Talk Heathen 09.38 with Christy Powell and Godless Engineer @TheAtheistExperience

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Few questions have shaped the world more than this one.
Was Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God or the
son of some man? Did he really come to reverse
the fall? Or did he even come at all? Two
thousand years of scholarship and holy war later, and all
I've got to show for it is thousands of talk
heathen phone calls and no solid evidence for a god.

(00:23):
Think you can shed some light on Jesus, the Man,
the mystery? Well, give us a call because the show
is coming right now. Welcome everyone. Today is September twenty one,
twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Christy Powell, and joining

(00:45):
me today for the first time is Godless Engineer. Glad
to have you on with me. Hi, what's up, Heathens?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
How y'all doing?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, I'm excited to get into it. We've got a
pretty interesting question on deck. This is honestly a question
that I have maybe turn my nose up or sort
of avoided because of the like why does it matter?
Piece of it all? Plenty of people live and die,
and as far as I know, none of them except
for maybe one, but probably not that one, but maybe

(01:13):
have been the son of God. So you know, why
does it matter if Jesus was a real person. I'm
really excited to get into it with you.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh yeah, And this is a topic that you know,
a lot of people know me for and I definitely
agree that this is a niche topic that really the
most productive conversations can be had between atheists on the
topic that you know, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, that
isn't you know, dogmatically holding to like the magical version

(01:44):
of these stories that we've already put that aside, and
we're trying to really do the hard work of determining
what's true about history. And that's a lot harder than
a lot of people like to think.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, absolutely well. Talk He then is a live call
in show. We have open lines, so get your calls in.
We're at five one two four two or from your
computer at tiny dot c c slash call THH. As
always on talk ethen, we are open to all of
your questions about religion, secular humanism, atheistic morality, cosmology, philosophy, science, history, life,

(02:19):
the universe and everything. Today. We're very excited to talk
about the historacity of Jesus, the mythicism of Jesus, anybody
else that you're hoping to hear from today.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know, I'm I'm up for any kind of topic,
but i mean, you know, the mysticism topic obviously is
something that I'm very much into. But you know, i'd
try to stay pretty well versed in just almost any
vertical as far as the you know, atheist and secular
sort of space you know, would involve. So I'm up

(02:52):
for anything.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Awesome. Well, we're going to get into it, I'll say
just quickly that Talk Heathen is a production of the
Atheist Community of Austin, a five OHO one C three
nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking,
secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government. With that,
what do you say we go ahead and jump on
the lines and talk to Jesse, who I believes takes

(03:16):
the position that Jesus really did exist. Jesse, what you
got for us today?

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Hi?

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Thanks for having me up. I've heard of this show
for a while, so it's cool to be up here.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
So I'm an atheist, but I do think Jesus probably existed,
only comparing him to what we have for let's just
say classical figures. So for people like Brasidas, and Lysander
and Demosthenes and cleon Nikias. These people are accepted to

(03:46):
be true or except to have app have actually existed,
despite people arguing about what is attributed to them having
actually been done. These people do not have inscriptions anywhere.
There's no coins with their with their faces on. It's
They're just mentioned sometimes in passing by Fucidides or Xenophon

(04:07):
or Herodotus, And it just seems like that sort of
evidence is at the very least comparable to what we have.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
What were Jesus right, Hey, Jesse, I'm just wondering, are
any of those people like venerated as a deity that
provides salvation to anybody that believes in them?

Speaker 4 (04:26):
No?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Okay, then it seems like it doesn't matter arguing.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
That the acts right, not the that I already acknowledge
that people do debate the acts of Lysander and of
brassy Us, how many men they actually had, how accurate
are the speeches they gave?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
So yeah, people, do we need to have a higher
barrier for evidence? Like is there a higher bar for
somebody when they claim to be the son of God?
Does that matter?

Speaker 4 (04:50):
No, In the same way that if I was to
claim to be the son of God, Like right now,
it would not become harder for you to prove that
I existed.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
I think that's fair to say that part you respond
ghost engineer.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Well, so this is obviously a reference class error here
because we're not actually talking about those types of figures
that you're mentioning. Well, we're talking about our figures that
started out being venerated deities. If you look at the
actual evidence that we have of Jesus, the very first
mentions of Jesus are of him being a venerated celestial deity.

(05:25):
So like mentioning these people that are not in the
same reference classes Jesus seems to be a pointless endeavor
because you are going to end up with a false
analogy fallacy, and that's essentially what you're committing here. I
think that if you were to really do a comparison,
you would want to compare Jesus to like Romulus.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Because I just don't think that the claims that somebody makes,
so like the claims that a particular person makes, are
going to be a separate thing from the actual existence
of the person.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
So okay, yeah, no, I totally agree, Jesse. Definitely Jesse
I'm sorry to stop you. Yeah, I'm sorry to stop you,
but I do want to ask what evidence do you
have that doesn't contain those like aspects?

Speaker 4 (06:08):
It doesn't contain what aspects?

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sorry, well, the aspects that you're having a problem with here,
because I'm talking about how Jesus started off being a
venerated deity and you say, well, that's the acts. That's like,
you know, these extra things that are put on them. Okay, fine,
what what are some core things that you think are
attested outside of those supposed acts that are foisted upon Jesus.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, Jesus is referenced by people that are accepted to
have existed. And like, the sorry thing to admit is
for anyone that's interested in history is that that is
the bar of evidence usidities was accepted to have existed.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
And so I'm sorry, Jesse, you can going back to
socidities and all this other stuff that really doesn't matter
in this particular case. I'm talking about Jesus. So if
maybe we can just focus on Jesus. And I'm sorry
to keep interrupting you, but I'm trying to keep the
conversation on track here. So I'm just trying to look for.
What evidence do you have? You say that there's evidence
outside of like the biblical evidence for people mentioning Jesus.

(07:07):
But the core problem in this particular situation is we're
trying to discern between dependent evidence, meaning that this evidence
is dependent upon the Gospels or upon Paul and versus
independent evidence. So what independent evidence of the Gospels and
Paul do we have that would be similar to these.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Other relevant don't I don't think that's a relevant question.
Be the same? Like I hate that you. I don't.
I guess that you don't like to meet bringing up
other historians of different eras.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
But it's like it's not actually bringing up other historians
jes So.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
You have any classical figure?

Speaker 2 (07:43):
If I ask you, like, you're not giving me any evidence,
just independent, You're still not giving me any evidence.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
Evidence means having been mentioned like that's by people who
definitely exist.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
So tell me who mentions them? Right, So tell me
who mentions them. I feel like I'm asking like a
reasonable question here.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
So I'm clarifying and so that the audience is following along.
Are is your contention godless engineer? That if it is
sort of a religious reference, if people are saying not
just there was a man, but there was a son
of God. That that type of evidence or that type
of reference doesn't hold the same weight or exists in
a different classification.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, no, so that's not what I'm talking about. What
I'm talking about is that we need independent evidence of this,
independent accounting of it. So, like, if you want to believers, right, well,
I mean, if you want to use Paul, you could
use Paul, and we can talk about the several different
verses in Paul, like Romans one to three, Galatians four
to four, you know, Galatians one nineteen. We could discuss

(08:44):
those if you wanted to, and we could definitely talk
about how those either do or do not prove a
historical Jesus existed. But that's one source. Every other source
that comes after Paul was writing is actually inspired in
some kind of way, either directly or indirectly by Paul's work.
So you can't then cite evidence that is using Paul's

(09:05):
work in order to justify a historical Jesus.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
That's literally how the transmission of all of history has happened,
Like are you aware of Like like Arian is the first,
it's the first historian of Alexander the Great we have,
but like we don't have it.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
He's not the first, but he's the best. Just to
be specific, we.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
Don't have independent No, but he's not the first. He's
just the first. He's just the earliest that we have.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
No, he's not the earliest that we have, Like there
are other there are other biographies of Alexander the Great
that exists, and if you want to go down that road,
we can. But see the difference between Arian's account of
Alexander the Great story and his biography is that Arian
actually mentions to at least two, if I remember correctly,

(09:50):
eyewitnesses too Alexander the Great. One of them was his generals,
was a general of his and so Arian had access
direct access to first hand accounts of him. And these
are also independent accounts. So like the two accounts that
he uses do not play off of each other, they
are independently attesting to Alexander the Great. And that's not

(10:12):
even getting into the whole archaeological evidence of like Coinsminton
in his visage, or historical events that could have only
happened due to Alexander the Great accomplishing them. We're not
even talking about that. We're just talking about textual accounting.
So like Arian, even though he's five hundred years later,
he has first hand eyewitness accounts that he discusses, He
discusses how those how he reconciles contradictions in his sources.

