The Atheist Experience 29.28 with Secular Rarity and JMike

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Myself and thirty other science and reason loving Tennesseeans just
took a trip out to Dayton, Tennessee to celebrate the
one hundredth anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial. If you
don't support the separation of church in state, call us
because the show's starting right now. What is up everybody

(00:25):
today is July thirteenth, twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Secularity,
and joining me today is the always amazing J Mike.
What's up?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Brother?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
How much I've made the like noube error of I
don't know, being on like a show, which is like
having the video up in the background, and then I'm
like hearing double SR. I'm like, oh my god, what
is happening. I'm like, I'm a professional. So you're a professional.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
For a moment there, you were really really concerned. You
were like, why am I hearing so much of SR?
There's too much out there already. That's I get it.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
That's fair.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's fair, man. I almost was.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
It's like your voice is like doing something weird. I
don't know if you're like a lizard.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Person or something.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
You know what.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
I have been accused. I have been accused of such things,
you know, the jury's still out, you know, but you
know what, what what have you been up to?

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Man?

Speaker 1 (01:15):
How have you been what you've been doing.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
I've been really good. I've had some really good news.
I wish I could share and stuff, but I can't
at the moment. But it's I've had some really awesome
things happen. So I'm actually in a really good state
of mind and I'm feeling awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
So that's fantastic. Yeah, man, that's really good, really good.
And I am definitely I don't know if we're just
both riding the same wave of goodness and stuff, because yeah,
like I was saying in the intro, I just I
just had this awesome trip out to this tiny little
town in Tennessee where one hundred years ago the John T.
Scopes monkey trial took place, and myself and a bunch

(01:53):
of other people were organizing this and and we all
got out there and hung out in the town and
we watched we watched the whole reenactment of the trial.
If you're not familiar with this, this is actually a
really really cool, interesting moment that happened in the United States,
where teaching science and evolution was legally restricted in the

(02:15):
state of Tennessee for about forty to fifty years, and
this guy, John Scopes was put on trial for it
and was convicted of breaking the law. So super super fascinating,
fascinating time in history, and it was just it's so
cool that it was so close to us, and we
got a really cool community of secular and non religious

(02:38):
humanist kinds of people here in the middle Tennessee. Yes, folks,
even in the buckle of the Bible belt, we sinners
and atheists are there.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
But before we well, you didn't set you didn't set up,
Like you didn't tell me about how you set it up
for me and everyone like backstage and you just like
sent the.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Image or whatever. And I'm sitting there like it's like
an image. Like everybody's like they got the outfit on,
they're looking the part.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
And then like SR just in the chair with like
twenty twenty five clothes, and I'm like, he didn't give
like a lot of background for he just kind of
sent the image.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
And I'm like, is he like an actor now he's.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Like Hollywood SR doing these these roles trying to find
like I can find an atheist role here and put
us on the map.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Or something, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Trying to think of like what is this and it
was like this reenactment kind of thing, right, and I'm
sitting there like maybe it's just a case.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
They're like doing a dry run with him.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Everybody else has job security and they're fine, like you
can all wear the clothes for the movie, but we're
just not sure about Yeah, you're gonna stay kind of
coming off like a lizard person with these weird voices. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah. A couple of a couple of us got picked
to be on the jury, and the jury has lines
in the play and so they literally just handed us,
you know, a little script and we got to go
up there and say a few lines and it was
it was a super super fun time. It was an
absolutely incredible thing. And you know, that's the type of

(03:59):
stuff that I love, that community organizing, that that all
of us getting together and being in the same place.
And in fact, I know it's already out there, but
I'm not I'm not gonna mention it just yet, but
j Mike, you and I are going to be getting together,
uh here before too long, even not not too long,
And we'll tell you guys more about that and how
you can come hang out with j Mike and Scott

(04:19):
Dickey and Forrest Valcai and Kelly Laughlin, all the amazing
people with the ACA. But before we do that, I
have to tell you the Atheist Experience as a product
of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five to one
c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism,
critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government.
I fricking love it. And that's what I was talking

(04:41):
about today, and I love that topic. And you know what, man,
we got some calls, so we're just going to go
right into what do you think.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
I'm That's why I'm here for the for the big bucks.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Awesome. Awesome man. Well the check is in the mail. Uh,
but we are gonna get out to zero dollars. Oh,
they gave you a raise. Let's we are going to
go out to New Jersey. Man. This is a this
is a real thing.

Speaker 6 (05:06):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
We're going to talk with Marion no pronouns given is
a theist and says they've got personal experience, scientific evidence,
and historical evidence leading them to Christianity. Well, Marian, this
is exactly what we want to hear you are on
the show with Jami Consecularity.

Speaker 7 (05:24):
What's up?

Speaker 6 (05:25):
Hi?

Speaker 1 (05:25):
How are you good? Are you?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Hi?

Speaker 8 (05:27):
How are you good?

Speaker 1 (05:28):
What you got for us today?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I'm already skeptical? Sure, yeah, it sounds like all right, it.

Speaker 8 (05:34):
Looks like there's like a little bit of a lag
between the lines.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
It probably is, It probably is.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
This is sounding very weird to me already, Sorry about that.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
What what do you got for us today?

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Marian?

Speaker 1 (05:47):
It sounds like you've got a couple of different pieces
of evidence and some personal experience. What would you say
is the is the strongest reason that you believe in Christianity?

Speaker 8 (05:57):
Okay, So I'm you know, I'm just going to leave
my opinion and out of it because what I think
and probably we're going to have to agree to disagree,
but I'm just going to leave my opinion out of it.
And you can just google the facts that I'm going
to give you, or the information that I can give you,
Well google it.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
And that's not really how we that's not really how
we run the show, though we don't. Like I mean,
there might be things that I need to look into
later or something, right, that's perfectly fine, But what we
want to do is have a dialogue.

Speaker 8 (06:24):
So okay, yeah, I'm just going to give you yeah,
so yeah, that's fine, Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Okay, So I'm
just going to say that the Bible was written over
a period of over fifteen hundred years, right on three
different continents and three different languages Greek, Cubrew, and Aramaic,
and forty different writers with over sixty three thousand correlations.

(06:45):
Yet they all come together to say one story that's
in the Resurrection of Christ.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Do they say one story?

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Though?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Real quick?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Hang on, arian I know you, I know you have
some more stuff, but I want to make sure that
we're all being honest here, get out a time. They
really all say one singular story. Are you familiar with
Professor Joel Baden and the documentary hypothesis?

Speaker 8 (07:09):
So they foreshadow the Old Testament. A lot of the
story's foreshadow the hold on.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
You were just at Marianne. You were asked a question, Maryann,
you were asked a question. You were asked a question.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It's okay, you didn't hear it, but I can, so
I'm sorry I must have missed it. Then, So the
question was, are you familiar with Joel Baden's work? Doctor
Joel Baden's work and the documentary hypothesis, Are you.

Speaker 8 (07:33):
Familiar with Sir Lionel lacoul?

Speaker 1 (07:36):
I am, but I am? But are you? Are you
familiar with the thing that I asked first? Because that's
actually really important. You you used, you used, you used
a concept. You didn't say the word univocal, but that's
what you were getting at, which means that there is
essentially one voice, which is is how you know the
literature people describe it one author writing all of the narratives.

(07:59):
So if you go take a look at, say The
Lord of the Rings, it is very clear from start
to finish of that entire series that the same person
wrote it. Because we all have different styles of writing,
we all have different words and phrases that we use.
The concept of a univocal Bible, for instance, has has
really not been a part of scholarship for a long

(08:22):
time now. Nobody who studies the Bible says that all
of the authors and all of the stories are pointing
in the same direction. I just think that's a really
fair thing for us to touch base on first. We
can move on, but I really do think you should
look into Joel Baden's work okay, okay, And.

Speaker 8 (08:41):
You can also look at the Sirlinel Lacou.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
I am familiar. I am familiar with that, and it
doesn't address anything of the documentary hypothesis. I think it's
interesting that you bring that up when you aren't familiar
with the documentary hypothesis.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Again, it's weird that. Yeah, it just sounds like this
weird deflection that you want to like. I'm we haven't
talked for a long time, but at the moment, you
haven't convinced me that you're like listening to SR You're
just kind of thinking about the next thing to say
in response.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Is that a fair assessment?

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (09:11):
No, I just want to continue my thoughts because.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
You yeah, I know, but look, this is a yeah,
I know, this is a dialogue, right, And we have
a show and we will cut people off when we're
having discussions with them because we want to understand, and
I'm not going to let people just steamroll, right. I
think that's a reasonable position to have to just not
let someone steamroll. If you go watch the last week
that I did, watch how many times the callers interrupted
me and I stopped talking. I think interruptions are healthy.

(09:36):
There's times where I'm trying to make a point. I
don't want to be interrupted, right, But we got it.
We have to move at this one, one pace at
a time. Your response to S are there just seem
like you weren't really digesting what was said to you, right,
And I don't even want to get to my points
until we tie this knot right. It's really hard to
do that because it doesn't sound like you're listening.

Speaker 8 (09:53):
Ask me a question.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
I didn't. I was trying to make sure I'm listening.

Speaker 8 (09:57):
But you said, you're asking me a question. What do
you think? So I said, I'm going to get I
do a couple of things that you can maybe look
up later.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
And I was in the middle, I'm not and I
what did I say to that? What did I say
to that?

Speaker 3 (10:06):
I said, look, there might be some things that I
need to look up later, and that's perfectly fine. But
what I'm not going to do is use the call
as a as a grocery list of googling.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right, I'm not gonna That's not how I perform.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's not how SR performs, it's not how to show performs.
It's not what we're doing here. We want to have
a dialogue right, So if you're not working like I
don't know, like Pete, like what Peter three fifteen right, am,
I I'm sorry, Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's something like that. Yeah, right, you're supposed to be
ready to give your Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Mean it's to me, this is not going to be
like I would rather just move on if what you're
going to do is just do this like grocery list thing, right,
So like, let's try this and maybe we can get
back to it. Right, let me ask you a question.

Speaker 8 (10:43):
I don't want to do a grocery list. I just
don't wanna. I just don't wanna. I just don't want
to leave my I just want to leave my opinion
out of it so that we're not in a content.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Well, I want to know your opinion. So if you're
just yeah, we do want to know your opinion, fairness, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
We want to know what you think, why you hold
the beliefs you do. I can tell you why hold
the I do. But do you think that do you
think that Mark and John detail the exact same day
of the resurrection of the crucifixion and resurrection and the
Crucifixion was on the same day, and.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Mark and John in their own perspectives. Yes, in their
own perspectives, So it sounds like a no. I just
want to say, mary Anne, if we're if we're being
hang on real quick, if we're just being straightforward, right,
that sounds like what you're saying, there is no Because
like if if Jay Mike came up to me and
he said to me, like, hey, sr, is your gumball
machine and your stained glass window of a cow in

(11:30):
the same room, and I would say, from their own perspectives,
that doesn't sound like a yes. And I think that's
I think that's the more direct and honest answer. Now,
there can be reasons as to why those can be harmonized, right,
we can get to that, But the first thing we
gotta do is we gotta we got to just be
direct and just just be real, just be real people

(11:52):
about it, Like, no, no, they don't, Mary Anne, and
you you believe that, you believe that they don't, but
they can be harmonized, and that's okay, we'll get to that.
But yeah, what what is that harmonization If they aren't,
If they aren't, if it isn't just an obvious yes,
what what is that answer then that makes those makes
those the same.

Speaker 8 (12:11):
Okay, so I'm going to go back to Sir Lionel Lakou,
which is a.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Oh my god, no, you know, you know, you know
what's awesome about this show is we have a we
have a mute button, and I can and I went
right to it, and you got it before me.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Right. So if you want to have a show where
you were, like, you know, you just.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Want atheists to call in to give you stuff to
google and then look up and then not answer questions
and go back to the thing and be totally disrespectful,
you can have that show, like have the disrespectful Marianne show.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
I don't care. That's your prerogative, right.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
We are doing something here. We have a format. The
format is having a dialogue. The format is also not
just ignoring what we say and then just going right back.
You're being extremely disrespectful, and I'm happy to We have
other callers.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
As a theist in.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
The call I'm looking right here says wants to give
an argument for God or arguments for God's existence. Right,
they've called in about philosophical arguments. They might have something
like I might be able to like chew on right,
maybe I don't agree at the end of the day,
Like you said, agree to disagree, but at least there's
something for me to chew on. You're just like google
this stuff or I'm gonna go back to this stuff.
So let's try this one last time, and if not,

(13:11):
I'm happy to just you know, ask or if you
want to talk.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
I'm done.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
I'm losing my patience with this caller. I don't find
them to be an honest person and discussion. So I'm
gonna ask you. If it's one person and they detail
a day like Friday or Saturday, or two different days,
or two different times of the day like noon or whatever,
right or in the morning at two different times, and
it's by the same person, it's a contradiction, right. And
if it's several different people, they contradict each other. Right.

