Barry Jackson, whoever they are,
I will never not giggle when I'm talking about your name.
Number three, Calari Helvetti, number four, Carlton, number five, moldread

(54:10):
d malcontent awesome, and our honorable mention is Ted Duision
d Ui Duisian Duision. I'm sorry I've butchered your name,
but thank you very much for all of your support.
We literally couldn't do what we do without you. And
if you out there in great listener and want to

(54:30):
be included in this pantheon of wonderful people, you can
do so at tiny dot c c ford slash, Patreon
t H and give whatever you can.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Every little helps absolutely. All right, are you ready for
another caller?

Speaker 1 (54:47):
All right?

Speaker 2 (54:49):
So we have Benji. He him from Alabama. Sounds like
he wants to talk about real religious people are in
denial of God being bad. Benji, you are alive on talk?
He then, can you clarify your your conversation topic for us?

Speaker 5 (55:06):
Yeah? Uh yeah, so I was in earlier and I'm
kind of I didn't mean to bombarded the guy with
a hundred different you know, kind of problems with the Bible,
but they just kind of came out naturally pretty much.
And then I told him that God created evil and
he was like, oh, well, no he didn't. You know,

(55:28):
evil came in the world through humans and sin and
YadA YadA. And I said, which I couldn't remember the verse,
but it literally says, you know, I created good and
evil like you created light and dark. That in evil,
YadA YadA. So I told him that, and it's like
his brain just malfumpson, like he taught about it for

(55:49):
maybe like a split second, and then he asked me, well,
where's it at? And I was like, well, I think
it's an Ezekiel, but am not one hundred percent, sir,
but I know it was. I knew, I know it's
in there. And and then he just kind of he
kind of just blusted off and kind of just you know,
like thanks to subject pretty much is like you stay

(56:10):
in for church. I'm like, no, not today, but I
mean it's like, you know, it just kind of threw
me on guard a little bit, because, like, you know,
if he's a Tristan, because he said he's been a
Tristan for decades, you would thank somebody that's been that
way for decades. Would at least lead the Bible, because
if you weed the if you absolutely read the entire Bible,

(56:32):
you're gonna end up reading that part anyway. So like
somebody that says that about Tristan, you know, they would
already know that, And the fact that it surplied him
and he didn't know that what on pretty said he
didn't know that because they caught him off guard. I
was just gonna get y'all's opinion on that. I mean,
I feel kind of bad for the guy too.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
But I mean your initial question of religious people, I mean,
it seems like you're talking specifically about Christians, and there
are the major religions do predicate that their God is good.
You know, God is great. Not all religions do very Historically,
a lot of the pantheon based religions like Greek and
Norse and stuff, their gods were more like people, flawed

(57:13):
and potentially bad and capable of doing wrong things. They
weren't paragons like the Abrahamic God is often lifted up
as But you are correct. Again, I don't know the
exact versus the top of my head, but I'm pretty
sure there is a a verse in the Bible where
God literally says I do all these things. I create
the light in the dark, I create good and evil.
And also there's the whole. If he's triomne, they be

(57:36):
all powerful. Then everything that happens is his purview, good
or evil, and it's all part of the plant.

Speaker 5 (57:44):
Which would make cam boast any boy.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Yes, depending on your interpretation. But there's an entire religious
philosophy called the theodicy, which is explaining evil under the
auspices of a good God, and that's been going on
since before Christ, like the Epicurean trilemma is the famous example.
You know, whence it come with gard and all that.
We've been wrangling with this idea for longer than Christianity

(58:12):
has been Christianity, and and no good answer has yet
to be brought forward. So I mean you are pointing
out something that in some cases for many, for many
religious adherents, especially Christians, Muslims, Jewish jew I think maybe
there may be an argument that Jewish people understand that

(58:32):
God's not the greatest guy on the planet. But you'd
have to ask what you have to ask them. Yes,
I agree it is. It is cognitive dissonance. But like
you're basically calling in saying water is wet. I mean,
it's almost self evident. Got any thoughts on this, ben.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Yeah, Yeah, it's a situation where essentially Christianity has to
deal with inconsistencies in the Bible and even direct contradictions between.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
The Bible and their worldview.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
And so the verse that we're talking about is Isaiah
forty five to seven, which says I form the light
and create darkness, I make peace and create evil.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
I the Lord do all these things.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
And of course, oftentimes when you bring this up to
a Christian there's a lot of mental gymnastics going on
because they have a couple options. They either have the
option of, you know, reconciling that like there's a difference
here and saying, you know, the Bible can't be the perfect,

(59:33):
unaltered word of God. Or they can say, well, the
Bible's the correct and that my viewpoint was wrong and
I'm going to adjust my belief to what the text says.
Or they can try to keep this dissonance and just
not do anything about it but start making excuses for

(59:54):
why the text actually confirms what they already believed. And
that's often what people do. So they'll make statements like, oh, no,
but he didn't. He didn't create evil. He created the
circumstances in which evil could take place. He gave the
free will which allowed people to do evil, But he

(01:00:15):
didn't actually create the evil. But then they're not recognizing
that it says that he created the evil.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
He didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
He wasn't just the dungeon master playing the role in
setting up the scenario. He was the one that caused
this to be in existence. And so you'll get you'll
get different answers to of no, No, he wasn't creating
the evil part. He just created the consequences of evil.

Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
So, yeah, what he did was the first time you
just said he he literally said half of what you
just said. He's like, yeah, well no, he gave us
free will and gave us choice and this and that,
and I gave him the rebuttal, which was, you know,
if God knows every time, then he knew that. You know,
basically he allowed and in the first place. So he's

(01:01:01):
still responsible either way, even if he didn't directly create it,
which it says he did, Even if he knew about
it ahead of time, that still makes him responsible because
he could have stopped it. And I also brought up
the point that somebody. This was years ago that one
of y'all pointed out, but I pointed it out to
him at a few minutes ago when I talked to

(01:01:24):
him about this, I said, I said that if God,
if somebody killed someone, right, and you're saying God is
all good, then that means somebody killing somebody was good.
Either God could have stepped in and stopped it. But
if he didn't, and it was part of his plan,
which means that he allows bad things to happen. But
under their worldview, they would have to look at every

(01:01:47):
evil and good saying is good since they considered God
to be the ultimate good, which means any bad he
does he does would also be good, which is self confidentially,
But they don't look at it that way.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
And that's the point basis of divine command theory. Yes,
where got everything that God does and instructs is inherently
good because it's God?

Speaker 5 (01:02:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
The idea that it is possible to still grant free
will and child proof the house like it doesn't take
away your free will to put the covers over the
outlets and make sure that appliances aren't on when the
children are like nearby and stuff right, and.

Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
He brought that. He also was like, oh, well that
would affect to our free will. I might, No, it doesn't.
And then I told him those free will on oers
and those free will in heaven, you know, hypothetically, He's like, oh, well,
there's no free will in heaven because there's no evil
in heaven. I'm like, well, then how did Lucifer increase
force and the angels decide that what it gives God?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
And these are all arguments we've had in the past
with fasts that have called in. Yeah. One of the
things though, I would say is that unless is saying
God is good and therefore that's why you should follow
these teachings, and his morality is better than yours. It's
kind of just an academic discussion, you know. It's an
interesting point to sort of go, hmm, some inconsistencies there.

(01:03:05):
But unless someone's put trying to like litigate or legislator
push that morality on me or people they care about,
I'm gonna just let them wrangle with it unless they
want to have a discussion about it. Because this that I.

Speaker 5 (01:03:20):
Went earlier, they make a point of asking I mean,
they've asked me like ten different times in one day.
Literally if I you know, do I know God is
God in my heart? YadA, YadA, And I would sit
down and say, well, yeah, of course I know God,
and I know the Bible at the back of my hand,
and I would litually troape them verbatim, you know, the

(01:03:41):
stuff that they're getting at, because the third it's a search,
a trust I believe, if I'm not mistaken, and their
stuff is basically a combination of both I believe Baptists
and Methodists and a little bit of other stuff. And
then I bought up the you know, the good insane
because I maybe, you know, similar to a Gnostics essentially

(01:04:04):
and believing in the old Christie had you said, where
if you're doing good and good rewards you and that
helps you get in the heaven. And also, I don't
really believe that you have to go to search to
get to heaven. That's you know, not really with fire
Man's I mean, it wasn't mentioned like that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Let me just let me just jump in here, Benji,
just for a second, because I've heard you say a
lot of this already in previous cause and things like that.
I don't want to matter it too much. But from
my perspective, we may as well be having an argument
about the morality of lex luthor like and imagine every
person a fictional character. So while this is all very

(01:04:43):
you know, astute observation on your part, the fact that
you are taught you from your perspective, are talking about
someone you believe exists in actuality and I don't because
I haven't had any evidence compelling enough to convince me
of it. This is just this is just Bible fan
wank right now pretty much.

Speaker 5 (01:05:06):
So to see in mind, if I try to put
God to you, if I could try that just for argument's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Sake, to quote the great Matthew Mercer, you can certainly try.

Speaker 5 (01:05:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
But also also on the like, while we're just kind
of leaving that initial topic, I would love for you
to try to say the people that you were having
these arguments with, please have them call into the show.
I'd love to address that particular issue about God creating
evil with the people that you're having this discussion with.