(10:36):
And he has all of this in like this prologue
section to the Biography of Aryan or a biography of
Alexander the Great where he discusses these, we don't have
that for Jesus whatsoever. We don't have anything like that.
The Gospels don't do it, Paul doesn't do it. In fact,
Paul separates himself from any all of.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
The contemporary like like who was Paul persecuting? Like very
shortly after right the crucifix show me?

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Like right, Jesse? Sorry, what Jesse? Can you cite for me?
In Paul's epistles, where Paul directly says that he got
this information from any human source, because I feel like
if you read Galatians one to eleven, you're going to
be disappointed, what like the.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
Information about like his view of Jesus after his like
his revelation.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Uh yeah, any kind like does let me ask you
this just directly does Paul separate himself from any human
sourcing or does he use human sourcing? Okay, are you
are you just gonna not listen to me.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
For shipping a person you never existed that they also
called a man.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
No, No, I think Paul. I think Paul totally believed
that he existed. It's just learning what form did he exist?
So like Paul believed in a celestial Jesus that revealed
himself to the apostles, And uh, there's no evidence in
Paul's epistles that he ever thought of Jesus as like
a human being that walked on earth. Now that means
I don't mean that he didn't he thought of Jesus

(11:59):
as like some ghost spiriting kind of guy. He definitely
believed in a flesh and blood Jesus. But at this
particular time in the first century, Jews thought that like
the like the afterlife, the heavens, the firmament was a
real place and it was inhabited by flesh and blood creatures,
demons and Satan and all this other stuff as well

(12:20):
as you know, Jesus was there for a time being
under Paul's view, just like in many other Mediterranean cults
at that time, they thought that the afterlife was a
very specific physical place that could be traversed to. And
so Paul was just following along in that kind of
of ideology.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
But do you think Paul was like among the first
Christians to like attribute like manhood to Jesus.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Well, no, I think that what Paul did was, Paul,
if you're going to ask me a question, then you
need to let me answer his pointless to ask me
a question and then just keep talking. Okay, what's your clarification?

Speaker 4 (12:57):
Waited literally half a second.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
I would have clarified the let's let's get that question.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
I'm sorry you wait on you.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Jesse.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, Jesse, if you'll collect your thoughts, can you can
you ask that question again and whatever clarifiers you need.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Yes. So with the people who would have been worshiping
Jesus prior to Paul, did they believe that they were
worshiping someone who only existed in like space world or
someone that had existed in the actual world like it
was so the first to think that Jesus was a
celestial deity, that Jesus was a celestial.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Deity, obviously, Paul. You know, Paul came about his theology
through a deep investigation of the scriptures, he also came
to it by revelation directly from Jesus. And so I
think that Paul, you know, given that Peter was one
of the first that even Paul says Jesus appeared to

(13:47):
there were obviously Christians that came to this same theology
before Paul. It's just that Paul read the scripture and
received revelation and agreed with them. We know this because
in Galatians too, Paul taught about you know, returning back
to Jerusalem conversing with the other apostles and them adding
nothing else to his theology. So his theology obviously matched

(14:11):
the other apostles that were going around. But it's really
problematic for historicists because the theology is that Jesus was
purely a revelatory being that had flesh and blood, because
they believed in a literal firmament that contained flesh and
blood creatures, and so this is this is all part
of the Jewish theology of the time. So I mean, no,

(14:34):
Paul was not the first to think it, but it
was very easily determined or or it was very easily
interpreted from the existing Jewish theology and Jewish scripture.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
Yeah, so like given like the culture at that time, theology,
they could have possibly interpreted that way.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
But we know that they did. We know Paul definitely did. Sorry,
it's not just possible, like, it's plausible, like, it's definitely
how Paul was interpreting scripture.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
So Paul definitely never believed that Jesus ever like, walked
in a human form.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
No, no, that's not what I said. I said that
Paul believed. Hold, if you'll listen to me real quick,
I said that Paul believed in a flesh and blood Jesus.
It's just that this flesh and blood Jesus only existed
in the celestial realm, which is in the lower parts
of the celestial realm, which is the Firmament. The firmament
was a physical place to them, so Paul believed that

(15:28):
he was a very physical person. Even those adjacent to
Paul's community they believed in these things. I can't remember
I can get to the exact first. But the Hebrews,
they very painfully make it obvious that Jesus became in
the image of man. He took he took the image
of man, or took the form of man in order

(15:51):
to die and resurrect. So he was made in that likeness.
And this is stressed throughout Paul's work as well as
Hebrews in the Firmament.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
So, like, where was Jesus's Okay, So, so Jesus had
like an other worldly crucifixion or like a celestial one, yes,
because like there was like a resurrection, right, but it
just was not on like the earthly plane. Is that?
Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 2 (16:18):
I mean, well, according to Paul there was a resurrection.
I don't think there was a resurrection, just like I
don't think there was a historical Jesus. But I mean, yeah,
Paul belied in the resurrection.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, I guess that took place in a place that
you or I could visit. Was it?

Speaker 4 (16:32):
Was it something that people in the area that Jesus
allegedly existed and could have viewed? No, Like who was
the Roman?

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Like the Roman?

Speaker 4 (16:40):
I don't know it's meant to be, Like is there
was it a celestial like Roman that like, uh, like
pierced the side of Jesus? Like was it where they're like.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Oh no, no, all of that, all of that is made
up in the gospels. Where where does know where does
Paul talk about?

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (16:58):
So like these stories would have existed. I mean, like,
you sound very nogamal, So I'm not trying to be
a pick did did Paul? It's all ever like reference
like worldly accounts of like the resurrection and like or
discount them.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
No. I mean Paul mentions in one Corinthians fifteen that
according to the scriptures, Jesus died and then according to
the scriptures he resurrected. So it seems to me like
according to the scriptures are the only sources that Paul uses,
Like the scriptures are the only sources that he uses.
He also states revelation as the reason why. So I mean,

(17:32):
what let me ask you this there, Jesse, what is
your what is your hold on? Hold on? What is
your problem with the fact that Paul only ever references
revelation and scripture as where he gets his information from.
Why do you have to add information to Paul's work? Huh?

Speaker 4 (17:48):
Because he never met Jesus. That sounds like he's a
guy who never met Jesus and then also met people
who claimed, or at least historically claimed to have met
a historical Jesus.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
So yeah, oh no, no they did. Where does where
do they say that Where does anybody say that about you?
Where does Paul say that anybody physically met Jesus.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
Well, he's relying on the scriptures, right, So like you're
literally saying he's relying on the scriptures that are depicting
a worldly Jesus. But then you're saying he does not believe.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
The scriptures aren't depicting a worldly Jesus.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Well, So to clarify, Paul is not referencing Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John when we refer to those scriptures, we're talking
about writers that come after Paul. Do I have that right?