(13:37):
I don't really know which way you interpret this that
it works out. So maybe we get back to what
SR asked you about to help.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
You, which is harmonizing me.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
It's trying to help us figure out what gets rid
of this because we're not saying, ah, I gotcha. We
want to know how this is explained, but talking about
you know, Sir mcdougan, is not really interesting to me
right now.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, let's we've still got you muted, Mary Anne, and
I'm going to unmute you here and just second. And
when I do that, you're gonna hear a beep. And
that's okay. Just give me just one second because I
want to I want to just try and we'll just
we'll just rewind it all, okay, and we'll just start
out with this. And before I ask the question, I'm
just gonna help you out as much as I can,
which is, go right into it and give us the

(14:18):
best thing you got. Okay. So it sounds like what
you're saying to us today is that all of these
stories in the Bible were written by a single voice.
We're written with a single intention in mind. Why why
do you.

Speaker 8 (14:35):
Believe that all scripture is given by inspiration of God? Correct?

Speaker 1 (14:39):
How do you know that?

Speaker 8 (14:41):
Because there is again over I will say it again there.
It was written over a period of fifteen hundred years,
on three different continents, three different languages, with over sixty
three thousand correlations.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Do you see why that's circular?

Speaker 5 (14:54):
Marian?

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Do you see why you've come back to the exact
same spot to answer you are in the same spot.
Do you understand, Mary, understand Marian, I have looked it up,
and more importantly than you or I looking it up,
literally thousands millions potentially at this point of human beings

(15:17):
for hundreds of years have not only looked it up,
but Doug dug it up from the ground. And that's
why I'm really trying to be generous here and say
I am very very sure that Mary Ann is a
smart and capable human being who just hasn't yet come
across what is considered consensus scholarship for a long time now.

(15:43):
The documentary hypothesis is something that undeniably lays out why
the Bible could not possibly have been written from the
same singular viewpoint and authorship. It's absolutely impossible. And the
facts that you say, well, the reason that the Bible

(16:04):
is from one voice is because the Bible is from
one voice. That is in fact just circular reasoning. And
it's a poor way to come to a conclusion. And
I feel very confident that if anybody else brought you
that same argument, Mary, in because you are smart, you
are capable, you would look at them and say, I
don't know, man, that just doesn't seem to hold water

(16:25):
to me, and that's okay. We all have to do
better when it comes to our own critical thinking. I
really really do think one of the easiest things you
could do is just go look up Professor Joel Baden's work. Shit,
go listen to Kip Davis, Go listen to doctor Josh Bowen,
doctor Megan Lewis, doctor Barst, doctor kill Right. I mean,

(16:48):
there's so many people that could we could list right now,
you know, but in all honesty, like, yeah, what what
you need to do is just get a basis for it,
which is, Hey, a lot of people pool for a
really long time who've been studying this stuff way more
than you and I ever could at this point in
our lives. They say something really different from what you're saying,

(17:09):
and that's important.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
This is an extremely fringed position today.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, and it's and it's just where you're starting again.
There are Christian scholars like doctor Mark Goodacre that what
famous say again? Hang, I'm sorry, Go ahead, go ahead,
Mary and say it again.

Speaker 8 (17:26):
I said, did you look up C. S.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Lewis.

Speaker 8 (17:29):
Wasn't he initially a famous atheist?

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (17:31):
My god, Lewis, you know he's an author, right, He's
not a historian. He's not a textual critic. He's not
a psych philosopher. Right, He's not. Right, He's not He's
barely a philosopher. He's a writer. He wrote entertainment stuff,
which is fantastic. I love The Lion the Witch in

(17:53):
the Wardrobe. I greatly enjoyed reading that book when I
was a child. I mean, what a wonderful series. And
I'm sure there's a lot of Christian iconography in it,
but none of that makes it true. It just makes
it the stuff that he enjoyed. If somebody goes out
there and writes a brand new my Little Pony story,
that doesn't make it fucking real. These ponies aren't actually

(18:14):
running around talking to each other. It's just a fun
story for people. But truly, truly, if you just go
and type in the words doctor Joel Baden bad N,
I promise Maryanne, you will find a lot of really
good information, and a lot of really good information. By
the way, that exactly like J Mike was just saying,

(18:35):
people like doctor Mark Mark Goodacre. There are so so
many Christians, truly Bible believing lovers of Christ themselves who
disagree with the statement that you're saying. And I think
I think there's really solid evidence for their fund and.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
They do because it's indefensible. Your position is indefensible, And
it's like you telling me to look up something just
tells me that you don't. Like there's things that I
know about, you know, the apocalyptic Jesus stuff that's a
pretty like standard view in New Testament scholarship, and I
love spouting my mouth off about that, not like it's like, oh,
I want to come off smart. I want to talk
about the reasons why I think, you know, Jesus may

(19:15):
if he had existed, this is the best kind of
case that we have, right. I want to reconstruct. I
want to be part of the project of reconstructing the
historical Jesus and getting the best informed position.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
I mean, could you office, could you offer us like
reasons that you have within you and not like go
google this thing, because like that's just not very interesting.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
It's just really not really not interesting. What do you
want to do, Jane, Mike, you want to keep talking?
I want to ask.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
I want to I want to see if she'll give
me something from her own head.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Okay, yeah, yeah, Marian, what what is what is something
from you personally, why should I believe God exists? Give me,
give me reasons?

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, good. This is just it's just so disorganized, because
this whole thing is so disorganized, Like it's like trying
to get you to go on the one one path
of like talking about what SR brought up originally about
the documentary hypothesis, and then I'm like, Okay, well I'm
not gonna answer that.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Let's try something else.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
So let's talk about you said that it's the same
you know, person in these cases fled for the Gospel.
Like I imagine you think that the Gospels are harmonized
right in some way. So I just point out, like, okay, well,
presumably you don't think that the Gospel writers are all
the same. You probably think it's like Mark, Matthew, Luke,
and John right, and they disagree. And I just wanted

(20:30):
to know how you would reconcile that. But what you
did was not actually give me anything. You just wanted
to go back to the other thing.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
They do disagree, though by your own definition, Mary Anne,
you said it earlier. You already admitted to it. You
already admitted to the fact that the Gospels cannot possibly
be in.

Speaker 8 (20:46):
Agreement I said, can I give you an analogy?

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah? I can, but it won't be helpful. You can't.
It won't be helpful.

Speaker 8 (20:53):
Okay, Well I think it will be so that maybe.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
You can understand why go for it. You don't have to,
you don't have to explain why you're having an analogy.
We understand that the problem is that the analogy will
fail very quickly in a very obvious way that won't
relate to this situation. Analogy should equal up, but this
one won't. But go ahead, Maryanne. You need properties in
both cases that are like it.

Speaker 8 (21:16):
Will I promise that you will. I promise you it will.
One of us promise you it will if you, if
you let it, if.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
You have an open on this.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Nuts, let's just go all right, analogy we're about to
talk about.

Speaker 8 (21:37):
Sorry, there's a lag in the in the line that basically,
if me and you are standing on a corner of
a street. If me and you are standing on the
corner of a street, and there's a car in front
of us, okay, and two cars whatever they collide, okay,
and we're both watching the accident, and the police came
to me and asked me what I saw, and I
give him my eyewitness account of what I saw, and

(21:59):
then he came to you, and you for your report
and see what you saw you could your your report
will be not one hundred the same as well.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
I's what I think I have muted you because I
knew that's what you were going to say. Fine, and
I'll point out to you exactly the problem here. There
is no issue if what the gospels said was something like, yeah,
I saw like a handful of people, you know, maybe
it was five, maybe it was seven, could have been

(22:27):
as much as ten, but definitely no more or no less.
And then the next one said, well it might have
been a dozen, or it could have been as low
as eight. You know, those two things would be analogous
to what you were bringing us just a moment ago.
But that is not the problem. And it's even worse.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
It's even worse, Yeah, because like you have that, and
then on top of that, what you have is when
I'm trying to inquire about your view, I have two
dates that the Gospel tell about Jesus Jesus crucifixion, and
I want to say and virtue of what is one
of those right rather than the other, because they could
both just be wrong. So I could just go for
the sake of charity, which there's like no reason I

(23:11):
should even be this charitable. But I like to give
the toys to play with because I really think that
these positions are indefensible. That you can show this better
by giving them more toys to play with. So it's
just assume that one of them has to be right.
He was crucified on this date. I think Jesus was crucified, right, Okay,
too great, that's fine right right now, I don't have
the most immense evidence. It's going to convince my atheist
friends that don't believe that or something right. But I'm

(23:33):
happy to go on board with that. So we got
Jesus is crucified, and we have these two dates. One
of them is right in virtue of what is one
right or for the other right. It's either Saturday, it's not.
It's either twelve o'clock. It's not right, like there's.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Either five hundred or two. I mean, it's just that's
the issue. It is not just as simple as j
Mike said the shirt was slightly reddish orange, and I
said maybe it was a burnt umber. Like No, it
is a matter of it was it was solid black
versus solid white. Those are the differences that have to

(24:05):
be reconciled. And I honestly think you know that, Mary Am.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
I mean otherwise, how do I know that one of
the views is justified? If what's not being getting to
me is something justificatory, right, it needs to be a
reason other than like googling. It may possess that embedded
into the Google that I do, but it's gonna be
hard for me to navigate through that like and with
all of that information. If someone like yourself believes it
and has reasons to believe it, you just share your

(24:31):
reasons with me.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Right right? Look, Jay, Mike, I think I'm ready to
move on to forthcoming. Mary Ann. I really believe that
if you continue studying down this path as you have been,
you will find out the correct information. I really do
believe that, if, however, you are combative and uninterested in

(24:56):
digging in further, and simply ready to deflect from your
reasoning to others, it'll be it'll be difficult. So thank
you so much for calling. I think you are You
are definitely very capable. I think all of our callers
are capable to be honest. You know, even though I sometimes, yeah,
and I get a little angry, and I might I
might even I might even say bad bad words or

(25:17):
call them names every now and then. But truly, I
really do believe that if you are calling into this show, right,
you are interested in this stuff, and and sometimes it's
just simply a matter of the fact that we haven't
come across the information, and so we we like to
help provide that when we can, sometimes try.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
To streamline it for me so I don't have to
do all this digging, Like right, did Jesus want me
to google stuff?

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Like? You know, this is just odd to me, Like yeah,
and all those all those shepherds many many a year
ago didn't have the Google machine. I mean, what the
fuck were they? They weren't on TikTok. There must be
other arguments and reasons. I mean, there's all these Christian
philosophers for years that have have gone through still after syllogism.
I mean, come on, you know, have a deeper, stronger

(26:05):
faith if you're gonna have one. I mean I don't
think you should. I think you should go for reason
and evidence logic, but hey, whatever, if you're gonna have one,
so do you have this thing that I do unrelated. Sorry,
this is a no go ahead.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
We're sidebarring here, So yeah, just for the audience, because
part private conversation. Now right here between all this, you
put this really.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Annoying fucking thing where like one of.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
Your hairs just like touches your nose.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Oh my god. All the time. One of the worst,
one of the worst things ever is when like I'm
out somewhere and this, you know, a stray hair is
like right across my face right and I go like
this and it doesn't get it. And then I go
this and it doesn't get it. I go like this
and it doesn't get Oh my god, is it you
speaking existent soul right now? It's the weirdest thing ever.

(26:50):
It's like, how where is this air coming from? Like,
am I did? I walk through a spider web? And
that's what I say. That's literally what I got. You
get out of my brain. Lizards. Yeah, yeah, you know.
That was the other thing too, about you know, having
long hair. For a while, it was like other people,
you know, I've been out places with somebody and they're like,
oh man, there's a hair in my food, And I'm like, hmm,

(27:12):
I think I've eaten three all. Oh, i'd be gross
for people.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
But maybe if someone's feeling and did something embarrassing today
or something. I once hugged the wrong person out of funeral,
So if you ever feel really really embarrassed, just think
of me.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Like doing so awkward and hugging this random guy. But anyway,
so so bad. It was the worst moment, so terrible,
I'd literally pulled the hair out of my throat.

Speaker 7 (27:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, the long haired fellows and ladies and non binary
people you all know. That would make that would honestly
make the story of Jesus so much more believable. If
he was like on on the you know, doing the
sermon on the mountain and it actually.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Started with you know, Blessed are the Wind? Yeah, magical,
he could just probably like clears is right, right, right.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Well, we have a couple of other really cool calls
I'm excited to get to. But before we do that,
I'm gonna tell you about something that is so fricking cool.
It can only happen once a year because there is
so much awesomeness contained in this one event. If it
were to happen more than once, every three hundred and
sixty five days exactly, the world might implode. That's right, folks,

(28:26):
it's time for the Bat Cruise twenty twenty five, August sixteenth,
seven pm. Folks, get your tickets now because they are
gonna go fast. They are selling out like crazy. We
have already sold out the early Bat Special tickets. That's right,
Early Bat Special tickets. No birds here, but don't worry.

