Truth Wanted with ObjectivelyDan and Jon the Skeptick 08 26

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's no surprise that we want the truth. Here on
Truth Wanted, we would love to hear some unexpected things
from you. Have you seen bigfoots, being visited by a
deceased loved one, had messages from the supernatural? The truth
is wanted and we'd like to hear why ghosts, goals,
and gods exist and why we have it completely wrong.
The lines are open and we're ready to hear from you.

(00:22):
Truth Wanted. Yes, please, the show is starting now.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hello, Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of
Truth Wanted. I am your host, Objectively Dan. This is
the live calling show that happens every single week Fridays
at seven pm Central Time, where we talk to people
about what they believe and why and if you'd like
to call us, you can do that now. The number
is five one two N two, or you can call
through your computer at time dot cc slash call t

(00:53):
W And as always, Truth Wanted is a product of
the Atheist Community of Austin, a five to oh one
C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism,
critical thinking, secular heroonism, and the separation of religion and government.
Every single week, Folks always try to have a special
guest with me this week. No different John the Skeptic.
You already know, you already know special. He is a
ghost you are. I love host with John. John's great

(01:18):
one of an amazing hosts, amazing hosts, and.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
I like having fun here. It's just a good time.
It's always a good time.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I like you having fun too. I wish you could
host more, are you? You're You've been a very busy
man with your family responsibilities, and we totally respect that.
But you know, I wish I wish we could host
together more.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
We should make it happen. Things are gonna start calming
down for me in the next few months, so I
think we might do. We might be able to.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's good. That's good. How you been, John, How you've
been since lazy? I'm busy.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I'm not just I'm not just a floating circle anymore.
I'm like, I've got a family to look after. I've
broken into television acting. It's been it's been a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, you were talking to me a little bit about
that before the show. You can't say much now, But
if you like, if you like television, stay tuned the television.
Just watch the television. Just keep scrolling through all the channels.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Right, like all the ACA stuff like once you like
binged all of that, then watch the television and you.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Can watch television and they'll look for John and see
see what you could find and see what happens. Might
be there, Yeah, he might be there. Yeah, I get you, man,
It's been busy for me too. I would feel entire
to take local My wife got recently. It was just
I've shown you this before the show. It's an energy
drink called Hell. It's from Europe, and she went to

(02:40):
Europe recently and this is one of the things she
brought back, was this energy that had Hell on it.
So that's a choice that she made and I appreciate
her for it. Now I get to show it off
on the show that I am drinking a little bit
of Hell, and you know what it's It's not bad.
Does it taste like Hell or is it? No, it
tastes like red Bull. I'll be honest, it's not too

(03:03):
different from that. So you know, if I'm going to
Hell because I'm drinking it, it's not worth it for sure,
But otherwise it's a satisfactory.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Is this your first count? And I'm sorry that we're
getting talking about, you know, an energy drink. Yeah, but
is this your first one? Because who knows like how
you're gonna feel later on. Maybe it will feel like
hell when it lives, that's true.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah. No, I literally pulled this out just because I
was like, I'm doing the show and I had this
in the fridge. I need to like pull it out
so that I can show people that I have a
drink called Hell. I guess because that brings you entertainment value.
Report back next week. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see it
by the end. If I'm dying, if there's demons in me,
because remember that video. I remembers the video of the

(03:49):
lady that was like the monster energy drink Satanic, you know,
because it looks it's got the six six six on that.
That's a great that's a classic. You know. So like, hello,
missed a trick there because it's just big bold letters.
Come on. Yeah, yeah, it's just like an impact font
kind of thing. They really try with that. No. Yeah, no,

(04:10):
if we don't need an energy drink to be in
hell these days, I'll tell you that. I'll tell you that. Yeah,
you know, like once again and it's been like this
since the entire year. But it's like every time on
Truth one, it's like, what's a good news that happening
recently we can talk about And it gets harder and
harder to kind of figure that out because everything is

(04:33):
not great recently. You know, they've made some the atheist
community in Austin supports the separation of church and state,
and there may or may not be policy decisions recently
that don't necessarily reflect those values, and we are we
don't like that. We don't like that, i'd say, particularly
in the state of Texas.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Man.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, you know what, there's there's been some some stories
in my my eleven year old's state school where the
teachers have been almost pushing her aside because of her
lack of belief in gods and stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, you're talking about on air? Why not we can
you know when we need to, Yeah, we can talk.
I mean I want to know where is it? Just
because like, why do they care about your child's beliefs? Like,
what's the big deal there?

Speaker 1 (05:20):
They don't help with when it comes to her being
picked on other kids are like why don't you believe
in God? Why don't you believe and she's like oh,
But then the teachers don't back up. They're not like, well,
you know, we're a state school. You know, everyone's free
to be. Some of the teachers like, well, yeah, maybe
we should discuss this. You know, me and my wife,
Me and my wife went into a parent teacher conference

(05:42):
and we were it was twenty minute slots.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
We were there for an hour and forty five minutes. Yeah,
they had to call the principle in because you know
some of the stuff. You were sick because you were saying,
this isn't being done the way.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, like assemblies with like they had like a skating
troop on skateboards come in to do tricks. But then
in a state school that the kid the skateboard has
stopped and then started talking about how Jesus had saved
them in a state school, which we weren't happy about.
And one teacher, and you know I can say this

(06:18):
because no one knows who the teacher is, but one
teacher was talking about pronouns and precepts and that one
kid said it was like, think of something that's non
and one kid said non binary, and the teacher said, no,
that doesn't exist. The teacher said that doesn't exist, not

(06:38):
even like you can have a non binary star systems,
you can have like.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Any concept is unimaginable.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
But the teacher was like, there there are only two genders,
is what the teacher said. And this is a state
funded school, which is why then are meeting just lasted
this long?

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's not great, not great. That sucks.
I'm sorry that she had to do that, and I'm
sure it's just been an uphill battle since.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun living in the
Bible Belt of America, right.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
You know, like when I was just in school, I
went to a public school, and by the time I
got the fifth grade, there were several Muslim students at
our school, and I just remember feeling sorry for them
every day because they wore burkers and stuff, so they
made it pretty visible that they were Muslim and stuff.
And I just remember, like I at least heard one

(07:35):
adult make a comment about their ethnicity that was not
positive that I did talk about to other adults at
the time. And so you know, it's just like, and
I'm in Texas right where like people are not very
kind to Muslims, and so it's like when people talk
about like why don't you talk about islamins on the show.
It's like, I'll tell you Islam's bad. I'll tell you

(07:57):
that all day. It's just like I know, the Muslims
I know in real life probably have it in terms
of discrimination just as hard, if not worse, most of
the time than I do as an atheist, because they're
just you know, it becomes more visible when there's you know,
associated clothing involved in stuff, right, and yeah, I've seen

(08:17):
it with my own eyes. It's not great. So, yeah,
don't discriminate in your schools for your kids' religions or gender,
especially when these kids are like ten and eleven years old. Yeah,
you know, it's just let them learn them learn about stuff. Yeah,
oh god, yeah, it's just that's stupid, stupid, But we

(08:39):
just live in stupid times, John, I don't know, I
don't know what to make of it at this point.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
You to keep your head down, just you know, let's
just ride it out until things get better. Hopefully She's
keep speaking up, keep speaking up when when it's safe
to do so.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
But jeez, the joke I just keep going to as well.
We just got to keep doing more Collin shows. You know,
we just we have to. He is, all right, this
is where we get it out. Yeah, this is our
way of just complaining about things at this point. I
don't know, it's just it seems like things are getting worse.
But you know, I will say this that there is
a value in at least knowing that you're not alone, right,

(09:12):
I do think that that's an important thing. I'm glad
we can.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
At least do that space, you know. And it's not
just a safe space for us, but anybody that's listening.
You know, we want this to be a safe space.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
That's true. And on the flip side of that, if
you do disagree with us and you want to tell
us why, we're open to that too again live call
in show numbers below. If you think there are only
two genders, I'd love to tell you why you're wrong, right,
you know, I'm happy to have that conversation with you.
But yeah, well we'll get to that if we have to.

(09:43):
But on that note, we should talk about our question
of the week, because every single week we're asking you
guys a question under segment that we call we Want
the Truth. Last week we asked you guys, what do
you not want to be in the middle of when
the apocalypse starts. Here we are our top three answers
for this. Number three comes from Alexander kat N who said,

(10:06):
what not to be in the middle of when the
apocalypse starts your deconversion? Which is an interesting choice there,
And I guess in this version they mean like the
Christian apocalypse? Well, you know, because like, yeah, that would
be a bad time. From what I've read, it's it
doesn't look good for us, you know, not super great,

(10:28):
So thank you for that answer. Number two coming from
the inimitable Chuck Gatos, who says, you don't want to
be working on your teleportation invention during the apocalypse the
rapture might lead to wasted hours of trying to rematerial
on remateialize your kids. That that's a sci fi plot,
that's like a clover field to kind of thing right there.

(10:50):
I feel like you could do, you know, just a
little contained story during the rapture some guy working on
a fly esque you know, teleportation. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know, guys. Number one though, comes from know What,
who says, what would I not want to be in
the middle of a BJ And I mean, I mean, yeah,

(11:15):
I guess I guess or maybe you do, like maybe,
like if you're gonna it depends on the apocalypse, because
like if you're gonna go out, you know, go out
with a bang, go out with a bang. Geez. Yeah.
So that's that's that's our that's our number one answer
for this week. Thank you so much for everybody who

(11:37):
deserves well, yes, number one. I mean I'm not disagreeing,
Like no, I am disagreeing. I am saying that it's
you kind of would want to be again, depends on
the apocalypse. Depends on the apocalypse. What's happening. But I
don't know. The point is, thank you for everybody who
gave your answer this week. The problemt for this next

(11:58):
week is what's offer Jesus couldn't refuse? And John, I
don't know if we didn't talk about the question this week,
did you read the question ahead of time? I'm okay, great,
you got an answer for time? All right?