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well, the scriptures would be the Subtuagen and other scriptures
that are not contained. So these are Hebrew scriptures in
Jewish theology.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Right, So as Paul is talking about getting his information
from the scriptures, he's definitely not talking about the Gideon's Bible.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
There Jesse Do we still have jesse.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
H seem to but uh, okay, Nope, that we have
lost that connection. Well, fair enough, So I guess I
just want to really clarify that bit at the end
that when we're talking about Paul and we're talking about
sort of Paul's understanding of the scripture, we're not referring
to scriptures as modern Christians think of it. You know, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John all of those pieces that were based on

(19:07):
and came after Paul, even if they're not in that
order in the book.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, no, yeah, true. So, And especially for Paul, it's
going to be the Septuagent. That's going to be what
he learned and what he's basing all of his interpretations on.
Then there's a few notable like things in the septuagen
that are different than the Hebrew and that's how we
know that he used, you know, the Sebtuogent. That's what
he would be using at least.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
All right, well, fair enough, if you're ready, let's go
ahead and jump into a kind of interesting call from
JC in Spain. I'm very curious about this question you
have for us, JC. What's on your mind?

Speaker 5 (19:44):
Hi, guys, I so taking my call. Yeah, like I
wrote this, I just want to know here your guys
thoughts if you think Jesus, if he lived in today's world,
if he would choose to be vegan, So are you
going to show somebody who does not needlessly exploit animals?

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, I would have a hard time with that idea
just depending on how we define who Jesus is or
was obviously with we come to it with the idea
that Jesus never existed, then anything is up for grabs.
And that being said, if we're playing along with the
idea of Jesus, then I have to say that we

(20:21):
should include the idea that he was the beginning and
the end, and that he's unchanging. So if two thousand
years ago Jesus wasn't vegan, I don't know why modern
day Jesus would be vegan. I don't know how God
can say, you know, go be fruitful and multiply and
subdue the earth, rule over the fish, rule over the
birds of the sky, rule over every living creature that

(20:44):
moves on the earth, and then frame this idea of
like a peaceful, hippie vegan Jesus in the modern era.
I don't know, godless engineer, how does that land for you?

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, the vegan sort of lifestyle initiative, I mean, as
far as I understand it, like the push for it
is fairly recent, like a fairly modern thing. So I
mean I would think that if Jesus were still around
today after two thousand years, I don't. I don't see
any reason why he would be vegan. But I mean,

(21:17):
all of this is really speculation about it. But but
I mean considering the demeanor of first century Jews, like
they weren't really concerned with ethical treatment of animals, So
I don't think that he would be.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
So do you think he would be okay with like
needlessly killing animals? Because one could make the argument that
back in the days, it might have been needed for
survival to consume these animals. And that's how I was
asking about today's time right where somebody can choose to
either needlessly kill animals or not to do so. And
you've got a bit the concepts of the benevolent, compassionate individual.

(21:51):
I don't see how that individual could need to see
kill animals, like when there's other options.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Sure, but you're you're calling the historical Jesus or or
the character of Jesus, this benevolent person. And I can
appreciate that characterization, but we're also basing everything that we
know or don't know, or imagine or understand about Jesus
on these books that are allegedly perfect and that have

(22:16):
not been changed, and that reflect a God who has
always been one particular way. It comes down to this
question of does God evolve? And I think that most
Christian theology would reject that idea. If God was all
powerful two thousand years ago, then he didn't need to
rely on me, but chose to.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, it also seems kind of weird to expect, at
least for me, it seems weird to either think about
or expect a figure from a religion that regularly mandated
the slaughter of animals in order to perform blood magic.
And I'm not just talking about one or two animals.
We're talking about thousands of animals, is what they depict

(22:59):
in the Revival of slaughtering them. And I mean, I
just want people to really take this in, because they
were pretty explicit in the Hebrew Bible like they wanted
you to, like, you know, sacrifice the animal right, but
also then cut out its entrails and burn them to
a crisp like on an altar, so that he could

(23:20):
for some reason like either for the free smells like
he's had some kind of ancient Jimmy John's or like something.
I don't know, but I just don't see why this
this figure from history would ever care whatsoever about the
suffering of animals.

Speaker 5 (23:37):
Okay, maybe maybe to reprice them. Let's talk about the character.
But with a compassionate individual in today's world needlessly kill animals.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, I mean that that's an interesting question, and I
definitely appreciate the vegan movement. I very much appreciate this
notion that we should as a moral society mitigate or
limit or eradicate to our ability all harm and suffering
caused but or cause two conscious creatures. Does that mean

(24:07):
that it is impossible to be a compassionate human being
without being a vegan. I'm not going to go that far.
I'm not going to take that position, but I can
at least appreciate the idea of it.

Speaker 5 (24:18):
Okay, I mean, justin Vica to talk about reducing suffering,
about not exploiting animals, like using them for our benefits
where we have options. So for me personally, I don't
see how somebody I'm not saying non vegans are not compassionate,
but somebody who's like aware that they are needlessly killing animals,
I don't see how that put the a compassion person

(24:38):
who then goes out of their way to pay for
that to happen.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
And yeah, you know, we would really have to define
the word needless or the concept of need. You know,
in psychology, when we discuss a need, it's not out
of this contrast with a want. It's not based on
the idea that, like, you have to have certain things
in order to survive versus things that you would just
kind of enjoy. At least in my field, when we

(25:01):
talk about a need, it is something that empowers us
or enables us to achieve our absolute highest level of
performance or potential. So can we really say that slaughtering
animals is needless? We'd really have to define our terms
and talk about what we mean, all of which gets
pretty far astray from the notion of what would Jesus do.

(25:23):
But I'm willing to go down that road with you
if you like.

Speaker 5 (25:25):
Yeah, for sure. So what I'm mean with need is
not required for survival of your help, like it can
be just as healthy on a plant based by it
making the killing of these animals, by the way, also
the animals in the milk industry, egg industry, in the
will industry, all of them end up in.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
The Slota house.

Speaker 5 (25:41):
So I'm not saying this is not required and the
killing of them is needless killing.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I do hear that, and I really am sympathetic to
your point of view, while wanting to point out that
there is a lot of quote needless suffering that exists
in our world if you use that definition of the
word needless. Do I need a high powered cell phone?
Do I need fast fashion? Do I need to be
able to stream Netflix? All of these industries are fraught

(26:09):
with all kinds of moral issues and are no doubt
responsible for human suffering. And I at the very least
want to rank human suffering as equally important, if not
slightly more important than the suffering of non human species.
Does it matter? Do I care about the well being

(26:29):
of animals? Do I care about humans being careless and
taking advantage of animal welfare and well being or taking
it for granted? Yeah? I do think that these issues matter,
But to just categorize it as needless or as important
or whatever else feels really narrow and I can't say
that I'm really along for your definitions here.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
Okay, at the difference there with the human suffering, again,
the olvement is about not exploiting animals, so giving them
as tools of slavery. The difference day is that in
this human industries. No one is getting bred into existence
to be fasted into a starta house. So it's like
a severity there, right, So it's like.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
You know, again, we might be playing with words to
a certain extent. It's certainly not as if any human
being has ever sired another human being with the express
intention of extracting labor from them. That is not a
claim that we can really make historically or even in
the modern era. So again, I appreciate where you're coming from,

(27:29):
but it does feel kind of philosophically flimsy to me.

Speaker 5 (27:32):
I don't see how. I don't know if you're talking
past each other. I mean, we're just talking about taking
the life of another centien being when you have the
option to do so. I mean, if you guys are
taking the lives of humans, if you don't need to
do so, we can talk about that first. But if
you're not doing that, I think the big elephant in
the room is the needless of trillion top animals.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
But yeah, I mean, at the macro scale, we are
needlessly to use these definitions taking the lives of human
beings in a great number of ways. So I don't
I don't mean, I don't mean to get mixed up
in what about ism or say like, well, we'll deal
with veganism when we have like dealt with all war
and ended all human suffering. I don't want to be

(28:13):
that careless with it, but I'm having a really hard
time seeing how your position really fits in the context
of the modern world.

Speaker 5 (28:21):
Like are you currently thankful as humans to be too?

