Truth Wanted 08.17 with ObjectivelyDan and @Allegedly-Ian

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Objectively Dan here, and I want to know
if you've ever heard of this guy called John Brandenberg.
Has a PhD in theoretical plasma physics from Harvard University,
so you think you'd know what he's talking about. But
he actually believes that there is a nuclear war on
Mars because of some elements that we found here. Now,
you can't find any peer reviewed publications of him talking

(00:22):
about but he sure does have a book to sell
you on it. And man, I'm just so tired of
all these folks coming in with these credentials talking all
kinds of stuff. It really undermines people's arguments from authority
when you're trying to cite legitimate research when you got
guys like him saying all kinds of nonsense. So tell
me what you think. Maybe he does have a point,

(00:43):
or maybe he's just kind of wacko, like a lot
of people we talked about on here. Whatever you think.
The show is starting right now. Hello, everybody, welcome back
to another episode of Truth Wanted. I am your host,
Objectively Dan. This is the live calling show that happens

(01:04):
every single week Friday is at seven pm Central Time.
We talk to people about what they believe and why,
and if you'd like to call us, you can certainly
do that. Lines are open. It's at five P one
two nine nine four two, or you can call it
through your computer at tiny dot cc slash call tw
Truth Wanted is, of course a product of the Atheist
Community of Austin, a five to one C three nonprofit

(01:25):
organization dedicated the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism,
and the separation of religion and government. Never sing a week,
I always have a special guest. This week is no different.
It is allegedly Ian joining me today. Hello, allegedly Ian.
How are you doing.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm doing great?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
How about you?

Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm doing great? Folks. This is not a bit. We
just we're just two dudes that have an adverb that's
kind of related and then our names and we just
came across this separately. I don't know how or why,
but it's just the thing. It's just the thing, right,
And we have not talked to each other before today. Right,

(02:03):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, Yeah, there's only so many parts of speech, you know.
Inevidently you know it's just a dice troll.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
It's true. What what came? What was the inspiration for
your name because I got so Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
So there was one of my TikTok alternate accounts. My
like display name was like possibly Ian, and I like that.
I think it's like fun you know, maybe it is,
maybe it isn't. But then I put into my discord
server a question like last year about what I should
change it to, and it was like a bunch of

(02:36):
like adverbs with with like followed by Ian like allegedly Ian,
possibly Ian, necessarily Ian like identically Ian, things like that,
and allegedly Ian won the poll.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
That's pretty good mine. I've told the story before, but
it's been a while in case people are curious. I
just thought it's just really funny because I think I
was hung up on debates about objective morality at the time,
and uh, you know, I just thought people's use of
the word objective was just so silly, and so I
just wanted a really silly name for myself, which was

(03:08):
just objectively Dan, because how can you be objectively dan
about something It doesn't make any sense. I think I
think people misinterpret it and I kind of read it
a little bit because they think I'm saying like I'm objective,
and I think that that's not it because I'm using
it as an adverb in this sense, I'm describing the dan.
I'm not saying I'm an objective person. I don't know anyway.
I think I think it comes off as as something else,

(03:30):
but it is what it is anyway, allegedly enjoining me
today from the great great land of TikTok uh as
a TikTok person.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know you you're in that healthscape every day. I
always call it TikTok a hellscape. It's like my favorite
word to use for you. Agree.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
So, yeah, you're absolutely.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
You make content on it. But you're one of those types.
There's that, there's there's the grifters and the anti grifters.
I would describe you as an anti grifter in that
in that category. Yeah, what if you could describe your TikTok,
how would you describe it?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well? I do debate content every single day. I mainly
debate the existence of God, and then on occasion, once
in a blue moon, I wander into like a different
subject to debate that. Right now, I'm in my like
the philosophy minds, reading about all sorts of things related

(04:25):
to trans validity because I think I want to start
doing those lives as well, because I think that the
arguments are are underrepresented and there's like a huge literature base.
I think it's too bad that more people aren't super
into the literature base for all these topics.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, a lot of people think that like being trans
is such a new thing when it's not. It's written about,
It's been talked about for decades at this point, right,
and then like the arguments for the validity of trans
people really relates to arguments and feminism in general. Right,
there's a whole I mean, that's even a bigger pool

(05:03):
of stuff to talk about there. So I think that's
great that you're talking about that, and brave of you
to do that on TikTok of all places again, because
it's just it's just pretty wild. I don't have to
tell you. You probably get into some pretty wild conversations
on your lives.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, I don't know. I think like the
Trands stuff especially, there's like there's like an element of
it that makes me like really sad because there's been
multiple times where I've debated trans issues and I've just
been like, gosh, not to not to be like boastful
or whatever. But it's just like a one sided stomp, right,
Like the person's never thought about it before, and it

(05:37):
shows because they're like contradicting themselves all over the place.
And despite the fact that like the anti trans person
is doing so bad, people will still say that they're
that they're doing like a great job. Yeah, every time
they like restate the conclusion over and over again.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah. To be fair, that happens with like a million
tomics on the internet, right, Like creation is a I
don't know, like a bunch of stuff where one side
is like very clearly like making the better case, but
for some reason, there's always got fans. I don't know that.
That's the thing with debates. We talk about this all
the time on this show. It's like, to me, the
purpose of a good debate is for the person who's

(06:16):
really interested in learning the arguments for both sides, So
someone who's really going to be honest in that. It's
never for the people who are actually doing the debate.
It's always for yeah, for more information. Do you agree
with that?

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah. Well, so okay,
I think I think it's contextual, right, I would agree
with what you're saying in every like high profile instance, right,
Like if I were to go and debate like Cliff
and Stewart, for example, it wouldn't be because I think
that I'm going to like bring Cliff and Stewart towards
my position. It would be to like show all their

(06:49):
audience like how silly they are. It's you know, I
don't think like I think like the gosh. There's this
phenomena called cognitive inertia, and it operates that like a
lot of levels. Right, So at the baseline, like neuroscience level,
when our brain is like made up its mind about something,
it literally stops processing input data and like data that

(07:12):
goes to the contrary. But then there's like more levels
to this, right, Like at the level of identity. If
your identity depends on your beliefs in something, then you're
going to keep on believing in that thing. There's too
much motivation not to. And then when you get to
like the highest level, like when you're getting paid to
believe that thing, that's when the cognitive inertia is is

(07:32):
like very very harsh, and you're at the point in
time when you're literally getting paid to believe this thing.
There's no shot, you're going to stop believing this thing.
It takes a like a really like deeply honest person,
like a really really really reflective, really evaluative person to
come away from a belief when they're literally getting paid
to believe it.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, I'm one hundred percent on the same page for
you there. I think oftentimes we don't evaluate the psychological
barrier that are happening because you don't want to psychoanalyze
strangers on the internet, right, Yeah, because we don't have
a basis for it. But at the same time, we're
not necessarily truth seeking machines. That's how humans are. Humans
are are wanting to defend themselves out of an obligation

(08:17):
to the self right, in order to defend the structures
that you already have internally, because that's what makes it easier.
You're like, somebody tearing down your worldview is going to
make your life harder because you have to kind of
figure things out. So it's better for you to work
with the structures that are given to you than it
is for you to kind of rebuild and figure that

(08:39):
stuff out, because I mean, you know, even just one
little crack if you're talking about the trans debate, stuff. Right,
Like you figure out that trans people are valued, that's
going to change your view about a lot of stuff probably, right.
If you can be convinced of that, you're probably going
to be convinced of a lot of other kinds of
political opinions or views on women and things like that.
So I think that there is a lot of times

(08:59):
what we're up against is not a debate of what's
real versus what's not real in facts. It's purely just
people's emotions, people's psychology getting the way. I don't know,
that's my.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
I totally agree with that. Yeah, absolutely right, Like we have,
we're riddled with cognitive biases. Humans. We didn't evolve to
be perfect reasoners, especially like all the all the like
famous like Bayesian examples where when it comes to Bayesian reasoning,
like humans are just so bad at it, right right,
just terrible at it. Yeah, absolutely, like we we don't.

