Atheism is primarily a rejection of positive claims about God's existence rather than a positive claim that no gods exist, meaning atheists can have vastly different beliefs about what they do believe. The process of deconstruction involves critically examining religious claims, including the Bible's historical accuracy, logical consistency, and correspondence with reality, which can lead to a fundamental shift in one's worldview. This intellectual journey requires epistemic humility and willingness to question long-held beliefs, even when it involves abandoning commitments made during one's faith journey.
Install our extension to search inside any video instantly.
Ask An Atheist - What would you like to know from a former Christian?
Added:What's going on, folks? What's happening? Welcome to Icopod. I am your host, Be Good, and this is a call-in show, but we're going to switch it up today and do a ask an atheist call-in show. So, uh, if you got questions and you want answers, that's today's show. Ask an atheist.
What have you always wanted to ask an atheist?
uh get your questions ready and come join us. Uh if you're watching on Instagram, the link to join us on YouTube is in my bio. If you're watching on Facebook, I'll put the link in the chat right now. But welcome to uh to everybody out there.
See some familiar faces in the chat.
Let's get ready to get into it. Uh give me a second to put this link here for the Facebook squad.
And we live.
All right, there it is.
Daryl Williams in the chat with the salutations.
I don't even know if I can get started without that these days.
So, uh, traditional at this point.
Hold on. I'm trying to pin this in the chat for Facebook folks. All right, there we go.
Uh, weirdo rock, what's happening? And noon is here. What's happening? Good to see y'all. How's the week starting off?
Hope all is well on your end.
Professor Hizzle, what's going on?
Yeah, come on into the chat. Greet somebody in Reason's name as we get ready to dive in. Uh the link to call in is the first comment there, but we'll be posting it throughout uh if you've got questions and you've always wanted to ask an atheist. And let me say it this way. If you've got questions that you've always wanted to ask this atheist because sometimes theists talk to atheists and they say you all believe X and that's technically not the right way to approach an atheist because atheism is not a positive claim.
Well, no, let me not say that. There are some atheists who make the positive claim that there are no gods.
I'm not that kind of atheist, and I'll talk about the kind of atheist that I am today. Um, but all atheists are not making positive claims. Many atheists, matter of fact, more atheists that I run into are denying positive claims. They hear the God claim and they say, "I don't buy that."
And so atheism is a rejection of a claim, but in terms of what atheists actually do believe, that answer can be as different as people are.
Um, and so you can ask this atheist a question. And I'm not even going to sit here and try to pretend that I'm able to answer for all atheists. So with that being the case, get your questions ready. The link to call in is in the chat. But before we do much more, I do want to give a shout out to some folks.
You already know who I'm talking about.
If your name is on the screen, you know the rest of the sentence. Love you guys. Thank you for rocking with Kapod. Appreciate every single one of you. And even those who say, "Man, I would love to support, but I can't."
just by ch, you know, chiming in and tuning in, liking the episode, sharing the episode, um, hyping the episode if you can. All of that is, uh, appreciated and that's a way that you can help the channel. And so, I thank you for that.
And you all have seen that we are putting up more, um, more shorts. Um, so you'll be getting more of those coming soon.
I really don't know how I feel about.
So, I paid for the second time in my life to to promote a video. So, I put up a video on um on Tik Tok and I paid to promote it and it got 6,000 views, close to maybe maybe more, 6,000 views in just under an hour.
But I had to pay for that. And I'm always like, wait, 6,000 views, eight likes. Um, I think it had four likes before I even paid. I'm like, wait, what are y'all?
How do I know that when I paid to promote promote these videos that you're not just taking my money and then going in and manually bumping up the number of views that I have? So, how do I know that it really got in front of 6,000 people? If I don't have 600 likes or if I don't have, you know, even 60 likes, maybe the content is just bad. Or are y'all just selling like it's like the old radio? No. Cuz even with the radio back in the days when it was Poliola, it it's illegal. Piola was illegal, but you could pay a radio station to play your artist's song if you were a record label. And everybody frowned on it, but they they kind of was like, "Yeah, but that's the game. You have to pay the record company to get your song on there."
And so, you know, it was like, but at least with Poliola, you paid and yeah, you could actually turn on the radio and hear your song going out there to all these listeners. With this thing where YouTube wants you to pay and Instagram wants you to pay and Tik Tok wants you to pay to promote your stuff. It's like, wait, unless you're like really But and here's the thing, you could pay for views and they'll give you more views, but how do you know that they're not just you could actually say, "No, I want more likes. I want more follows."
And then they say, "Okay, we're going to try to push your stuff to people that that like more or follow more." So maybe I don't know, maybe I have to pay for that. But part of me is just like until I see the real people, I feel sort of like a sucker. Like I'm just giving y'all my money and y'all just going in and manually making it look like it's got more views. And really, I don't know what y'all are doing over there. So, I don't know. I feel some type of way about that. But I do have a caller and uh I was going to say this a minute ago.
It's not just this this is not just for theists. If you are an atheist or agnostic or you're maybe deconstructing, decon converting, today's call is for anybody. If you want to call in and ask a question, this will be that. But we have another atheist. Please welcome back to my guy TripleA the humanist. Oh, hold on. Let me put my earbud in. Sorry.
Violating over here. Uh, let me disconnect it from the phone.
Uh, and connect.
>> Go on, bro. I can hear you if you can't hear me. No, you can hear me and I can hear you, but I'm hearing you through the wrong speaker, so give me a second.
>> Oh, gotcha. Gotcha.
>> Let me make sure my joint is Y. Say something else.
>> Testing one, two, three.
>> There you go. What's up, my man?