Speaker 1 (28:24):
I mean in a complex way. You know, I'm certainly
not ever sitting down and making the decision Oh yes,
I will contribute to human suffering in this way. And
I am very aware that there are companies that I
regularly contribute money to that have abysmal human rights records.
I try to be a responsible consumer. I try to

(28:45):
be thoughtful about these kinds of things. And I know
that I mean to use Coca Cola as one example.
Anytime I am buying a coke product, I am giving
money to an organization with a human rights record that
we can very direct tie to unnecessary depths and exploitation.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
Right, and because the thing is right, And whenever somebody
buys any animal product, you know for a fact that
an animal is going to get killed for that. To
replace that item by a subplinety month. So I don't
know if that's the case and things like coke. And
even if that was the case and things like coke,
how would that justify also been killing the animals and
taking their lives if you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, I mean direct and indirect consequences like these are
very thorny issues. I think we're kind of just right
back to arguments that we've heard before about how veganism
is potentially a much more moral perspective and there are
reasons to push back against that. There are things to
consider in terms of having a world of finite resources

(29:45):
and putting these restrictions on what resources are available to us.
I don't know how deeply I want to go into that,
since I feel like we've had this veganism conversation before.
Godless Engineer, is there anything that I maybe missing here
that you want to make sure to throw in?

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well, yeah, I just had a quick thought, and maybe
JC has a good explanation for me or a good response.
But let's just hypothetically entertaining an idea without accepting it.
Let's just say that we forego, like the entire human
race foregoes all meat products, right, and we just rely
on on a vegan lifestyle, how do you explain the

(30:23):
massive destruction of ecological systems in order to provide the
amount of food that we would need to provide for
the entire human race to be vegan as well as
producing you know, any supplements that we would need to
use for like iron and stuff or however, I'm not
sure how that's accounted for and veganism. I'm assuming that

(30:43):
you would have to take supplements in order to get
all the nutrients that you would normally get. I'm just wondering,
how do you how do you respond to the wanton
destruction of whole ecological systems in order to produce enough
food for us?

Speaker 5 (30:57):
Okay, so that because you're going to concern with the exploitation,
so the slavery status of animals, But I'm still happy
to answer this environmental question. So yeah, currently we are
growing seventy five percent of the plants that we grow
are for the fund animals because these fund animals are
also eating something. Right, So, if the environment is your concern,

(31:20):
going on the plant based site like many people do
who are plant based for the environment and would be
the best thing you can do, because not longer you're
going to say on land, we will need much much
less land to produce the plants that we eat directly
rather than growing plants to feed to the animals, and
we also need much less water. There would be much
less emissions or this repuderation and so on transportation of

(31:41):
these products from the farms to the animals and then
killing the animals and so on. So it's much more
inefficient to be consuming animal products.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
First of all.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, if we're if we are starting from scratch, like
if we are able to place some city and just
rejigger the entire global economy, I think that's very true.
And on an individual basis, I think that that can
also be very true. But if I'm understanding godless Engineer's question,
it's more of a how do we get there? You know,
if we were to just make that switch overnight, because

(32:12):
we have this moral calling to never cause the death
or exploitation of an animal, we get ourselves into incredibly
dangerous situations that negatively impact the health and well being
of millions, if not billions, of currently living humans. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
Again, we grow something time percent off the crops for
the animals, right, so we wouldn't have a problem of
susage or anything like this.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
I mean, we would, but I don't know, you know,
not to say that we can't work through those growing
pains or that we shouldn't be working in that direction, which,
by the way, just speaking for myself, is a philosophy
that I support and that I am wanting to be
a part of.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
I'm not understanding something. So what I mean you're taking
back like the amount of food that we're growing specifically
for animals, But I feel like that would entail the
question of where are these how are these animals going
to eat? How are they going to survive? Like, I mean,
we've domesticated them and you know a lot of them

(33:14):
wouldn't know how to how to live out in the wild.
Are you suggesting that we reduce their population to where
they can live off of whatever we're not going to farm,
or like, what's the solution there?

Speaker 5 (33:26):
Yeah, So the world isn't going to go vegan over night, right,
It's just going to be one percent of time, And
if you, for examples, decide to be vegan today, then
there'll be less animals which are in future bread into
existence to be killed for you. So currently we kill
just lend animals approximately eighty billion lend animals right, And
the more people who go vegan, the less animals will

(33:46):
be bred into existence because these animals are not producing
naturally right to this artificial insumination like in the dairy
industry and so on. So the more people go vegan,
the less animals they will be produced. Right. And when
we eventually get to the vegan world, want to speak,
and we will.

Speaker 4 (34:00):
Also have things like sanctuaries which.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Already exists now, which are place us to keep these
animals until the end of their life without exploiting a
needlistic killing them. But we are so far from that,
and I don't know exactly how that will turn around.
But in fact, as currency, if you're not vegan each
time by animal products, you are pink for animals to
be bred into existence and kicked into a spatsa house
or products you do not need or require for survival help.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Again, I push back on that notion of need, but
I very much take your point and I'm sympathetic to it,
and I maybe it is just my own inability to
fully embrace a vegan lifestyle that has me on the
defensive or not willing to accept what you're saying. Whole cloth.
I do really take your point, and I think that
the world will be a better place as we progressively

(34:47):
rely more and more on non meat food sources, and
as we progressively more and more get away from the
dairy industry and from other things that lead to greenhouse
gas emissions, for instance, to very like tangible suffering among
the animal population. Does that mean that I am willing
at this stage of my life to wholly stop eating meat.

(35:10):
It doesn't, and perhaps I should, and perhaps that's just
an unexamined part of myself. But I also know that
for myself and doubtlessly billions of other people, that seems
like a remarkable impracticability while trying to live in alignment
with my other values, which I do have a responsibility
to triage and to try and navigate. That's what I

(35:31):
was mentioning earlier when I brought up ideas like Coca
Cola and Nesley. It's not that we have to currently
live in some perfect nirvana to make a decision about
working towards these things. It is, however, true that I
know that I can't do all of the moral good
or avoid all of the moral harm in the world
that I would like, and that I have a moral

(35:52):
responsibility to myself and my family and my community and
the world at large to make as wise minded decisions
about this as I possibly can, and at least for
my family in the here and now, veganism is not
at the top of the priority list, And I hope
that that makes sense and is okay. Maybe I'll lose
more sleep over it overnight and start drifting further in

(36:12):
that direction, but I know I'm just not there myself,
and I think that would be true for many in
the audience.

Speaker 5 (36:17):
Yeah. So, by the way, you really concerned with what
you eat necessarily right, Again, it's about not exploiting animals.
I know we are focusing a lot on the diet aspects,
but vegans also them buy clothing that exploits animals, cosmetics
that on animals, people that don't go to the zoo.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
I know I'm oversimplifying in those ways, and I definitely
appreciate that, and I do want to be an ethical consumer,
But ethical consumption means making a lot of compromises and
trying to figure out sort of the least moral evil
in a lot of ways. You know, it's much easier
for me to say that I'm not going to go
to a zoo, and then maybe I can have conversations

(36:54):
about like rehabilitative zoos or sanctuary zoos and is that
okay or to what ex then? And is this particular
one morally superior to a sea world or's some other
type of zoo? And there are important decisions to be
making here, and I think we also as human beings,
have to acknowledge the decision fatigue that comes from taking

(37:15):
this task on. I'm not saying we should be lazy
or just dismiss all of it. I'm saying that me,
myself and my family, we're not there yet.

Speaker 5 (37:23):
Yeah, and that's fine. I mean, the main thing I
want to convey is just that people are aware, because
most people are not. One vegan myself, I used to
consue this product every day. I was just not aware
that I am directly responsible for the killing of animals
even though I don't have to. So it just boils
onto the question do you think it's okay for you

(37:43):
to kill animals just because.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
You want to?