(01:05:37):
If they're willing to reach out, that would be awesome.

Speaker 5 (01:05:40):
I don't know if they would actually ask them, but
I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Yeah, just go to a shot.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
It would be it would be interesting, and we're we're
willing to change our minds if they're willing to, like,
if they bring in good arguments for it, and if
they are convincing.

Speaker 5 (01:05:54):
So well we already know how that turns out. I
was gonna go ahead and try to argue for God myself,
so I don't want to say hypocritical.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
Yeah, go for it, go for it, give us your
argument for God.

Speaker 5 (01:06:09):
So why I'm trying to decide which one to go
with because I don't want to fall into a fallacy. Well,
I could seeo edically, I could do it this way.
So I was watching a video one of y'all's videos yesterday,
and there was a point with I don't know if
he's still on here or not, said, I can't remember
the guy's name now, damn it. Well, basically he was

(01:06:32):
saying that any evidence that would be presented to him
would be insufficient evidence because it would fire its coordinary
evidence and not just ordinary evidence. And so in my mind,
you know that, do y'all not falling into the terror
fallacy with that? Like if I was to present evidence

(01:06:53):
and evidence is dependent on your you know, observations or
your experiences or even subject to y'all's either one of
y'all's opinions on if that evidence is good enough for
you or not, because at the end of that, you know,
it is pretty much subjective because it depends on you know,
if that would you. It's not like I'm climbed.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Evidence is not subjective, and there are degrees of how
convincing certain pieces of evidence are, and I think that's
what we're dealing with right now. Like there, it is
easy to demonstrate that this chair is going to keep
me held up for the rest of the show, because
over and over and over again I've sat in the

(01:07:36):
same chair and it's pretty reliable. I could calculate out
the statistics of how many times this chair has successfully
held me up during a Talkie Ethan show, and it's
pretty significant.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
It's and if I told.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
Jamie, you know, hey, this chair is pretty surty, I'm
confident that it's not going to fall over during the show.

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
I could still be wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
It could be the time where it breaks, but I
have enough evidence to where I'm convinced of the proposition.
The difference is nobody really cares about my chair most
of the time. Nobody gives a crap if I go
out in public and I say, hey, did you know
that my chair is really sturdy and it can it
can hold me while I sit in it. Nobody is

(01:08:17):
really going to baton I because that's what the chair
is supposed to do, and everyone has been in a
chair that has done a good job being a chair.

Speaker 5 (01:08:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
But when we get to God claims in supernatural claims,
that's why there's the standard of evidence to be convincing
changes because you need number one, you're trying to demonstrate
something that is less common, and you have you have
the burden of having something that is statistically reliable to like, uh,

(01:08:48):
make future predictions and to you know, be have that
same truth demonstrated over and over again. And we we
don't get that with God claims. So yes, there is
a difference, but it's not subjective. And you can even
break this down like statistically into like what very what
variables do to the statistical significance of the particular problem.

(01:09:13):
And so yeah, it seems like it's subjective octive that is,
that is objective, and the majority of the majority of
people asking for evidence with this are asking for objective evidence.
We're asking for something that isn't going to be reliant
on me having faith in it or not, and it

(01:09:33):
can still be out to me whether or not. Like
I accept stats, but that is not a problem with
the stats. That's a problem with the person understanding the stats.
But if if something can be statistically demonstrated, that's going
to be a lot harder to debunk and a lot
harder to disbelieve.

Speaker 5 (01:09:50):
Well, I mean I could do this in a few
different steps. I mean I could say, number one, that
the the universe evolved in a way that created life.
And then I should say that the Earth evolved in
a way after millions of years for life to form
and toak someone earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
That's that's a claim, that's a claim in itself.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
That's not evidence.

Speaker 5 (01:10:13):
That's not evidence, right, right, But the clients are supported
by science. So I could go step by step.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
No, no, no, But here's the here's the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Here's the problem though, because yes, we have the the
idea that like we have our planet, we have our universe,
we have organisms that evolved over time to what they
are now. However, we cannot like we have that stuff
demonstrated by science. We do not have a reason, we
don't have evidence to say that God is connected to

(01:10:44):
that at all. And the problem with a lot of
God claims is that there isn't a way to connect them.
It's just asserted that this is a possible answer.

Speaker 5 (01:10:53):
If I took if I took all of those steps
right at the universe beginning the Big Bain model, the
universe having multiple galaxies and planets and everything else, the
ods forming, the sun forming uh, the os forming water,
water created lives or bacteria that created the lives or

(01:11:16):
elements lather that created the live and and then life
evolving for millions of years and creating people like Benji.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Do you understand how probability works? So wanting so, do
you understand how probability works?