(09:32):
For an example, to the audience, say you had you
had two people or no, you have I'm sorry, gosh,
I always butchered the examples. But you have one person.
This person is like very into social justice. They studied
hard in all of their classes, and they have like
a great mind for numbers, what's more likely that this

(09:54):
person is an accountant or that this person is an
accountant and a feminist. Intuitively, a lot of people say, well,
it's more likely that this person's an accountants and a feminist. Yeah,
but that's the wrong conclusion. It's more likely that this
person is an accountant because the set of people who
are accountants and feminists are always going to be a

(10:14):
subset of the people who are accountants. It's just a
smaller set, like one automatically entails the other. I don't know.
I just think that like humans are riddled with cognitive biases,
we're riddled with flaws and a reasoning and our logic,
and if we don't take time to think slowly through things,
then we're going to end up with a lot of
bad conclusions.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Right right, that's a great idea. The example I always
heard for that was a librarian or a farmer, I
think is what it was. Right, if you take two people,
or you take you take a person and the personality
is they're they're really thoughtful, they like to read books
a lot, they like recommending books to other people, and
I don't know, they're really into like doing research, are

(10:58):
they more likely to be a librarian a farmer when
like statistically there's just more farmers in the world than librarians.
So it's just like you can't just you can't just
take vibes. I mean, maybe that'll update your beijiing priors
like a little bit. Yeah, I don't know, it's yeah,
it should.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Be like catastrophically low. Like like if it's just a person,
if all the information you have as a person, your
prior should be catastrophically low that this person is a librarian, right,
and then when you get the information you updated a
little bit. Right, it's a little bit higher, but not
enough to be more than a farmer.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Right, right, Yeah, for sure. Again, just taking and some
people say that examples problematic because like where you are
in the world matters, and like time and place like
obviously that that's in there too. But you know, the
point is, like people suck at reasoning in general. It's
just hard. It's a hard thing to do. So I
appreciate folks who are interested in, you know, going out

(11:52):
there and I think fighting for the right thing, and
also you know, teaching people about this kinds of stuff,
because TikTok is whether you like it or not a
form of learning where people go and get new information
about the world. There's a lot of people in all
of the US who look at places like TikTok and
just say, yeah, that's a waste of time, this is
just for kids whatever, or this is just for ingram

(12:14):
people whatever. It's like, yeah, but that's where you want
to go, though, because that's where people are at. I'm sorry,
but you know, most people aren't going to the public
library anymore for these kinds of things. They're going online.
So you got to go where the people are if
you want to make a difference or an impact.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
So yeah, no, absolutely, Yeah. Well I don't know. I
think that that does speak seeing of like no one
going to the public library. I think it's like a travesty.
But it feels like, I don't know, it feels like
not very many people read, like and I it's it's hard,
it's hard to find the time. I agree with that,
like wholeheartedly, but I don't know. It makes me sad
that there's like a lot of people who just decided

(12:52):
that they're done learning. You know, they graduated school, No
more learning for them. I don't know, right, I just
couldn't live that life. Maybe. I'm sure they're happy with it.
I'm sure they're content. It just could never be me.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, I feel that too. Another pet peeve. I mean,
obviously that what you've said has been said a lot too,
and I totally agree with that. One that gets me
is just all information exists on the internet apparently, right.
If it's not on the Internet, it doesn't exist. That
is a real perception some people have, which is really interesting,
especially if you're I mean, I don't do research myself,

(13:25):
but if you know anybody who is in a research program,
their whole deal is to come up with the new stuff,
you know, the stuff that doesn't exist yet you know, like, yeah,
there's going to be new things from people who are
actively looking into these kinds of subjects. There's another bias
at play where it's like, if it doesn't exist in
this body of research, it's not a real thing, and
it's like, well then nothing new ever happens at that point.

(13:49):
It goes the opposite way too, But anyway, yeah, exactly
on that note, let's talk about our segment. In every
single week, we are asking everybody a question or a prompt.
It is where we want the truth segment last week,
we asked our audience, uh, the Aliens that thought they sorry,

(14:09):
the Aliens thought they'd have an easy time on Earth,
but they didn't anticipate blank And Eli is going to
come up and share some of those comments. Eli, Welcome
to the broadcast.

Speaker 5 (14:20):
Hey to you both. This is a bit everybody. I
want to point that out. I felt, yes, left out
on the.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Adverbs for the audio listeners. We have changed Eli's user
to be supposedly Eli to match the sort of adverb name.
Oh and three letter name too. That's another thing. Oh yeah, wow,
that's weird.

Speaker 5 (14:41):
Yeah, so it is a bit. It's not you know,
you pointed it out earlier that it wasn't and so
I felt like it was fair.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Anyway, you couldn't use it as your handle. You just
go by Eli slack. So I don't know what you know,
if you need a bit for it.

Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yeah, I mean I could, Yeah, I could go for it.
But the Aliens didn't anticipate the following things. Here's our
top three answers. Number three from Zach Reid's The Aliens
that they didn't have a good time on Earth, but
they didn't anticipate the long lines outside the growing stations

(15:16):
and just how creative we can get in bed. That
one is my favorite. I was thinking that would have
been number one.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's it. Like, so the ultimate sci fi story for me,
if I was able to write, would just be like
aliens coming to Earth and realizing how fucked up humans
are and that's how we win the resistance, where it's like,
oh man, they don't know how horny people can be
for these aliens, like you realize as soon as we
contact extdress in your life, there's gonna be some rule

(15:44):
thirty four like same day, like I don't know.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, you fi that would get pumped out, yes, yeah, immediately.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
Oh we had that like AI video now yeah, absolutely, yeah,
that would go south real fast. The number two answer
was from Anstesia. I think Anastasia aliens having a hard
time the crop circles didn't quite line up with their
landing gear.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
We didn't we didn't plan it rightcount for that. Yeah,
that sucks, that's not good.

Speaker 5 (16:14):
Right, And their alternative landing sites is actually part of
the number one from Doc Bauk Doc Bach probably, uh,
the Aliens thought they'd have an easy time on Earth
until they found out we wanted more pyramids and they're like,
you guys got like over five hundred of them.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Didn't you do we not give you guys to fear bits.
I don't know. That's really funny. Oh man, that's pretty good.
Thank you, Eli, Thank you for reading the answers and
what is our prompt this week?

Speaker 5 (16:47):
So for this week put your answers in the comments,
not in the chat. The question is going to be
what conspiracy theories do you think could arise in the future.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
In the future like the future. Yeah, I don't know.
Everything's gonna be AI deep fake, right, that's gonna be
the accusation. I think, you know, yeah.

Speaker 5 (17:06):
I think it'll be that like all of the historical
records from twenty twenty five was all just deep fake AI, yes, like,
and they're gonna be like none of that could have
possibly really happened.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Oh my god. It's gonna be like, oh man, how
could uh I don't know, it's like some TV show, like,
how could this show actually exist in this time? Well,
the truth is it didn't exist. This is a deep fake,
you know, like that that'll be something. It's like that
one guy, oh what's his name? The guy that's like
that believes that like the period between was it like
three hundred to eight hundred BC, Like, ye, happen the

(17:38):
O there's like.

Speaker 5 (17:39):
Three hundred years that we added to the calendar. I
don't know the names, like a Russian guy, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
That's the whole thing anyway, So leave you never heard
that before?

Speaker 2 (17:48):
No, no, I have heard of that before. Okay, I've
only heard that for like like one set of like
one hundred years. There's like, well that didn't happen. It's like, well,
that just doesn't seem very plausible, right, Like who are
all the people getting born here? We have lots of
We certainly have like lots of historical figures from this time.
What do you what do you say when the carbon
dating of these things comes back and says, yeah, it's

(18:09):
it's from it's from here.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what
these people think. But anyway, that's the prop what conspiracy
theories could arise in the future. Leave your comment below
and we will get to them next week. Thank you, Eli,
no problem. Have a fun show, guys, all right, and
getting back to it. Yeah, talking to allegedly Ian here
and folks, we are a Collin Show. We will get

(18:32):
into calls intersect, but we have a lot of open
lines right now, So come on in and ask Ian
a question. So you like to talk about debates on
trans validity. Is that your favorite topic that you talk about?

Speaker 2 (18:44):
You know? The topic I talk about more than anything
is the God debate. Yeah, although I will say, like,
after you like do really well in a trans debater,
especially after you change someone's mind in a trans debate,
it feels like really good. It feels like like way
better than any God debate I've ever won. Like when
someone says, you know what, that makes sense, I will
start using someone's pronouns.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
I guess, like, you know, religion is certainly important, but
like the magnitude of that makes me smile.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
I yeah, I know what you mean. I've thought about
this where it's like there's been you know this. They
talk about bread tube right on YouTube. They talk about
these sort of progressive movements that happen online, and like
atheist spy and large have also adopted this, but they're
still kind of like they're not fully integrated in a

(19:34):
lot of these spaces, you know what I mean? Like
the God debate is just kind of an optional It's
a side quest, and I understand why, right, it's not
actually related on its own to a lot of these issues.
I mean they kind of is, but it kind of isn't.
But also like it, it doesn't necessarily have anything to
do with people's actions, like like making sure a person

(19:57):
is treated respectfully and can in a great well into
society as like a transperson. That that's like I want
that to happen more than you know, convincing somebody that
God is in real right, Like if I could choose
to to change someone's mind on I would change the
first one every time, right, because that's like, yeah, that's
just a larger social like not that the other one
wouldn't have an impact of course in a social world,

(20:20):
you know what I mean? Like that, I feel like
that's going to be more impactful in a way.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, Like in Deer, like we've all met like religious
people whose religion is like the basis of them being
like a genuinely like great person, right, but you know,
every now and then, like or it's not every now
and it's actually quite frequently where people will cite their
religion is like the reason why they're a Bigod And
I don't know, I think that there's a lot of
virtue to be able to like immediately bust out like

(20:46):
some sick problem of evil on these people and then
just like collapse their entire world view in front of them,
right Like. I just think there's a lot of value
to that.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
It cuts both ways. If if we're going to be
able to say, hey, you know, atheists can live their
life and be good people and you don't need God
for it, Yeah, the same should be true. Like it
almost means that you don't have to talk about the
God thing in order to change people's minds about how
to be a good person, right Like. It kind of
works in that way, but not to say again and
incredibly important for my life and my journey for someone