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, of course, what's not of Jesus couldn't refuse? Three
day weekend break in Rome.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
He did vanish for three days. You know, we had
a bad weekend. Let's make it up to him and
give him a good weekend, it's the same. We've only
got Rome as an option. Yeah, and there's a bit
of beef there with him, but yeah, maybe that can
make up for it.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
I would say, follow up to that a vacation with
his twelve friends in the desert. You know, you could
do you could do a little with that. But anyway,
I am confident that our commenters can come up with
even better answers than the ones that we've come up
with here. So leave your comment below, don't do in
the chat. If you're watching live, tell us what's an

(12:53):
offer that Jesus couldn't refuse? And we'll read our top
three answers next week. So there you go. Yeah, find
stuff there, John, that's it. That's it, that's it. That's
what we got. That's what we got. And you know,
like for guests, for new guests, you know, I always
got to interview questions and stuff. But you know, John,
I know you, I know you.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
You have to put it fairly often, fairly often fair
if it's just like we're messaging each other, not even
on screen, but like right we message it right, right,
But yeah, I haven't I haven't charge you face to face.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
A lot of it's just good to you know, catch
up with you see what's up with you know, the
YouTube's landscape. You know, I've got a lot of stuff
coming up outside of that. There's conventions and stuff coming up,
and there's we're actually I'm I'm very fortunate to be
in the capital of the Creation Museum land in the USA.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yes, there's not one, but there are two. There's the
Creation Museum and there's the arc en Counter in Kentucky.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Right, I forgot that those are separate things.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, well apparently so I only found this out today.
But everyone's friend Godless Engineer his wife is organizing a
trip to the Creation Museum the day before the ark
and counter protest, which is a week Saturday. So I'm
going to be going to both of those places.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah. And and you were practicing your American action beforehand. Yeah,
I would say pretty good. I think you passed it
off because because you if you come after your foreign
then it's trouble for you. I'd say, you know, pretty
much anywhere in America, but especially at the arc Encounter
that's like a danger zone.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
So yeah, and I'm practicing, I've been practicing. Yeah, you know,
it may come out at some points in the show
who knows. But we're also told that there may be
a special guest there that's not you, that's not me,
that's not you know. Yeah, yes, someone someone, a big
name in the creation world is set to be there
as like an opposing and we're not talking mister Ham.

(14:50):
We're talking to another one.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Okay, okay, because that my first guest was Kenny. Well,
he runs the place, doesn't it. Yeah, so he probably
will be there.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
But there's another one coming up, coming up from from
down South, coming up to counter protest all the all
the stuff that we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
The counter protests. Yeah, yeah, protest. I didn't realize they
had counter protests at these because i've I've I've never
been to the place myself. I know they've done protests before,
but yeah, that's kind of curious.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Hmmm.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Well, on that note, that's great. I'm glad you get
to go do that. I I'm kind of jealous, actually,
I think, you know, since I got married recently and
I went to Japan, I kind of crossed off two
bucket list things for me and been kind of thinking
about goals, you know what, going to the ARC, the
ARC encounter and protesting. I think I'll go put that
one on there. I need to do that one day.
We'll see next year.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, it's a bit short notice to come up next weekend,
but right, yeah, yeah, next year, don Yeah, we'll figure
it out.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Speaking events, we'll talk about this actually, well we'll talk
about Winter Coms. But you know, back Cruise is happening
as well.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I just had to get tickets for that today for
my wife, So go, you should go do them if
you have, we'll talk about later though if you don't
know what we're talking about. But yeah, that's cool. And
you're also going to go to Nanocon. Yeah, I'm on
a panel.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
At Nanocon, so I'm giving I'm giving like a ten
minute talk. I'm one of the guests speakers of the
Aarcking Council protest, and then a couple of weeks after
I'm giving a talk on I'm on a panel. Sorry
for Nanocon, and I love Nanocon. It's kind of in
the middle of like this section of the USA, so
so many.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
People go there.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
It's just a great Hangout's a great place to go
and meet some like minded folks.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
I have not gone to Nanocon, and that's something I
probably should go to because I feel like out of
all of the conferences that people talk positively about, I
hear the most when it comes to nanocon. So you've
been before, Yeah, this will be my second time. Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah,
shout out the secularity. Who is who's told me I

(16:48):
should be going? You know what, I if they invite me,
I would go. If they said, hey, you can probably
do it, I'm going to text them after this and
say invite Dan. Come on, Yeah, I got I probably
make it out there. You know, it's a Tennessee right
and yeah we could do it. Well that far right
from Texas a little bit. It's a little bit far.

(17:10):
But you know, I'm an American, so I can fly.

Speaker 5 (17:14):
So lucky.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
You know. That's so I'm not dealing with that right now,
which is a blessing. I would say, Yeah, God, how
terrible is that to say, Jesus, I'm very much stranded
at the moment. Yeah, it's it's not looking great for
shout outs to our non citizens who are watching this

(17:36):
show right now. I feel you. I feel you. You know,
I'll say that we'll say that much as far as
what I can say, what the athey of bust would
allow me to say, but I hear you, I see you,
and wouldn't mind if you wanted to call in about
your experiences onto the show. I think we could we
could work with that for sure. Speaking of calling into

(17:59):
the show, we do have a couple of callers who
are waiting to talk to us. You want to get
started with it. That's that's why we're here. Come on,
that's why we're here. That's why we're here. Yeah, okay,
well we can do it. Before we do, John, we
have to thank the patron of the week because every
single week we are always giving a shout out to
the folks who donates on the Patreon. I of course
want to thank everybody that donates, but this week's patron

(18:20):
of the week is going to be waiting for a
drum roll, you know, uh, Dianne Kerns. Thank you so much,
Dean Kerns, and thank you to everybody that donates. You
guys are all amazing. And with that out of the way,
let's get to our first caller. We have prisoner calling
from Texas. Prisoner Prisoner two four six oh one is

(18:43):
the call sign that they went with. I don't know
if that's a reference to something and I'm just like
illiterate and I don't know, I'm not getting the reference. Okay, well,
I would say prisoner for sure, prisoner. You're alive on
truth wanted. What's going on? Hello?

Speaker 6 (18:56):
John, Hello Dan, I'm telling my volume's low? Am I reaching?
Am I coming?

Speaker 2 (19:00):
You sound perfectly great to me, So yeah, go ahead, okay, great?

Speaker 6 (19:04):
President Two four six oh one is from le Miz.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
That's Jean Valjean's I have not seen lamiz La.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
I've seen Lame. I'm loving Man of Lames. But oh
all right, okay, and it was controversial.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
That's a hot take. Yeah, sorry, all right. Hey, you
know you don't apologize for your for your feelings. You know,
we'll talk about hot takes on lay Miz later. Prisioner,
what do you got for us?

Speaker 7 (19:26):
Well?

Speaker 6 (19:26):
I have two stories, very short stories about being teaching
religion in public school. One really good, one really bad.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Okay, in high school.

Speaker 6 (19:35):
I was in a small town of typical little three
a high school here in North Texas in the seventies,
and they offered a kind of a Bible survey course
Old Testament, New Testament. These are the prophecy books, these
are the poetry books, et cetera. And it was very
you know, vanilla, very even handed. But on several occasions
someone that would ask a what you would call a

(19:56):
sectarian question, they would ask the teacher, well did that
really happen or is that true? And miss Chapman bless
Her said, I can't answer that question because of the
separation of church and state.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Oh yeah, okayte She's.

Speaker 6 (20:09):
Just taught this history literature and would not answer those
kinds of questions. So my point being, religion can be taught.
This was fifty years ago in a small town, right,
what can be done? But if it but there will
be of course, widespread abuse if it is done.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Now.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, this is this is in response for those who
are listening in our Listening Live. We have a chapel
going on right now saying it can religion be taught
in schools? And if you want my take on it, yes,
I obviously you think it. I mean it can be,
but I agree with you that if you're going to
be teaching it insay like Texas, you know, like it's

(20:48):
it's probably not gonna it's there are loopholes and or
there's not enough oversights to enforce that in the way
that we would all want it and hope to be
so it's it's kind of a I don't know, it's
a tricky situation. But anyway, Prisoner, it sounds like you're
a fan of keeping it separate. You know, are teaching it,

(21:09):
I guess, teaching religion in schools. You think it can
be done, Well, it was.

Speaker 6 (21:12):
Done in the seventies in a small Texas town, so
that demonstrate that it is possible. But yeah, there will
be widespread abuse of that.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, for sure. But I think I agree with you there.

Speaker 6 (21:22):
A little bit. My second little bit is a little
more disturbing. In seventh grade, we had a wonderful math
teacher who was funny and a tiny, tiny little woman
about one hundred and twelve years old. Everybody loved her. Well,
one day she took a big chunk of class to
tell us about the missing day that's still going around,
you know, about the missing day.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
The missing day. You mean, like how we have like
leap leap year.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
No.