(28:49):
You can still get your tickets today and honestly they
are really affordable. Guys there, that's a really really great
time if you are in or near the Austin area.
It is a super super off some time to get
to hang out with a bunch of people, Like I said,
j Mike's gonna be there. I'm gonna be there, Scott
Dicky's gonna be there. Forest Falke is going to be there.
It is an awesome experience. The largest urban bat population

(29:12):
in the world hangs out under this bridge and Congress
Avenue Bridge, I think, and it is an awesome time
to just see all these bats kind of in Unison
come out so tiny dot cc slash Bat Cruise is
the place to go and.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
Let me set them up with a little visual if
you please, so you get you'll get to like come
on Sunday even after you can come to the studio
and hang out.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
So and then like we go out that night, the
bat Cruise night.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
We go like, if anyone wants to come hang out
in that weekend, if you can find a way, just
contact me anyway to emails or whatever. I'd be happy
to meet up with with anyone.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Grab it.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Well if you're old enough, right, we can get drink,
we can get some food or whatever. Like, but it
isn't it is awesome. It's you know, it's obviously serious,
but it's.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
It's also a party.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
It's fun, so you know, you know, we people have
serious discussions with people, but in an awesome, awesome and
awesome environment. I said, and awesome and awesome. Just then fine,
it's perfect. It's perfect.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
It works to me, and truly it is a phenomenal time.
If you have never been. If you have been, you
definitely want to get back to it. And there are
a lot of ways that you can actually help out
even if you can't make it. So. One of the
easiest ways that you can do this is by going
below the chat clicking that donate button to the ACA.

(30:33):
You can actually help purchase a ticket for a cast
or crew member, and in fact, we've already got some
incredible people that have donated it donated already to this.
So we want to, you know, big massive shout out
and thank you to Tina Bee and Charles. You guys
are what makes these festive community gatherings possible and all

(30:53):
the work that we do here at the ACA. So
thank you. Thank you so much Tina Bee and Charles,
and for everybody else out there again, get your tickets
now or send in a couple bucks man, help make
this an awesome thing and just keep growing this community
that's been around for gosh what now, I mean almost
thirty years. It feels like this, this whole atheist community

(31:13):
of Austin thing been going on. My god, you guys,
that's freaking awesome. We uh, we got we got it.
We got a good crew here, yea.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
And the last two years I've done this and then
now that this is being the third, it's the thing
I look forward to the most, like all year and
there's an arcade event near me that I get like
a little kid about. I had to miss it this year, unfortunately.
I was really bummed out for like a whole week.
But yeah, this tops like anything I do in the year,
So definitely come out.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
It's really really fun. Heck yeah, heck yeah, Tiny dot
cc slash bat Creuse folks, get your tickets, make a donation, uh,
and we will see you there. August sixteenth, clam pizzas
with Forrest and Jamie because apparently that's what they did.
Oy yeah, pizza they had like they yeah, I went
and get pizza with them and they fuck they got
click clam chowder pizza or some ship it was.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
I couldn't look at them while they were eating it.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
I was just like, what for I'll try anything, let's
do this.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
He also went to some we went to, like some bar,
and he made us have like pickled eggs or something
like that like.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
That I try.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
But he he is awesome to go out with because
he'll always give you, Like I don't remember things I
go out to do with people sometimes because of the
drinking or whatever, but he always gives something.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
For you to fucking take away to remember, and you're like, oh, yeah,
he's like pickled eggs that one time at this bar. Yeah,
pickled eggs and clam chowder on a pizza.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
That sounds Yeah, it was interesting.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
That sounds horrible. I wasn't a fan. Well we uh,
we have some other great calls and we are gonna
grab him here in just a second. But we do
still have open lines, folks. Uh So, if you were
interested in yelling at me or J Mike, maybe we
said something wrong or stupid. Or maybe maybe you very
much believe crystals have magical powers, or that ghosts and

(32:58):
demons are real. I just any one of those things.
Feel free to feel free to call in and yell
at us about. But we are going to go out
to Arizona. We are going to talk with Sam. He
him once to talk about some scientific and historic arguments
for God. Well that's what we're here for. Sam. You
are on the atheist experience with J. Mike and secularity.
What you got?

Speaker 9 (33:18):
Hello, So hey, I'm not trying to argue for the
existence of a god of any particular religion. Let's just
call it a general theism.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Sure, I think you're going to have a harder time
doing oh religion, just so you know, Sam, But yeah,
I don't really know.

Speaker 9 (33:36):
I'm not trying to argue for the existence. I'm not
done yet. So let's just call it general theism, because
even if every single religion is wrong, it wouldn't necessarily
point to atheism, because we can still argue for the
existence of a god that we just don't know anything about.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
You know, how how would you do that, Sam? How
would you argue for anything that you don't know anything about?
What is it we're arguing for?

Speaker 9 (34:02):
Well, what would you accept as a good argument for the.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Exist So you don't have an answer. I just want
to I just want to point this out. This is yah, Sam,
This this is really really important here. Now you could
have just misspoke and you can just easily get right
back on this horse. This is a real simple one, right.
But you said you're going to argue for the existence

(34:26):
of something that you can't know anything about or don't
know anything about. And it sounds like you realize already
that's not really a possibility, is it.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
I mean, you have to appreciate why SR, we'd want
to jump on here after you.

Speaker 9 (34:39):
Read that trying to say that we could.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Can I finish there's a delay? Yeah, that's actually that's
actually that's actually my bad. Sorry.

Speaker 9 (34:46):
But more uh, what I was trying to say is
that we could argue for the existence of a more
deistic type god, like a like a non personal type
god that we can Uh.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
That's fine, that's fine, if you know what I'm trying
to do. They can't. You can't make the claim that
you can argue for something you don't know anything about. Right, So,
even if it is a god of deism, one that
is defined as a god that we can't know anything about,
you can't do that. It doesn't make sense. And that's

(35:19):
why I was saying right from the rip, Sam, You're
probably going to have a much better time going for
a specific version of a deity because the generalized well
god could be like this does not have any distinguishing
criteria between all of the other could bees in that scenario?

Speaker 3 (35:38):
Yeah, think think of like a bear designer, right, Like
we just strip all these properties and we have just
like this bear designer.

Speaker 9 (35:44):
Right.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Well, it's not like if you just take away all
these properties, a designer could design and they could decide
to refrain from designing, right, They could just go, well, yeah,
I could design this thing, but I actually think it's
better just to exist.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Alone by myself, so I won't design. Right.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
You don't even get the expectation that the bear designer
would even design something because it's perfectly compatible with the
hypothesis that the bear designer designs nothing at all. Right,
it just has the ability to design. So do you see,
like it's really difficult how you're going to generate expectations
when you look out in the world. What I see
is scientific and historical arguments for God, I don't know,
maybe we want to elucidate more on that, but like

(36:19):
I if your argument's going to be like, well, there
are you know, there's morals in the world, and so
I have this bear designer thing. What best explains that
is like general theism will know because it's perfectly compatible
with general theism that they're like an a moral being
and don't want, you know, like morals at all, or
the morals come as a side effect that they didn't
know anything about, because remember we've stripped away like omissions

(36:41):
and stuff.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Probably like I don't know what we're adding into.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
This, so it's not really clear, Like I'd like to
hear the setup, but it just preliminary. It just seems
like you're wanting us to focus on this like vanilla
austere corner of the room that no one actually believes in.
And that's the part that frustrates me because the way
that I I want to hear your reasons, but when
it comes to comparing my view to someone else's view,
it's hard for me to go, Yeah, my view is

(37:05):
simpler than yours, and it explains the data better. If
I haven't even heard your whole view, if I've just
heard this like tiny, tiny little portion of the view,
because maybe the rest of the stuff helps you, or
maybe it inflates it even more, which is what I
predict what would happen.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
So hopefully that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
But like there's like several different angles why anticipating like
this is just it'd be really, it'd be awesome if
you wanted to talk about the thing you actually believe in, right,
But it's fine, we can talk about general theism. I'll
just assume that your actual position is indefensible and you're
kind of like worried about arguing about it.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
But if you're not, feel free to do that.

Speaker 9 (37:36):
Dude, Well, I was actually going to get to some points.
But but what you said about there being sort of
like this evil god, that's actually a good point that
you brought up. And and I like to think that
if there was such a thing as an evil God,
then he wouldn't be God, because would you argue that exist.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
I didn't say evil, I said a moral which means
neither good or bad.

Speaker 9 (37:57):
That's a good thing.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
I didn't say evil God or immoral God. I said
a moral God. Right that means neither good or bad.
It's like, like a rock is a moral right, doesn't
that It's not like a moral agent. Right, it doesn't
possess like anything normative or it's just like a rock. Right,
it's not a moral agent. Like if a rock fell
in your head, you wouldn't be like, hold the rock responsible. Well,
there's somebody I know that would say that. That's I'm

(38:21):
not going to get into that, all right, So that's
not what I'm saying.

Speaker 9 (38:24):
Well, makes you say that my position, don't.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
You don't have any I predict that, I predict your
I predict your position as indefensible because if you don't
want to talk about that, and you want to talk
about this vanilla austere corner of the room theism. So
I just think that on the hypothesis that somebody wants
to talk about this like general idea of theism, I
think what like what I take that, Like what I

(38:48):
think the reason is for that or the expectation what
I would expect if someone didn't want to talk about
their view is they would keep insisting and never get
to their view. And it seems like I'm throughout the
call getting evidence that supports my hypothesis. Right, I have
this hypothesis that you don't want to talk about your
view and you'd rather talk about something more generalized because
if you get wrecked on it or something like that,
however you're interpreting it, That's not the way I'm looking

(39:08):
at it.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
But if that's the way.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
You're seeing it, then you have this kind of safety
net of general theism.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
And that's fine.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Like I have friends that do believe in that, Like
I know people that do. They give some pretty robust arguments, right,
I don't accept them, but you know, it takes a
long time to get through and for them to explain.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
But I want, you know, I want to know what
you believe.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Like that's I'm I'm so fucking over this idea of
like calling in about general theism.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Like I'll do it. It's fine. I have no problem
with that. I'm not scared of that.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
But I really want to know what the person who's
calling believes. That's what I'm interested in. Why you believe
what you believe. I'm not interested in, like, do we
have knowledge, I don't fucking care. We believe things, and
we have reasons for believing them things, and I want
to know those reasons. My thing is very simple to understand.
That's all I care about.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
So let's try this, Sam, because I know we've I
know we've maybe gotten a little bit off of what
we were originally, you know, talking about. So let's do this.
We're going to start all the way over again, and
I'm going to bring you on and I'm going to say, hey, folks,
we're going out to Arizona. We've got Sam. He him
he's a theist and he wants to talk about scientific

(40:10):
and historic arguments for God. Well, hey, Sam, you're on
the atheist experience and we want to know. Just pick
one your favorite, the one you think is the best.
Give us one scientific and or historic argument for the
existence of God, and go and ask us what we think.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Yeah, that's irrelevant.

Speaker 9 (40:31):
Okay, So okay, so all apologies for not being more specific,
But my argument that I want to present is not
a historical or scientific argument. It's more of a philosophical
argument called the ontological argument. I'm sure you've heard that
a million times before.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yes, and and preto much.

Speaker 9 (40:47):
The god that I subscribe to is pretty much the
god of the ontological argument because it can because if
it's possible.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
To think of, give the argument, just give the argument,
Just give the argument, Give the argument, just give the argument.
There's different ontological argument is a category of arguments. There's
modal ontological arguments, right, So like, are you giving.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
A modal ontological argument?

Speaker 3 (41:09):
Are you giving some other type of ontological argument I'm
very familiar with, like the category of ontological arguments. It
doesn't make sense to be like, I'm arguing for the
god of ontological arguments, right, because they're not compatible. Like
someone might not accept s five, for example, but still
like hold some other type of ontological argument that doesn't
deal with modality at all.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Well, right, I could.

Speaker 9 (41:30):
Give you the argument, but you keep talking.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
But you keep talking over here, I asked, I'm going
to tell you now, Sam, you're gonna give the I'm
gonna unmute you, and you're gonna give the argument. But
I'm correcting you because you said, I believe in the
God of ontological arguments, which is like a mouthful of
a sentence, right, And the way to interpret that sentence
how you're saying that is that like this God is
compatible with like this one idea of this, this concept

(41:53):
of God is compatible with all these arguments. But there's
gonna be people that run modal ontological arguments or different
arguments where they're their version of theism wouldn't be compatible
with running a modal ontological argument, right, So just give
your argument.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
I'm just correcting you on something you said. That was it?
Maybe I shouldn't have, So just give your argument.

Speaker 7 (42:10):
Okay.

Speaker 9 (42:11):
So let's define God as the greatest possible being, that
which nothing greater can be conceived, and if you think
of something greater than that God, then that God just
wouldn't be God.

Speaker 7 (42:23):
And so.