(21:15):
who was Christian and was definitely like having a career
path towards Christianity, didn't want to keep doing that if
I was going to lose that. But at the same time,
I don't know, it's it's it's it's a hard thing
to talk about in regards to other issues, you know
what I mean? Like absolutely, yeah, yeah, but you enjoy
talking about it for I do.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, I talk about the God topic it's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
It's like a puzzle. You know, God has all these
properties and then you get to derive contradictions from them.
I think it's so much fun.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
So that's your method. You kind of ask folks, okay,
what kind of God you believe in, and then you
kind of break it down from there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, I think that there's so there's like the minimal
conception of God, which is just like a mind that
created the universe, and I think that there are problems
with that even like I think there are contradictions that
you can drive just from that. But the contradictions get
like more persuasive, like the more properties you add. You know,
I'm I'm a problem of evil enthusiast.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
You know, when when.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
I hear that someone believes in a God who's all good,
all powerful, and all knowing, I'm I jump on that.
But yeah, I'm I think it's a I think the
argument is fascinating.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
I think that about that because I used to think
that the problem of evil was it that great of
an argument, But I've actually been more convinced in the
last couple of years that it actually is a better argument.
And you and you find it to be a pretty
compelling one.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
I think it's like, so there's like some niche arguments
that I think are like pretty air tight, but they're
just like very technical and very like they're they're almost
like gotcha esque. But in terms of like actually changing
people's minds, I think problem of evil it's like a
pretty air tight argument if you're running it correctly, and

(23:01):
it does. It has a lot of force to it
because your options are either God doesn't exist or like
somehow these like horrible atrocities are good, and you don't
want to say that. You don't want to think that
the horrible atrocities are good. So it forces you cognitively
to settle on I guess God isn't real, especially so
when the problem, the example of the problem of evil

(23:22):
comes directly from Scripture itself. You know, the genocides that
God himself commands. These are like irreconcilable, right, there's just
no way to make sense of this. You know, he's
just obviously doing something profoundly.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Evil, yeah, or it's you know, it comes from a
group of people that are justifying their own eccentricities, just
like every culture on earth does, right, exactly, National identity
and story, right yeah. I like, to me, it was
anthropology that kind of got me through that understanding. Okay,
well this exists in the Bible. I was taught as
a Christian. It's because you know, God has a plan

(24:01):
for everyone. But actually this is like a narrative that
the Jewish people told themselves to differentiate themselves from other
people groups at the time, right, Like I I don't know.
To me, I just find more explanation in that, and
I agree with you. It's like if I was a
Christian again, or let's say for some reason I was
convinced that a God was real, I had I'd had
to really have a hard time. I had to have

(24:22):
a sit down and figure out, okay, what about what
about Like like every other page in some of the
Old Testament is just like killing and then they killed these,
they kill these. It's like okay, well what are we
doing with that?

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Right?

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah? That's that was like what was so striking to
me when I first read through the Bible. I was like, wow,
this is like really hard to believe. You know, we
have we have like Genesis sixteen, I think where God
is like you know, God is coming down to like
like a runaway slave and telling her, Hey, you should
go back to being a slave for your slave master.

(24:58):
And it's like wow, like dahn and why would you?
Why would you even do that?

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, he's never been an abolitionist that God. Yeah, never
been or pro democracy. I always talk about that too,
Never been into that. But were you ever a Christian? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:15):
I was born and raised Christian. Uh you know, logical
argumentation brought me away from it. It was I think
I was like thirteen or fourteen. My friend ran the
rock on me. He asked me if God can make
a rock that's so happy you can't lift it? And
then I was like, oh, I guess God doesn't exist?

Speaker 4 (25:31):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Really so that was it for you?

Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Okay, Wow, I.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Think I don't think the argument goes through like against
like like high level like Christians who have thought about it.
I don't think the argument goes through. But for me
at that moment, it did. And now I have like
much better reasons to not believe. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Actually, wait, tell me about why that doesn't go through
for you? What what made you realize it's not as good?

Speaker 2 (25:53):
I think that there's perfectly valid moves that the Christian
is capable of making I think that they can say
when we say God's all powerful, what we mean by
that is that he can do everything that's logically possible. God,
by his very nature can't contradict himself. He's not going
to There's no possible world where God contradicts himself. That's
what being all powerful means to us. So then you

(26:14):
can just reject the rock question on those grounds. But
I find a lot of you till I still run
the rock on people from time to time when they
say God exists outside of logic, because when you take
if you put God in logic and allow him to
be logically scrutinized, then yeah, you can say, well, the
rock question just doesn't apply to God. But when you
take him out of logic, when you say, oh, you
know that contradiction, it's nothing. You know, God doesn't need

(26:37):
to be logical, He has his own logic. That's when
the rock comes back. You know, if God's outside of logic,
if a contradiction isn't a problem for God, then God
needs to be able to make a rock that's so
heavy he can't lift it, and then he needs to
be able to lift that rock. God can lift the
rock that he can't lift if he's outside of logic.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, the whole And I've heard this before too, right,
so you know I can't do things outside of logic,
which to me, that's really sketchy in itself in a way,
because it's like, Okay, we're talking about an invisible, all
powerful deed. Like where where was the logic to begin with? True?

Speaker 5 (27:13):
Right?

Speaker 1 (27:13):
How did we logically get there in the first place?
I don't know, but for some reason, yeah, now he
has to be in the realm of logic, even though
his very existence makes me question logic itself. I don't know. Yeah, yeah,
neither here nor there. It's interesting how different arguments work
differently for different people. I the one that again hung
up I got hung up on was the morality thing,

(27:36):
not that I think was uh, was the first thing
that convinced me that God wasn't real, But it was
the one that gave me the most pause. It was like,
I don't understand how to be a good person. How
can everybody in the world talk about being good or
not if they don't have any reasons to think? Because like,
you know, as a Christian, you're told you have like
objective right and wrong. Let's talk about this, because that's
how my name objectively dan. Like I think it's the

(27:58):
same thing with when Christians say objectively good, What does
that actually mean? It seems to be whatever God wants,
and God seems to be especially capricious. I don't know.
It doesn't seem like it's very consistent. And I realize,
even if there is an objective morality, I'm not even
sure that God or Christians fit that criteria because they
seem to be doing some bad stuff right. I asked

(28:21):
this with Frank Turk one time because there's a verse
in the Bible where they stoone a guy for picking
up sticks on a Sunday, And I asked him was
this an example of objective morality them punishing this guy?
And he went on this explanation about, well, for the time,
this was them the punishment for breaking the law. I
was yeah, but was that objectively the right thing to
punish him for that? To kill a guy for picking

(28:44):
up sticks on a Sunday? And I couldn't get a
straight answer because it's like, Okay, if it's objective, then
that means that was wrong and they did it wrong,
like you know it never made sense.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
But yeah, yeah, right, Like you know, there's there's so
much to say about Christians and their claim that they
have objective morality to abjective morality comes from, you know,
notably a mind God. You know, that's that's a subject.
Like I don't know how to explain to you, that's
a subject.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
If God is not an object, he's a subject. So
the morality is going to be equally subjective. If it's
literally just what God wants, and if it's just like
whatever is in his nature, then that's arbitrary. If God
happened to be like a lying, cheating scoundrel, then that
would make being a lying, cheating scoundrel good. It's arbitrary.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, yeah, definitely arbitrary. And to me, and this isn't
necessary for somebody to be objective, but it seems like
it would be in God's best interest for morality to
be somewhat clear. Right. When I think of objectivity, I
certainly think of clearness, right, something that people can get
to independently. Right, That's kind of the whole point. So like, yeah,

(29:49):
it doesn't seem like that's really working out. It doesn't
seem like we got there. It was still struggling with that.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
But what if God put into our biology like some
like flashing like yellow lights every time you were about
to do something immoral and then and then you know
there's you know, I feel like the claim that morality
is objective is like way clearer, right. You know, every
time you're gonna do something wrong, you know it, you
know it, you know exactly when it's gonna be wrong.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Not invented engineering. He should know that this is something
you could have figured out the design process. I don't know,
there's there's ways to do that because people do struggle.
People struggle with their inhibitions, Like biologically there are some
people who have stronger inhibitions than others. And it's like,
well that should give you pause. How does that work anyway?