Speaker 6 (21:48):
No, this was in about nineteen seventy, so the space
program in NASA, this was very much in the news.
And she said, well, when when NASA was planning the moonshots,
they found a discrepancy, there's a missing day in the
cosmological order. So they went back to the Bible and
found out it was from it was when sun, when
God stopped the sun for Joshua. And oh, seventh grade,

(22:12):
I knew number one, there's no cosmological calendar. They couldn't
possibly have known that. And why are you telling this
in math class? No business doing this. I was indignant,
even as a seventh grader that she would bring this
religious bullshit into math class. So it can go either way.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Wow, I've never heard of that before. Have you heard
of that drawn about missing day? No, that's news to me.
That's so funny because yeah, there is like a passage
in Joshua. But isn't it Like yeah, I guess I
guess they paused the sun the sky in the Book
of Joshua so that they can keep fighting, is the story.
So I guess that's that's what that's related to. But yeah, man,

(22:49):
that's still.

Speaker 6 (22:49):
Going around as a as a thing. People are still outing.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
I can see it now. That's like that's a boomer
Facebook post of being like, hey, did you know NASA
had to stop He has had to go to the
Bible to figure out why their calculations weren't. Yeah, I
could alaly see you. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
There's a big difference in this. This is where the
big difference in being in the USA and the UK.
It is because a math teacher, a geography teacher in
the UK would never stop a class to talk about this.
And I had religious studies in high school, and but
we learned about loads of them, you know, the big
three obviously Christianity and Hinduism and Islam. Was like, this

(23:31):
is what the folks believe in these these countries, and
this is what they're taught. Obviously you don't have to
accept this is true, but this is you know, it's
just more of an information thing. I found out ten
years after a finished high school that my geography teacher
was a Jehovah's Witness. That's how little we knew about
teacher's religion. Had no idea, he'd never brought it up,

(23:52):
and then friended him on Facebook and saw that he
was a Jehovah's witness, had zero clue. And that's just
like how different it is over there. Had to hit
you just like it's such a like in uh invested thing. Really,
I'm religious, but we don't know about you know.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
It's a domination thing too though, I think because I uh,
I learned evolution from the lady that went to my church.
Actually she was a science teacher but also happened to
go to the same Methodist church I grew up in.
But you know, like Methodists don't most of them. Well
there's a there's a spectrum with Methhists, but a lot
of them don't care about evolution, like they were totally

(24:27):
fine with it. And so I think like it's it's
a Southern evangelical thing that's kind of happening there too.
I don't know, because I can also see the other
way around where your science teacher is also the lady
that goes to church with you, and it probably doesn't
want to teach about evolution or something like that.

Speaker 6 (24:43):
Right, Yeah, paradoxical, John, that's paradoxical. But Jehovah's witnesses are
notoriously anti education. The fact that your teacher went to
school and got a degree and was a teacher makes.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Him It is interesting. Yeah, actually, as you point that out,
but maybe they came to Jehoah's witness after they got
the agree Maybe.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
That is that could have happened. But again, like that
even over there, that that every section of religious denomination
is treated differently. You know, I know a few people
over there who are Mormons who would never like think
about going on a mission, or you.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Know, me and Americas are just not very thoughtful of
other people. I think that's probably what it is. You know.

Speaker 6 (25:23):
But as a company to Lisa, how she doing.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
She's still pooping things out every single day, you know.
That's that's how the universe came to be. A rainbow
girafe pooped the universe into existence.

Speaker 6 (25:36):
That's you know, they're at least a rainbow Giraffe T
shirt or those available? Can I get one of those?

Speaker 1 (25:41):
There are if you search in the right places. I'm
not going to promote where you can get those, but
they are definitely available.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
No, you just need to know where to look. Yeah, trying.
The Skeptic has a YouTube channel. That's a fact. I
can't That's a fact. I could talk about it. I
think that's the fact. Yeah, you know. But anyway, thanks
for sharing those stories, prisoner. Was there anything else you
want to add before you let you go?

Speaker 6 (26:04):
I did, I did very quickly. A brilliant first answer
on oral sex during the apocalypse. I wouldn't know if
I was coming or going, Oh okay, this.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Already, Oh my god, Okay, all right, I'll let you go, prisoner.
Thank you for Thank you for the you too, do too,
Thanks for the stories.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Listen when when when Kelly and I are on together,
we do talk about penises more than we should.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
That's true. Actually, yeah, I'm sorry that that's now spilling
over into you. And there's no reason for me to
be brutish, you know, honestly, it's just uh, you know,
it's it's a thing. But yeah, I guess I am
kind of thinking about it. I don't know what the difference.
We were talking about this a week or two ago

(26:52):
on the show, which is like, you know, you don't
have a separation of church and stayed in the same
way in the United Kingdom that you do in the US.
But it seems like it worked out kind of better.
So it's like, what, what what happened? What went wrong?
Like what? I don't know, It doesn't seem it doesn't
make sense. But but you know, has it always been

(27:13):
as it is now? Or is it guessing worse? Yeah,
you know, And I've read stuff like Jesus and John
Wall you know that talked about the history of like
evangelicalism developing specifically as a as sort of a US phenomenon,
how the modern evangelical culture is not necessarily like it
was one hundred two hundred years ago, right, And there's

(27:34):
some like trends there, you know that probably deserve a
more nuanced discussion than I could ever give it. But
I will say this, I think America is we are
rife to believe in a lot of things. There's a
lot of opportunity for grifters to do their thing, and
I think evangelicalism is swept up in that in my opinion.

(27:55):
So maybe that's the best way to summed up that
side of the com lot of space here as well.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
And there's a lot of chances for people to not
research stuff, right. It does seem like you're told something
and that is suddenly, oh okay, that makes sense, that's.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
What it must be.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
And people don't do their own research. And I see
all the time, I saw this on a meme somewhere,
that the X is happening, and folks are like, they
accept a meme as the news and don't bother looking
into it.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Right. That was like my biggest you know, a lot
of people learn stuff in college, one of my biggest,
like life changing things was actually how to read and
understand the news. Like I didn't have a habit of
reading the news every day because I didn't know what
to make of it. I couldn't if you showed me
a piece, I wouldn't been able to necessarily tell you
if it was an opinion piece or a news piece.

(28:45):
I didn't fully understand how the how that works, like functionally, right,
And I think like a lot of people are like that,
where if you don't have that kind of if you
get your news just by watching like TV for example,
like you're going to have a very different perspective than
reading from news websites or getting your memes from Facebook

(29:06):
and getting your news that way. Right. It's like that
story they have with like Joe Rogan right where he
was talking about, oh they have they have like cat
litter at these schools because there's kids that are identifying
as as cats. It's like that wasn't even real, it
wasn't a thing. But because it's on Joe Rogan, that's
a lot of people thought that's real. So I don't
know there's there's a problem. I think, yeah, there's another

(29:29):
problem of the many problems that we have going on.
But you know, anyway, that's great. It's really cool, really
awesome time is it? Really? Is it? Let's just move on? Yeah,
moving on. We will get to some other college. But
real quickly. It is that time of year again. I
talked about this earlier on. We are doing the back cruise. Okay,

(29:49):
so if you don't know what that is, will you
take a little cruise ship down here in Austin to
watch some of the bats that come out from under
Congress Bridge and it is awesome and you get to
meet some of the hosts of the ACA that will
be there for us. Valcai is going to be there.
J Mix is going to be there. I Am going
to be there, and a whole lot of other folks.
So if you want to go, tickets are out right now.
The early bird special is done. We are just doing

(30:11):
general admission right now. Is for August sixteenth, twenty five.
Come get it infos at tiny down cc slash backers
if you want to get it, and there are limited
supply so we will definitely sell out, probably before like
the week of I would say, so, you know, you
get up as soon as you can. And next thing
I want to say is if you want to do

(30:33):
our weekly watch parties if you're a local, we do
have watch parties at the Free Thought Library on Sundays
for live viewings of talking than an atheist experience. So
check it that outdoors open at eleven. It is a
great place to hang out and it is always always
free and the usually they have like some snacks and
stuff too. You know, it's a good time. So check
that out if you haven't already. But before I keep

(30:53):
going with these announcements, let's just get to let's get
to some more calls. I think we were talking about
uh oh, actually no, I think this call it. I
decided they want to change the mind top about something else,
and that's really cool. We we're talking to Josh, who
is talking to us from Kansas. Josh, you are live,
untruth wanted. What's going on the going?

Speaker 5 (31:14):
Thanks for having me on?

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, I appreciate John. Thanks for calling. Not John Josh,
there's very similar names. Yeah, what do you want to
talk to us about?

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah? I was.

Speaker 5 (31:25):
Interested in your guys' position. I think so. Not atheists
by agnostic is that correct?

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Is that like like us, like.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
I would say I'm an atheist. But I mean, if
we're going down the colloquial use of the word agnostic
as a stepping stone stone, I still clear of that
because atheism and agnosticism kind of not related but cousins,
and it's not they're two separate things. It's you know,
do I do I know that there is or isn't

(31:57):
a God? Do I believe in a God?

Speaker 4 (32:00):
No?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Atheist? Yeah, I prefer the term ig theist. Be there's
the whole reason why I do that, and it's it's
a whole spiel for most people. I'm comfortable with the
label of atheist.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
Yeah, awesome, And so yeah, I was interested in talking
to you guys about just kind of evaluating which worldview
is more likely and which explains the totality of reality better,
atheism versus theism.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Okay, yeah, I mean obviously, I think I don't think
theism has explanations for really much of anything, particularly Christianity, right.
I don't think it's explanations for things make sense. I
don't think it comports with our observations. And again, I'm
talking about common understandings of Christianity, which is separate from theism,

(32:47):
which was as you're specifically asking about. But I don't
think like general theism or even deism really has a
lot of explanatory power either, which is also why John
was bringing up the whole agnostic versus atheist thing, because
by some people's definitions, we are agnostic. One common thing
is saying agnostic atheists because we don't tend to necessarily

(33:08):
say God isn't absolutely real. It's just it's not something
that we have an active belief in. And again there's
nuances to that position and how that's understood. But in general, yeah,
I don't find theist positions very convincing. What about you, John, Yeah, I'm.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
In the same boat, and which one's more likely for me? Atheism,
because I'm not convinced that's, you know, if that's what
the conversation's about. But I mean, I feel like both
Dan and I would love to hear if you are
a believer what it is that convinces you, and that
might then you know sway us one way or another.