Speaker 9 (42:25):
God as the greatest conceivable being must exist in reality to.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Oh my God, Really, you wasted all that time just
for that, Like that's it? Fucking loser, you're that scared?
What a loser? I know? I mean, what an absolute
did you see when I was a piece of ship
on the internet? Did you see that was so cool?

(42:53):
I would show this to all my family and friends.
I would say, here's what I did on the Internet.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
You fucking wouldn't because and you know that ship racist
piece of shit go fuck yourself.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
What's really interesting too, is that like and and you know,
bigotry and hatred and so forth, physiological and you know,
so forth. But anyway, let me just let me just
put this out there, which is just simply like, you
must be in twenty twenty five, you must be at
least enough of not a dipshit to know how video

(43:22):
editing works and like the Internet and stuff, right, Like
that can't possibly be the case. Yeah, it can't possibly
be the case that anybody in this day and age
is so absolutely worthless of a human being that they
don't recognize that. Like, it'll never be shown, you know. Now,

(43:43):
maybe even all of this discussion after the fact won't
be either. But hey, I can say unequivocally, Sam, you
better fucking hope your God's not real worthless fuck AnyWho,
We do have an awesome crew, don't we, J Mike.
We have the best fucking crew ever. I wonder if
we could see those incredible crew people. They are the

(44:04):
greatest video audio operators in the world. Note takers, call screeners,
chat moderators. They are responding to your emails. They are
keeping the building running. They are the coolest motherfuckers out there.
Way better, way better than Sam. Yes, yes, all good
people are.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Saying that, mainly because half of my screen on there
is covered up by a microphone.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
That I am right. I had to get directions.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
On my horrible Yeah, I'd get like horrible directions, and
so I saw Eli's face and then I was like,
that's my boy. But everyone else, no disrespect. I could
like see half of Greg's face. I think like, so, man,
well that's okay. We we have a fantastic crew.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
They are back there crushing it left and right, left
and right. And you know what, if you want to
show support for the crew. I've heard that you can
type some things in chat. But another thing that you
can do is you could actually go to tiny dot
cc slash merch Aca and you can buy a x
P merch and wear it all around all the time. Uh,

(45:06):
hang it in your window, put it on your car,
give it to a friend that you fucking hate, whatever
you want to do with it, Uh do it. But
just go get that stuff because they are awesome. I
have a couple of shirts myself, and they're every so often.
You know, there's some of some of the old, uh,
some of the old really cool shirts that that have
you know, come through for like a month, they get

(45:27):
shoved into the vaults and they don't come out and
they don't see the light of day for a while,
but every so often they they come back. So you
gotta you gotta, you gotta stay check it, you know,
just put it on the schedule, like every other week.
Just go check the merch store, just see if there's anything.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
This actually gives me an opportunity to call no one
did anything wrong here. Before I say something, I wanted
to like phrase it if someone someone did something wrong.
But when I went, I think Verne like you know,
took me out to the shed and showed me like
some shirts and stuff. Again, you know, take take one
if you can find one in your size. And Katie
did that the year before as well. And I'd look
through this box of shirts and there was.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
One that I found I really liked. I that it was cool.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
It's just like a drawing of a tree and it
said look at me, all right.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
So I put that off to the side.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
One of you motherfuckers that went to the back cruise
last week last year took that shirt from me.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
I don't know what you wanted to took it now,
in all fairness, I left it there. It's my fault,
but somebody took it. I want you to just like
I put it back in the box.

Speaker 6 (46:21):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
I hope this year, as we are on the cruise
the bats about to emerge from the bridge, somebody she
bishly walks up to you with a crumpled T shirt
in their hand and goes sorry. So that would be
the best. That's bad. But you know, we have some
other calls and we've got some time. So if you

(46:43):
have a burning question, you have the best freaking evidence
in the world. Jamike and I are just complete and
total dipshits, and we should clearly see this. You have
time to get your calls in. But here's here's what
I want to do first before we go to this.
I want to read something that somebody actually wrote to you. Mike.

(47:06):
Can you believe that there's a there's a comment out there. See,
you had in the past compared hell to child abuse,
and you called it special pleading to excuse one version
of hell. But not the other. And uh, in response
to that, we've got somebody out there that that has

(47:27):
has written a nice little comment. They say, Nope, people
send themselves to hell by rejecting God. I mean, God
has never sent anyone to hell. Same as if my
kids refuse to come to my house when they're older,
I'm not refusing them entry they're choosing not to. So Uh,
I mean, clearly you're you're defeated there. Clearly your argument

(47:49):
is destroyed. I mean, what do you have to say
for yourself, mister J Mike.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
I mean I was looking for the response part of
the comment where it address the things that you know
I said. I what I would say is how about this? Well,
they probably not. I don't know if they'd be listening.
I want them to just call in have a dialogue.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Wouldn't that be amazing.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Let's have the comments or come in here and we
just have a dialogue about it. That'd be amazing. So
I'll extend that out to them, because I mean, I'm
not I stand by what I said, and I don't
see how that's a response to anything I said. I
don't know how I'm sending myself when I'm I mean,
if I was a parent, and I had the ability
to make the baby that's about to come out be
born with like I'm supposed to look at this baby

(48:31):
like it's dirty rags, you know, it's worthless, just scum,
and I have the ability to just not imbue those
properties on it, you know. I think that would be
the expectation of like a good being and stuff like that.
So I'd been interested to have a conversation on what
they what they think the expectations of a being that
is good and what they would do versus the expectations
of like an evil being and what they would do,
because I think that they already believe in a pretty

(48:55):
horrendous piece of shit.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
But that's just me. Yeah, yeah, it's I hear this
so much. I hear this response so much from believers
that you're sending yourself there. But I mean, you're sending
yourself there as much as you are sending yourself to
the bottom of a lake with cement shoes, because the
mafia has been, you know, shaking you down for money.
I mean, it is literally the exact same situation. It

(49:18):
is completely analogous. And yet for some reason, this this
is just a common a common interpretation and understanding amongst
a lot of believers. And you know what, that's that's
okay because we also I got I got one. Apparently
the other day I was I was asking a caller, uh,

(49:40):
if they would believe if Allah spoke directly to them
and they were a good they were a good Muslim
and said, no, of course not all. That doesn't do
that to anybody since my yeah, I have good, good
for them staying within the fold of Islam, staying within
the oma there brother. But in response to that, we
got this, this beautiful gem of a comment, which honestly

(50:02):
might completely change my whole world view. They said, I
hope you guys enjoy Hell. So cool, great, can't wait
to be there, like super excited, you know.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
They said, that's that's I hope you enjoy Hell. I
have my screen like this big, that's all the camera.
But yeah, I was like, that's it, that's it.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
That's all just easy, peasy, simple, just burning Hell, which
you know, I don't know. I just keep I just
keep referencing. What's that what's that verse about Jesus saying
get away from me? I never knew you. That's I
just keep trying to quote that every so often at
the I was thinking of I was thinking of get

(50:44):
back Sitan. Yeah, that's a good one. Relaxed, bro, It's okay. Yeah,
that's really funny. It's really funny.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
And like Mark is like gone crazy and his family
is like trying to take him.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Out of like the public eye and stuff like that.
Just so different.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
But it's all this same author like them, you know,
and you know, harmonized, like Marianne says, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Or not, you know whatever. We have some other calls,
so I want to make sure we get to them.
We are going to go to Connecticut. We've got Rich
he him pronouns is an atheist and got some questions
for myself and j Mike. Well, that's what we're here for. Rich,
you were on the show. What is up, hi, guys?

Speaker 2 (51:26):
My reason for calling is recently I've been alerted to
the Council of Nicea and it seems that this is
where the whole Jesus bullshkits started. And I want to know,
am I overlooking things?

Speaker 10 (51:43):
Do I have it wrong?

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Why don't I hear this mention more often? Could you
guys straighten me out and help me?

Speaker 1 (51:51):
What do you what do you take the Council of Nicea.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
To myself, Yeah, no, no, we want.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
To make sure that because I actually heard a lot
of atheists kind of like, I'm sure secular has a
lot more to say about this than to me.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
But what's your understanding.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
I just kind of want to get a general understanding
of like what what was established at the Council of Nicea.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Well, it seems to me that Constantine that religion was
dividing the empire, so he wanted to get one religion
in the whole, uh, in the in the whole council.
And he brought in all the bishop and he you know,
he paid for their transportation there, and he set all
these guys up and he said, bring all your information,

(52:32):
bring everything you got, and what we'll do is we'll
figure out we'll keep all the good stuff, we'll get
rid of all the bad stuff, and we'll call it
the book a book. And they took all of it,
all the the the philosophy of the time, and they
you know, like people rising from the dead, and they
used all the juicy stuff, you know, like the Virgin Mary,

(52:56):
and they in corporate all this stuff to be you
you know, to proclaim that Jesus is God and he
was real, and uh, you know, I think that I
think there was over three hundred bishops and the final
count was like one hundred and fifty. Dude to, I mean,
it was really But why don't I hear more of this? Mention?

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Is there a reason I can? I can at least
give give I don't know that I'm the expert or anything,
Yeah for sure, but right, yeah, justin again all those
scholars we were mentioning earlier. But you know, I think
one of the reasons from the religious side, for instance,

(53:43):
that you probably don't hear about it as much is
because a lot more of the scholarly believers, a lot
more of the individuals that have gone to Divinity school
and studied the history and so forth, those aren't the
belief that are often being seen all over the internet.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
It's the ones, interestingly enough that tend not to be
as knowledgeable on things that yell and scream. They tend
to get a little bit more traction. But there are
some people that do talk about it, and for instance,
like I'll just mention Sean McDowell is a is a
Christian apologist, a fairly well known Christian apologist been doing

(54:26):
it for a long time, as his father, you know,
did as well his whole life. He's talked about the
Council of Nicia for sure, you know, there there are
a bunch of different individuals that have talked about it.
But I do think a lot of the Christians, the
self professed Christians, are not terribly knowledgeable on the history

(54:48):
of their religion. And for good reason too. Write like,
when I was a believer, we never talked about the
Council of Nicia because there was no point. It didn't
get it didn't get us to the concl illusion that
the pastor was attempting to get us to. We did
talk about like persecution of Christians by the Romans, which
is a real historical thing. We do have some documentation

(55:12):
of it, but it's radically overblown, you know, because it
pushes a specific narrative for the congregation and the and
the pastor right on the non religious side. Why we
don't talk about it as much is because I would
I would probably say it's one of those things for
us on the on the atheist or non religious side,

(55:33):
where we're like, yeah, I mean that's the you know,
they had that crap, so obviously it's not, you know,
as true as they're making it sound. Just because I
will just say, just before any philosopher out there starts
wanting to yell at us, just because something like a
council of a Nicea happens in a in a religion

(55:55):
does not necessarily mean that the religion is false in
and of itself. It should make one skeptical, though, I
would argue the priors there now are at this point
where we should go, Huh, why.

Speaker 6 (56:06):
The fuck would they have to do that? It was
so obvious we never had that for like evolution or anything.
We never had that. It was like, it's just you know,
the data is there. But I will I will just
end I will just.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
End this this whole ramble rich by just saying, if
you really want to go find some more stuff out
there about the council of Nicea, there are definitely some
some great, you know, places to go that that can
give you that information. Off the top of my head
right now, I don't know any scholar that like specializes

(56:37):
in that that I can you know, pull pull out
of my ass, but there are definitely a good few
that that could give you some more information on that.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
If you want, yeah, and Calin justin, Yeah, deconstruction zone
is on, because that's that's there, Jim. I don't really
like I like getting into some of the New Testament
scholarship stuff.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
I find that interesting.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
So I got through like little phases getting like really
into it, talking with people about it, and I kind
of bounce around different things to keep it fresh.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
I don't ever find myself bouncing to that.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
I mean, I do see people being like that, bringing
up weird things about the trinity and stuff that seems confused,
but yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
I don't like to talk about much because I think
secular kind of said it in a really nice way,
which is like this isn't really like why a lot
of people, really anybody believes like oh the counsel and
I see I'm a devout Christian now, you know, so
I really am interested in the reasons why somebody believes,
you know, like just to you know, imagine that not
that no one knows anything. They just believe things and

(57:35):
they have reasons that they give. Like Okay, if that's
the world we live in, I still want to know
about the reasons that people have right because they believe things.
And I want to know why they hold those beliefs.
That's all I think to me, at least in the
dialectic of like you know why someone believes that? Really,
just offer up the reasons and then you know, we
can we could adjudicate whether or not those are good
reasons or not. It seems like today that's been a

(57:56):
hard thing for people to want to do.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
It can be. It's very I will to say rich
real quick. I just looked up I just tried to
do a quick Google search and I didn't find a bunch.
But there is a blog on on Bart Airman's website
about the Council of Nicea and just having read some
of his stuff in the past, he always is providing
links and other places to go, so that could be

(58:20):
a good jumping off point if you really want to
delve further into that.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
So is that good?