Speaker 2 (30:34):
We're well, yeah, exactly right, Like there are there are
some crimes that I can't do right no matter how
hard I will, I wouldn't be able to do like
some some like grizzly string of murders. I don't have
the heart for it, Like I can't I couldn't do it.
I couldn't, I couldn't possibly do it, Like I can't
will myself to do an action like that, Yeah, but

(30:54):
you know, some people obviously can, right, So it seems
like there's just like this unequal distribution of like knowing.
It seems like there's some evils that I can't will
myself to do. Likewise, like if you were born like
severely disabled, you can't do like a crime that's going
to require you to do one of the things that
that you don't have the ability to do, Like you

(31:14):
just you don't have that ability, right.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
I don't know if I ever talked about this on air.
The one of the last conversation when I was leaving
my Christian church community, I was talking to a guy
and I can't remember how we got to this subject,
but it was I think we were talking about dright
and wrong, and he brought up this argument. It's like, well,
we all have to have personal responsibility for our own things.
And he's like, I'm a kleptomaniac. I steal stuff just

(31:39):
like unconsciously, but like, you know, that's my personal responsibility, right,
I have to deal with that. And I'm like, actually,
I think you bring that up is an interesting thing
because it's like I don't struggle with that. So it's like,
why is that fair for you. Why do you have
to have a higher like why do you have to
be accountable to the same level that I'm accountable for that? Like,
obviously you gotta do what you gotta do at the
end of the day, right, But like, at the same time,

(32:01):
I don't think it's fair to judge you the same
way it would be to judge me for taking of course, yeah, absolutely,
Like that's that's the humanist kind of response, right, But
like from a Christian perspective, it's like, no, every sin
is the same in God's eyes in some way.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
So I don't know, that's my favorite line. Yeah, that's
that's that's like the least defensible thing I think I've
ever heard in my entire life. I don't even know
how how you begin to defend that, right, Like you're
really telling me, you're really telling me that saying a
single lie is as bad as the Holocaust. I just
don't think so, right, Like that just doesn't seem plausible.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Right, right. Yeah, That's something that I don't know how
I like internalized as a Christian. When I look back,
it's like, yeah, of course these aren't the same. I
wouldn't want them to be viewed the same, like that
would be a way worse world to live in if
they were the same. But on that note, we do
have folks that want to talk to the scene, and
this is a call and show. You want to talk
to some people, Yeah, of course, okay, great, let's do that.

(33:00):
Before we do, I have to give a shout out
to the folks who donate on the Patreon. Every single week,
I'm always given a shout out to the patron of
the week. If you'd like to donate and become a
Patriot of the Week, you can do that at tiny
dot cc slash, Patreon GW. I of course want to
thank everybody that donates, but this week's Patron of the
Week is going to be the way for Scott Page.

(33:21):
Thank you so much, Scott Page, and thank you to
everybody that donates on the Patreon. You guys rock. And
of course, as always we have super chats on if
you'd like to donate and do that and as long
as it's YouTube appropriate, we will read them live on
the air. That being said, let's jump into our first call.
We have John from California who wants to talk to us. John,

(33:44):
you are live on Truth Wanted. What's going on, Hey,
how's it going, good, good John, how can we help you?

Speaker 4 (33:50):
So I consider myself a biblical literalist in order to
do that, though you know, before I even went into that,
you know, what they should the thing that for my
belief that I had seen a lot of people talk
about the tide the Bible. I'd always you know, heard
people talk about the Bible, but without having read it myself,
without actually knowing what it was about, I really didn't
really feel that qualified to talk about. So the first

(34:12):
thing I went through, the first thing I wanted to do,
is go through try to figure out what it meant,
and then because it's not in English obviously, also I'm
not literally Greek obviously, but you know, I'm living it
a little bit, but try to find enough about the
source language to just be able to see, you know,
some people do like to play word games in translation.
It took me all of about ten minutes to figure

(34:34):
out that nobody knows what the Lord's Prayer means, which
to me is actually just kind of been one of
the most significant things, you know, as somebody who goes
to church, as somebody who takes religion seriously, how can
we do that? Though if we don't know what the
Lord's prayer mean like that, well, tell me.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
About what's your specific criticism with the common interpretation of
the Lord's prayer.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
The phrase that gets translated as daily bread is actually
a Greek word that nobody has ever used in any
other context that we don't have an actual hard we
can't translate directly. It was a compound created by Jesus
that we've mistranslated in English.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
You might think, yeah, that's interesting because I think that
kind of almost bolsters what Ian and I were just
talking about before, which is kind of the lack of
clarity that comes with Christianity. Sometimes. It's interesting because you
start off being very critical of other people's interpretation to Christianity,
which I'm probably in agreeance with you on, but like

(35:33):
you still call yourself a biblical literalist, So tell me
about that.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
This is the part that, like, the reason I'm calling
this show is specifically too. And I've called the atheist
experience a couple of times, and I don't think they've
taken it seriously. But this is the part that I
think sent me apart from other colors. You talked about
a lack of clarity and like, what does God even mean?
In the beginning, this was silly, but now like years later,
I have full on converted to this is my religion.

(35:56):
You guys, you remember the flying spaghetti monster, Joe.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, of course, of course you know.

Speaker 4 (36:02):
That was That's a pretty classic experience thing. You know,
when people come on a god talk about God, you
might bring up like a flying spaghetti monster.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, yeah, of course yeah. And not just atheists experience,
but atheist culture in general talks about it. Go ahead, John,
all right.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
I cut you off, But this is not based on
this one thing we were talking about getting clarity, and
this is what I'm talking about. I consider myself a
biblical literalist. I went through and just as a joke,
just picture like, hey, what would happen if I take
every reference to Jesus Christ in or replace it with
the flying spaghetti monster. Not only was it a like
I I genuinely have converted to this faith. I believe

(36:40):
that this is the literal interpretation of the Bible. This
is the one true religion. And once I did this,
literally everything makes sense. Now you don't even understand, you
don't like, change my entire life.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
What didn't make sense before? That makes sense. Now, I'm sorry,
but I hate to interrupt you, but what makes sense?
What would you say mix sense now that didn't make
sense before? Like what sort of like phenomena is explained
under your new world too changuinely?

Speaker 4 (37:08):
Everything? And like and how I thought once I interpreted
the Bible this way, I found out, you know, it
lines up pretty much exactly or what they taught me
about evolutionary history in school. And it explains science. It
explained everything that I feel like I know in my
heart about religion. It really just explains everything.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Okay, Well that's okay. So there's a lot of stuff
happening here. This is very interesting. There's a lot to unpack.
I'm just going to pick from the hat here. Because
you mentioned evolutionary history. That's very interesting that you say
you're a biblical literalist, but you say that the Bible
lines up with what evolution was taught to you in school.
Explained to me that one, because that's pretty novel to me.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
I mean even just the you know, even beyond evolution itself,
all of the geologic history that's been taught to me,
and you assume that God when it's so God, it's
talking about I'm talking it's crazy, but it lines up
with a lot of stuff, and I don't know, we
learned enough, we learned enough about like geology in school

(38:08):
to like, maybe I'm stretching it, but there's a lot
of stuff that does kind of line up with the
flood narrative. There's some stuff that does. Genesis does kind
of have to take a step back and look at it.
You also stay literal about it. It does line up
pretty pretty amazingly with a lot of the stuff that
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
I think folks like ken Ham have made an entire
career out of saying it doesn't. Though, Like that's really
weird to me that you say that it does, because like,
help me, help me figure that out, like I really am.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
I'm so curious as an authority about it.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
No, I don't trust jan Hamma's But my point is, John, listen, listen.
My point is a lot of Christians. I believe there's
a reason why.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
And I think genuinely, I'm outright.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
For me, we're talking over each other real quick. Banana,
I know, I know he's bananas. I know we're on
the same page there, But this is what this is
my point there are millions of Christians that agree with
ken Ham, right, because if they look at the Bible
and they say, yeah, Earth six days, okay, makes sense?
Or the universe six days whatever, right, and then seven days,
I guess there's a rest day whatever it was six

(39:10):
And then you know, they say, okay, there's about six
thousand years or so between then and now, and like
that's that's the traditional literalist interpretation. But you're saying everything
that's been taught in school, which is not six thousand years.
We're talking millions of years in geological events and evolutionary events,
right are happening? Like, I'm very confused how you reconcile that?

(39:31):
And I want to I want to narrow in. Can
you give me a specific example here, because if I
was to read the Bible right now, I would not
get evolution from it.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, that seems like to be the exact opposite of
what it's saying.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
Right.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
It seems like God says like abracadabra, and then the
world appears, and then he says Alekazam and then all
the different species appear. Not evolutionarily, right, just feel like
an active magic, right.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
It takes it understanding my faith a little bit more
to see, got to see the premise that this follows from.
So I feel like I might be jumping in a
little too soon here, But going back to the very
first form of life, which was clearly blue green algae,
basically my definition of Christ is photosynthesis. I'm gonna I'm
gonna lost myself here. I'm going back to the very

(40:18):
beginning of time, believing that Jesus that you know, the
same one that came to us as Jesus as a man.
It's basically the same cell, the same photosynthetic stem cell.
This is been like bouncing around, you know, forever that
explained Jesus miracles. By the way, too, that it's a
photosynthetic stem cell.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
That's how I don't think. I don't think John I'm
I'm again, don't mean interrupt, but I don't think the
consensus is in the scientific community that the first life
was photosynthetic stem cells, yeah, or algae.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
It was a stem cells. It was green algae, fair enough,
But I.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Don't even think it's algae. It's it's it's we're talking
about like tiny, tiny, tiny protein, you know, molecules basedasically.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
In the beginning was God and the photosynthetic cell was
with God, and the photo synthetic cell was God.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, go ahead, John, I don't know, we're getting a
little sidetracked here.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
I think that I don't want this to turn into
a weird calm.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
But I agree, I think we are getting a little sidetracked.
But you're you're coming to me with a pretty novel
claim here, John, I'm gonna be honest, it's not every
week that I hear somebody say I'm a biblical literalist
and also evolution is real and a whole bunch of
other stuff. I mean, like this is this is pretty
novel to me. I'm trying to understand your worldview, but
I am having a little bit of a hard time.