Speaker 5 (33:42):
Right, Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (33:45):
So my where I'm coming from is I kind of
think of it, well, I start with the very beginning
of recorded history and then just kind of evaluate the
great thinkers throughout history from the beginning of time all
the way up through the modern era, and for thousands
of years, the greatest scholars and thinkers in history have

(34:06):
always been some form of realist right or and or
theist or polytheist right and so and so. Basically, at
some point, very very recently, someone had to decide that
this realism and theism was no longer uh up to

(34:28):
par and uh and so they had to overthrow that.
And that really appeals to me coming from that perspective,
because I was born into these theism and so it
uh it resonates with me that that idea where for
me personally, at least, I have to overcome my theism
and believe in God to uh yeah, to take on

(34:51):
any other opposing position like atheism or agnosticism and so
and so, what I have to do is I have
to you consider, Okay, what position can has more explanatory
power while being more simple? Right becomes razor and whatnot?
And and and I evaluate atheism and the materialism and

(35:16):
nominalism that typically typically comes with that, and I realize
I can't explain the origin of the universe. I can't
explain objective experience or how consciousness arises from UH neural
activity for example, like and I'll just do it as
that for now. There's there's a lot of other really
difficult problems to overcome because I've tried on these world

(35:38):
views to the best of my ability, because truth ultimately
is what I'm after, obviously that's what we should all
be after. But yeah, it's failed to overcome so many
of these sorts of problems. That and and the theism,
specifically Christian metaphysical realism of it that way has been

(35:59):
for me at based a much more satisfactory UH position
our worldview when it comes to explanatory power and simplicity
as well.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Can I ask why Christian in particular?

Speaker 5 (36:10):
Why Christian in particular, Well, there's a number of reasons.
There's a number of reasons. Just to throw one out
of out there, I think it solves one of the
most fundamental, difficult philosophical problems out there, the problem of
the one and the many solves that exceptionally well more

(36:31):
than the other position I've I've discovered the problem of
universals as well. Obviously, it solves a number of problems. Uh,
and and there are other positions. Don't get me wrong,
I'm not saying Christianity is the only one to solve
a number of these uh difficult issues, but our problems.
But but yeah, there's just a name a few and
and and that my ancestors. I mean it was, it

(36:55):
was handed down to me. This is the tradition that
I was born north to and I know that place.
That's a significant role as well.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, no, Josh, sorry, I want to get you know
you're excited to talk to Josh as well. John, No,
I appreciate your thoughtful response. I'll be real quick. I'm
gonna do thirty forty five seconds, John, and then you
jump in, okay, because it's not like you got a question.
Because I think I would definitely meet you in the
middle on some of this here. I mean, yes, you're right.

(37:23):
Some of the greatest thinkers of history definitely believed in God.
Isaac Newton, you know, I mean, Blaze's Pascal, incredible, people
who had a lot of contributions had beliefs in God.
I can't argue with that there, And I think that's
an interesting Well, Aristotle didn't believe in Christian God, but
you know he had God belief. Sure, yeah, definitely is

(37:45):
there So yeah, we can you know, we can debate
the merits of whether that matters or not. But you know,
it's hard for me to have a reality a view
of reality based on a historical consensus like that, because
I think if you looked at the end of vigual
thoughts of a lot of these thinkers like Aristotle, for example,
did not think of the same gods in the same
way that Isaac Newton did or Blaze Pascal did even right,

(38:08):
So I think there's some differences there as well as
like I think where we might disagree is that I
agree that Christianity attempts to provide explanations for some of
the questions that you've brought up, and I don't find
them to be sufficient answers. I think I think that's
where you're going to lose John and I because it's
hard for us to find them as acceptable. Anyway, John,

(38:29):
you're ready to go, you take this, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
I was just going to say that, yes, there were
great thinkers that believed in certain things, but what about
modern great thinkers who don't believe in these things, who
have you know, equally as much to say about how
things came to be. A big fan of mine who
I have a massive man crush on, is Professor Brian Cox.
He is a fantastic mind in my opinion, and I

(38:53):
would listen to that dude all day. And he is
a non believer. Neil de grasse Tyson. He identifies more
as agnostic, but that he he knows about the difference
between agnosticism and atheism. But that being said, you said
something else about, oh, growing up, how how would it
have been if you had grown up in another place

(39:14):
in the world and you didn't have answers for these things?
Would would you if you were in India, for instance,
and your your family and your ancestors were all Hindu
and they had their Hindu answers to these questions that
you have, which we can touch on again in a second,
would you do you think you would then have been
a Hindu believer, like a.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Hindu metaphycalist, instead of a Christian one, right.

Speaker 5 (39:38):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, it's a good question. I unfortunately that
I mean, it's impossible. I couldn't probably know, but I
would say that it's it would probably it would certainly
be more likely that I would be a Hindu than
most other religions or positions, whatever you wanna call it.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
How would say, hey, but that then that, but that
then could change depending on you know where you where
you are in the world.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
If you're you know where you are and when you
are sure exactly if you're in Africa.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
You know, at some point thousands of years ago, you
may not have been either of those things. You know,
you could you could have believed in a you know,
a mountain being that that provided rain.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
I don't know what they did. But you also said
something about.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
You you don't know the answers to certain questions. Let
me just get hit this out and then I'll let
you speak again. But you said you didn't know, you
didn't know the answer to some of these questions. So
it then made sense that what you were taught by
you know, parents or you know, teachers who also believed
these things, that made the most sense. But just because
you don't know the answer to something doesn't mean that

(40:44):
people who study these areas don't know. And there are
like you mentioned consciousness, there are tons of folks who
study consciousness and have you know, just chemical answers to
why we are and why we think and why we
do all these things, And I would suggest going and
finding those people before you say I don't understand something. Therefore,

(41:06):
the best explanation is a God and the God that
I was taught to believe.

Speaker 5 (41:10):
Yes, right, right, No, No, I agree with that completely.
I actually have done that as intensively as possible. And
unfortunately that's that's one of the problems with materialism naturalism.
It really just has no answer to the question how
does consciousness arise from neural activity? Like, do you have

(41:33):
an answer for that?

Speaker 2 (41:34):
I mean, I haven't found I don't.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
I don't have an answer for that, but I but
I don't take that next step to then go. So
it must be because of being I go. I don't know.
Oh yeah, but I'd love to find out one day,
you know. So I'm comfortable with saying I'm not sure
how this works, and I'd love to find out, and maybe,
you know, one day I'll manage to get on the
phone with Professor Brian Cox and he can explain it
all to me.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
This is an advantage that Christianity has that atheism does not,
which is a confidence in answers that we can't give.
I can't confidently tell you the origins of consciousness. I
can give you ideas and theories that smarter people than
me have come up with and proposed, and that's about

(42:17):
the limits of it. And so that is something that
the atheist as specifically the materials position, as you quite
aptly put it, right, as a problem with dealing and overcome.
What I also know, though, is that we have been
able to explain a lot, and we know more today
than we did before. And if we followed the exact

(42:38):
Christian model of the world at any point in Christian history,
we would have a hard time reconciling that with what
we know about modern observations of science in many different aspects.
For example, the belief that people can be possessed by demons, right,
that's pretty clear in the Bible. I think it's pretty

(42:58):
clear in Christian history that this is a thing that happens.
And yet we have never ever been able to actually
see that, right, like you know that, And this is
one particular Christian claim, but I find this to be
one of many claims that Christianity makes about how the
observable world works that kind of fails to fall into fruition,
Which gives me that skepticism towards Christianity, in particular as
having any reasonable explanations for even bigger questions like why

(43:22):
we're all here and you know what's going on?

Speaker 3 (43:25):
Right?

Speaker 5 (43:26):
Yeah, no, that's good. I so things like demon possession.
I find this very fascinating because I think that most people,
including many of not most, you know, let's say, Bible
belt evangelical sorts of Christians. I think they have this
kind of marvel universe cinematic sort of idea of demons

(43:49):
and angels, angels flying around with wings and some alternate
reality or something like that, and demons with pitchforks and
horns or whatever that is not I would argue that
that's not what those agencies are. So metaphysically we can
explain that much much better than than this this like

(44:10):
like that that that belief flies in the face of
science and everything that we know to be true today.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
But sorp but doesn't that kind of sorry to interrupt you,
Josh my question. Go ahead if you had a question, Well, yeah.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
I just really quick. I was uh. I think that
you can justify a proper metaphysical understanding of these agencies, right.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
But monic agencies.

Speaker 5 (44:38):
Curious like if it. Yes, yes, so so as far
as like universal principles go, and I think so for
you guys, I would suspect that these universal principles, like
we all we all agree that universal principles exist, but
he does. But whether or not they're.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Real, I'm not sure. I have to stop you there
because I don't know what that means. No, I'm still
I'm confusing that way. Yeah, okay, so but before we
get into that, I kind of watch challenge you on
this actually, because like you said, people have a Marvel
movie understanding of like demons and stuff. But I'm just
talking about what the Bible says. Like there's a story

(45:15):
of Jesus taking demons possessing people and putting them into
pigs and then having those pigs killing themselves by running
off into some water. Right, Like, I'm just this is
just a literal text, right, And like that's not the
only instance of spiritual forces working in the world. We
don't have there's no universal principles that need to talk

(45:39):
that are even mentioned in story like this. Right, this
is again just one of many claims of the history
that Christianity makes that I just have trouble with, right, Right.