Speaker 6 (01:11:29):
Yes, it's a fifty sixty.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
No no, no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
So this is this is actually a more complicated aspect
of probability. So like, let let's say if I have
a bag of marbles and I have a certain amount
that are red, a certain amount that are green, a
certain amount that are blue, and if I said, my, my,
it would be cool if I had three red marbles.

(01:11:53):
If I only picked three mar three red marbles in
a row. When I start, before I pull out a
single marble. Sure, if all the marbles aren't equal amounts, sure,
there's equal probability of getting any of those marbles, and
it's a less chance that I'm going to get three
red ones in a row. However, if I pull out

(01:12:13):
a red marble on the first try, the probability still
is higher that all three of them are going to
be red.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
Then if I pulled out a blue.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
Marble, Like if I pulled out a blue marble from
the beginning, there's like a zero chance that I'm going
to get three red marbles in a row at the beginning,
But if I pull out a red one, then it's
more likely that the end result is going to happen
with three red marbles. So what we have here in
our universe, Yeah, if you calculate, if you think about probability,

(01:12:44):
as in, there's such a small chance that all of
these things could happen in the way that they do.
The problem is you're not starting from ground zero every
single time another event happens. You're starting from the place
where an event already happened, and now the next one
the probability of the next one happening after this first
event happened, So you can't look at it as if

(01:13:07):
probability from a vacuum every single time. And I think
there's a misunderstanding with what what is the probability of
these things under the circumstances that have already occurred.

Speaker 5 (01:13:18):
And the other suit you pull is going to be
with that's not a guarantee.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
If you pull a guarantee, it's not a guarantee.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
But do you understand that? Do you understand that? Do
you understand that we're not starting from zero every single time?
The fact that an event occurred changes the probability from
a would have been before you had picked up any marble.
And so that's what is we're seeing here, Like, sure,
it sounds like there's very little probability for all these

(01:13:46):
events to happen, but as they happen, the probability changes
for another similar event to happen.

Speaker 5 (01:13:51):
Right, But you're still starting from strant the more you're
not in and trying to pick them all when it's
one one, one circumstance, one circumstance where you're starting from
zero from what we from what we know, and we
don't have, we.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Don't have evidence, we won't probably won't ever have evidence
of how many rolls of the dice, if you will,
things had in order to get to where we're at now.
But the fact is there is only that one time
where it went from from ground zero to then having
an event occur. And so but once you have that

(01:14:27):
first event occur, the probability is not the same as
from being ground zero every single time.

Speaker 5 (01:14:33):
Okay, if you will to dice and the dice lands
on one, and then you will the dice again and
it lands on one again, and you will the dice
again and it lands.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
On that's not That's not the circumstance that we're talking about.
We're not talking about just happenstance each dice roll in isolation.
We're talking about how many Like if we're trying to
get a yachtzi and you roll certain dice that allow
you to get that. Let's say you roll like, uh,
I don't even remember how to play yazi, Like you

(01:15:02):
get three sixes on the first role, it's more likely
that you're going to be able to achieve a yatzi
than if you got like all different numbers on the
first role. Right, So, I think your understanding of probability
is limited to a very very basic understanding of stats.

Speaker 5 (01:15:19):
It's not. I just pointed out the flaw that you gave.
These flaws in the example you gave with the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
But you're giving, you're giving an argument from probability. So
if you're saying that these probability, the probability is so
low of all these things happening, how did you calculate that?

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
How did you figure that out? Did you do the math?

Speaker 6 (01:15:38):
How many?

Speaker 5 (01:15:39):
Okay, yeah, so I'll just point something out. Do you
know how many events have happened that could have wiped
out before it even mapped?

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
I don't, and I don't. But that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
I'm not asserting a claim that anything specific happened to
get that. I don't know all of the events that
led to here. I'm also not claiming a certain thing
to be the start you are claiming. You are making
that claim. So if you're making the claim that probably
that there's a higher probability that a creator was responsible

(01:16:13):
for that, you have to demonstrate that probability.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
So where are your numbers?

Speaker 6 (01:16:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:16:18):
So there have been multiple I say, is we have
had multiple violence.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
That's not an answer to my question, Benji, answer my question,
where are your numbers? You said, probability is in favor
of a god doing these things going, So, where is
your math?

Speaker 5 (01:16:33):
And you gave me the gumball example, Okay, I.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Gave you an example of the kind of math that
you would need to demonstrate like you have to bring
you cannot say. There's a huge pet peeve of mind
people making a claim about probability or using probability as evidence,
but then they don't actually do the math for their probability,
like you're you're allowing maths to carry a lot of
weight in this debate, but not actually bringing that math

(01:16:58):
to the table. I don't want to take the whole
conversation from from Jamie. I know he's having an aurism
over there, Jamie, what are your thoughts?