(41:33):
So maybe maybe we take a step back. Let's take
a step back. You were convinced you were you weren't
a Christian, and now you are a Christian. To walk
me through that process? What what premises were you convinced
stuff that changed your mind on that me?

Speaker 4 (41:45):
Entirely honest, walking you through my entire journey of faith
would probably take too much time.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
And I don't need your whole life story. I don't
need your whole life story all I want is just
yet a few basic things that you learned, and we
can go from there.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
I was gonna before you would ask for us to
sit example, and I kind of copped out of that.
I was going to give you one of those, or
do you want me to answer this question too. We're
kind of you've asked me.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Let's go with this one, because because like the evolution thing,
that's that's part of a greater whole right, which is
your belief in Christianity. And I'm very curious about how
you arrived to that, you know what started to change
your mind? Again, I don't need your life story, you know,
you don't have to tell me every part of that,
but you obviously learn some new information, and I want
to know what that information is, bascudy.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
This is why I brought up the Lord's Prayer. At first,
my interpretation of Christianity hinges upon the idea that instead
of bringing up daily bread, he was like out of
no like for no reason, reminding us that we need
to eat, as if we needed to do that. Jesus
was actually trying to say something way more profound, and
it was the early Christians, and it's the Christians now

(42:49):
there was the church the entire time that's been screwing
it up. My version of the Lord's Prayer includes the
phrase free bread like given by the churches, not by
the government, not by that is, by churches, and by good,
honorable Christian people who give out free bread because they
know it comes from photosynthesis our Savior.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
All right, jo, I don't know, we are bemitting.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
The point entirely by thinking that Jesus is anything other
than what gives us sustenance every day, which is PHOTOSYMP.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
So you became a Christian because you reinterpreted this one
Bible verse as meaning something different from what other Christians.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Okay, okay, wait, why do you go ahead?

Speaker 4 (43:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Wait, why where are we Why are we driving the
line there? Why not go back one step further and
say that the sun is Jesus Like you're saying, like
like the sun transmits, the sun transmits its beams into
the photosynthetic cell, and the photosynthetic cell is Jesus. Why not?
Like what why'd youraw the line there? When I go
back the step further and say that the sun is Jesus, you.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Kind of can't. And that's what it said in the Bible.
John one one is the word embodies the word logos,
the laws of phygets. That's my entire understanding, that the
laws of physics are our savior. Really is what turned
my turned my beliefs through you talked about you know,
you said, bring up another Bible verse, and this is
the one that I think really distinguishes me. This is
what sets me apart. When I say literalist, I mean literalist.

(44:12):
The Last Supper, Jesus said to the disciples, right, is
my body line? Is my blood? I said, literal not
don't hear what you want to hear? Hear what Jesus said.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah, I don't know, John, I'm not sure where to
take this conversation because I'm kind of I'm very interested
in knowing this is like how you came to this,
and I'm getting reinterpretations of the Bible, right, And that's.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
Was working in a movie, tod.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Okay, good question that I can ask. You said, you
believe in the flood. If the flood happened, how did
the kangaroos get to Australia.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, let's go with that.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
That was the example I was going to bring up too,
And can I go with a with a more specific
example myself, we get to the kangaroos, but.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Sure, as long as it's like in the same vein
as like something that shouldn't be there and is now
there if a global flood happened.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
I believe that the story of the Native Americans and
the Native American genocide, it really does line up a
lot with Genesis and the idea of Exodus, and then
going through the whole Bible where we just kind of
accept that Chrits for Columbus and the Catholic Church are
literally the anti place, Like it kind of makes a
lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
I don't know, I feel like, are you I feel
like there's a troll call at this point. I don't
even think you're re in serious with me?

Speaker 4 (45:22):
Wow, No, Like that's actually my beliefs is like you
go back to the whole, you know, the very sea
receding coming across the thing, getting cut off, the sea
comes back up, and that's why gengis Kan didn't come
over here. Columbus showed out.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Maybe maybe kangaroos. How did the kangaroos get to Australia.

Speaker 4 (45:37):
Yeah, let's go to that. I, off the top of
my head don't know much about the evolution of kangaroos.
Did they evolve there? Did they involved in Australia? Did
they come?

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Wouldn't they have all died in the flood. Wouldn't they
have all gotten like obliterated by the flood and then
the the arc lens where like Mount Ararat actually in
the Middle East. How did the kangaroos get from the
Middle East to Australia.

Speaker 4 (45:58):
The Bible did not lane there was an extinction during
the flood.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, it absolutely does. It says like super explicitly, like
like every single thing that lives and breathes on the
on the that the water is like fifteen cubits above
the tallest mountain. Yeah, it says that it like quashed
like everything that breathes.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
That was kind of that's why they brought the animals
because there was gonna be any left with.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
Stay didn't cause any species to go extinct. That's actually
that's fun the Bible.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
But how did the kangaroos get from the Middle East
to Australia?

Speaker 4 (46:31):
It is what it said.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
How did the kangaroos get from the Middle East to Australia.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Wouldn't Yeah, wouldn't the kangaroos be killed in the flood.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
Evidence of like proto kangaroos in the Middle East, I'm
not familiar with.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Oh, I'll tell you that as far as I'm aware.

Speaker 4 (46:45):
No, no, I don't make that. I assume they evolved
in Australia. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah, so they all would have been chilled.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
I get off the top, you know, I could google it.
I know little research.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
First.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
I assume they probably evolved there. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Yeah, if a flood happened like six thousand years ago,
they would all be super dead. But like we would
see the kangaroos, we'd see kangaroos like in the least,
maybe we wouldn't see kangaroos in Australia.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
I don't think those are people who claim to be
Christian Literalists claim to be Christians, claim to be followers
of Christ, and I just, I just I don't necessarily
agree with their interpretation.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
But you just said there was a global flood event,
right like you do agree with that. There have been.

Speaker 4 (47:25):
Several There have been several things that I could point to,
and it's almost like a cyclical thing. You look at Genesis,
not only has it happened, but a few times you
kind of understand the patterns.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Okay, so there's been multiple global flood events, yes, right,
But do you but you don't believe that all white
You believe that somehow life survived in the global flood.
You don't believe they all were extinct? Yes, how does
that work? Exactly?

Speaker 4 (47:50):
In the Bible it said something about Noah building and
art getting everybody out of there. I believe that that's
a one It may have happened literally, and I kind
of do believe that. But it's also an allega to
a lot of natural phenomenon that'st yeah, many many many
evolutionary bottom I actually been through. It has one family
of life.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Put it that way, it's John. I'll be really with
you that you're that doesn't sound like you're a literalist.
If you're saying this might be an allegory, that is
that is literally the exact opposite of what a literalist believes,
like traditionally. Do you do you know that?

Speaker 5 (48:26):
Do you?

Speaker 4 (48:26):
I got to put a disclaimer here. I believe that
the Koran is the only authentic, genuine word of God.
I do believe there are problems with the other scriptures,
but it comes down to how the human authors of those.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
There's no way this is that this has to be
There's no way.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
This is very very weird. John, I gotta say, I
don't know that you're being serious with me. If you are,
you know, maybe we can have a conversation at different time.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
But I believe that's going on.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
I don't know about that, John, I don't know. I'm
gonna go ahead and let you go for now, though,
because we do have to get to some other callers. Listen,
I really want to challenge you to, like, look up
what in case you are serious, because I don't know,
but really look up what biblical literalists mean when they
say that they're biblical literalists and see if that word
still applies to you, because I have a feeling when

(49:15):
you really look at what it is or what other
people use it, you wouldn't use that word for yourself.
If you have a different word for yourself, that's fine.
But you are not a literalist, my friend, at least
not in the traditional sense. I will say that much,
you know, but we'll try to, you know, have a
conversation later. Maybe I'm not that was if I will say,
if that's a troll, that is a very good troll.

(49:38):
Usually you can tell the trolls pretty fast. There was
so many weird oddities there that made it hard to tell.
I was entertained either way. But I don't know, what
do you think?

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, okay, I've talked to
a lot of people who hold not similar beliefs, right,
but like similar like kinds of belief where it's like
a bit scattered. Yeah, but I didn't start thinking it
was a troll until he I don't know. It's like
the it's like going from like being a biblical literalist

(50:10):
to being like an allegorical biblical literalist to being like
an allegorical biblical literalist who thinks that the Quran is true.
That's I think that. That's when I that's when I
pull the ripcord. Personally, I'm thinking, yeah, that it's like,
what was weird?

Speaker 4 (50:24):
Is you know?