Speaker 5 (37:46):
And that's a question you guys need to answer yourself,
and I guess your audience too. And if somebody is
not okay with killing animals just because they want to,
then they should go vegan, because every time they purchase
any animal product, they are killing animals just because they
want to, even though.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
They are of a yeah. So again, I'll just say
that need and want dichotomy feels very narrow and limited
for me. But I take your point, and I think
that's everything on me. Godless engineer, please let me let
you take it out.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I mean, I feel like that's just as ridiculous as
asking like a lion to go vegan, and like the
a lion just kills because they want want to, you
know that they want.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
To or some want to murder gazelle's.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, or something like. I feel like I'm agreement with you, Chris.
I feel like it's kind of a narrow dichotomy there,
and I just framing it in the way that you're
framing it, JC, I feel like adds a whole bunch
of like preconditions and maybe some presuppositions onto it that
just makes it loaded. Like it's just an entirely loaded

(38:47):
dichotomy there.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
So we appreciate JC your questions about moral philosophy, and
I think that you are raising some interesting topics. I
think we're going to get back to our show on
the evidence of God and how we react to it.
But I appreciate your call.

Speaker 5 (39:04):
Yeah, thanks for the time, guys. Awesome talking to you.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, thanks so much. Take a care. So it was
a little bit slipped in with the question of would
Jesus be vegan? But I was willing to play along.
And I do think that there's some interesting moral philosophy
to consider about our impact on the world and our
impact on others, and how we as atheists derive our
moral philosophy if it's not coming from God's edict to

(39:29):
take dominion over the land or his list of ten commandments,
anything else you want to add here.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Well, I'll just say that if we can get to
a point where like either that three D printed meat
is viable, like financially, physically viable, or.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
And also ecologically, you know, as we're using the electricity
and everything else, those are big questions.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, if we can come up with meat alternatives where
we don't have to you know, slaughter animals in order
to get meat or anything like that, I'd be totally
up for that. And for me personally, what I try
to do is I try to minimize the amount of suffering,
like what amount of suffering is in my power to minimize?
I try my best to minimize it. I try to

(40:15):
ethically source like any eggs or any meat products that
I get here at the house, and you know that
typically ends up being kind of difficult, but you know,
we carefully curate, you know, what kind of meat we
get and where we get it from.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Right, And that's the thing that I didn't want to
be accused of like trying to brag on here like well,
I'm not vegan, but because I do take that sort
of black and white perspective that JC is putting forward,
and I want to question it with you know what,
my family is thoughtful about only buying pork that we
know is farm raised, whereas we're less responsible about chickens.

(40:50):
We try not to eat octopus. Are these the right
moral decisions for us to be making. I don't know.
They're the ones that we came to after some thought
and some reasons, so they're not just arbit and out
of nowhere, but they're also not going to be nearly
as black and white as what JC is pushing for.
Something for everybody I think to just be thoughtful about
as we're intentional and mindful in our consumption.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Well with that, let's go ahead and jump into another
call from Bernard in New York. Bernard, what do you
have for us? Yes, hello, my name is what's on
your mind?

Speaker 3 (41:23):
I want to press my opinion that the Old Testament
have to be written by a superior being and not
by a person. And that would sort of like prove
there must be a God, because there's company here in
the Old Testament. It's not feasible to think that a
person could have written it.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
I mean, certainly one person couldn't have. If they did,
I would hope that they would catch a lot of
their textual errors and a lot of those confusions.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
Even a group of people that it could be written
by human beings. And I'll explain why. And if you
look in the number is fourteen. It talks over there
about what animals were allowed to eat and what we're
not allowed to eat. And they say that the animals
that we're allowed to eat are the only those that
have split hooves and eat their cud. I don't know,

(42:13):
he say, English. Do they have their they rejuvenate, they eat,
they could eat, they could bring it back in it
and eat it again whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, okay, so numbers. Chapter fourteen has some restrictions on
what people ought to eat, and that proves that it
was written by a supernatural being, because.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Why no, not that alone? Those are the two times.
And then it says that that there are three animals
that don't have split hooves. I mean, I have that
have a split city, that don't have split hooves, but
they rejuvenate, they have, they eat, they could. I don't

(42:54):
know how you say in English?

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Yeah, I'm not overly worried about the specifics of these rules.
I'm trying to understand how the existence of these rules
is evidence of the existence of God.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
No, not the No, not the existence of the rule,
the existence of how do you know? For instances, it
says that the pig is the only animal that has
split hoofs and doesn't have the other the other sign
of Bernard.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
I really don't mean to push the fast forward button,
but I do want to know is this conversation going
to eventually lead to the people at the time had
no possible way of knowing that this would be good
for their diet.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
No, not that it's good for the diet. There's no
possible way that the people at that time, any person
in that time would know that the pig is the
only animals with split hoofs that doesn't have the other sign,
and that there are three other animals that have the
other sign that don't have split hooves. How would he
know that? Until and tilted, and until this day, another

(43:52):
animal with split hooves like the pig, that doesn't have
the other sign is not found.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Nobody the sign.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
I always know that that's the only animal.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What two signs?

Speaker 5 (44:02):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (44:03):
So the split hoofs and then what's the other one? Sorry,
I got lost in the meandering. What's the other sign?

Speaker 3 (44:10):
I'm not sure how to say in English that it's
it we we we eat its cuds that eat it,
sort of like bring it back up and eat it again. Okay,
you commed me. If you read it, you will tell
you I'm meeting the Hebrew there. So I don't know
how to split it in English.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Well, so regardless, so regardless of these things that we
can actually just observe by looking at pigs, because you know,
that's how we figured out that they do those things.
There's a lot of anachronisms that are contained in the
Old Testament that seem to invalidate this whole godly inspiration

(44:51):
for the Old Testament, like, for instance, the when Joshua
invaded what's that one town the walls of Jericho, When
Jacob or Joshua invaded Jericho and brought down the walls.
Do you know that archaeology actually places the walls of

(45:11):
Jericho following like I think it's like a thousand years
before Joshua supposedly did it. And so that makes it
when the story was circulating and the time frame that
it was about, Joshua literally just had to walk into
a barren, destroyed city and so that is not at
all anything that the Bible recalls. And then you could

(45:33):
also go to Exodus. There's no archaeological evidence or historical
evidence for a massive exodus of Jews from Egypt, let
alone there being a massive slave force of Jews in
Egypt that then escaped, you know, So I mean none
of that is actually proved the current mainstream history. I'll
get to my final point here in a second. The

(45:56):
final mainstream the final mainstream consensus of Hebrew Bible scholars
is that none of the patriarchs actually existed. They are
all metaphorical constructions of people in order to tell a
fictionalized history of the Jewish people. So I don't know
what do you have to say about.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
That, But I have to say is the fact that's
no evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
No, but it does mean that you can't prove that
it did. Mean that we can't prove.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
That it is evidence for the existence of a supernatural god,
which was the claim that you came in to prove
to us.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
If I can prove that that that couldn't be written
by a person, that must have been written by some
the only person with the animals, the only person, the
only one that would know that the pig is the
only animal that has only the one sign of with
hooves and not the other, and any other animal doesn't
have it. That would only be the one that created

(46:50):
the animals would know that. Who else would know that?

Speaker 1 (46:52):
There's no way I mean, I don't feel like you've
sufficiently proven it to me that there's only one animal
that meets these two requirements. And some of that may
have to do with the quality of our connection and
the quality of our language barriers, and some of the
background noises that we're trying to sort through as we're
listening to you. But I'm not there with you yet.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
I'm saying that three thousand years ago this was said,
this was written, and ever since then, no other animals
with split hooves without the other sign has been found.
In other words, I.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Hear you making that claim that the pig is the
only animal that had these two signs. But I'm I'm
still really struggling with how that connects us to the
existence of God, the.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
One that wrote, the one that vote in the old testims,
that the pig is the only animal that has split
hooves and doesn't have the other sign of the rejergers,
whatever the thing is in English, I say, I don't
know how to say, but the only one that's the
only animal, and no other animal ever was ever found
even since then to have that thing that only the

(47:58):
split hoofs.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Without the what is hippopotamus?