Speaker 5 (01:17:07):
First, it could be any colored gumball. And then even
if you picked two wear gumballs, I'm sorry, one ware gumball.
That doesn't mean that the other two are going to
be were that could still be any other color.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
No, no, both you both bends. Please please bens bens plural,
Please allow me to have a little, a little interjection.
I think one thing is I think the simple thing
that Ben was Ben doctor Ben was trying to exemplifies
that in his example, the the determining of the probability

(01:17:40):
of pulling out a certain marble necessary necessarily changes the
probability of the next marble coming out red because it's
a different amount of marbles in the bag now, So
it's you know, it's that kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (01:17:52):
Secondly, that well, that's what I was trying to say,
because okay.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
Cool, so we've cleared that up. Groovy, Please allow them
to just say this next thing. I think another thing
that that you're committing here, Benji, is you are presupposing
that the current state of the universe was the goal
or target, not the inevitable eventuality of the natural chain

(01:18:20):
of causality. From that perspective, the actual probability of the
universe being as it is one because we only have
one universe, we don't have any other universes to compare
it to. And so while any amount and considering that
the that we don't know the span of time the
universe is going to exist, it may be eternal, or

(01:18:44):
at least close enough to that. Basically there is given
enough time space and distance, the probability that everything that
could happen will at some point happen. So again, You're
saying that God set this Rube Goldberg machine in motion
to get us to this point, and I'm saying we're
at this point just because the machine worked that way,

(01:19:05):
and that unless you can demonstrate that it's possible for
a universe to exist without life in it and compare
and have other universes to compare to, we can't really
use probability in the way that you're talking about, because
while it might seem astronomically impossible, and so many things
had to go a certain way for us to be

(01:19:25):
here having this conversation, they all did and we don't
know whether they could have happened any other way. So
that's where I'm coming from. It's the Douglas Adams puddle analogy.
Isn't this whole perfect for me? I feel it perfectly.
It must have been made for me. It must be intentional.
You're essentially giving me the fine tuning argument. And again,

(01:19:47):
just to go back to the cold open, it's the
god of the gaps. We don't know exactly how the
universe came to be, and you're proposing a god, and
I'm proposing that it's naturalistic, and I feel like you're
shoving that God in that gap, we'll say you Benji no.

Speaker 5 (01:20:01):
So I'm not doing the God of the gaps and
I'm not doing the pine turning watchmaker argument. What I
was trying to say is that if I was to
add up right all of the times that during the
Earth was forming, that it could have been discarded and
hurting when it made the moon because the moon came
from the Earth, or you know, all the climate changes,

(01:20:21):
the ice ages, the virus is every other time that
has happened, not counting Noah's florid of course. Then and
then I take that and I put one to divide
that into because this, you know, it created life, So
I use that as the time. And then I say, well,
there's a one out of whatever tant that you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):
Know but we don't. But we don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
There's so many variables we're missing. You cannot make that calculation, ill,
because I think you're misunderstanding what the N equals one
thing is that Jamie was talking about. You can't determine
statistical significance with an N equals one.

Speaker 5 (01:20:59):
I can add up how many times yours almost that destroyed,
or I say that that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
Means absolutely nothing. That means absolutely nothing. For the claim
that you are making, I.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Can add up all the times to Earth didn't get destroyed.
I can add up all the times that we are
still The very fact that we are still here. Having
this argument is proof that the probability of this existence
is the most likely, and there's no evidence that it
was done on purpose or has an outside agent.

Speaker 5 (01:21:29):
Fact.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
The fact is we are missing too many variables to
make these calculations, and so using probability as a way
to demonstrate God just does not work because we have
an incomplete equation.

Speaker 5 (01:21:41):
What variables? What other variables is there to consider?

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
If I'm the variables that we don't know, variables that
we do not know and probably will never know. We
have to account for the unknown unknowns. We cannot do that.
The only things we have we only have the one
union that we know of. We have this one existence
that we know of. We can hypothesize others, but we
cannot we cannot confirm that we cannot get I mean,

(01:22:10):
maybe someday we'll get sufficient evidence for these missing pieces
of the puzzle, but at present they are missing. And
so that's why we're saying you're falling into God of
the gaps, Because the probability, you're trying. You're trying to
adapt a probability equation for a scenario that the concept
of probability does not work for. Like the math that

(01:22:33):
we do has specific applications and specific times where it
is actually useful. If you're outside the parameters of what
that math can do, you're not going to get a
reliable answer. So that's something that we have to take
into consideration.