Speaker 1 (50:25):
I made a joke about ken Ham and he had
no problem immediately saying, oh, yeah, ken Ham's crazy, right,
you know what, there's some like he has. He's okay
to be critical about his thoughts about the Bible a
little bit. And so I don't know, here's the great
thing about America is that you can believe whatever the
goddamn hell you want. And like there's probably at least

(50:48):
twelve of the people that think the same way you do,
or at least on the same lines.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
Like it is.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
It is awesome and and terrifying at the same time.
It's one of the things that I both admire and
fear about this country is that anybody is capable of
believing anything, for better or worse. So it's for some
great entertainment. Again, I don't know it's real though, that
I got to say. In the years I've been doing this,

(51:13):
I've never heard somebody saying they're a biblical literalist. But
also at that part's ay, and this is I don't know, man, that's.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
That's actually it's all fake, right. The real book is
the Koran.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
The real book is the Koran. Also, Christopher Club is
is somehow involved. I always want to ask about that anyway.
That was pretty bizarre. Well, the truth wanted and this
is this is what we do apparently. But hey, before
we move on to our next caller, real quick announcements,
I need to make first of all, we if you're

(51:48):
in the Austin area, you should check us out on meetup.
It's a tiny dot c slash ACA meet up. If
you want to see all of our events that are
happening with the Atheist Q of Austin. We've got Philosophy
under the Stars and game Nights and a whole lot more,
so check that out. And also we have weekly watch
parties at the Free Thought Library. It is a real library.
It is building in Austin that you can go to

(52:10):
every Sunday. We have a live viewings of Talkie Than
and the Atheist Experience. Doors open at eleven and it
is free to attend, so come on in if you
want to meet other folks in the area who also
enjoy watching those shows. And again just pointing out there,
we do have super Chance available as well if folks
want to donate that. And that's been not least I

(52:31):
have to thank the amazing, awesome, stupendous, wonderful crew that
helped put together the show. Every single week. There's our
crew Cam Rocket The Truth Wanted Merch Today, I love it.
You can get that in a link description as well
if you want to get frunt with want to merch.
So anyway, thanks crew, and thanks to everybody watching the show.

(52:51):
I hope you're enjoying it so far. It's been weird
so far. But you know what, that's nothing new around here.
I'd say, we got a couple of other folks. You
want to talk to us? This is interesting. We've got
tweet following us from Canada wants to know does objectively
good slash bad mean one hundred percent good slash bad?

(53:12):
Tweetp you are live on truth wanted? What's going on?

Speaker 5 (53:14):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (53:15):
How's it going going good?

Speaker 5 (53:17):
So?

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Is that a fair assessment of your take here? You
want to know what objectively means? We're where we're using
that word.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Yeah, pretty much like it biously is if you say
like objectively good, or if somebody says objectively good, does
that mean like one good there's absolutely no downside whatsoever
about it?

Speaker 6 (53:35):
That kind of thing?

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Or is there something else that I'm probably missing?

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Probably not. Typically the way the word objectively is used
in reference to good is just like there's like some
fact of the matter that isn't like contextualized to your
mind right, Like it's true even if no mind in
the universe thought that it was the case, and there
would be like objective. So if realism is true, if

(54:01):
morality is objective, there would still be like moral dilemmas
where either way there's going to be some bad things
that happen, but it could still be the case right,
like in the trolley problem. There if if objectively there
is moral facts, or there are objective moral facts, then
there would objectively be like a right or wrong answer

(54:21):
to the trolley problem. But it would also recognize that, like,
either way, somebody's going to die, and that these deaths
are bad at least like my Any any moral realism
that I would accept would would have hold it that
like gratuitous deaths are bad. But it doesn't mean that
it's like one hundred percent good, that like no possible

(54:41):
thing that could be considered bad stems from like the
right decision. But just that there is like an objective
fact about what is and isn't the right decision.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Right, It doesn't necessarily mean either that it's value monist
either right versus value plural. So there could be more
than one value that could be equal and worth right,
and that could still be true under moral objective objective
morality as well. So I think that's all another confusion
because a lot of people think, oh, there has to
be It's it's more about is there an answer to

(55:14):
the question what should be done here? And less about
like is that does it feel good? Or you know,
does it vibe with folks? Or could there be other solutions?
Like it is a kind of a more direct answer there.
If that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
Yeah, that makes sense. It's meaning more meaning like the
best option for like if more or less everybody kind
of thing or everything around it.

Speaker 5 (55:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
One way to let people kind of put it is,
if we're playing a game of chess, there are commonly
accepted rules of playing chess. Now, you can play chess
under different sets of rules, right, but if you're playing
under under feed day, which is not how you say that,
but you know the Federation for for International Standards of
Chess or whatever, you know, there's going to be ways
in which you are objectively breaking those rules. It doesn't

(56:00):
necessarily mean that knowing those rules doesn't tell you what
the best move is necessarily in a situation either. Like
it just says that, hey, there's rules out there and
that they can be followed in order to get an
answer as to whether something's correct or not. Does that
make sense Yeah to me? Yeah, And to be clear,
I'm not. I don't believe in an objective morality in

(56:23):
that sense, but it's not necessarily it's not a requirement
for the atheist position either. There are lots of atheists
that differ on that.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
So yeah, I think there's really good arguments for objective morals,
and I think there's really good arguments for subjective subjective
morals and a position that I haven't read up on enough.
But a lot of my like really intelligent friends who
are really good at finding like true things about philosophy,
a lot of them really like error theory, which is

(56:53):
like the idea that like, like moral statements are propositional.
It's just that all of them are false because moral
properties don't exist, so like the moral statement like fails
to refer to anything, so it's false.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
I at first I thought it was like kind of
a silly moral position, but I don't know. I have
like high I have higher credence, and now that I
have like some really smart friends who believe in it.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
Yeah, and I don't. I don't think there's anything that is,
you know, one hundred percent good or one hundred percent bad, like,
because there's always going to be some good that comes
from almost any action, no matter how bad it is,
even if it's based on one person's one person's opinion,
Therefore it can't be like one hundred percent bad. So
I think that's more where I was getting almost confused

(57:38):
a little bit between like just being one percent good
and objectively good. Yeah, it's more like it's confusing scenario
kind of thing for everybody.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Yeah, it's even more confusing when I feel like there's
like this horrible trend. You know, theists want to tell
you that you can only be a subjective, you can
only have subjective morality under eight, and that means that
there's no morality, Like subjective morality is no morality. And
I feel like the it's just like this like raw
like dilution of the term. Like the idea that moral

(58:11):
subjectivism is moral nihilism is like very silly, and I
feel like it's created like lots of confusion about what
the moral language even means.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, this is what confused me. I was just talking
about this earlier in the show. That was like a
real hang up for me because Christian apologists and Christian
theology and modern theology is always kind of taught me
this idea. Well, if you're not a Christian, you're basically
a moral nihilist. You can't have any value judgments at all,
which is obviously silly, because everybody has value judgments. Whether

(58:39):
or not they're the correct value judgments, that's a whole
other thing, right, But obviously people have value judgments, and
people make decisions, and by and large can make decisions
that I at least agree with and not be Christian.
So morality, it's really complicated, but it gets very much
obfuscated in Christian circles for sure. But yeah, cool, anything else, tweet,

(59:02):
thanks very much, I have a good one. Thank you.
I liked it. Short, sweet to the point it's like
half the amount of time is the other call. And
you know what, great questions because I'm always thinking about
this kind of stuff, like I don't have I've talked
about my own like you know, you talk about more
of r theory, like I kind of lean towards that.
But at the end of the day, I'm not even

(59:22):
sure if I can put myself at any one particular
place or position. I don't know. It's really hard, absolutely, yeah,
do you have sure?

Speaker 2 (59:31):
It's just super deep, like I don't know, like I've
I run arguments for objective morality pretty frequently. I think
that they're I think that they're good. I think that
the arguments are good. But at the same time, I
think the literature is just way too deep for me
to have like a like a really informed opinion on it.
So I don't know, I run it. I run an

(59:53):
argument called like discourse ethics, which just argues that there's
like certain moral presuppositions about so when you and I
decide to settle our disagreements by instead of like bashing
each other's head into the rock, we like engage in discourse.
There's certain norms, certain rules that we presuppose for discourse,
and that you can transcendentally ground moral statements just in

(01:00:18):
like what would be necessary to make a moral statement
in the first place, like what is necessary for moral discourse.
So an argument that I like to run is that
if you're engaging in moral discourse, rational moral discourse, then
you're attempting to see it from other people's perspective, right,
Like you're listening to their counter arguments, their objections. You're
not just like putting it into the ether and then

(01:00:38):
like ignoring the other side of the argument, or at
least if you did that, you wouldn't be rational. So
in so far as you're doing that, then that's just empathy, right.
If you're attempting to see it from other people's perspective,
that's empathy. So empathy is a necessary prerequisite for moral
discourse in the first place. So I like to run
that as like as transcendental morals, that empathy is like
the transcendental moral standard. But of course I think the

(01:01:01):
literature is way too deep. So yeah, ultimately I am agnostic.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
No, Yeah, I'm probably the same boat, like because I
used to kind of work with a similar thing. I
probably I don't know, we'll get too much into the weeds. Actually,
if we keep talking about this, I don't know if
this is interesting anybody else besides two of us. Point
is it's complicated and there's a lot of things you
can go in there. But don't be one of those
atheists either, Folks at home. That's like, well, I value

(01:01:27):
pleasure and I don't like pain, and that's what makes
an objective, because it's like, there's no reason to necessarily
make that objective. Okay, that's just the thing. People like
I see that happen all the time too, where it's like, no,
that's that's not how that works. Let's not do that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
It's more confusion about the moral language. I think it's
terrible that there's so much confusion about what moral words mean.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Yeah, yeah, if only we talkt of more in schools.