Speaker 3 (48:01):
The only one that would know that is the one
that created it?

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Do you think what about the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus was
in Egypt at that time, like they they would have
been in the rivers like of Egypt. The hippopotamus is
also a split split like the split, but.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
I don't know completely the way the way I don't think.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Okay, yeah, especially we could go special pleading if you
wanted to. I mean that kind of seems like the
way that you want to go about it. But I
mean special pleading is not any kind of way to
build like a successful argument for your God.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
But so like there's pig and related species. So there's Pecarri's,
which are new world pigs that also follow this uh
this uh path right here that you're talking about warthogs
and African wild pigs, which are still pigs. I'll give
you that, But I mean there's a hippopotamus and all
these different variations of pigs.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Is the same as a pig. I guess it's for
the same family maybe, But hippopotam is surely not beg
And I don't think that that has the split hoof
that that it says by the by the pig.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
It doesn't. The fact that the hippopotamus fits your criteria
here and is not mentioned by God seems to disprove
your God, not disprove your God. Sorry, it disproves your argument.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Criteria.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
You think it's a split, it's a split hooved animal
that doesn't chew cud like you were talking about, unless
I misunderstood that. Did I misunderstand that?

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Yeah, I'm not sure that it has split hooves the.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Way I'm verifying for you that it does have split.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Hoofs it does have split hooves, and I don't I'm not.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Sure it does have split hooves and it does not
chew cud.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
How does how does that fact make you feel like
you don't have to take our word for it. You
can certainly grab your encyclopedia or talk to a veterinarian
or whoever else when we're done here. But if that's true,
if there is an animal that I kind of close
apart your argument here, what does that mean for you?

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Well, that that would be very very powerful algum against me,
I agree, But I don't think that that is just
the case.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Okay, Well, I mean none of us here are biologists.
I don't have any hippos in front of me for
us to inspect. I believe that godless engineer can like
look that up on the fly and come back with
this information and then you can choose whether or not
to accept it. But how does that what does that
mean for you? You know, how does it feel to
recognize that at least this justification for God probably doesn't

(50:33):
hold up.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
If it doesn't hold up, that would be a problem.
But I have to make sure that doesn't hold up
a point to me?

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Can you?

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Can you just entertain the possibility that this particular argument
for God doesn't make any sense and talk to me
about how that makes you feel or what that means
for your life.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Well, first of all, I'm not agreeing with you if
that's the case, sure hypothetical, unless I find that out
for sure.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Okay, I'm you know, I'm ready to wrap up the call,
and I really just wanted to give you a moment
to imagine with us, and to to kind of sit
with the possibility, maybe even the thought experiment, that this
is a readily disprovable belief system that you've come to,
you know. I mean, I can tell you that my
producer is right now sending us messages full of examples
of why this argument for God doesn't make sense. If

(51:26):
you have any fluency in biology. Personally, I don't. I
am not familiar with the important distinctions between pigs and
hippopotamuses and all of these kinds of ideas, but I
would kind of wager that maybe you don't either. And
I wonder what it means that at least one part
of your belief in a god is based on biology

(51:48):
that's pretty readily disprovable. If it were readily disprovable, I
understand that you haven't conceded.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
That I would like to hear it be disproved. I'm
I'm sure that I'm not the only one that that
about the hippopotamus.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Bernard, Bernard, I've I've affirmed to you that they have
split hooves and they do not chew the cut, just
like you had claimed about about the pigs. So like,
I get that you're not going to accept that, and
that's perfectly fine. Go and I guess look up hippopotamus fact.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
I'm going to look into it.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
I will.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
I will definitely look into this. No, I'm not not,
just I'm not.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
And the last question I want to ask you, then, Bernard,
before I let you go, is, if you go and
look into this, if you talk to an expert, if
you find out for yourself through means that you absolutely
trust and appreciate that, in fact, hippopotamus do hit these criteria.
What is what happens next. What does that mean to you?

Speaker 3 (52:46):
That would be a big problem.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Okay, well, fair enough. I hope that you'll wrestle with
that problem, and I hope that you'll seek out, you know,
some community support and whatever it means for you to
embrace or work through that challenge.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
And let's let's say the opposite of the truth is
true and it ends up that the pig is the
only one. Would that mean anything for you?

Speaker 1 (53:07):
Honestly, no, because it just means that there is this
one animal that meets these two criteria. It doesn't to
me prove that these criteria were designed by somebody who
is all knowing and all powerful.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
The one that wrote out of the one that wroted
knows that.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
I have no idea that people write things all the
time that end up being true or not true, and
none of them have been God as far as I know.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
And also, I feel like you're asking, Bernard, I feel
like you're asking, how could anybody know this but God?
But literally, you can just observe these things. You can
observe what animals have split hoofs, and then you can
also observe their eating habits. So I'm not exactly sure
what is required for you know, a cosmic wizard in

(53:55):
order to know these things like you can just easily
observe these things.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Only one to notice the only one that's as you
can observe a pig. I'm just saying, how would you
notice the only one? The only one that could know
that would be the one that created them, because a
person can't know that that's the only one in the
whole animals, a whole animal by himself.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
So so, Bernard, Bernard, let me let me leave you
with this. Do you know every animal that has ever
existed ever on the face of the earth. No, I don't, Okay,
then there's probably another animal out there that met your criteria.
There's probably another animal out there the meture criteria, and
that animal is the hippopotamus.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
You say's the hippopotamus. I'm going to look into that,
all right.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Well, please do and take good care of yourself as
you work to wrestle with that, and ask yourself some
curious questions. What does this mean to me? How do
I feel about this? What do I do about it?
I appreciate you giving us a call and checking in,
and I hope you find what you're looking for. I
hope that you keep digging.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Thank you all right, well, definitely taking some interesting calls today,
having a good time so far. I do want yeah,
I want to remind people that we are live every
Sunday at one pm Central on YouTube. But remember if
you can't make it for whatever reason, you can find
us wherever you get your podcasts to include Patreon. As

(55:21):
a Patreon subscriber, you get access to bonus content and
early releases. We include recordings of TikTok live shows that
take place Tuesday and Thursday evenings, So get on Patreon
and check us out. I want to thank our top
five patrons this week, folks like Oops All Singularity, Dingleberry, Jackson, Colevi, Helvetti,
and Ja Carlton, Moldrid d Malcontent. I stumble on that

(55:45):
one every time, but I love saying it. And our
honorable mention this week in the number six spot is
Casey Kickindell, who I'm going to need a sip of
water as I try to go all of over all
of this before we get back into our discussion on
mythithrythm And because we did ask a pretty interesting question
at the top of the show, I believe, and I'd

(56:05):
love to bring our friend Richard in to talk about
it with us. So as we get Richard all locked in,
I want to ask you, godless engineer, what kinds of
evidence would we reasonably expect if Jesus had been an
actual historical figure, and do we have that evidence? Oh,
I believe, I have you muted?

Speaker 2 (56:25):
So sorry, I totally forgot. No, I don't think that
we have the evidence that I would expect. But also
I would just think that we would have the same
kinds of evidence that we have for other Messiah figures
that supposedly we're trying to fulfill supposed prophecies. And I'm
talking about like the Egyptian. We have accounts of the

(56:45):
Egyptian that we can reliably attribute to Josephus and stuff.
So like just textual accounts that are not influenced by
scripture basically, or at least sources that are inspired by scripture.
We would hope that there would be some some real
historical evidence.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
That topic came up a little bit at the top
of the show, and I'd be interested if you can
to clarify just a little bit, not necessarily that having
a religious position completely negates your perspective or the account
that you are telling about the harassity of Jesus. But
how do we need to consider those in different categories

(57:25):
or do we?