Speaker 5 (45:49):
No, no, I get that completely, Like, so there there
are multiple ideas here.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Are you walking off together us? What happened where you're
going shows happening over here?

Speaker 5 (46:03):
But sorry, no, my wife just came home. I had
a letter in so yeah, the demons.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
So we need to leave your wife outside next time,
I understand. Don't do that. Don't do that. Here's a
letter in.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
One of one.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Uh, there he goes, he's off. It's gonna make his
wife a cup of tea. Yeah, Josh, you got to
take care of something with your family. You know. That's cool,
you know, but we are alive right now.

Speaker 5 (46:33):
Why sorry, guys, I thought I thought my I thought
my my voice was going through to the headphones, and
I walked away. Anyway, these these demonic agencies. One possible
explanation for this is that these are allegorical stories, right,
So these are allegories. These are not necessarily literal. Uh,

(46:57):
demon possessions and Jesus like somehow taking these demons and
throwing them in twine and in the ocean.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, is that what you believe, Josh? I do, yes, okay.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
I also tend to believe that a lot of the
Bible is literal as well.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Right.

Speaker 5 (47:15):
I do believe that those stories are allegorical and point
to higher truth.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
But can I just jump in?

Speaker 1 (47:20):
I have a question about you, because I'm make a
believer in the Bible. I've never really read the Bible.
I've read parts of it. How how do you, then, Josh,
know the difference between a part of the Bible that
is literal and a part of is like just a story.
How how do you tell the difference?

Speaker 5 (47:41):
How do you tell the difference? Yeah, you guys, I'm
walking outside here. I love Okay, so the difference between
how do you tell the difference between an allegorical story
and literal?

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Well?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
How do you tell the difference? I don't want I
don't want to know, like how I would?

Speaker 2 (47:57):
I want to know? How you know that this part
of the Bible is to reason.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
I refer to reason, tradition and uh, well those are
the kind of the prime primary ones, so you have
to apply logic to it like anything, and and for
me in particular, the tradition. So what specific figures in
history said, Because they've earned my trust, I tend to
default to them to a certain degree at least as well.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Okay, but on that note, like the Catholic Church does
demon like they they the exorcistm thing as a movie,
because exorcisms happen, like they developed the practice of exorcistems.
They weren't metaphorically getting demons out of people. I think
it was a very literal belief for most of Christianity, right.

(48:46):
I think what happens, and this is a problem that
I have with Christianity, Josh, is that we're kind of
there's a post hawk rationalization that sometimes comes with these
stories that don't match up to our material existence right
now that we live in a world of cameras and
you know, other kinds of evidence that kind of show, hey,
this stuff actually doesn't happen the way that we think

(49:07):
that it does. It's looking back, it seems like we
could say, oh, well, this is a metaphor, but that
wasn't the reality for like most Christians in most parts
of history, it seems like this has been a real thing.
And this is true for other truth claims about the
Bible as well.

Speaker 5 (49:22):
Right, sorry interject you, then that's that's not true at all.
Like the ancient Christians for thousands of years, I mean
literally literally, they believed in the allegorical and symbolic insipation,
interpreting the of the scriptures like that that goes back
to origin Augustine, Saint Maximiths confess or so on and
so forth.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Sure, the Eastern Fathers. I agree there is a meditative,
sort of different understanding of Christianity. But that's another problem
again with Christianity is there seems to always we live
in a multiverse of Christianity. It's kind of up to
individual interpretation. And this is John's sort of point. It
doesn't seem like we have a reliable way of knowing

(50:03):
what's effect and what's fiction because reason is not good enough. Right,
when you have a religion of a billion people, it
seems people reason differently.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
Right, is reason good enough for your worldview?

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Well, that's an interesting question. What do you think, I mean,
what what is my worldview? Because I'm not sure if
you know what my worldview is, and how how would
reason you know, affect it since you know what it
is that I have as a world.

Speaker 5 (50:30):
Well that's what I'm That's what I'm asking.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah, okay, Well, so so one thing that's a problem
with our when we talk about it, is that as atheists, right,
we kind of present the skeptic position, and the skeptic
position doesn't necessarily make the positive claim again that we
know the answer to say, consciousness, origin of the universe,
these things like that. Right, we just kind of cast
doubt on the explanations that are given. Right, So I

(50:55):
don't have to have, for example, an explanation as to
what really happens with demon possessions back in the day, Right,
I can propose a number of things, But to propose
that there are actual spirits that sort of infect people's
bodies for lack of a better word, and harm people
and do these things, like, I don't find that to
be the most reasonable.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
So some people say that this is a cop out,
But we have to be able to reject some positions
as not being true.

Speaker 6 (51:23):
Right.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
We can't live in a world where every interpretation is true,
otherwise we can't really make sense of it. Right, So
I think we are allowed to reject things that we
don't find to be plausible.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Right.

Speaker 5 (51:33):
So by rejecting rejecting those positions, though you are gaining
a position, you realize that, right.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Yeah, I mean I don't think we are though, I
think we're just saying no, we don't accept that, and
we can, We've we've opened ourselves up to a multitude
of other possibilities. That's not going It's not this, therefore
it must be this, which sounded like you was suggesting.

Speaker 5 (51:54):
Right, So your position is I don't know anything about
the world, and that's simple and more has more explanatory power.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Then, no, I think you're putting words in our mouths, John, Josh,
I'm sorry I keep calling you John. I don't mean
to do that. Yeah, No, But again with demons, right,
I could reject demon possessions and be Hindu, right, I
mean I don't have to be an atheist to reject
that position. Right.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Likewise, I could be a spiritualist, which you know I was,
and not accept demon possession.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Yeah correct, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (52:27):
So but we're so the conversation is which has more
explanatory power, Which is more reasonable? Which is more likely?
Theism or atheism?

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Right?

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Well, but then then we're going down.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Which has more explanatory power and which one is more reasonable?
Are two very different things, because I could explain away
demon possession with you absolutely anything, and does that make
it reasonable?

Speaker 2 (52:51):
No, it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
But so just because we're not accepting or we don't
have an explanation for something doesn't mean we're unreasonable. We're
just in the position of we don't know, let's find out. Yeah,
well no, no, I'm just you know, just in case
that was the misconception.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
I got you, I got you. No, no, I think
my All I'm trying to do.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
Is figure out, okay, for for me and for us.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
I suppose since we're in this conversation, we have basically
we have theism versus atheism in terms of world views,
which is reasonable, which has more explanatory power. And for
me trying to put on atheism and nominalism and materialism,
I find it very difficult because of all the things
that I've I've brought up, all the questions that it

(53:35):
can't answer sufficiently. And then and then it sounds like
your guys' position is well if and I'm going to
make sure I'm going to try to steal man this
one is that Christianity doesn't seem realistic because they believe
in things like demons, and two, we don't have to

(54:00):
take a position, and that doesn't make us unreasonable, but
I'm not. I just don't know how that applies to
how that shows how atheism is a better position in
any way.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Okay, so I'll take this if you don't mind, John,
because I think this So the framing here is quite
a common one in Christianity, and it's one that atheists
largely reject. And it is this, uh, what we would
describe as a false dichotomy between atheism and theism. And
the false dichotomy is these are both explanations for things,

(54:34):
and we need to figure out which one is the
better explanation. Right, So if you evaluate atheism as you
might a theist position, you can see how that makes sense.
But the problem is the atheist position isn't quite like theism, right,
So we're not necessarily making the positive claims. It's not
on it's the burden of proof doesn't fall on us

(54:55):
to have actual explanations for all of the answers that
we're trying to get, all the questions that we're asking, right,
And again, this is why atheists are sometimes uh Seeen
is copping out on this because it's like, wait, what
do you believe? Then? What do we have? And the
truth is it's going to be different based on the
atheist how one might conceive their worldview. But regardless of

(55:16):
that fact, it's more correct to say is Christianity true
or not true? That's the question that we're more interested in,
rather than is atheism true or theism true or you know,
is theism the best explanation or not right? Because because
again it's a it's a bit of a nuance there,
because I'm never going to be able to tell I'm

(55:37):
not gonna be able to sit here and say, well,
here's the uh, here's the whole formula for how consciousness happens,
here's the whole formula how the universe works. I don't
have that ability and and I probably never will, right,
But I can evaluate something like say scientology and say well,
I don't think scientology works for X, Y and z,
and does that rely on pre's oppositions like a materialist world.

(55:59):
You may be right depending on the critique, but regardless,
you know, like I said, we we we tended to
find atheism as a as a rejection of a position
rather than a positive. Does that make sense? I guess
he has left? I guess oh no, is he gone?
That's too bad? It was it was a really good discussion.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, it's it all just boils down to are we
are you convinced of the existence of a deity. No,
I'm an atheist. We don't want it's the it's the
theist and the believers that say, oh, we know how
the universe started because God did this, or you know,
we know how where the first humans came from because
God did this. We that's a side issue from from

(56:41):
what where where I stand anyway?