Speaker 5 (01:22:49):
Like if I can well vost it and do the
exact same thing that you're claiming I'm doing, and I
can say that you're doing, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
Because no, Because what the different difference in what we're doing, Benji,
is that you are saying that there is an explanation
and that explanation is supernatural. We are saying that we
don't know the variables that we don't know, and we
can hypothesize, but we don't know. We don't have enough
information to know that wow, And so we are not

(01:23:20):
making a claim to know.

Speaker 5 (01:23:23):
How would that not be the same argument you're using.
I mean, I could play god with science and then
argue against you with the same thing that you're.

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
Doing with me not claiming.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
We're not claiming that science is the one and only answer.
And because science itself is a field of it's a methodology.
Science is not an answer. We're not claiming science is
an answer. It is a method.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
So you're misunderstanding our position.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
It sounds like and even if I grant you, Benji,
let's let's let's for the sake of argument, Benji, let's
say let's let me go with you. Let's say I
agree with you that the the occurrence of intelligent life
on this ball of rock we call Earth is like
calculatively demonstrably like very unlikely, like like like dealing it

(01:24:11):
like dealing, like dealing every spade out of a out
of a deck of cards in order, you know, from
a shuffled deck of cards. You know, something really really
really unlikely. Just because it's very unlikely does not mean
that it necessarily must have been put into action by
an external agent. I mean, many things that are very

(01:24:32):
unlikely happened for basically no good reason other than they
just happen all the time. I encounter it daily. Perfectly
healthy people that, just by dint of a bit of
bad luck and the design floor in our genes, are
struck with a horrific cancer for apparently no reason, and
so unlikely. Things happen all the time, but there is

(01:24:56):
no demonstration that they happen because they were designed to
be that way by an external force.

Speaker 5 (01:25:03):
So the well, I agree with you there, I mean
it also doesn't mean that it's impossible either, So.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
I'm not I'm not discounting God as an external force
as a potential explanation, But until it is evident to
me that such a thing exists, or even is even
possible to exist, I'm not going to give it as
much credence as the fact that the natural forces of
the universe can tend for these things to come into

(01:25:29):
coming to being. We know why we're here. For the
most part, we can trace it all the way back
pretty much to the plank time.

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):
Well before the big band stuff breaks down. But let
me let me ask you this. So let's say that
I had evidence, right, or just for the sake of argument,
so I want to make a point. Let's say that
I had evidence that would convince you, Sam, but not
convince the other person. Okay, Now, how would I go
about it? If I had evidence that would just convince

(01:25:59):
you personally of a god, but not convince the other
person of a god. Then you have different you have
different expectations of evidence, then because I don't, because I might,
I might give you evidence that would convince you but
then not be enough to convince the other person, but
it still convinces you, and to have, you know, and

(01:26:22):
no offense to any of y'all. And I know you know,
I respect gall and I know I get it. But
if you had a tristan on here that said, you know,
let's say that they had evidence and they presented their
evidence and they convinced one of you and didn't convince
the other one, then what would the point be of
trying to call in and present evidence in the first place,

(01:26:43):
Because if you all have different standards of evidence and
different levels of evidence that you would accept as you know.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
So I would think, you don't really don't really go
with this scenario.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
I'm down with it. I can imagine that we would
be able to spin off an entire extra show of
just the now believer trying to convince the rest of
their hosts. What a concept. But again, as skeptics, I
would want to I would be constantly questioning. Even if
something was very convincing to me, I'd still be continually

(01:27:19):
questioning it and.

Speaker 5 (01:27:21):
Why it can be a skeptic and believe in God.
That's why you became an atheist in the first place.

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
I don't want to Well, I've always been an atheist.
I was never a believer, but I.

Speaker 5 (01:27:34):
Did know there were some that did believe, and they
were skeptical, and then they used those skepticism and became
that way.

Speaker 1 (01:27:41):
I've never seen someone skeptic their way into religion, at
least not honestly into a god belief. But it would
be fascinating if you were able to. And yes, everyone's different.
Atheism is not an and secular humanism and all these
things are not monoliths. We have no dogma, we have
no overriding creed. Yes, standard of evidence may well be

(01:28:01):
different than Ben's, probably relatively similar as these things go.
But yeah, I'm not saying it's impossible for me to
be convinced of something and Ben to not be convinced
of something. But uh, like, for example, I mean, I
could try and pull examples out of my out of
my ass for things that could be attributed to a God,
but I could still give you things like my eyes

(01:28:23):
suddenly become perfect, like like a miraculous, unexplained instantaneous healing
of my vision problems which I've gone into in the past,
but are physical in nature, like there's parts of my
eyes missing that should be there. Yeah, I've heard, and
that would be amazing and it would be crazy, And
I'm thinking that anybody immediately go right, We're going to

(01:28:44):
get you into every scanner. We're going to start looking
into this because maybe it was God, but it could
have been a wizard, could have been nanomachines, could have
been could have been anything. Maybe I've just manifested a superpower.
I don't know. So while I could give creed that
some amazingly powerful thing just happened, there's still a spectrum

(01:29:05):
of potential explanatory sort of things that could explain what
just happened to me. So while I would entertain a
god or godlike figure, I can't rule out aliens or
wizards or fairies, or spontaneous magic, superpowers, or some aspect

(01:29:26):
of the human physiology little known.