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Well, I mean, it's all about source criticism, and you
got to be able to actually tie your information to
like real history. And that's where the problem lies, is
that I think the best evidence that we have for
historical Jesus actually is in Paul's epistles. But the problem

(57:46):
that Paul's epistles presents to us is that he only
gets his information from a vision of Jesus or a
revelation of Jesus, and from the scriptures, which are both
devoid of any kind of real, tangible historical evidence. And
Paul in Galatians one eleven specifically states that he did
not get any of his information from any human source.

(58:07):
He only got it from a celestial Jesus and from scripture,
which totally separates himself from any real history.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Well, so, how persuasive are the parallels between Jesus's story
and older or maybe contemporary mythological death and rebirth, dying
and rising gods.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's incredibly similar.
If you break down the skeletal structure of Christianity, especially
the Christianity that Paul teaches in his theology, it's the
same skeletal structure as mystery cults that were going around
at the time. These mystery cults, these Hellenistic mystery cults,

(58:47):
they taught about a savior who was going to go
undergo some kind of passion to suffer for people that
believed in him, and then would be subsequently killed and
then somehow resurrected in one way or another in order
to procure everlasting life for their adherents. And so, considering

(59:08):
like all that, and this even goes deeper to like
the ceremonial meals that other mystery cults would have incorporated
into their worship and even into the language Paul uses
a lot of the mystery cult language when he references
different types of believers. So there's a lot of parallels
even in the Gospel versions of Jesus to these other

(59:31):
mystery cult saviors.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Yeah, when you talk about mystery cults, I am imagining,
you know, the Freemasons and things along those lines. How
is that comparison relevant or totally irrelevant? As we look
back on this era of history.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Well, I'm not sure about Freemasons, but like the mystery
cults in the Mediterranean at the time that would be
most relevant would be like the Isis and Osiris cult
in Egypt, or the Zoroastrianism. Those are all mystery cults.
There's more that I could list, but those are mystery
cults that have the very same elements that we find

(01:00:09):
in Christianity, and I think that it's very relevant to
it because that means that Christianity is just a syncretism
between these mystery cult theologies and Judaism, therefore making another
mystery cult that is just supposedly, according to like Paul
and the other Apostles, better than all the other mystery

(01:00:30):
cults because it's a Jewish one.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah, well, so I'm more than happy to challenge the
veracity of the education that I was brought up with.
I know that it is full of holes and flaws,
but I have to say, not just in high school,
but even at the collegiate level, I had history professors
make comparisons between Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar in terms

(01:00:53):
of the like preponderance of evidence that you would have
to say that Julius Caesar never existed, or to say
that Jesus Christ never existed, Is that in any way true, Like,
do most historians accept that at least at a minimum,
a historical Jesus existed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Well, I feel like that involves a pre supposition of
historicity because when we actually look at the evidence that
we're presented with, everything that occurs after Paul is inspired
either by Paul or by the existing Christian community, and
this existing Christian community would have already believed in the

(01:01:30):
theological version of Jesus rather than a historical one. We
can look to early church fathers, like even in the
early second century, and they did not care about any
kind of historical veracity of the story. They only cared
about the theological truth that it presents, like this everlasting
life that it presents and it seems to procure for
you and all this stuff. And so it was very

(01:01:52):
obvious that the historical nature of Jesus wasn't all that
important until much later, like in the third century, when
you had people that were challenging the historicity of Christianity.
But you also have evidence in like First Peter, where
it take it basically fabricates a direct meeting with Jesus

(01:02:15):
in order to combat people that say that Christians just
follow cleverly devised myths. And so it's very obvious that
there were several sects of Christians going around at that time,
and I think that it just so happened that the
more historical sect, the sect that created this historical story
for Jesus, that's just the one that won out in

(01:02:36):
the end, and then either did not preserve or forcibly
suppressed the other versions of Christianity.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Well, so, Richard, I'm curious to hear from you how
these notions of maybe we'll say Western history and Western
theology line up at all with what we know of
the historacity of the Buddha, for instance, or other important
figures in Buddhism and in other philosophies.

Speaker 6 (01:03:03):
Yeah, the buddh is an interesting one for you to
pick out, actually, because there is even less, I think,
evidence that he exists. In fact, one scholar Eric froll
Wollmer think they called him. This is going back to
the fifties. He wrote a piece called the Historical Data

(01:03:26):
we Possess on the Person and the Doctrine of the Buddha,
and he comes up with this really interesting kind of
way of framing it, which to us a skeptics, I
think it would sit into a lot of to what
godless engineers said, but to us a skeptics would really
raise eyebrows. And he said something along the lines of
the month's ancient tradition unanimously ascribes these teachings to the Buddha,

(01:03:49):
and it seems to me quite arbitrary to refuse credence
to this tradition. So it's basically saying is, look, this
is tradition. Who are we to argue against that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
People have been saying for hundreds, if not thousands of
years that these folks existed, so therefore they must have existed.

Speaker 6 (01:04:06):
Yeah, and I think it's really interesting. And we see
I've forgot the guy's name. This is an Islamic scholar
teachers in the US, a practicing Muslim, and he's cast
out on Muhammad's historicity as well in recent years, which,
as you can probably imagine, caused quite a bit like
kickback from that. But it shows that in kind of

(01:04:28):
scholarship now there is a growing movement across the board
to say, hang on a minute, are we taking this
serious enough? Is the evidence that is proposed good enough
to attribute these characters a historical life, or is it
the case that indeed they are fabrications, or they are

(01:04:50):
used for political ends, or they are have come up
from an amalgamation of characters. There's lots of nuances to this,
and I love this conversation. I love this conversation because
of the new once and I think it's one that
shows in scholarship that we have this kind of thing
across the board where we get look this this evidence,

(01:05:11):
which we're all we've all got this evidence. We've all
got this same evidence, but how are we interpreting it?
And the interesting thing about this is this isn't and
I think John touched on this earlier in the show.
It's not a thing where this is like theists against atheists.
This is a thing where lots of different atheists disagree
with each other. So scholars within atheism or agnosticism or

(01:05:34):
however they like to kind of promote themselves. They don't
believe in God, they have difference as opinion, and they're
looking at pretty much the same source material, and it's
the way they're interpreting it. This is a nuanced conversation
and it's really really fascinating to me, I'm not a
biblical scholar. I come from the Eastern tradition's side of things,

(01:05:55):
So it's I've only just started reading into all this
stuff with the crit stanity in the Bible and things,
maybe the past five years, and it's really interesting to
me seeing how all these different opinions are coming out.
And just before the show, when we're talking in the
green room, Godless Engineer mentioned a theory that I had not,
a hypothesis that I'd never heard about, and that's really

(01:06:17):
really interesting. Then I want to go and look that
up a little bit. John, Do you want to tell
us a little bit about that one?

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Oh? Yeah, So this was on the question of Q
and if there are better, you know, explanations for the
synoptic problem, and there is a fair aer hypothesis that
actually stipulates that we don't need like the Q source,
M source or L source. All we need are the

(01:06:44):
Gospels as they exist, because Matthew use Mark. Is very
obvious that Matthew used Mark, and then Luke used both
Matthew and Mark in order to generate his Gospel. And
then of course this is outside of that. But just
to round it out here, it's coming into more of
a mainstream view that John actually used all three of

(01:07:06):
those gospels in order to generate his Gospel. So as
far as the QM and L source to explain the
synoptic problem, we don't actually need those because we already
have a much simpler and less ad hoc hypothesis, and
that's the fair hypothesis.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Well, so I don't want to harp on this question
because I feel like I bring it up a lot
on this show. Maybe it's something that I am just
trying to wrap my head around. But growing up in
a very evangelical background, we had a very strong notion
that the Bible was completely inerrant, that there it was
an absolutely perfect and complete document. And I have come

(01:07:46):
to recognize that that is not the way that most
Christians have believed. It may or may not be the
way that most Christians or other religious folks currently believed.
And I think I'm hearing from both of you that
this idea that we would even be bothered by the
notion of whether or not there was a historical religious
figure is kind of a new idea. Is that fair

(01:08:07):
to say it all?