Speaker 1 (58:28):
H E H R M A N Maybe two ends.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
But yeah, he's got some really nice lecture series. Uh,
there's one that's like on somewhere on archive. I don't
know if I should be saying that at all. So
look at look at the the Great Courses. I don't
know if they've changed their name.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
I remember well I don't know.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
I want well know, because it's on like archive dot
org somewhere, but I'm not. I don't want to give
like the direct directions. I don't know if doctor Airman
appreciates that, or if that's up there for you know,
like I want to know, I don't. I don't know
the nature of why it's there and this whole section
out I would I would say, yeah, you know, if
it's interesting to you, you know, like there are platforms

(59:10):
at which the money you spend is totally worth it,
I will say that it will be totally worth it.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Hopefully hopefully that helps.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Rich Okay, gentlemen, I appreciate because I just I just
hope I wasn't going down a one way street the
wrong way, you know what I mean? Yeah, And I
hope I wasn't being damboozled. And so that's why I
called it, because that you guys. I love the way
you guys present stuff. And I used to be a

(59:39):
believe I went to Catholic school. I even went to
Catholic High school for two years until I found out
there were women, you know.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
I mean, believe me.

Speaker 7 (59:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
I went to good old Saint Mats and it beings
on the Hudson, New York. All right, Yeah, thanks an.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
Awful lot about thank you so much. I'm gonna I'm
gonna drop you like a hot rock, but I'm gonna
say thank you again. Man, we appreciate you. Yeah. So
I have a nice yeah, and I love the you know.
I I this can be tough for many of us
to remember, and I understand why in a lot of ways.

(01:00:18):
But there are so so so many people out there
of all types of backgrounds, all types of ages, all
types of places in life. And there I had a
conversation in person not more than a week ago with
somebody who looked me dead in the face and they said, right.
But somebody asked me this once, and I'd never heard

(01:00:40):
this before. What if you're wrong? Elliott? And I went, oh, yeah,
that's a fantastic question. There's actually this whole guy named
Blaize Pascal who wrote this whole explanation of the of
kind of that question and stuff, and he gives answers
and a bunch of people and they went, what do
you mean. My buddy Bill just asked me that what

(01:01:01):
who Pascal?

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
I'm like, Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
And I actually really important for like the decision theory and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Absolutely he's incredibly important, huge, yeah, a lot. I mean
we don't ever get to talk about like his mathematical
work and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
I feel like it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
I feel like it sucks, like myself. And Pascal wasn't
like a fucking idiot, this dude, it was. It was
really really smart and the implement things that he came
up with to this day regularly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
It's just good.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
Just wasn't a good argument, just like a girdle like girls,
uh or I think you pronounce it girdle, yes, yes,
called out for it, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, pounced
but even like Grurles ontological, you know, not yeah, not
a great not not a successful argument by by my lights,
but but still brilliant.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
He's a he's a brilliant yeah, way smarter than I'll
ever be. Yeah yeah, yeah, super super cool and uh yeah,
I just say, like, you know, it's always it's always
great to remember that there are those people, and uh,
we need to we need to make sure that we're
we're remembering that we were there too. You know, there
was a time when neither of us had ever heard onto,

(01:02:06):
who's the what's it?

Speaker 9 (01:02:07):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
I mean come on, But we have some other really
cool calls lining up, So back to our sidebar. Just
real fast. I realized that it's not my hair here,
it's my mustache.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
I wouldn't do a good job combing. And now it's
like curling into my name left nostril.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
So it's been it's been like it's been like a
year or two since I grew grew out the beard.
And like normally I kind of I'll grow it out
for a little while and I'll like, you know, shave
it off for a couple of years or whatever. And
so I'm getting back into this phase again, you know.
And there's it's so different when when you've got facial
hair and when you don't, you know, because yeah, I

(01:02:46):
mean like there there are times when you know, I'll
like wake up and I'll go look in the mirror
and I've just got like this going on, you know,
with some of my hairs, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
just grab a brush. Yeah nothing, grab a little grab
a little beard. Oiler is fucking nothing. Oh my god,
so strange, so strange, But thank thank goodness, nobody was

(01:03:07):
hearing that, and our wonderful crew put us in our
little sidebar yes, we go back to the that's right,
that's right, Hey, everybody, we're back. I don't know. I
don't think there's a single person that laughed at that.
I think it's.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
That's that's my like I always tell everyone, like when
we went to Austin, like, I had such a blast.
I'm looking forward to it because we are just so stupid,
such a good time.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
It's so fun. Oh well, we are gonna go to Pennsylvania.
We've got a theist watcher two one five he him
pronouns is answering our chat pole question. So that's great. Well,
great watcher, you are on the atheist experience with secularity
and j Mike, what have you got for us?

Speaker 7 (01:03:48):
Watches are good evening, gentlemen. It's good to speak with you. Yeah,
oh yeah, I'm answering the question on the pole. So
I I would say life, love and goodness, life, the
natural life as well as the eternal life would be
like really for reasons that I believe in God, and

(01:04:09):
there are all evidence for God for me, how.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Is let's let's let's pick one of those. Let's proves
I'm just kidding. Sorry, Yeah, we're we're not gonna go that. No,
let's let's go to love, Like, how does love prove
that the particular God that you believe in exists? What
what is it about love that gets us to that conclusion?

Speaker 7 (01:04:34):
Well, the scriptures that I believe in says God is loved,
and when I experienced love, therefore I'm experiencing God. But
you wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
But you wouldn't accept if I had scriptures that said,
my God, not Watchers. God is love, and I experience love,
therefore my God, not watchers God, exists. Right, you wouldn't
accept that.

Speaker 7 (01:04:53):
Right, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Maybe, okay, totally totally fine here on the no, no, no, no, no,
that's okay. Let me help you out here. I just
happen to have this book real close to me here
it's the Bible, says so it's Dan McClellan's new book.
It literally just happens to be right next to me.
But let's say, somewhere in this book it explicitly says,
s R. Your God that you believe in is love

(01:05:20):
and it's not watchers God. And because you experience love,
your God's real and not watchers. When I say all
that to you, do you accept that? Do you now
not believe in your God?

Speaker 7 (01:05:31):
No, I have to understand what the author is mean
by what they're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
We'd have to have more to do, you know, I mean,
do you though? Do you really have to know anything
more than just what has been presented? Because on its face,
the argument is so bad that instantly you recognized, Hey,
something's wrong here.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
That sounds fucked up. I don't know what it is yet,
but something about that sounds weird. And you're right. It's
because the same reason that you wouldn't accept that claim
from me is the same reason that I can't accept
the claim from you. And if we're gonna be consistent,
neither of us should accept either claim.

Speaker 7 (01:06:08):
Let me ask you a question, Sorry, do you experience
love in your life?

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Totally?

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
I mean we yeah, we experience love. It's fine.

Speaker 7 (01:06:16):
Experience.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Well, I'm sorry, I'm a little confused because like the
love thing I'm weird out by, Like, do you like
hold like First Corinthians thirteen four to be true? Like
love is patient, love is kind, love is not envy.
Love love does not post, love is not proud.

Speaker 7 (01:06:30):
Absolutely okay, absolutely love is yeah, I embrace all right?

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
Right, all right, love is kind? Do you think it's
kind to murder in like innocent infant children?

Speaker 7 (01:06:41):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Okay, great, let's go come back to do it. We'll come,
we'll come. We'll come back to that. We'll come back
to that, all right. What about jealous love is love
is well? Yeah, we go with that one.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Yeah, let's go to that. I mean we can pick
through all of these.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
Yeah, yeah, you keep going. You gotta you gotta get well,
so let's start with the two.

Speaker 3 (01:06:59):
Love is not proud, right, so it doesn't have this
inflated self importance notion going on, right, right? Yeah, God, okay,
so assume with those two god waughters and malachite children
in First Samuel fifteen to three, and then on the
second point he is saying, like the first just read
the first commandment, there shall be no other gods before me.
So so far, like if you think God is love,

(01:07:21):
like if you hold that in conjunction with these things
you do, well, I can just render an argument to
you for like, I mean, I have to formalize that
or something. But it's just going to be the case
that if God is like love and it turns out
that love doesn't do these things like, it doesn't envy,
it's not you know, it's always kind, It isn't the
case that it's not proud, right, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
And then we show that God does those things, then.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
God isn't love by your own notion of love, by
your own lights, right, So I could just provide some
type of internal critique on your own way.

Speaker 7 (01:07:51):
Would you would you be right it? Would you be right?
Would you? Would you? Would you be right in your argument?

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Though?

Speaker 7 (01:07:57):
That's the question?

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
Yes, based on your crime, Tia, that's what he's saying. Watch, yeah,
hold up, hold up watching real quick. I'm hold what
i'ming on just a second. I'm just gonna mute you
for a second. I know there's a bit of a delay,
and I know and I know you're not trying to
talk over us. I don't know what Yeah, hold hold

(01:08:18):
on to that, Okay. But what J Mike was just
saying there, just because you asked, would you be right
with that argument? What JA Mike was just saying there was,
if you accept this definition of love and you accept
that God did these things based on the book that
that talks about God, then by your own criteria, God
cannot be equivalent to love because he does the things

(01:08:40):
that are absolutely contradictory to it. And so by that
I mean, yeah, one hundred percent J. Mike's right. If
if one of the definitions of love is that it
is not proud, and God says I am a boastful,
jealous God, I am proud, that is contrary to what
it means to be love by your definition, I.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
Already have a formally valid argument. Good, good, go ahead,
And so you could run it like this. You could
run premise one if God is If it's the case
that God is love, then God's then that love is embodied.
In First Corinthians thirteen for four, it is not the
case that that love is embodied or imbued. And First

(01:09:23):
Corinthians thirteen four conclusion, therefore God is not love, right,
And that's just going to be a valid modus Tolen's argument.
It's going to be if P, then Q not Q,
therefore not P.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
So I'm going to bring you back in, Watcher. I
know we've said a lot. We're going to give you
a minute. You're going to hear a beep, and then
you are going to be back on. So go ahead, Watcher.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
And it seems like you accepted all those premises, like
you accepted the condition. You seem like you'd have to
accept the conditional and you'd have to accept. Well, I
guess the contentious premises whether or not you think that
it's true or not that God embodies those, But it
seems like you agreed with me that slaughtering a malachite
for any innocent child is not the embodiment of love.
So your only move there is to say that they

(01:10:00):
weren't in a set.

Speaker 7 (01:10:02):
I was explicitly challenging. I think I'm hearing everything you're
saying and understanding it. But what I was challenging was
your argument itself. In other words, the premise I do
not agree with the premise that you're what you're putting for.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
Which premise, the premise that that's not the case.

Speaker 7 (01:10:19):
That which is of you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
In other words, well, yeah, I'm just trying to hold on.

Speaker 7 (01:10:24):
Coming to I don't agree. I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Yeah, well that's hold on.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
That's different because you can look, you are rationally committed
to the conclusion if you accept the premises. So if
you're just like, yeah, accept what you're saying and the
like the premises, but I deny your conclusion well, it's
a formally valid argument. So if you accept A B
and C, you're committed to D.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
That's like, there's no question about that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
By the axioms of classical logic, right, and by the
rules of propositional logic, you are irrationally committed to.

Speaker 7 (01:10:55):
Disagreeing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Presumably you're disagreeing.

Speaker 7 (01:10:58):
With premise to So I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Which okay, yeah, Watcher, which premise?

Speaker 7 (01:11:04):
Which premis go ahead and stay them so that we can.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
If God is love then yeah, yeah, presumably it's not
this premise, right, premise one, if God, if God is love,
then that love is imbued in first Corinthians thirteen four.
All right, you presumably accept that because you think all
the scripture is true. I'm just taking things that you said.
Corinthians thirteen four is part of the scripture. It talks
about love.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
God is love.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
You accept the antecedent, which is if God is love,
and you accept the consequent right, those those things are true.
These are all this whole conditional statement's true to you?
Are you with us so far?

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Watcher? Do you accept that premise that Jay Mike just
laid out that if God is loved, the word God.

Speaker 7 (01:11:42):
Is love is the first God is Let me see
if I if I'm understanding you correctly. The first premise
is God is love. The second premises that's in line
without no.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
No, no.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
The first premise is a condition. The first premise is
a conditional. Now, the first premise is a yeah, that's wrong.
The first premise is a conditional statement if then right.
It's like an if then statement.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
Right. So that's one premise.

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):
If God is love, comma, then it's the case that
that love is imbued in First Corinthians, or that love
is imbued in Corinthians thirteen.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Four, right. And then the second premise is it's not
the case.

Speaker 7 (01:12:16):
That I agree with that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Okay, So you agree with the first one. Good, I
thought we would. Now the second one is exactly where J.
Mike was going into, which I think is where you
have That's what the premise was. Yeah, okay, so what
is that one? J Mike and then Watcher will talk
about why you disagree with this.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
Yeah, it's just yeah, so you're just negating the consequence.
So you're it's not the case that that love is
embodied in Corinthians thirteen four, right, So that the love
that you say God imbues, right, because you agreed with
me that what is not love?