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Yeah, do I believe in God? No? I don't.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
I don't then have to go, oh, well, I better
tell you what I believe about the beginning of the
universe and what I believe about where humans go. You know,
that's not my position. I'm just I'm just seriously just
not convinced that that there's a being in the sky
that does.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
All this right. This is a hard thing to get past.
And this is something that stopped me because you know,
there is a difference between your story and my story, John,
because I was a Christian, I said, John, I got
John right that time. I was about to correct myself,
but no, you are John. Yeah, so you know I
was a Christian and morality really held me up. I
was like, atheists don't have an account of morality. I

(57:19):
don't understand. They seem to say different things and there's
no consensus, but they doesn't have to be right, you
just have I when you examine Christians takes on morality,
when you understand that explanation, it just doesn't hold up.
It doesn't work. So I can reject it, you know,
as part of a rebel possibilities. But that's a nuanced

(57:43):
thing and it's not something that Christianity really is great
at framing. Because when you go to church and go
to sermons and they criticize atheism, they do characterize atheism
as a position that holds that evolution is true, a
position that holds that there's a big bang, right, like
you know, that's when the debate kind of gets modeled
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
Right, And I'm sure you and I might have different
opinions on on the beginning of the universe.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
Probably so yeah, or morality that's another's yeah, And that's
and that's that's hard because again that that does that
is a hard thing about being an atheist. That is
the disadvantage is that you're not going to have those
fire answers to a lot of those kinds of questions.
So but anyway, I hope I always I felt like

(58:29):
I was getting excited to talk to John there. Damn, Josh,
I'm gonna tell you anyway, I'll Darrel or something. Just
just one, yeah, just you can do that. I didn't
want to anyway. I didn't want to monopolize the time there, John,
because I know you wanted to talk to him. That
was a great conversation, it was. It was really good.
I hope he calls back and maybe we can continue that.

(58:51):
I do see him in the queue there, but like,
let's let's get to another call where first and then
maybe if we can kind of rejoin it if he's ready.
But before we keep going here real quickly, just want
to say we do have some super chance that came in,
So let's let's go ahead and read some of those.
We have one from Miranda Rensberger, who is remember for
one year, gave ten dollars and said, is enough to

(59:11):
convince John to demonstrate his American accent?

Speaker 5 (59:16):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (59:17):
I'm gonna get very offensive here because I'm going to
go stereotypical, Okay from where I'll live.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Okay, I'll live here in North Kentucky. And to me,
this is how they sound. That's pretty good. I think
it's I don't know, I don't know if you passed,
but it's pretty close. But I feel like if nobody
knew that I was British, and that's an That's what
I'm trying to say, because I think I know you
something like I'm filling in the gaps. I'm trying to
think if I mention like a convenience store, would I

(59:43):
be convinced? Probably I think I would. I think I would,
But I'm yeah, no, that's good. That's good. I like it.
I hope you get a roll where you have to
be an American, not plenty of times. Okay, Okay, I
haven't seen it, so I need to see some more
of that. So there you go. There's a that's a
a good use of a super chat there, Veranda, thanks
for that. Another super chat from Dustin King, member of

(01:00:05):
two years, gave five dollars and said a god doesn't
explain the origin of the universe because it requires explanation itself. Likewise,
a soul requires explanation itself. And this is a great point.
This is another reason why, Yeah, Christianity's kind of hard,
right because it's like, Okay, you posit God, you posit
a soul, you paus it. I don't know a holy
spirit or heaven. It's like that these things kind of

(01:00:26):
don't make sense, right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Like I actually, let's say it is a god. Let's
say it is just for you know s and g s.
Let's say, what is a god? How do you know
it's your god?

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
You right?

Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
And it opens up a whole new kind of worms. Yeah,
and this is something that Josh shild and Christians kind
of do this too. We didn't talk to you about
too much, but he brought up lots of people in
history thought a god was real. But you really have
to put an astraisk on that because it's like, again,
Aristotle did not think Jesus of Natvioil. He was before Jesus.

(01:00:57):
But it's like he did not think the Old Testament
was describing reality. I don't think right, It's like that's
very different.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
What about the great thinkers that never made it to
being you know or known. There are probably thousands of
well known or great thinkers from Norway who believed that
Thor was the reason there was thunder still, they had
some great ideas, but they believed in the Norse gods.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
You know, it's very possible to do that. Lenny thinkers
of history probably had reservations about the religion that were
around them and probably couldn't for a lot. I mean,
Socrates literally right died from not believing in the gods,
allegedly right as the story goes. So you know, it's
it's not impossible that great thinkers also had non god beliefs.

(01:01:41):
Abraham Lincoln's a great example of this. Abraham Lincoln. He
had struggles with believing in God, and a lot of
people talk about him as being I don't know a
person that's respectable, I guess. But anyway, moving on from that,
I think that's all the No, we got one other
super chat. Actually we got one from donkey Butt. Thank you.
Donkeybug gave four ninety nine. I said, favorite philosopher and

(01:02:02):
why interesting question? What's your favorite philosopher? John? Thanks for
putting me on the spot. I mean, I'm not really
I don't even know. I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
That's not like I'm not really into philosophy in that way.
I like, I like scientific minds. Yeah, that's fair than
philosophical minds that I don't really get get anything from
philosophy because it's just talking about what if.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
In my opinion, it's just what if this. You know,
it could be that's not to me what I enjoy.
That's fair. I think Simonde is probably my favorite philosopher
that I've ever read, and that's a tough one. I
think Simonda Bovoir is probably the best, the most interesting
twentieth century philosopher, maybe my favorite. Might I might change

(01:02:47):
my answer to J Mike, J Mike, Jmike's a good answer.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
I'm just thinking about it, like, yes, I'm not I
don't I'm not smart enough to follow philosophy, but he
when he talks, I listen.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
So let's say Jami, Okay, there you go, J Mike
and somebody to Vovore. I think that's both on the
same level. I'd say, so that's that's a good good
answer there. Thank you for the super chat and thanks
to the question. It's a good one. I see Josh
has callback and he's in the queue. I do want
to take a break from Josh real quick, just because
we were talking for a while. So Josh, not that

(01:03:23):
we don't want to talk to you, but let's talk
to some other college just because they've been waiting for
a while too. Now here's one okay, uh, we do
have John from Canada online. Now are you up to
date on the recent Uh? Did you watch the Last
Truth Wanted? John? Because John from Canada? I would have
my hesitations in bringing John from Canada, but John from

(01:03:44):
Canada is called into the show maybe more than any
other column you've spoken to John. We've all seen John
as of last week. John says, Uh, they may not
be a Christian anymore. And so we're in a new
arc right now. Uh, John from Canada, you're a life
untruth Wanted? Is this still true? Do you are you
struggling with your belief in Christianity?

Speaker 7 (01:04:05):
Yes, that's still true.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Okay, have you have you made any movements? There? Any
new labels for yourself? Just curious? It's okay if you say.

Speaker 7 (01:04:12):
No, I'd the best boy describe you right now would
be agnostic.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Okay, all right, that is a development. I will say that.
And John, you want to call in today about the
dangers of evangelicalism, So tell me about your thoughts on that,
because you have evangelized on this show. So kind of
curious that you'd hold that position.

Speaker 7 (01:04:33):
Well before why I guess start. I'd just like to say,
I like the glasses. Do you wear contacts?

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Usually I'm wearing contacts right now. Okay, let's say I'm embarrassed.
I'm embarrassed I got these Meta These are the Meta glasses.
They were on sale and I wanted to try them.
I think I'm going to return them. They were too expensive.
I regret buying them. Honestly, it was like it was
kind of an impulse thing. I just want to see
because I like like cool wearable stuff and I want
to be able to have like a screen on my

(01:05:00):
on my last any way. Yeah, no, I'm I I
just want to see what they look on camera and stuff.
And you know, I'm probably going to return them, John,
But now I usually wear contacts. Thanks for asking.

Speaker 7 (01:05:10):
Okay, So well, when I say about and vandylloicalism is
that they're selling something that they know that they cannot
honestly produce. For instance, if if I have a product,
let's say I have a blender, I say it's the
best blender has ever been built invented and can sit
and can do the half to work and have to

(01:05:30):
talk more work, and half the time I tell people
buy it by it, by it or invest in my company.
But I have nothing set up. There's no there's not
even a blender. But people giving my money, we will
call that fraud. But evangelism, these men go on stage
and they say, Okay, believe, believe in God, believe in
God through me, pay me your money, and in some
cases obey me, and I will promise you eternal life. Yeah,

(01:05:54):
total life or not, we cannot know for sure. But
what these men are doing, they're promising something that they
themselves know that. Then I say, than I'm sure of
and be something that they cannot possibly guarantee. Do you agree?

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Uh? Pretty much? I mean yeah, again, that's just weird
hearing it from you, John, because you have again I
have need adversises have evangelized to us. So are you
saying that you were committing acts of fraud with us?

Speaker 7 (01:06:22):
Well, I genuinely believe.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
And that's what that's like where the issue stands, because
when when it comes to evangelicals, they genuinely believe that
they're doing the right thing. So it is like a
really tough line because you know, in their minds this
is the absolute truth and they need to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Let everybody know. You've been there, John, you know what
it was like.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
I you know, I used to believe in and afterlife
and dead people visiting, and you know, I would hear
voices and need to pass our messages.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
I believe, I genuinely believe that that was a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
And so yes, it may sound like it seems like
it's fraud, but that when when you genuinely believed something,
it doesn't come across from that person as fraud. So
we're just we're here. What I like doing is just saying, well,
now let's look into that and see why that might
not necessarily be a position to stand in, and we

(01:07:17):
can take a look back. So, yes, I see what
he's saying. It could become across as fraud, but you're right,
these folks they genuinely believe. You genuinely believe that this
was the truth, and so you felt like you were
doing a service. But now that where we were was
we were constantly saying, well, John, why do you believe
that what you tell us? You know how we could
demonstrate that to be the truth.