Speaker 6 (01:01:53):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
I agree philosophy should absolutely be mandatory at least.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Ethics, you know, at least that's my take. Anyway, let's
talk to some more callers. We have some folks who
want to talk to us. We got Austin calling. Uh,
I didn't give a stake, just calling from the US
of a Austin. What do you got for us? Your
life on truth wanted?

Speaker 7 (01:02:12):
This is more targeted towards the ends because I saw
in his dream earlier today, I saw a lot of
people that were Christian or religious that are questioning him
about how the Earth was created, because like there's the seven.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
Days and then there's the scientific reasoning.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Are you asking when you say, is there like a
question or its opinion?

Speaker 7 (01:02:33):
And I just want your opinion on how you think
Earth was created.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
When you said the earth, do you mean the universe
or do you mean the earth Earth? Yes, Okay, sure,
if I'm not mistaken. The leading scientific theory is that
there was like a solar nebula and that like the
through like cooling, there were particles that came together in
bigger and bigger masses until the Earth was like fully formed.

Speaker 7 (01:02:57):
Yeah, because I was watching a video out the the
stages of Earth. Apparently like took like four point five
billion years or so for Earth to be formed how
it is today or well, I.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Don't I don't think it took four point five billion
years for it to like vaguely resemble the Earth that
we have today. But it took time. Like at first
two I'm pretty sure it was like a fireball. It
was got like a big molten mass, so it cooled
and then uh, it took time for water to come
on into the Earth and then for the formation of life, mountains,
et cetera. All these things take time. But yeah, the

(01:03:30):
Earth is the Earth is four point five billion years old.
That's a scientific fact. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Okay. And do you agree with that, Austin or does
that give you uh? Okay, Okay, I agree with that.

Speaker 7 (01:03:43):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Was there anything else you wanted to ask about?

Speaker 7 (01:03:46):
No, I just wanted to help sell that debate on
religious people thinking that it was just the seven days
that was created.

Speaker 6 (01:03:53):
And then is how it is today?

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Yeah, No, it's definitely not yep, yep, that is uh
and it's you know, it's pretar ticular to young Earth
creationism right in Christianity. It's not just Christians, you know,
Muslims and other uh world religions believe it. But that's
where that comes from. Is just from the Book of Genesis, right,
So yeah, yeah, okay, great, well now talking to you Austin,
and hope you have a great rest of your weekend too.

(01:04:17):
Alrighty And that was even shorter and even sweeter. Look
at that, just un could He just wanted a fact
check on the age of the earth and he called
up his boy allegedly Ian to confirm that for him.
And so yeah, great, cool, short and sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Okay, let's get to another one here. We're going to
talk to Daisy, who is calling in from Washington. Daisy,
your Life on Truth wanted? What's up?

Speaker 7 (01:04:43):
Yo?

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Hey?

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
What up?

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
The audio?

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Go ahead? I think you're fixing now. Just yeah, I
can hear you now, you were you were you were
some was going crazy there with the electronics. But we're
good now go ahead.

Speaker 6 (01:04:59):
Oh okay, okay, okay. So my question. I'm an atheist
and also I'm a trans woman, and I I know
this is mainly a calling show for the Christian people
to call in, but I just wanted to ask about
how there are some atheists that I used to really
look up to, like you know, like Sam Harris and

(01:05:19):
Richard Dawkins, and some of their opinions, uh lately have
gone so far right, like like like in Sam Harris's Cake,
like he's extremely supportive of like, you know, harming people
in the Middle East, and then Richard Dawkins just like
essentially is going along with JK. Rowling like hating trans

(01:05:41):
people and like saying that they don't exist even though
I mean we're here. I just wanted to ask, like,
is there a way that we can get atheist people
like can can atheist? Can atheists like go too far
in a in a wrong direction, you know, where they
they're not having their same morality? Can you know? Like

(01:06:02):
like when I listen to the show, I mean all
of you seem like very like morally based and all
that kind of stuff, Like what is going on there?

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
I think you just gave some great examples of people
going too far. I don't think you need to hear
from us absolutely. I mean, so why this isn't just
a show for Christians to call in. The title is
vaguely ambiguous enough so that if you want to call
in about aliens or conspiracies or whatever, this is the
place to do that. So you know, I don't think
that you're not welcome here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
You are.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
This is a great topic to talk about because I've
been in this space now for a few years, and
I've met some famous folks and I've never met Sam
Harris or Richard Dawkins, actually, but I've met some I've
met some influencers in the space, and I've met some
folks that you know, thought were one way and up
being another. And it's really sad to see that. I

(01:06:51):
can't tell you each individual person's psychology. What I can
tell you is around the early twenty tens, there was
a general trend happened online in spaces of skepticism that
was beyond just atheism but almost sort of a you
can call it red pill, you can call it anti feminists.
You know, there is a there's a sort of a

(01:07:13):
bubble of these ideas that were kind of bubbling up,
and there's a lot of people smarter than me that
I've talked about this, and and I think from that
cultural trend that was happening, more and more people got
influenced by these ideas. Turns out that rage baiting really
works on the Internet. Turns out when when people are
making content out there to get mad about, that brings

(01:07:33):
in a lot of people. That's why notable places like
libs of TikTok right are as popular as they are,
and even mainstream politicians reference them because they're showing up
in their feed because it's it's it's something for people
to get mad at. So I think a lot of
these influencer folks, folks that people looked up to and
were responsible to help change these their mind I think

(01:07:53):
they got caught up in that. And I think that,
you know, because they're influencers, they're seeing people fire back
at them, right, and they're getting mad at that. They're thinking, oh,
these people are crazy, they're not reasonable. But hey, these
sort of right wing folks, they'll listen to me, they'll
you know, platform me, they'll get invited to all these spaces,

(01:08:14):
And so I think that's partly why you see that shift,
because they did become more open to folks that were
quote unquote getting canceled for stuff, right, And so you know,
there really was a cultural moment that has happened and
still continues to happen because of that, and a lot
of atheist influencers were a part of that. They weren't
the only folks, but they definitely were a part of that.
And it's sad to see. I wish I could tell

(01:08:35):
you that that you know, it wasn't the case, but
it is for sure.

Speaker 6 (01:08:40):
Well, like with Richard Dawkins so specifically, like he's not
really in the sort of like influencer space anymore like
he used to be. And when I read his books originally,
like I was an atheist from very young, like when
I was since I was twelve, and like I read
some of his books and they were very influential and
like someone within with a mind like that, like that

(01:09:01):
is so like I mean, he can be a bit
of a crowd a grouch, but like, like you know,
he it seems like someone who is just critically thinking
like that, Like how do they get to this point
where they're like I mean, I never saw him as
a bigot when I was younger, you know, and now
he just seems like like some of the things I've

(01:09:21):
been hearing from him are just like like I feel like,
do you think it's his age or is it just
like he's been corrupted somehow, like like what happened there?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Oh, I think that there's so this is like obviously
like incredibly multifaceted, but there is something to be said
when you are the developer of like a theory, when
you come up with like some idea, you're going to
see it everywhere. You're going to try to put everything
into the context of your theory. I think with Richard Dawkins,

(01:09:53):
like the idea of like like I'm sure he probably
applies the idea that like being trans is like some
sort of like like social meme where it's just like
something that like spreads all around socially, which is like
just like the incorrect interpretation of it, but like similar
things happen. For There's a philosopher that I really respected.

(01:10:16):
His name's Georgio Agambin, and he theorized this idea that
the government will like utilize like crises to grab power
or whatever it's called like the state of exception, like
they'll suspend the laws in order to defend its sovereignty.
And he became a COVID denier because he thought that

(01:10:36):
the entire thing was a state of exception. He applied
his theory wrongly to a situation where it just didn't apply.
And I don't know, I think that there's like something
to be said about that that a lot of theorists
don't know when they're like useful theorizing ends and where
it's time for like another person to explain the phenomena

(01:10:57):
because it's like clearly not related to what they thing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Social media also, oh go ahead, daisy, if
you have something to say.

Speaker 6 (01:11:05):
Oh no, no, no, no, you go you go.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
Well, I was just thinking while Iatan was talking to
you know what social media has also made like I
now know Richard Dawkins in Sam Harris's opinions about things
that I otherwise would not have known if it weren't
for the internet.

Speaker 5 (01:11:22):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
The Internet has also forced us to become an expert
on a million different topics. And if you look at
all of my positions and you put it out on
a document somewhere, I guarantee you're going to find some
stuff that's probably wrong, right, that's just what it is
to be a human being. And so I think we're
seeing people's wrong stuff like in real time, and we're
kind of also recoiling at wow, how could this be?