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:12:54):
The support what's supporting the premise is that you agreed
with me that love, which is what God is, is
not something that would be compatible with slaughtering infants, innocent infants, right,
But in the scripture, God slaughters those infants, and so
it couldn't possibly imbue that love. And I'm sorry, I'm
tripping up on the verse first Corinthians thirteen to four.

(01:13:15):
I believe we'll just say Corinthians for right now, just
make it easier so I don't keep something. Yeah, and
so if that's the case, right, then you're gonna end
up agreeing with that premise.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
The way that you could get out of this is
by saying, well, look, I agree with you that that
killing an innocent infants is wrong, but that's not what
God was doing there, right, And then now I just
be curious on how it's not what's the symmetry breaker
between the Amalekite infants being innocent versus any other infant?

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
What makes a baby not innocent? Because I can't, for
the life of me understand that that might not be
your position. But that's the only way I can see
you trying to get out of it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
So let if I'm a real quick, real quick watcher,
I'm gonna give the the TLDR as best I can.
That'd be great because I'm constructing an argument. You're doing great. No,
it's great. No, it's great. You're on with this shit
up on the five. People don't realize how tough that is.
But so what Jamike is saying, we've already agreed that
that God would have the properties exhibited in the Corinthians verse.

(01:14:11):
And what Jamke is saying is that, in fact, based
on the same book, God clearly demonstrates properties contrary to
those listed in Corinthians. Therefore God can't be loved. What
about that do you disagree with?

Speaker 7 (01:14:36):
When we're born into this world, we're already under the
sentience of death, so any life that we received is
actually the mercy of God being demonstrated.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
But it doesn't matter about mercy. It doesn't matter about that.
Now we could talk about how God's setting up that
whole system to begin with doesn't adhere to the criteria
of love listened in Corinthians, but we don't even need
to go there. Walk sure, because instead of instead of
responding directly to the fact that, hey, look, we finally

(01:15:08):
have this criteria of what it means to be loved,
and we we see that not being exhibited by the
character of God, that in and of itself should demonstrate
that God cannot be equivalent to this conception. Maybe a
different conception of love, but not this one. Is that fair?

Speaker 7 (01:15:30):
That's that's why love, That's why life is a demonstration.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
Not only are we can move on, we can move
on to anything else than just a second Watcher, but
we have to drop this one. We can move on
to life, we can move on to goodness, because I
think those are fascinating reasons that you've given as well.
But we chose love first. And it seems like, after
going back and forth, after us really trying to wrestle
with this concept, you've got to let that one go.

(01:15:56):
And I just want to know, are you going to
drop that one? Can we move on to life? No
longer can love be one of these examples.

Speaker 7 (01:16:04):
Mark love is I would never let go of love.
That's the center of my seat.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Letting go of love as a reason to believe in
God is what I'm saying. Watcher. You presented love as
a as a reason to believe in God. But by
your own criteria, that can't be true because the character
of God that you believe exists demonstrably exhibits the exact

(01:16:29):
opposite behavior of what love would you have to let
it go as a reason to believe in God. Life
may be one, but it can't be this.

Speaker 7 (01:16:38):
Disagree with you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
That that's okay, you can, but I hope that you'll
watch this back because all of the information that you've
given us today, you also agree is incorrect. And that's
all J. Mike and I have done. We've just said
the words back to you and just said, okay, well,
if that's what you believe, then this is the outcome.
And you said, yeah, that's right, and we said right.

(01:17:00):
So you can't believe that anymore, you know. But let's
do you want to do you want to move on
to goodness or life? J Mike, We've got a couple
of other calls, but do you want to move on
to to one more before we let Watcher go? Well, well,
the goodness.

Speaker 3 (01:17:13):
Will be like like kind of captured by the argument
that I'm running because like love is going to be
this kind of normative notion of like it's going to
be like this notion about like what should be done
or whatever, and I think the good I mean, obviously
not the same thing, but I could just run a
run like a parallel kind of argument to it, talking
about the goodness and just being like, do you think
that these things are good?

Speaker 5 (01:17:34):
So?

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
I don't know, I mean, I maybe we move on
to the last thing.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
But I did want to ask, like, because I'm trying
to do this to ask just to support my own
premise here because I'm anticipating that he's going to reject P.
Two for this reason, but I'm just interested. I want
to kind of get it archived on the internet forever.
So do you think that there's any case where slaughtering
an infant like is justifiable? No? Okay, do you agree

(01:17:59):
that God's slow watered or commanded Let's let's be as
charitible as we can. Do you think that anyone commanding
the slaughtering of amlica or sorry, infant children, chill infant children, infants?
Do you think that that is justifiable for any reason?

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
Like, there's any situation.

Speaker 7 (01:18:17):
Again, but I'll also add that we're in a context
that we must recognize, which is the judgment of God.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Well, I was asking for is there any context where
there's that?

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
And then but I asked for if the whole point
of me asking was is there any context where that's justifiable?
And then you're like, we got to see it from
this context. So you did this thing where you were like,
I agree with you, but also I don't agree with you. Right,
That's what happened there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
So just straightforward, Lee, I did.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
I did.

Speaker 7 (01:18:45):
I'll admit that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:47):
I'm not trying to do that to rag on you.
I just want to understand your position, that's all. I
just want to be confused.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
Yeah, yeah, So.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
Which which one is it? Just so I don't like strong.

Speaker 7 (01:18:56):
Better understand the better understanding is that? Okay, I guess
I'm saying to my answer, then my answer is yes,
the justification is under the judgment of God, in which
we are under Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
No other context. But just to be clear, Watcher, no
other context works. It's a no everywhere else except for
this one case. Is that what you're saying? Yes, sir,
I think that's a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
I mean if anyone wants to use this, like you
can just use this argument on people to see if
like they'll because if they reject that premise, what they're
going to have to do is make this appalling move
where they'll have to justify the commanding of infants, right,
and you can just kind of get it out of
them that way. But if anyone wants to steal that,
go ahead, because like I was, I was hoping that
like for your own sake, you know, like if you

(01:19:41):
want to be internally yeah, for your's like you say no,
but if what you want to do is be internally
consistent and like, yeah, you can make that move.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
But this argument.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
Highlights to show that, Well, what you can't do is
hold love above my head as if it's anything I
should really give a shit about, because it turns out
what's baked into your concept of love is commanding this
and I just don't.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
I just don't possess that concept of love, my man.
I just don't. Yeah, that is never that is never
part of any conception of goodness, morality, love, any of that.
And it I think, you know, we could make the
we could make the argument that it it undercuts the
life example you've given. But I just real quick, watcher,

(01:20:22):
want to go back to this moment, right, I just
want to real quick, though, go back to this moment
where J Mike asked you this question and he said, hey, look,
is there any context whatsoever that this thing works? And
you went, well, yeah, there is this one and only
this one, and in every other context it absolutely cannot work.

(01:20:44):
It fundamentally is impossible. There's there's this thing called special pleading.
That's a really important understanding about how we construct arguments
right and what information is more likely to lead us
to reliably true outcomes. And if in the process of
our argument we have to do that exact thing, which

(01:21:07):
is in every other context this isn't right, and not
only isn't, but it can't be right except for mine.

Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
That's a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
That's a bad. That's a bad, that's a poorly constructed argument,
and you have to fix that part of it. It
doesn't mean that your outcome is necessarily untrue, but it
doesn't mean that we definitely can accept it just yet.
And I think that would be something that would be helpful.
I think you can construct a better argument in this case.

(01:21:36):
I have heard some of them, but I would also
argue the vast majority of those Christians that make a
better argument about love being an example of God's existence
and so forth. They don't believe in a hell, they
don't believe in a literal six day creation. They sure
don't believe the earth is under ten thousand years old,
and they definitely don't believe that LGBTQ people should be

(01:21:58):
criminalized for who they are. So it just this wasn't
this wasn't a this wasn't a perfect argument.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
Watch right, Well, I don't want to point out something
I think it's the most important.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
I don't want it to go miss and a watch.
I want you to be able to speak. But I
want you like.

Speaker 3 (01:22:11):
If you watch, if you watch this back at all,
I don't want you to force you to watch something back.
I don't like watching myself back, so I don't really
do it, but do I get it. But I want
you to notice something that happened in this call, and
which was when I asked you about that premise and
whether or not you would reject that. And I was
trying to be charitable and make sure I wasn't straw
manny So talked about the command commanding of slaughtering infants.

(01:22:33):
You did this move where you said, well, yeah, I
guess I would have to say that that's justifiable, and
I think that's important. I'm like, I'm not a psychologist
or anything like that, but I think the psychological component's
like very key to these discussions. It's like kind of
this mirage to the philosophical stuff and whatnot that goes
above it. But really like it sounded like it was like, well,

(01:22:53):
in real time, you were thinking I could be wrong,
but it seemed like you were thinking something like, well, shit,
if I go this way, then I accept this argument,
and then is not love and that under that's an
undercutting defeat for for my argument.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
So I'm forced to say this.

Speaker 3 (01:23:05):
Now, let's not worry about the psychological thing at the moment,
but let's just notice what's happening that you have you
when you're faced with something that I don't think you
really probably believe. I don't I could be wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
I don't know you.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
It's hard for me to believe that you really think
that there's times where it's okay to justify to kill infants.
It feels like you made that out of like a
response move because you know that this would undercut your position.
But then ask yourself internally, am I being honest with myself?

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
Because you know, I now I'm just accepting some proposition
because I have to right and that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
I just feel like that should be looked at inward
a little bit more. But that's just my takeaway, and
I could just be full of shit and you can
think I'm totally full of shit or whatever. I'm just
giving you my opinion of what what I'm noticing.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
And that's all.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
You sound like you're you'd be a good person to
talk to about this or like you know you you
seem like you listen and respond, So I appreciate that,
but it's hard for me to believe you really believe
that and you aren't just doing that to kind of
save save the argument that you have, do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
Watcher?

Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
Thank you, j Mike, thank you SR. It is really
good talking to you. I want to respond by saying
the special pleading that often come that often comes up
in a lot of these discussions on this platform directly
correlate to the truth and the scriptures of the holiness
or the set of heartness of God. In other words,

(01:24:26):
his holiness means they're there. That's what when we bring
up things of his holiness, what immediately comes to the
mind of most people is that's special pleading, which it is.
In fact, it is special pleading, but the special pleading
is justified. It's called holiness.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
Hold up, Jmike, hold on because I know you want
to get on that. But that sounds like that sounds
like a perfect frickin' call to have in the future, Watcher.
That sounds like an awesome, awesome call for us to
have in the future and hash out. So thank you
so much for for calling us back today and and
uh ja Mike and I will be will be looking
forward to get in a chat with you about Yeah,

(01:25:07):
I would let you go. I like I was like
a dog on a chain you pulled to I had to.
We've got we've got calls. We've got other calls. We've
been going for like twenty minutes. No, it's coat, this
is it's good.

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
I actually have like a kind of a cut off
today at seven. Anyways, this is perfect for me. I
got to make a run. And uh I give maybe
Scott if you don't know how much time you have.
But yeah, we got we got.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
We got messed Scott Dicky behind us. Yeah, yeah, we'll
bring him on.

Speaker 6 (01:25:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:35):
Apologies to any callers if they wanted to specifically ask
me anything, I to anticipate that's the case.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
So hopefully that's not the case. But uh, I'll get
out before I say the case any more times than
I need to.

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
You know, there's already Christian books that do that a
lot that we're all familiar with.

Speaker 1 (01:25:51):
It is absolutely always a great time getting to hang
out with you. You always have this wonderful perspective. I
can't wait to be down in Boston, Texas with you.

Speaker 3 (01:25:59):
And I know too, I'm so excited. I'm so excited.
I really am. I I like I hope I message
the other day, and I hope you know I mean
everything of what I told.

Speaker 1 (01:26:09):
You, absolutely man, same here, same here, Brother, awesome and
you and the audience will not get to hear what
that DM was, but it was. It was hot and spicy.

Speaker 6 (01:26:19):
Get out of here, man, thank you so much for well.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
We have a couple of other calls we are gonna
grab here. But before we do that, the amazing crew,
the always incredible, the closest thing we know to a
real live deity, the crew here at the A c A.
They are gonna bring up our back up host, the
wonderful mister Scott Dickey has been here hanging out with us,

(01:26:45):
and I think he might be ready. I don't know
just yet, but you know what, we're just gonna We're
just gonna poke him in the ribs and wake him up.
So is he up here?

Speaker 7 (01:26:55):
Is?

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
I just see my dumb face still there?

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
He is?

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
What's up? I'm hey, it's great to see you.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:27:01):
I don't I can't really quite fit fill the beard,
but I'll do my best.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
No, it's is. This has been This has been great.
There's been a lot of hair today and that's that's
what we want here on the ACA. You know we're
we're big about facial hair. Actually, you've heard.