Speaker 7 (01:07:37):
So well, I'm not blieving that people who generally believe,
because if you believe something, it's not lying. Worried. My
my my concern or my my concern is when you
have people who acknowledge, who but they're ployling anyways. For instance,
I heard you earlier this show. You were talking about
that guy can Ham know that he's that he's well as.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Does I don't know? Does he doesn't? If there's anybody
we could prove that, right, And so here's the problem, John,
It actually doesn't matter. It actually doesn't matter whether ken
Ham's believes are genuine or not because he's still actively
causing you know, harm by telling lies right by by
what we would call lies. So so this is kind

(01:08:21):
of the problem, and this is why we don't stop
it just saying well, yeah, there's the fraudsters, but you know,
everybody else is still okay, Like, no, a lie is
still a lie, right, If it's still not true, it's
still not true. And yeah, it's it gets more ethically complicated.
But we talk about folks with genuine belief, but it's
not up to us to be able to tell someone
whether their belief is genuine or not. We can only
talk about the positions and the merits that they hold, right. So, yeah,

(01:08:45):
I don't know what are your thoughts there?

Speaker 7 (01:08:47):
I see? Anyway, Well, what I'm trying to say is
that you shouldn't promote something that you don't know least
we say.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
We don't know any Yeah, I mean, I think I
reasonably agree with you. But again, people do are one
hundred percent confident in something as well and are still wrong,
you know what I mean. So I don't know if
confidence level is necessarily the best metric either.

Speaker 7 (01:09:15):
Well, you have to before you believe something or before
you before you give your allegis to something. You have
to have a good idea that's true, don't you agree?

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
I think that that's reasonable, Yes, I think so. But
you know what the problem is, John, and I imagine
this is true for you, is that you and I
grew up in a Christian world. We really did, right.
We grew up with everybody else around us believing this thing,
and then this thing called the Internet came along and
a bunch of other stuff that maybe showed us other
points of view. But if I didn't have access to that,

(01:09:46):
if I didn't have access to people outside of my
community giving me other ideas about how the world works,
I'd probably still be stuck in where I was at.
And I think that's true for a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:09:58):
Of people, right, So what made you questions?

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Well, that is a long story, but it was a
lot of things. John, I I was a liberal Christian
first before I became an atheist, because like many people
who deconstruct from Christianity, you kind of do it with
one belief at a time. You don't throw the whole
baby out with the bathwater. You're kind of like, Okay, well,

(01:10:21):
maybe evolution is a thing, but evolution can coexist with
this or maybe the you know, maybe Paul and the epistles,
you his stuff. He kind of has some outdated opinions,
but the gospel accounts are still true and what they
say in their house, and so you know, this is
what happened with my Christianity is it kind of just

(01:10:42):
happened in layers. It wasn't necessarily everything all at once
tumbling because of one single you know, crack, right, And
I think that's true for a lot of people. Some
people they do have a watershed moment, but you know,
beliefs are a little bit more complicated than that most
of the time.

Speaker 7 (01:10:58):
But you don't as to the idea of theistic evolution.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
No, And I'll tell you why if you're curious about that,
Because I actually think that this is the one thing
that ken Hamm and I probably agree on, and it's
that you really can't make sense of the Bible and
the narratives that it provides by understanding things from an
evolutionary point of view. A lot of Christians say, well, really,
you know, the Old Testament we could say as metaphors, right,

(01:11:25):
we can say is kind of allegorical. But the New
Testament doesn't describe these tales in as much allegory as
what's again, if you're just looking at it from a
strict Bible perspective. I'll give you the example for this.
The Book of Matthew talks about the genealogy of Jesus. Okay,
and there's another gospel account that talks about the genealogy
if you follow that literal genealogy. Because the genealogy is

(01:11:47):
an account of people's succession through family. It's talking about
these people all the way up to Adam, by the
way I believe, as real people. It doesn't make sense
to have an allegorical genealogy unless you're trying to make
some sort of greater narrative or greater account. But you know,
then other parts of the Bible kind of fall apart.
Like you know, I talked about demon possessions Jesus wasn't

(01:12:10):
the only guy in the Bible that did exorcisms. The
disciples also were described to be doing this stuff as well,
and we're able to provide other kinds of miracles, and
that seemed to change people's beliefs when these miracles occurred.
So it really does kind of mess with a lot
of the Bible when you talk about evolution, and and

(01:12:31):
ken Ham is absolutely right about that. I actually don't
think you can be a Christian and still have all
these things make sense. But that's, of course my opinion.
And I'm talking a lot here. I don't know if
you had anything you want to add, John, No, you've
said it all perfectly. I think I think it nailed it.
What do you think, John from Canada?

Speaker 7 (01:12:47):
I went to Catholic school and I remember, you know,
it's weird they taught us the Bible. They taught us
that is a story of Genesis, but on the hand
they told us about evolution.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
Yeah, it's it's really it's very strangely refreshing to hear
you talking about everything like this, John. But I just
want to like make sure that you're okay, because as
you're stepping away from all of this there's what is
known as the angry atheist phase where where And I'm
not saying you're an atheist or that you're angry, but

(01:13:20):
as you start processing all of this stuff and the
things that you've been told as truths are now sort
of slowly falling apart for you, I just would like,
I want to find a way for you to reach
out to folks so that you've got someone to talk
to this whole time, because processing everything that you've been taught,
as you know this is what it is, you will

(01:13:41):
need some kind of outlet and someone to talk to
to process everything because it can get messy. Absolutely, so
that there are there are projects out there that you
know you can call into or email into, just for
someone to speak to. And I just want to make
sure that you're okay as you processing all this.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Please, that's our biggest concern, John, is we want you
to be okay no matter if you end up a
Christian next week, that's your life, you do whatever. I
want you to be okay with where you are.

Speaker 7 (01:14:10):
You know, I really appreciate that, Dan and John absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
It sounds like you've been having some some pretty deep
thoughts recently about where you're at.

Speaker 7 (01:14:21):
I have, yes, I have.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Good for you. Good for you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
I would I would like write some stuff down. You
know that we're here every week. We love, we love
having conversations with you. Like, just think of one thing
that you has hit you hard that week that you'd
like to process and we will be here to discuss
it with you and help you discuss it. And you
may have like it may flip you back to some
some kind of belief and we're happy to talk about

(01:14:48):
that as well. But you know, just know that we're
here to discuss this all with you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Yeah, write down your questions. You know, I'm happy to
answer my perspective on that.

Speaker 7 (01:14:56):
Go ahead, Oh, I mean, write down my questions.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
I'll do that absolutely, But I only say that with
a caveat that neither John, nor myself nor any host
is a therapist, licensed or otherwise. Okay, we give our perspectives.
We can't give you a life advice. We can't. You know,
we're not going to do that, right, but we can
provide you with resources if you need that, and also

(01:15:19):
if you go to the Atheist community website, we actually
just recently updated our resources page with more stuff for
people to check out. So I do recommend you going
there if you need that kind of help. But you
want our perspectives on what we think about this passage
in the Bible or something Christianity, we can do that
all week, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:15:38):
Oh okay, well I'll say environment now go before I'll
ask to ask you one question?

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Okay, shoot, whatever happened to?

Speaker 7 (01:15:50):
Who?

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
Oh? I don't know? Yeah, all right, crazy, Good talk
to you, John, have a great one. Maybe see you
next week. So there you go, John the skeptic. That
is what a change and demeanor, what a pran and conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
And actually I've been lucky whenever I've had a talk
with John on air, it's always been very respectful. And
I know that there are times that it goes the
other way, but that's so strange to me. But wow,
just wow, that he's like opened up to having some
questions asked.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
And I do think he's opened up. I mean, like,
I'm not saying he has to be anything right, but
you know, if he's genuine in his claims, which I'm
still on the fence about, I'm a little more believe.
But you know, as I said last time, I'm going
to keep my distance. Then that is a true testimate
that anybody can really change their mind, right, and then

(01:16:52):
maybe we shouldn't give up on the people around us,
even if it does take us literal years of conversation
with John. I don't know. If that doesn't change your
mind about that, I don't know what will, because I mean, hey,
you want to believe the miracles. That might be the
only miracle I've ever seen that, right, But that's just me.

(01:17:12):
I don't know, we do, you know, we'll I think
we're gonna take at least one more call folks. We
got folks on the line and I want to talk
to I wish I could talk to everybody. We can't
always get to everybody, but we will be on the
after show in just a little bit, so you should
go check out the fan run discord server where John
and I can answer all your questions. It's off the air,

(01:17:33):
and if you want to do that, you know we
can do that. We try to make that space for folks,
especially for folks who we can't talk to. And I
know Josh, I said, I try to talk to you later.
We do have some other folks that I do want
to get to though, So I am going to give
them that space just to make sure we talk to
as many people as we can. But if you're gonna
go to the Apter show, we can do that or
talk at a different time. I am going to talk

(01:17:54):
to Ben right now. We got Ben calling in from Alabama,
and I think we'll take you as our last college tonight.
So what do you got for us?