Speaker 5 (01:29:30):
Also, Jeremy, if you don't mind, can I add something
to that? So I'd say, for the sake of argument,
that somehow your eyes did get healed, right, and you
wanted to tell people, Hey, my eyes got healed I
can see again now that by itself, by definition is subjective.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
No, because I would be able to have them take
photographs of my retina and you could see that the
scar tissue that was there is gone. Like I say,
the things that are wrong with my eyes are very
physical and physical and unless they are rectified, they my
eyes will not get better.

Speaker 5 (01:30:05):
Right, Well, seeing my point there was it unless you
have something you're compared to. Like if you have a
photo of your eyes that have the start to issue
on them, They're on my Facebook, and somehow your vision
gets prepared and then they do it again and it
has no damage, then you have something to compare it to.

Speaker 1 (01:30:23):
Yeah, I mean the scenario of that my eyes do
not physiologically change, but I can demonstrate that my vision
is in fact perfect even though my eyes are still
physically broken. That would be stepping into the realm of
magic and the unexplained. But then again, how do you
know I'm not cheating. I can take you on a
walk around my apartment and the local areas, and I

(01:30:45):
could point to signs off in the distance and tell
you exactly what they say, not because I'm reading them,
because I know what they say, because I've passed them before.

Speaker 7 (01:30:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:30:53):
So but okay, if I was in your apartment and
then I moved something and you still knew where, well,
is that not miraculous.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
No, that's just logical. It's you know, I just because
I can't see doesn't mean I can't reason. And if
someone's if I know that something was there and someone's
moved it, I have a housemate and he does that,
love Cole. I'm not going to attribute my ability to
track it down as a miracle. I'm just going to
be like, well, I was either tenacious or I reasoned

(01:31:23):
that here is a more sensible place to put it,
or the person that I'm with is either absent mindedly
putting it somewhere and there for where would they put it? Absolutely,
or it's trying to fuck with me where would they
put it? So, No, it's not a miracle. It's just
it's just lateral thinking. Anyway, I've said my piece.

Speaker 5 (01:31:39):
But I mean the other thing I was going to
say too, is that you know that kind of goes
into the concept of fates because a lot of presents
the way of thinking is well, I can't prove it,
but it's better than the book to believe than not believe,
and that goes into arkansaser.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
Benji, is that a good way to evaluate true faith?
Is faith good enough for you? Like is it good
enough for you to just insert and answer just to
have one even if you have no idea if it's
true or not.

Speaker 5 (01:32:10):
Well, faith's in the calonical sense, you know, having faiths
in something is different from faiths in the Bible. But
I would say, as far as fate's in the Bible,
Bible's votion of faith, if I have basically evidence for
stuff that's unseen, which again that makes really no sense anyway.
But if I had that kind of fate and I

(01:32:32):
attributed it to a God or Jesus or whatever, I
think that depending on the circumstances, it could lead me
to something that is true and not true. I would
say that.

Speaker 6 (01:32:46):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:32:46):
The reason why people try to claim that it is
a reliable way to truth is because it still gets
some of the truth sometimes, you know, fifty to fifty,
it's a flip of a coin. If it didn't get
them the truth at all, they couldn't claim that because
it doesn't get them the truth at all, But because
it gets them the truth sometimes and they say, well, yeah,
it's still reliable half the time. But in y'all's case,

(01:33:09):
your argument is is it reliable completely one hundred percent
of the time? And in that case no, But the
way that Tristan's look at it, you know, even half
and half fifty fifty is good enough for them because
it still gets under the trars half the time, even
though sometimes it can get them to something that ain't
crue and other times it can get in to something
that is crue. And when it gets into something that

(01:33:32):
is true, they say God did it. If it gets
some of something that ain't crue, they blame the devil.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
Again, water is wet, counting heats, that kind of thing.
And yes, that is a conversation we have with a
lot of believers about like how can you demonstrate that
your faith is any better than just chance? And it
has actually been demonstrated that, you know, especially in things
are intercessory prayer, it's not. Again, these are pretty in
the colo.

Speaker 5 (01:33:55):
Sense is connected too, SAPs like if you have faiths
something you take a.