Speaker 4 (01:27:15):
About hair bands, right this this is a hair show.

Speaker 1 (01:27:18):
That's a hair show. Yeah, a hair show. Wasn't there
a musical that was just named hair? Is that thing?

Speaker 4 (01:27:24):
Am I just on that?

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:27:27):
Anyway, we were just watching it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
Actually, we have some other calls. We are going to
go to California. Lord is an atheist and he him pronouns,
wants to talk about a logical moral framework. Well, hey Lord,
you are on the atheist experience with Scott Dickey and secularity.
What is up?

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
Hi?

Speaker 5 (01:27:47):
There?

Speaker 10 (01:27:47):
It's so good to find to talk to you guys.

Speaker 5 (01:27:49):
Yeah, hey, Lord, talk to you.

Speaker 6 (01:27:52):
Hey.

Speaker 7 (01:27:52):
There.

Speaker 10 (01:27:52):
So I was working on this like secular moral framework
that I'm calling compression logic, and I wanted to bring
it to you guys. See if it's not you know,
just my own echo chamber telling me it works.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
We'll do the best we can give us.

Speaker 5 (01:28:06):
Well, it's a yeah. So the definition of compression logic
is a system that ethically removes contradictions from structures, which
is religion, economic, government's relationships, everything. It forces you to
critically look at contradictions and make them align with your
intentions or remove them.

Speaker 4 (01:28:24):
All right, you've piqued my interest.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
Yeah, I don't currently see yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:28:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:28:29):
And so the moral aspect of it is that yet
to consider, like suffering. Does the system reduce suffering? Recognition?
Does it recognize all variables involved? Existence? Does it preserve
existence or remove it? And mobility? Is it able to grow, learn, change, revolve.

Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
Sure, So let me jump in real quick, because I'll
just start off by saying, so far from what I've heard,
there's a lot of this that I'm.

Speaker 5 (01:28:55):
A fan of.

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
You know, I kind of feel like I get the
intention and I kind of feel like I get, you know,
where the logical conclusions might lead to, and im and
I'm already kind of on board, right, But the first
thing that jumps out to me is, you know, from
the moral realist side, which are the individuals out there
who believe that there are actual, like moral facts out

(01:29:19):
there just like there is you know, uh, you know
answers to the question two plus two, like there is
an answer to it and all the other answers are wrong.
You know, those people would probably jump in and say, well,
hey lord, why would I care about suffering? You know,
why would I actually care about recognition or mobility?

Speaker 7 (01:29:40):
Why?

Speaker 1 (01:29:41):
What's what's the basis of that?

Speaker 10 (01:29:43):
Yeah, exactly, because when systems contain contradictions, the experience collapse. Okay,
and so when any of these moral bases are violated,
collapse is inevitable.

Speaker 4 (01:29:54):
So are you saying that if there if if a
moral for example, then it would it would be contradictory.
What I'm not really following you there?

Speaker 7 (01:30:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:30:03):
How how is that an example of the contrad.

Speaker 10 (01:30:05):
So what I'm saying is, if you have a moral
system that increases suffering, sorry, if you have a system
that increases suffering over time, it will experience collapse. I
don't know what it is to reduce suffering or mitigate it.
You can't eliminate it, right, What I mean by that? So, like,
for example, I mean, if we're talking about like religions,
right where religions ask you to love one another, you know,

(01:30:27):
and you know, worship God and things like that, and
you find out the religion continuously, you know, it encourages
hateful actions against marginalized groups and things like that, and
you can already tell that this type of religion will
not last in its current form. It must change or
be destroyed.

Speaker 4 (01:30:42):
And why is that?

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
Yeah, what justification do we have for that?

Speaker 10 (01:30:46):
Because of collapse, because a contradiction potentially collapsed.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
Like what like name a system that has a contradiction
that has collapsed. Would you say Hinduism has collapsed?

Speaker 10 (01:30:58):
I would say, like, I haven't said Hinduism is enough
to know that if it has reformed. But I would say,
like Protestantism in America has certainly reformed to avoid collapse.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
Right. But but so what we need is we need
an example of a system that definitively has contradictions in
it that all three of us agree or contradictions and
then the definitive example of the collapse of that system,
because because right now one of the things that I
think Scott and I are both we're kind of bristling. Okay, okay, okay,

(01:31:29):
go ahead.

Speaker 10 (01:31:30):
So I see what you're saying. So we can take
like American Revolution for example, where Americans under British rule,
we're not getting fair representation, you know, for taxes and
things like that, and they were getting abused by the
colonial system. And so the collapse was the revolution and
America restructured into you know, the United States that we
have today. The colony is searching colony, right, collapse because

(01:31:52):
of its contradiction.

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
What what collapsed though? Are you just talking about.

Speaker 10 (01:31:56):
Day of the British in America?

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
I mean, I guess, sorry, the authority of.

Speaker 10 (01:32:02):
The British rule in their system. Yeah, and what was
the contradiction, Like, let's I can try and break it
down even simpler. Well, the contradiction is that they were
promised to have representation.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
Okay, and they and they weren't getting it. Okay, break
break it down a little simpler for it.

Speaker 10 (01:32:17):
When they did not receive representation. Yeah, let me break
it down let's go down simple as like to a lie.
Like imagine that you lie to your friend about why
you didn't want to go see him that day, and
he finds out that you have lied to him. Now
your system is going to collapse because in order for
you to maintain the friendship, you must address the lie
or not be friends anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:32:38):
So are you saying that that that a contradiction? Really
is just a failed promise.

Speaker 10 (01:32:43):
Yeah, it's a violation of any social contract. It's a
violation of intention and action.

Speaker 4 (01:32:48):
Okay, So you commit, you make a commitment to do
something to honor representation or something along the or or
to decrease suffering or something like that, and then if
if there's no follow through on that, then you're that
a contradiction.

Speaker 10 (01:33:01):
It's a contradiction.

Speaker 4 (01:33:02):
Yeah, So basically you're saying that systems that lie to
people will eventually be caught and discarded exactly or reformed.

Speaker 1 (01:33:10):
Okay, So are you familiar with immanual? In just second,
I know there's I know there's a bit of delay.
I know you weren't trying to interrupt or anything. It's joke,
don't worry. It's the it's the audio stuff, not the
tech people. By the way, it's literally just the machines themselves.
Our tech crew is fucking amazing. I'm only saying that
so they don't yell at me this time anyway. So okay,

(01:33:31):
so are you are you familiar lord? Are you familiar
with the categorical imperative that Emmanuel Kant talked about?

Speaker 10 (01:33:39):
I personally haven't say any of Kant's writing. Okay, I'll
discuss on this show. Yeah, yeah, if it could be
similar enough that my framework just discarded.

Speaker 1 (01:33:50):
Well, but potentially potentially I don't know yet, but there
were some things when you were talking about the lie
there that that definitely, you know, brought me, brought me
back to young little SR sitting around kicking his feet
as he gleefully reads Immanual Coant's musings. There is some

(01:34:10):
really good stuff in there. It's called the categorical imperative.
That's the that's the concept I think you'll you'll want
to kind of try and look into and maybe even
all the way back to Plato and the Noble Lie.
Don't worry about like writing those down or anything. This
will be recorded, you know, you can go back and
check all that shit. But one of the things I

(01:34:32):
definitely want to offer you to read if you do
decide to go look more into Kant is look up
the personal letters that he sent with a woman named
Maria van Herbert, and you can literally find them just
by searching her name Maria von Herbert Kant letters. Because
this is an individual that studied Kant so profusely that

(01:34:55):
she was willing to completely destroy her own life to
follow through on the axioms that he presented. And I
think it's it's a really fascinating moment where you can
see kind of some of the problems of this type
of categorical imperative, how that would play out in the

(01:35:15):
tangible world around us right now. There is also some
really good explanation of how Kant gets to these things too,
But I just I think that that might help flesh
this out a little bit and maybe even and again,
I know I'm throwing a shit ton at you. It's
great because you'll just be able to pause a video
and just like, what the fuck was that. Constructivism is

(01:35:37):
another really fascinating moral moral concept here that might be
beneficial for you. It it talks more about how morality
is this thing that we construct, right It's not really
a thing that's out there. Definitely not in the same
sense as like hydrogen atoms, and not even really in

(01:35:58):
the same sense as like math or love. Right, morality
is even more of this constructed thing. And there's a
lot of really cool people that talk about how we
would construct that or why we would construct that a
certain way. All of that stuff might help kind of
shoring up a lot of these different a lot of

(01:36:19):
these different places in your theory that you're working on.
I would say there's still also some some issues with
constructivism too, you know. And and the more that you
dive into this this realm, the deeper you get, Lord,
I promise you, it'll get fucking frustrating after a moment.
So so make sure that you take a little bit

(01:36:41):
of time and you put the book down every so often,
and you come back to it and go, Okay, what
was what was he trying to say? What's Derek Parfitt
trying to tell me here?

Speaker 2 (01:36:49):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:36:50):
But anyway, I hope some of that rambling was a
resource or two for you.

Speaker 10 (01:36:56):
Oh yeah, no, that's great. I had like big we
looked at some stuff like on Kant and so I
didn't really exhorb a lot of his ideas and stuff
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
I was just dora that.

Speaker 10 (01:37:07):
Somebody else already thought of this and that my framework
is irrelevant.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
Yeah, and it might be. It might be. I don't
know just yet. But one of the things that I
would say that comes up to me right away is
the conversation that's been going on for a very long
time between moral realists and moral anti realists. And again,
that's that distinction between those people that say, like, no,
there actually are moral laws and facts out there, and

(01:37:34):
then there's these other people and they're broken up into
a lot of different camps. By the way, there's this
whole group of people that have been studying this stuff
for a really long time, and their view is that really,
at the end of the day, morality is basically just
us saying like, Yay, we like that thing, or boo,
we don't like that thing. And emotivism is a really

(01:37:56):
interesting concept, you know. I also think there's a little
bit of flaws there. I don't think we have the
perfect moral framework just yet, but I do think if
we're being honest when we do this investigation, we come
to a much more humble place about what is good

(01:38:17):
or bad about why we would choose certain actions, how
we justify various actions, and you tend to not always,
but you tend to be a little bit more charitable
and willing to listen to the other side. And you
know that's my that's been my experience seeing people go

(01:38:37):
down this route. And honestly, I think you're going down
the exact right path. Lord, keep having these thoughts, write
them out, you know, change this, change that. Bring it
to somebody, let them take a look at it. Change
them again. Go out read some cont go out read
some mills, go out read some I mean, go look

(01:38:57):
into all of this, and keep formulating this and and
and don't stop. You know, I want to pass it
back over to Scott, because I know I've been I've
been rambling a bunch.

Speaker 4 (01:39:06):
But I was gonna say, my my back is a
little sore from carrying the show. So it's about telling you,
you know, pick up the slack there, sir. No, Lord,
I I I I I might be missing something here,
but but I just wanted to dive a little bit
into what you were saying. So you're suggesting that uh
moral framework will will fail if it doesn't live up

(01:39:28):
to its commitments and promises, and that's that's fine. I
think that's that's pretty obvious. You also said that you
were worried that maybe somebody else had thought of this.
What what is the what is the unique spin uh
that you're bringing to the table here are you? Are
you suggesting that that people don't worry about that now,
or that current perspectives on morality don't include that?

Speaker 10 (01:39:51):
Well, I was mainly thinking like that, the point of
this compression logic is to avoid collapse, not that like
collapse itself is evil. It's what happens when systems contain contradiction.

Speaker 4 (01:40:03):
Okay, so as long as as long as somebody follows.

Speaker 10 (01:40:06):
Through with what they suggest place properly.

Speaker 4 (01:40:09):
Sorry you finished, you finish? I interrupted you?

Speaker 10 (01:40:12):
That is is, if you follow through and your intentions
are aligned. No, it's okay. If you follow through and
your attentions are aligned and it includes genocide, then it's
not moral, right, But what.

Speaker 4 (01:40:22):
If you promised genocide and then followed through with it?
Or what what if you promised to bring in suffering
and then follow through with that? I mean, that would
avoid this this uh contradiction that you're talking about, and
therefore this.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
Collapse, repeat, repeat that again, Scott.

Speaker 4 (01:40:38):
I'm just saying, if you have a moral framework that
promises genocide and then does commit genocide, I mean we could,
of course, I think we would agree that that's a
that's a bad thing, and that's an immoral thing, but
that's not what your framework is describing at this At
this point, you're you know, if we're just looking at
this this idea of these contradictions. If you promise something,

(01:40:59):
if you promise to I will bring suffering upon you,
and then you do that, then you're following, then you're
that's not a contradiction, correct.

Speaker 10 (01:41:07):
Yeah, exactly. And so what I'm saying is that suffering
must be reduced. That's what makes it moral. People must
be recognized, mobility must be allowed. And so when you
have a system that says we will commit genocide and
they fall on through the genocide, it's still immral because
the people they genocide it were not recognized and they
were and they were experiencing increased suffering.