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
All right? Thanks? Well, one of I was listening to
one of the earlier calls, and uh, you know that
he was asking a lot about like which idea has
more explanatory power? And something I think a lot about
is that basically, my my epistemology that I use for
everything is the same one I use on my day job,

(01:18:24):
which is I need an idea that predicts cause and
effect with some reliability, so I cause the effects that
I want.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
And yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
So it's like, if I hear an idea that does
not make any predictions, I'm not going to call it true.
If an idea makes prediction but fails, then I'm going
to call it fall. And you know, it has to
actually make some predictions that come true with some reliability.
You know, you test via the scientific method and then
you hand it off to other people to use the ideas.

(01:18:58):
And it's like I hear so many people talk about
the things they believe are true and they don't even
try to like predict cause and effect.

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):
Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna put words into a
previous college Josh's mouth, right, but I can imagine Josh
or folks in maybe a similar camp making the case, well,
doesn't that mean you're relying on materialism? Doesn't that mean
you're relying on science? You know, you have some sort
of grounding epistemology, And I would say if you can
find something better, that would be great. But I agree

(01:19:31):
with you Ben. It seems that parsimony in particular, right
can provide more reliable results, and that's that's really what
we need if we're going to have a grounded system
of anything, of understanding. And is that going to come
with flaws? Is that going to come with hindrances? Yes,
But you know, as long as we're picking and choosing,
I don't know what's going to work better, right, John,

(01:19:52):
What do you think.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
There's a great quote out there that if every science
book ever written was to be erased and every religious
book ever itt was to be erased, and we left
it for like one hundred, two hundred years and then
went back to explain how things came to be. The
science textbooks would almost word for word be what came back.
So that's probably the best way to go. If if

(01:20:16):
you're just making up explanations for X, Y, and Z,
then the religious the new religious texts would be wildly different.
But because we have these reliable, you know, ways to
test things, we would rediscover that in two hundred years,
three hundred years, and we would get the same answers
because we'd be testing things in the exact same way.
So I you know, I'm always a big fan of

(01:20:36):
you know, cause and effect, and you know, if we
can prove this, then this is at the moment, likely
the best explanation we have until something better comes up.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
Yeah, that's a really interesting that's a really interesting thought experiment.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:49):
It reminded me that like, I think, like Luton and
Leading it both came up with calculus at about the
same time with I think, totally different notation, but it
was basically the same thing, right, And yeah, and a personally,
you know, everyone's got a gay job. For most people,
everyone's got something productive they need to do during the day.

(01:21:09):
And they want it to actually happen. So there is
some critical thinking involved with everybody. No matter how many
crazy ideas they believe, the ones that actually immediately matter
to them, they're gonna have to use ideas that like
produce a reliable effect or it can't work.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
Yeah, I agree, I agree. And this is again a
criticism I have with the theist position, particularly the Christian
theists position, because it just seems to be ad hoc.
It just seems to be looking at things that don't
make sense when we look at it through other lenses
and saying, well, but if we maybe pause it this,
then maybe it works. And it's just you can just

(01:21:50):
do that forever and ever and ever and ever, and
it doesn't produce satisfying results. In my opinion, it seems
like there would be if there was a god, there'd
be easier ways to do some of this stuff, right, like,
I don't know, make a message to the world that
everybody can clearly understand and not have to know whether
it's a metaphor or not, or I don't know, I mean,

(01:22:12):
just spitballing. But if and if a.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
God that created the universe existed, would it not know
exactly what it would take to convince that everybody of
its existence and not.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
Sure if it cared. Yeah, well, yeah that's true. But
you know, in the the Bible seemed to do to
be cool.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Yeah yeah, and you know it's believers want folks to know.
So surely if if that being existed, it would know
exactly what words these believers would need to say and
would tell them so that everybody would be you know,
there's so much that that a being could do, and
just at the moment doesn't seem to saying why should
you should we bother?

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
Why would a god of the universe make its origin
story known to man be believable through like locality, like
like like why would it anthropop just be able to
look at that and trace it on like a geographic
level rather than something else like you know, why aren't
Aborigines talking about how Jesus saved them? You know, we

(01:23:11):
had to tell them that, right as Christians? I don't
know it just it seems to be more plausible that
these ideas came from people and not from God. And
it's it's not just Christianity not trying to pick on that,
just it seems to be that way for all world religions.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):
So yeah, they had to use like Archimedian principles of
buoyancy to create boats in order to bring Christianity.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
Or sure, yeah definitely. So there you go, Ben, We're
probably on the same page. There Anything else you want
to add before we let you go tonight.

Speaker 6 (01:23:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
Yeah, there's like like one thing that the builds on
that the because like my job involves making simulations, and
one thing occurred to me, like you know when people
talk about like prophecies and predicting the future, or you know,
as you were saying, like what would a god would
should know? What would convince anybody that they're real? When

(01:24:05):
you're so like, in order to predict the future, what
I do is I create a little simulation of a
little licer reality, and I play it out to see
what happened. So it's like, if you actually wanted to
have prophecies and predict the future of our universe, I
think you'd have to be a time traveler, Yeah, to

(01:24:26):
actually watch what happened and then go back and say
this is going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Yeah, that's what I do. Sure, sure, yeah, And you
know I'm part of this too, is is I'm very
privileged myself, Ben I had have a college education. I
was able to have the free time to think about
this stuff and learn about this stuff. Not as much
these days working full time, but you know, I at

(01:24:52):
least there was a time we were able to do that,
and not everybody has that. There's a lot of systems
involved that I think influence our belief We sometimes, as
atheist think we make the mistake that our beliefs are
completely the result of our personal responsibilities. But I don't.
I don't think that that's necessarily always the case. Folks
that have high stress lives are going to have the
beliefs that give them comfort and probably rely on that

(01:25:15):
more than I would need to write. So you know,
there's there's a lot of things happening here. But because
you have a job where you critically think every day,
you're you're able to think about that and see how
you need these methods and it's it's going to be
more important for your daily life, Whereas you know, somebody
else may not rely on that as much and therefore

(01:25:35):
may not think about it as much. So I guess
I'm just making that point to see out how differently
people can can view this.

Speaker 3 (01:25:42):
Right yeah, and I guess like yeah, yeah, And I
absolutely don't be a different backgrounds and you know my viewpoint.
I've pretty much been a mostly skeptical and atheist.

Speaker 5 (01:25:53):
My whole life.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
I have a I did have a brief of affair
with cryptozoology when I was a child.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
But hell yeah, hell yeah, like we all.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
Do, right, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:03):
The History Channel did a number on us. I'm just saying,
you know, yeah, the Hit Channel. Yeah, basically yeah, but yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:26:13):
Think like I think like the message, the message I
would hope people would hear is that it's those little
things in your life where you need something to happen
and you need to know how to make it happen.
And that's true. That a giant pile of Jordan Peterson
esque word isn't going to make something true true? Can

(01:26:34):
you use that idea, idea to make something happen? And
we don't do that someway somewhere or another.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
Amen, Ben, Amen to that. I like it. I like it.
Thanks so much for calling. I'm going ahead and let
you go.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
Yeah, but for the show, Ben, Yeah, welcome, Come and
hang out, Come and hang out with this if you want.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
I'd love to talk to you. More then, But yeah,
we're we're getting towards the tail end of the show here.
John thoughts on today's show, what you think.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
I've learned that if Marvel were to make a demon movie,
don't put demons in pigs and shove them. It wouldn't
be very entertaining.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Probably not. Although actually if Marvel did it, though, the
pigs would be like they'd be like flying, you know
actually maybe maybe you know, Danos comes in and I
don't know, I'd take it back. That's how I would want.
But the John from Canada, what a revelations? What a revelation? Right, Yeah,

(01:27:28):
that's some relations to be written about. I agree with that.
I would like I'm continuing to follow this arc with John.
We'll see how John from Canada continues to evolve with us.
But yeah, I thought today was great. Thanks to everybody
who is watching. I want to give a quick shout
out and thanks to the crew that helped make this
show happen. Every single week we can get that crew

(01:27:51):
cam on, yes it with Oh look at that beautiful
shout of Cat just chilling. I like that as well.
I also need to give a special show out to
our backup host today flabbergast, first time appearance on any
ACA show. I believe flabbergasts. Thanks so much for being on,
and we didn't need you today, which is a good thing,

(01:28:12):
right Our internet connections worked, but maybe we'll see more
of you in the future. So thanks, Thanks for hanging
out with us in the background, waiting for one of
us to lose connection mess at any points. Yeah, for sure.
The prompt this week, folks, just to remind you, guys,
is what's an offer Jesus couldn't refuse? So comment below

(01:28:34):
the video non the live chat on the comment section,
and you know you like subscribe all the stuff YouTubers
tell you to do. But you know, we kind of
got to say one of the super chat as well.
I got to read out from Daisy who gave five dollars,
thanks so much, Daisy who said my teenage angst caused
me to love punk music, which led to anarchism, then
onto atheism. I had to develop good reason for that later,

(01:28:59):
which is I like that, what a way to do it.
That's a good journey. Yeah, retroactive reasoning there, we love it.
Come hang out with us, folks on the after show
being John in just a second and then you can
finally hear me shut up and hear more of John
talking here about. I'll leave it to you, John, you
got any words of wisdom for the show before we up?

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
Just just just if it can happen to John from Canada,
it can happen to anyone. That's my wisdom and also
white front to back.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
Yes, okay, good things, good things all around. I like that, folks.
This has been whoa whoa, whoa whoa early intro there
all of a sudden give the sign off? Whoa that that?
Never had that happen before? Anyway, folks, this has been
another episode of truth Wanted. I am your host, Jacks
vly Dane. Remember to always keep on the truth and

(01:29:51):
we'll see you next time. Boom there we go watch

(01:30:19):
the non profits and join the hosts in the live chart.
Visit tiny dot c c slash y t n B

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