(01:11:44):
As many people I guess, like, how where all these
flat earths coming from? Why is our horizon and stuff?
And I think part of it's just because you have
kind of always been there. Anti transmitter has always been there,
but like there's now a space you can go to
talk to other people about that, which which wasn't a
thing before. For I really think also too, when your
entire career, okay, when you're like Sam Harris, is made

(01:12:07):
from getting invited to speak at places right and to
and to be able to have influence in space. And
when you get rejected because of something you did, you're
going to go to the places that accept you. And
unfortunately that tends to be the not so great places, right,
the ones that do have that kind of anti rhetoric.
I think there was there was a time where people
thought that liberals and and uh left leading types were

(01:12:30):
pro censorship. We're censoring all these great ideas. Why weren't
they open to these other things times of thinking, and
really it's just it's just grifters. It's just grifters all
the way down, you know, and still continues to be
that way. I think a lot of these thinkers just, uh,
you can't. They can't objectively view themselves in the same
way that you and I can't objectively view ourselves from
up high there, you know, and we just have to

(01:12:52):
left to sit here and wonder. But it is sad. Maybe, Daisy, well.

Speaker 6 (01:12:57):
Maybe it's because maybe Richard Dawkins went down this way
because he's sort of part of the elite in England
and you know, like there's jk Rowling there and she's
on her whole anti trans cake and all this kind
of stuff, and like maybe maybe it was because he
was just in those circles that he wanted to fit in,
and so like that's why he decided, like you know,
I'm going to go.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
Yeah, I can't. I tell you, I can't personally psychologize
the band. What I can see is trends, material trends,
that being that right wing spaces will take in a
lot of people, yeah, right, true, especially when they're fringe
right and when somebody gets canceled for something. They'll be like, oh, hey,
come on my podcast, come on my show. Let's talk
about how these people canceled you for X, Y or

(01:13:40):
Z right and make you feel like you're a victim
in the circumstance, even if you were the one that
did something wrong right, and a lot of these people
have done things that weren't great. Yeah, so yeah, yeah,
well that stuff a Daisy, I don't know what to
tell you. I've thought about this a lot too.

Speaker 6 (01:13:55):
Take up too much more of your time. I go ahead, Yeah, yeah,
well I I think we both said was like super helpful,
and like I think, like thank you for explaining your
point of views and like, you know, the Austin atheist
like that was part of my deconstruction when I was
twelve years old. Now I'm thirty three, so like you know,

(01:14:17):
I really just like have so much love for this
channel in the space, and so like just keep doing
what you're doing, and like I really hope you have
a great one and keep hiding.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
Thanks Daisy, thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
That's really awesome to hear, and thanks so much for
your great topic. Like it's such an important thing to
talk about when I first got involved in activism in
like twenty seventeen, and in truth One start only twenty eighteen.
I think I always get the years wrong on that. No,
maybe it was twenty seventeen. I should know how how

(01:14:49):
long you got go it was anyway, I was. I
was kind of coming in at a cultural moment too,
and I knew I never wanted to be like the
guys that were, like I remember, you know, speaking up
for trains people and talking about feminism and talking about
these stuff that the atheist community was just kind of
figuring out how to talk about. I feel like because
a couple of years before there were all kinds of

(01:15:11):
channels of reacting to this, feminists talking about Uh, I
don't know, it's some bullshit. I mean, like that really
was kind of thing, and it gave atheism a really
bad name. It's still a stink that people have to
recover from. Unfortunately. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
Well you know I told you so, I was worn
oh one and my I deconstructed. You know, I came
away when I was like fourteen, so you know, that
was twenty fifteen. So I was watching like the Amazing
Atheist and then one day, all of a sudden, in

(01:15:46):
my fourteen year old like for you page on YouTube
like the recommended, Like suddenly there's just all this anti
feminist content, right, So I consumed a lot of it,
like a lot of it. And you know, I never
went like super deep into it. I never became like
some like right wing and cellar or whatever. But there's
like a period of time where I'd be like, I'm

(01:16:08):
not a I'm not a feminist. I support equality, you know,
I'm an egalitarian egalitarian, right right, Yeah, I'm not I'm
not I don't believe in equality. I believe in equality.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Right. Yeah. It wasn't the norm. It really wasn't the
norm to talk about these sort of socially progressive stuff
in this space, and that's what people away from. I've
personally tried to be very mindful of that in my
own activist work and try to make sure that hey,
we're we're actually painting a good picture that Hey, you
don't have to be a bigot to be an atheist.

(01:16:39):
I'm sorry, that sounds terrible. You don't have to you
shouldn't have to be you shouldn't be a bigot to
be an atheist. Now, you don't have to be a
big to be an atheist. That's terrible, that's that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
Yeah, I get what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
You're saying, Yeah, the point is what's great about Uh,
it's not just the skepticism, right, I think I think
we put an emphasis on this skepticism. It's the openness.
The openness is more important than the skepticism. Yeah, in
my opinion, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
Right, yeah, yeah, like the idea, I don't know. I
think that there is like the atheist mindset that you
should feel like burning the idols, that whenever somebody tries
to impose rules on you, you like make fun of
them viciously. And I think that's a terrible mindset, right, Like,
you know, you you should be thinking through each issue individually.

(01:17:27):
Just rejection of everything is not enough, it does, that's
not that's not a worldview saying no to everything, Like
you know, you have to find like principles, you have
to believe in things, right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Yeah, Like we were so we pushed so many ideas away.
We almost pushed away our kindness and our empathy and
our you know, ability to be open with other people
and to be open about when we're wrong as well.
I think that's a really humbling thing. It's hard for anybody,
but it's especially hard for a community that's supposedly pride

(01:18:01):
itself on its independent thinking and it's skepticism towards authority
and towards these you know, these great ideas, And so
I think that's why it's also really hard for a
lot of these figures to kind of figure that out
as well. But yeah, like you said, right, you brought
this up at the very beginning to show you and
when you're paid to do the thing that you're doing,
it's hard to pivot, right.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
How do you pivot?

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
Why would you?

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Why would you ever even think about it? Why would
you ever even reconsider it? When you get when you're
when the food that's in your mouth depends on you
believing the thing that you believe, why would your brain
even think about it?

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
Yeah? And guess what, all those anti trans folks they're
eating good. They have an audience, yeah right, and they
have people that will tell them they're right every day
of the week. Yeah. It's hard to combat. So yeah,
I hope I never become one of those kinds of
people personally. Yeah, Well that's why it's good.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
I don't know I have there's a lot of friends
that I have that I'm really grateful that I have
because they're people who like genuinely think very critically. When
I'm coming up with a new argument for atheism, a
new argument against like certain things in the God debate,
I have really good friends who will listen to those,
and then they'll argue with me like they were a theist.
They'll say, well, the theist probably wants to say like

(01:19:14):
one of these five things, and then they'll go through
like the five responses that they can think of. And
that's that's phenomenal, right, Like you should be thinking, like,
is what I believe true? You should constantly be reevaluating it.
That's how you avoid cognitive inertia. That's how you avoid
getting like audience captured, or I mean audience captured for us, right,

(01:19:34):
but for individuals just like like stuck in like like
like a worldview where you like just believe it for
basically no reason. You just got to reevaluate it always constantly.
If it's true, then it can survive the reevaluation. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
it's so true.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
But it's hard to love those principles apparently, and and
never meet your heroes, you know, I don't know the folks.
I'm grateful for the folks I've I've been able to
meet personally. But yeah, I can't tell you. I can't
tell you about folks like Dawkins and stuff. They're above
my pay grade. I will say, Uh, material they are
just as susceptible to material trends and the material reality

(01:20:14):
reality we live in just as much as we are.
And and to me, that's that's the biggest facet and
what's a multifaceted problem is people respond to that stuff,
and they respond to it like really well actually, and
they'll get platformed, and they'll get they'll get views, and
they'll get everything from it. So as long as there's
incentive there, there's going to be a motive, right. So anyway,

(01:20:39):
on that note, we are getting towards the end of
our program, Ian, I want to thank you so much
for being on today's episode of Truth Wanted. I thought
it was fantastic. What'd you think too, I.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Had a wonderful time. I thought it was so much fun.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
Great folks at home. We're not doing an after show today.
I know I got a couple of callers still in
the cute, so sorry, Uh, we are going no go
on the after show today. But if people want to
find more of your content, and where should they go.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
Yeah, my YouTube channel is allegedly Ian. My TikTok is
allegedly dot Ian. Both of those have a link tree.
Those have all my links. I have a Discord server.
It's eighteen plus. But if you like talks about religion, philosophy,
you know, really anything you want, join the Discord. It's

(01:21:26):
a great place.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
I love it there. Heck yeah. And on that note,
I need to thank everybody that helped make the show
happen today and want to think, of course, as always,
the crew, and I want to bring Eli back and
say thank you to Eli for being our backup today.
Thanks so much, Eli, You're welcome. It was a great show.

Speaker 5 (01:21:47):
Thanks for I guess letting me hang out backstage.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
Oh yeah, absolutely, of course. And Eli, what was the
prompt again for this week?

Speaker 5 (01:21:55):
For this week's prompt, what are some conspiracy theories that
you say think could arise in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
Sweet, So leave your comment below in YouTube and we
will read our favorite three answers next week. Last but
not least here, Ian, I always ask my guests for
some words of wisdom before we leave the show. Any
words before us today.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
They're stolen, but they're very wise words. The unexamined life
is not worth living.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
Socrates, Classics classic and on that, folks, I'm objectively Dan.
This has been another great episode of truth. Wanted remember
to always keep one the truth and I'll see you
next time. Watch the nonprofits and joined the hosts in

(01:23:00):
the live chart. Visit tiny dot, ccy, slash yt and
p

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