Speaker 4 (01:41:27):
So you're saying that morality is if it's okay to
have a contradiction as long as you're not committing suffering,
which I agree with you. I agree that that encouraging
suffering is immral. No, But the way you're describing your
scenario here, you're kind of slipping that in there.

Speaker 10 (01:41:47):
Well, I'm saying that if you have a system that
contains genocide and wants to be moral, then you have
to remove the genocide.

Speaker 4 (01:41:54):
So what do you mean by moral?

Speaker 1 (01:41:55):
Then?

Speaker 4 (01:41:55):
Sorry, s R the last question and then I'll shut up.
What do you mean by moral?

Speaker 10 (01:42:00):
Yeah, so I'm talking about like what I'm calling the
for moral basis, which is suffering, existence, recognition, and mobility.
If a system violates these four things, then collapse is inevitable.
So if a system increases suffering, the denies recognition, eliminates existence,
and denies mobility, then the people in that system will collapse.

(01:42:20):
The whole system, the ideal ideology will collapse. And so
what I'm proposing is collapse avoidance, which is giving people recognition,
preventing suffering, or mitigating it. Right, That's what begins to
make the system moral, and it starts with contradiction removal.
So you can't do genocide because you're going to remove
people's recognition, mobility, suffer cause suffering and existence.

Speaker 4 (01:42:41):
Sounds a lot like humanism to me.

Speaker 1 (01:42:43):
Yeah, I would say, there is definitely a good a
good overlap there, but one one question. And I know
it might it might sound stupid. I know it kind
of does. But truly, I mean, lord, why would we
care about minimizing suffering? I mean, really, what's the reason
why it is?

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:43:01):
What what's the purpose?

Speaker 10 (01:43:02):
Well, the reason is just the reason is just collapse
avoidance for mitigation. Okay, okay, okay, you want to avoid collapse.

Speaker 1 (01:43:10):
Okay, so hang on, So let's not Yeah, yeah, let's
take this. Let's take this. Let's take that. Okay, collapse avoidance.
That that is a terminology there that I would need
more information about, because currently, if somebody comes up to
me and says, hey, sr, you want to minimize that
suffering so that you avoid collapse, I would say, uh,

(01:43:32):
what do you mean like collapse of the human race?
Do you mean like somebody looks like a hypocrite on
live TV? Do you mean that I instantaneously Fano snap
out of existence? What does that mean?

Speaker 10 (01:43:45):
No, I'm so sorry. When I talk about collapse, it
is the point in which a system fails, whether that's okay,
full contract between friends or authority of a government, or
the legitimacy of the religion.

Speaker 1 (01:43:57):
I'm on board.

Speaker 10 (01:43:58):
When at the point when a system fails, the collapse
is when the when the contradiction in it is no
longer ignorable.

Speaker 1 (01:44:05):
Okay, So give me an example in history, any one
example where that happened, where collapse happened, as you're describing it, well.

Speaker 10 (01:44:14):
Where collapse happened. I mean, like we can talk about
the Roman Empire and how these guys are fighting between Yeah,
let's talk.

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
About the Roman Empire. Did the Roman.

Speaker 10 (01:44:22):
Empire collapse until they were nothing?

Speaker 1 (01:44:25):
Did the Roman Empire collapse and disappear, or did it
get split into the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire.

Speaker 10 (01:44:31):
Well, the original concept had collapsed, and after these it
had to restructure or be erased, and we saw research sell.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
But how do we know how do we know that
there is a through line from this specific concept. We
can talk about recognition and mobility and all those other things,
but how do we know that the suffering is what
caused the supposed collapse of the Roman Empire, which again
I'm not even granting yet. I don't think there was
a collapse of the Roman Empire in the way that

(01:44:59):
you're talking about I think there was a reformation, a restructuring,
which is which is fine that, but maybe instead of
using the word collapse avoidance, maybe you just change that terminology,
you know.

Speaker 10 (01:45:11):
Yeah, Like I would say the Roman Empire that we
saw before it had split and then.

Speaker 7 (01:45:17):
Dissolved, right exist.

Speaker 10 (01:45:20):
Sure, then it began to restructure into these two like,
you know, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Catholic Roman Empire.
And as the contradictions in those empires continued, we saw
the legitimacy of their authority decrease and decrease and decrease
until we get to the Dark Ages.

Speaker 1 (01:45:35):
Sure, but we're mixing up two different things here that
I think are very important for us to hang on
just a second. We're mixing up two very important, two
very different things here that I think it's important for
us to make sure we keep separate. We're going back
and forth between talking about things in a conceptual sense
and talking about things in a tangible, physical sense. Right

(01:45:57):
As a concept the Roman Empire may have collapsed in
various understandings of what the word collapse mean. Like Italy's
still fucking there, you know, those buildings are still there, right,
That didn't disappear. It wasn't as if on Monday we
had Roman citizens and then on Tuesday we had fuck all,
who knows what, you know? Right, So this and this

(01:46:19):
the reason that I'm kind of poking at this just
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:46:23):
Roman.

Speaker 1 (01:46:23):
Sure, sure we do have Italian citizens, but we also
have Roman citizens because Rome is still very much a
city in in in the country of Italy.

Speaker 5 (01:46:33):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:46:33):
So it the reason that I'm kind of poking at this.
And it may seem you know, really really picky and
really you know, really pedantic and whatnot, But it's because
in these types of constructions, in these type of philosophical discussions,
we have to be as precise as possible with our language. Right,
And if we're going back and forth and we're discussing

(01:46:56):
tangible collapse, right of like an empire or you know,
it might be fair to say that the government of
Ethiopia a good handful of years ago collapsed. That might
be a fair statement. It might be a fair statement
to say a buddy of mine's shed in his backyard collapsed.
You know, what does it mean to say that a
philosophical concept, right collapsed? What does it mean to say

(01:47:19):
utilitarianism collapsed, you know, or Islamic theology collapsed, you know.
And the only reason I'm being picky is because I
think if you make this language a bit more precise,
I think you will have a more sound system on
your hand. And I know I was rambling a lot,
So I'm going to give you a minute to respond
to that.

Speaker 10 (01:47:38):
Lord, I'm so sorry. Okay, I'm still working on like
words and definitions and trying to get anything nailed down right,
But like, the main point I'm trying to say is,
like the collapse is when you don't believe the system anymore, Right,
when you look at the contradictions in Islam and you
can't keep believing it, or you have some sort of
utilitarian philosophy imposed, but you see people are not doing
better and you can't believe it that system anymore. That's

(01:48:01):
a collapse is when you break up with your girlfriend because.

Speaker 1 (01:48:03):
Okay, trust Okay, So I think that would be okay,
I'm sorry to jump in, but I think that might
be a worthwhile thing going forward, is to explicitly state
what you're just when when you're using the word collapse
in this in this moral construction, you are explicitly referencing
the individual now being incapable of holding true this ideology

(01:48:31):
because of various contradictions or problems with it. Right like that,
that that might be, in my opinion, a worthwhile thing
to to make sure it's out there. I might have
some pushback. I might, but we've already been going for
for a good while and I think you're on the
right path for sure. So, Scott, is there anything else
you wanted to say.

Speaker 4 (01:48:51):
Before we Yeah? Lord, I think what you're saying sounds
pretty good to me. I mean it, and I feel
like I'm missing something here. I feel like I'm missing
some kind of connection here because what you're describing to
me seems seems in a nutshell like you're saying, if
you respect people and you treat them like human beings,

(01:49:12):
then they'll agree with you, or they'll go along with you,
or they won't reject you. And I feel like that's
a pretty common conception out there, and I agree with SR.
I think that you're used to the terminology is a
little bit different than what I'm used to. I feel
like there's some interesting there's an interesting perspective in there

(01:49:33):
that I'm just not connecting with. And so You've stimulated
some interesting thoughts in my head, and I like the
way that you're taking things. If there is something that,
something new that you're bringing to the table, I would
I wish I could understand that more, but I'm just
not connecting with it. If that makes sense.

Speaker 10 (01:49:54):
Hey, that's fine, Like you know all that stuff, it's
feedback and I find what I'm not planning to you
properly because if I am bringing something new and worthwhile
to the table, it needs to be properly defined.

Speaker 4 (01:50:05):
And so this is Do you think that I was
kind of on point? Do you think that the way
I was describing your philosophy here, do you think that
was a reasonable explanation or do you think I was
missing the boat there?

Speaker 10 (01:50:17):
Well, I would say the only thing that I would
add to what you said is that when you're doing
compression logical, which is what i'm calling it for now,
I have to take your system and look at its
contradictions and remove them. Then you can behave morally.

Speaker 7 (01:50:31):
After that.

Speaker 10 (01:50:32):
It is a critical look at what you're doing, your systems,
your intentions, your beliefs, and then after that, after you
remove or restructure them, you can move forward and do
what you're supposed to fucking do.

Speaker 4 (01:50:42):
Yeah, if I understand the rest of it correctly, then
I think I agree with what you just said there, right.

Speaker 10 (01:50:48):
And what I'm what I'm proposing is a is a
way to do it without kind of just hemming in
high and just thinking about it. I'm thinking that there's
a way that you can objectively look at contradictions and
more really remove them so we're not committing genocide.

Speaker 1 (01:51:03):
Well again, Lord, I think this is a very great
path to be on. And I think, like I said
from the beginning, broadly speaking, I think I kind of get,
you know, the overall picture of what you're going for here,
and I gotta say I kind of like it, you know.
That being said, I definitely think looking into some constructivist

(01:51:24):
type of stuff with like John Rawls, you know, some
stuff from like Emmanuel Kant and the categorical imperative, and
then some newer stuff too, like Derek Parfitt, like he's
he's not terribly he's not terribly far back in the
in the philosophy you know timeline, which which is great
because he's talking about some things that are really really

(01:51:46):
tangible and prevalent today that you know, people like Descartes
or Rousseau never could have never could have come up
with But yeah, I think broadly speaking, Scott and I
are like, yeah, this sounds like a cool little venture
and we'd love to see how it evolves and continues
to get shored up. I do think already one of

(01:52:07):
the problems you you will find going forward is connecting
back to the reasoning behind why you have said suffering, mobility, recognition,
why those things are the important things and not the
infinite other options. I will go ahead and give you
a quick cheat on that, though. You could just take

(01:52:29):
the stance that it doesn't matter. You could just say, hey,
it could be anything else, but it is these, fuck
it and we move on. That actually is acceptable. So uh,
but I'm gonna drop you like a like a hot
rock here, Lord, because we are at the end of
the show. Thank you so fricking much for forgiving us
a call. And I hope we I hope we get
to call you talk to you in the future. So

(01:52:50):
thank you so much, Lord. And uh, that's it, man.
We got a we got an empty queue, and I've
got an empty belly, so I know we are going
to get out of here quick before too long. Hey,
you you go hang out on the Nonprofits, don't you?
Aren't you make an appearance?

Speaker 4 (01:53:08):
Yeah, I'll be on Uh, I'll be on this. The
episode's coming out this week is Oh my.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
Gosh, oh my gosh. Well that's great. That's that's that
is an easy place to remind people to go check out.
If you are not watching uh, the flagship show of
the ACA the Nonprofits, you should you should in fact
be doing that. But dude, Scott, thank you so much
man for for hanging out and you know, being there

(01:53:32):
ready when Jamike and I say dumb things and getting ready.

Speaker 4 (01:53:35):
To jump in, and I feel like I kind of
I'm a kid sitting in the backseat of the car
up in the middle. It is like looking up what
the grown ups are doing up in the front, and oh,
some day someday I want to sit there.

Speaker 1 (01:53:46):
Well, I'll tell you this, If Jamike and I are
the ones driving the car, we are all fucked uh.

Speaker 4 (01:53:52):
But that's what makes it interesting, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:53:55):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:53:55):
We don't know how we're gonna get there or when
we're going to get there, and we don't know where
we're going to get to, but we're gonna get fucking somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:54:02):
But seriously, I always love being here. It is such
a freaking great time. I am excited to get to
see you in person again, to get to hang out
in Austin, Texas, and lots of time from now. So guys,
remember go tiny dot cc slash back Cruise. You can
go get all the information there, get you tickets, or
just send in a couple of bucks to help some

(01:54:24):
people get out and have a good time. But other
than that, I am gonna go eat a very large
pot of very many beans and probably I don't know,
go to bed or something. I'm tired. But anyway, thanks,
so watch you guys. We will see you next week
Sunday at four thirty pm. Go out there and center something.

Speaker 3 (01:54:50):
Start.

Speaker 1 (01:54:54):
Not a joke, by the way, I have a very
large pot. It's like four pounds of beans in my kitchen.
Has just been a simmering this whole time.

Speaker 7 (01:55:03):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:55:04):
Like Kidney B. Watch Talk Ee Than Live Sundays at
one pm Central. Visit tiny dot c c slash y
t t H and call into the show at five
one two nine nine one nine two four two or
connect to the show online at tiny dot c c
slash call THH

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