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
I mean, I think so, because, like like I was saying,
the early Church fathers. They were more concerned with the
theological truths of the religion as opposed to the historical truths.
You also have people like I believe it's Irenaeus maybe
in the early second century, who specifically talks about how

(01:08:31):
the Jesus that they preach is the exact same as
the Sons of Zeus or the you know, these other
pagan deities. They accomplished the exact same things that Jesus does.
It's just that Jesus is you know, better, because he's Jesus.
But also, this is the first instance of the claim
that Satan went back in time or not, maybe not

(01:08:52):
back in time, but he littered history with basically what
he claims is copycat versions of Jesus in order to like,
you know, confuse Christians at that time, and so like
they weren't really all that concerned about any kind of
historical nature to it. They because I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Does that mean they just sort of took it for granted,
or that it wasn't important in the first place, or
is that question even fair when we're trying to get
into the mind of somebody from a different culture and time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Yeah, I think that it's a little bit difficult to
get into the mind of people from this culture, especially
in the Jewish and Christian sort of sex there, because
they definitely thought of Jesus as a flesh and blood person,
but they had more of a concept of the firmament
being a real place, and like Heaven and Hell being

(01:09:43):
like real places, and several parts of the New Testament
they actually describe Hell as hades and they use that
kind of nomenclature for it. So, I mean, there's definitely
a lot of bleed through and you know, Hellenistic ideas
into Christianity, and so I think that they considered it
to be a real thing without it actually being like

(01:10:05):
happening on earth. I don't think that they ever considered
it to be on earth. I think that they kind
of were in the know. Those that were indoctrinated deep
into the faith, they knew that it was a like
a celestial thing, purely celestial thing. And we know this
because of how the Iris and Osiris cult operated. We

(01:10:25):
actually have from Plutarch description of how the cult operated,
and there were these earthly stories that were told about
Isis and Osirius to the uninitiated, But once you get initiated,
into the mystery cult. You were told about how well
all of this stuff actually happened in the celestial realm
out there and not actually historically on Earth. So there

(01:10:48):
definitely was sort of like this tiered system in these
mystery cults as to what information is revealed to you.

Speaker 5 (01:10:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:10:55):
I think there's two other important points when looking at
this as well. The first one I think Godless Engineer
touched on with the first caller when you know, and
I think it was Jesse. The first caller was trying
to kind of sidestep this a little bit, I think,
and you know, introducing Look, it is really important to
look at what's actually attributed to Jesus as well when

(01:11:17):
we're actually looking back at this, and if you compare
him to someone like Cleopatra, who was contemporary to Jesus,
she only lived thirty years before Jesus. And if you
look at the claims made about him and his importance
in history, and we look that we literally from a
contemporary point of view to his life, we have nothing.
There is literally zero. And if we look at clear Patra,

(01:11:41):
who was another important figure at that time, but in
the grand scheme of things, if God is true and
Jesus is God. Nowhere near is importance. The contemporary evidence
for clear patra is. We have coins that are being commissioned.
We have not only art work that was commissioned by her,
different styles of artwork because she came from a Plutonic

(01:12:03):
Greek dynasty, so we've got Greek style busts of her
that were commissioned by her. We also have Egyptian style
artwork on the side of Egyptian buildings to commemorate the
fact that she was the leader of Egypt. We have coins,
we have contemporary accounts, We have all these things which
are contemporary to her life. There is strong, strong evidence

(01:12:27):
that she existed. And you look at allegedly the most
important figure in history, and there is nothing contemporary to him.
And if you and look good toushing on again, what
godless engineer brought up about the Hellenistic influence. When you
look at the going slightly past the very very early
stages of Christianity to late first into the fourth century,

(01:12:51):
what you get is a huge Greek influence, which not
only influencers, you know, the kind of ideas surrounding were
you know, these mystical ideas that John was talking about
but also influenced the theology of Christianity, and they hugely,
hugely influenced the theology of it. And a lot of

(01:13:11):
the early economical councils contained arguments that were actually discussing
this theology, and it was very much It can literally
trace the arguments from where ideas. For example, the idea
of the Holy Spirit is one that's really really important.
The modern take on the Holy Spirit is this kind

(01:13:32):
of guiding influence. This this spirit of you know strength
and you know it will guide you and it will
guide you to the right thing. That's not what the
early Christians. So the Holy Spirit was. They literally thought
it was the voice of prophecy that came down physically,
came down in fire and wind. It was physically and

(01:13:56):
and it came down and it gave you the voice
of profit. And this was in the very early church.
This was one of the things that really really gave
kind of authority in the church. And it wasn't until
one of the early bishops started making very questionable judgments
using this that the other kind of his contemporaries got

(01:14:16):
together and said, ang on a minute, we don't like
what's coming out of his mouth. We need to kind
of demote the Holy Spirit. And this stuff's traceable. This
stuff is historically traceable. You can follow these arguments. We
have historical sources for these later arguments, and it shows
that ideas were influenced by Greek thought. It shows the

(01:14:38):
ideas were being discussed and coming out in different notions,
and the winner was the one who who kind of
all got together and decided this guy's a heretic. We're
not having that in our camp anymore. Let's shove that
to one side. This is all documented stuff, and it
all for me leads to a really really interesting conversation

(01:15:00):
about did Jesus actually exist?

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
Yeah, which is a question that I always sort of
blew off as unimportant. But the more we get into it,
the more I really recognize that not only does this
have pretty meaningful ramifications for the world, but also there
are so many assumptions culturally that I think we make
that this is just settled, that this is just obvious,

(01:15:24):
that this isn't even worth questioning that really don't hold
up when we start to scratch the surface. So I
really appreciate you, gentlemen, kind of walking me through a
lot of those pieces. I do want to say thank
you to our incredible crew and get them up on
the screen. First, I'm going to quickly say thank you
to Ann Johnson and the five dollars Supertrat and offers love,

(01:15:46):
Godless Engineer and Christy would love to hear from some
theas today. Hope we did a great job with that
for you today. And thank you to everybody on our crew.
I appreciate getting to see y'all's wonderful faces. I also
want to, in particular, take a moment to say thank
you to Jonathan, who's a frequent face of the nonprofits
and who also insists us behind the scenes. He works

(01:16:08):
on all of the ACA shows and helps make all
of this possible. Not only is he here with us
on Talk Heathen, but he's hosts this week's Nonprofits episode,
So tune in Monday, Wednesday and Friday at six pm
Central to check it out. Thank you, Jonathan, we have that.
Yeah well, and thank you Richard for joining us, Godless Engineer,

(01:16:30):
any other thoughts or anybody that you want to think
before we send out our lover rings, and thank everybody
for joining us.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
You know, I just I appreciate everybody here. Allow me
to come on and fill, you know, a very big
spot today. And you know, I just always love the
opportunity to talk about this particular topic because I feel
like a lot of people shy away from it. But
it's really not that scary.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Yeah, you say that. And then when I try to
follow the conversations between you and the caller and you
and Richard as we're dropping all of these historical names,
I'm just like you know, I'm a mental health clinician.
I want to talk about feelings. But that being said,
I do appreciate you breaking it down for us, making

(01:17:14):
it a lot more digestible and challenging some assumptions that
I think I have never really realized don't hold up.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Yeah, thank you all again for having me for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Well, I suppose we will just go ahead and remind
everybody that if you don't believe, this is your community
and we appreciate you being here, and if you do believe,
we certainly don't hate you. We're just not convinced.

Speaker 6 (01:17:38):
I'm convinced.

Speaker 4 (01:17:58):
We want the truth. So watch Truth Wanted Live Fridays
at seven p m. Central Call five one two nine
nine one nine two four two, or visit tiny dot
CC forward slash call tw