Speaker 1 (01:34:01):
Chance on some well I would when someone uses faith
as in I have faith that I'll wake up tomorrow morning,
or rather the sun will rise that's trust.

Speaker 3 (01:34:11):
That's it's confidence.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
Yeah, like we were talking about with probability, I can
demonstrate statistical significance. That'll tell me how how reliable something is,
how likely that something is to be true, And that
is demonstrable. It can be used to predict things that
will happen in the future, not because of divine anything,

(01:34:35):
but just because we have enough data that we can
calculate and rely on. Is this eighty percent likely to happen?
Is this ninety percent likely to happen? Is this ten
percent likely to happen. That's not faith, that's math.

Speaker 5 (01:34:47):
Okay, well, let's see the faith that they say is
they use it in place of trust, So that's or confidence.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
But that's but that's not so using faith in place
of trust is just to us miscommunicating because if we're
having a completely different discussion, and if someone says it
thinks that I'm meaning faith when I'm saying statistical reliability
or if I'm saying trust, or if I'm saying confidence.
That's why I tend to use the word confidence, because

(01:35:16):
it gives you more of a spectrum of options that
you can give. If someone else is here is thinking
that I mean faith, when I say confidence, then we
need to revisit the conversation and I need to say, hey, no,
this is what I mean by confidence, and then they
need to say what they mean by faith, and then
we will understand that we're not on the same page

(01:35:36):
with how we are making our decisions.

Speaker 5 (01:35:38):
Sometimes it is christens when they say face. Sometimes they
just say it's in the calonical sense. Yes, sometimes when
they say it's in the biblical sense.

Speaker 2 (01:35:49):
I mean, but the problem is they're using one word
to do all their heavy lifting, and then they don't
and then they don't have to clearly define it because
they just assume the other person knows what they're talking
talking about, and it just becomes a very messy conversation.
So I think, I think maybe we're kind of reaching
the end of a productive discussion. I think call back

(01:36:12):
next week. We'll have multiple hosts next week, and you
can try this with a few different people and see
how it goes. But I think, maybe go listen back
to this call, think about kind of any other ways
that we can approach this next time, and I hope
you have a great rest of your day.

Speaker 3 (01:36:30):
And I just dropped him.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Okay, the closest thing I ever get to the biblical
concept of faith is hope. But that's a that's a knowing,
Like I'm you know, I know that this thing that
I hope is going to happen is not likely. It's
not like I think it's definitely going to happen because
I believe in it so much. But that's about as
close as I get to that Hebrews eleven nonsense.

Speaker 5 (01:36:52):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
Yeah, well, thank you everybody for joining us this week
on Talk he then and I hope to see a
bunch of you you this upcoming weekend at the back
Cruise and at the live shows at the library. But
just a reminder, the prompt for this week is what
gap can God always fit into? Reply in the comments
and tune in at the beginning of next week's show

(01:37:13):
to hear those top three answers. And we want to
thank Eli for helping out today. Thank you so much
for being here. And was there anything in particular you
wanted to address about this show.

Speaker 4 (01:37:26):
I think you guys did greet the only I wanted
Steven to know that in the article, like in one
of the first couple of paragraphs there, it does it
that where it introduces the idea that it's you know,
reflective material. It just kind of pops up out of nowhere.
They're like, one possibility is this if it's real, So
that's the sort of evidence that we're dealing with in that,
But otherwise I think, I mean, I couldn't add anything

(01:37:48):
to anything you guys said. You guys did awesome, as.

Speaker 2 (01:37:49):
Always awesome, and it is time for some lover rings
if we can send those out. Oh and we got
a super chat from Miranda Renzberger. Great show today. You
have managed to have productive conversations with one difficult caller
and made a valiant effort with another.

Speaker 3 (01:38:05):
Oh, I can't see the rest of it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):
You guys are awesome. Thank you so much, Miranda. Miranda
is one of the MVPs of this show, always showing
up those super chats.

Speaker 1 (01:38:14):
She is to the ACA as the Pope was to
the Renaissance, like just the payment.

Speaker 3 (01:38:22):
Yeah, absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
Thank you so much, Miranda, And as always, it's great
to see the community coming together having these more difficult discussions.
And if you don't believe this is your place, these
are your people. We hope to see you.

Speaker 3 (01:38:39):
This upcoming weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
I'm so excited to meet some of you in person
and hang out for a bit and watch the shows together.
We appreciate all of your time staying with us every week,
and if you do believe, we don't hate you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
We're just not convinced.

Speaker 7 (01:39:12):
We want the truth.

Speaker 4 (01:39:13):
So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays at seven pm Central
Call five one two nine nine one nine two four
two or visit tiny dot cc forward slash call tw