>> Ah, Shelly, man. So, I I just happened to be on my mic when you went live. I was like, "Oh, oh [ __ ] Let me just jump in real quick before any questions."
>> Okay. Hey, look y'all, if y'all are not following now, that's debatable. Go follow Triple A's channel. Now, that's debatable. Uh, always having great dialogue with Christians on his channel.
Please go check him out and give him a follow. But, uh, yeah, man. We got some things that you and I are supposed to talk about actually >> soon. One of them was free will versus determinism, right?
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the big one.
>> And what else was it? I think I was going to hit you up to talk about something else. I forgot what it was. I was going to hit you up soon to talk about uh the Christian nationalism about uh Trump's speech saying this was a Christian nation. I thought it was >> speech was this >> uh >> this one he gave last Thursday.
>> Yeah. Uh no no it was last. No no I think it was JD Vance. Who was it?
>> Uh it was on July 4th.
Um >> earlier this month.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so like I it was just like I was just hearing it over and over again how this is just a this is a Christian nation and it's so I'm going to be doing a debate on it next week.
>> Okay.
>> And >> uh it's gonna be t next Tuesday at 7 p.m.
>> Okay, cool. Lock that in, y'all.
>> Yeah, man. Cuz like to >> it's it's odd that they say this is a Christian nation to to the extent that is true is trivial. to the extent that it's profound, it is false, you know, because I mean, >> so say more about that. Like, so you're you're willing to give it to some extent that it could be true, but then you say, but it's a trivial truth. Break that down. What you mean by that? So we So if you want to say that the United States is a Christian nation in the same sense that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a Muslim nation or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a Muslim nation, that is obviously false.
>> There are core principles not in like just in American um Jewish but like even in our constitution that completely contradict the Bible.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, so that is obviously false.
Like thou shalt not have any uh other gods before me. Have whatever god you want. Thou shalt not use Lord's name in vain.
>> No, but my my question is the opposite though. What are you willing to give it in terms of it being a Christian nation?
Even if it's trivial, what are you willing to to concede?
>> It's majority. So Christianity is the most prolific most dominant religion in practice in the United States. That is the extent that I will give it. That is that is about >> you wouldn't say core in its shaping.
>> Nope.
>> Of its ethics of its um >> no so you you you look so now I I will grant Christianity if it wasn't for Christianity wouldn't be United States >> because Christianity was founded by immigrants and refugees who were fleeing actual Christian nations. Okay, >> think about what was going on in the UK.
Think about what's going on in, you know, that the British Empire all in Europe. Those are actual Christian nations. When the the government was controlling the church, they was burning people and and imprisoning people for believing or preaching our own thing.
That is a Christian nation. That's not what we have over here, too.
>> Great point.
>> Yes. So, I I will grant it. Go ahead.
>> Yeah. There are people who say, "Okay, even if JD Vance and and uh Mike Johnson, all them, even if they were to turn this back into what they think is a Christian nation, the the immediate question is going to be, >> okay, who's Christianity then?" Because you all don't agree, right? So, yeah, you're going to take it back to what it was, you know, the 30 years war or all that stuff that's happening in in like in the UK or in Europe. Yeah. Go ahead.
>> They're trying to turn America back into the place that we fled from. Those were actual Christian nations, the places that we left. You know what I'm saying?
So like, no, you you don't want to turn America back to that.
>> I mean, turn not back to that, but turn into that like in to the extent that America actually had to the extent that >> what if they say no. Okay, I'll give you that triple. But what America was supposed to be, you know, William Penn's great exper experiment. It was it was the religious liberty to be the kind of Christian that you wanted to be. You didn't have to be Anglican. You didn't have to be Presbyterian. And so we're going to turn it back into that kind of a Christian nation. And is that sort of what the founding fathers were doing?
or the the first pilgrims or the you know >> well I mean so may may like some of those pilgrims they were leaving Christian persecution from Christian nations but they weren't leaving Christianity they were trying to practice Christianity >> in their own form but if you actually look at what type of government >> that the founders were trying to build and if you look at a lot of them the the reference material that they were using to build it because our constitution is it's more it's more evolutionary than revolutionary, right? If you look at a lot of uh if you look at where the federal constitution like gets a lot of its principles and it framing from, it pulls from a lot of um state constitutions and some other um foreign legal documents as well. Yeah.
>> Native uh uh practices and all that.
Yeah.
>> Yes. And and there those documents aren't Christian. Mhm.
>> So, I mean, you're you're not going to be able to point anywhere in in in scripture and and be able to say, "Hey, oh, the Constitution came from this part." I mean, like just basic principles like I don't know, separation of powers, checks and balances. You don't see that in a Bible. And there was plenty of opportunity for it. Think about >> Jesus is Lord so long as the the Congress allows him to be. Right.
>> Right. you know, and then and then I mean I remember looking through, you know, um after after the uh kingdom of Israel when it split after Solomon's death, you know, if you look at Israel's kings, like they were almost always evil and they were suffering for it.
>> You know, some separation in powers would have done well, some checkers, balances would have done well. And for those who don't remember, TripleA when he did the Life After Faith on this channel, one of his big issues was why is it that the Bible and all of God's supposed wisdom could not have come to a better form of government than they had in those days? And we we seem to have stumbled across something that was more uh liberating, something that was more progressive, more you see the Bible progressing in its morality in a lot of ways, but it still had a lot of ways to go. Why are we able to do so much better than what they were able to come up with? And that was sort of what helped you to say this can't be from a god.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's so problemat. And then and some of the people that I I I've talked to about this, they say, "Oh, no." See, the problem was Israel, they weren't they were never supposed to have a king, you know? It's because man was in charge. But if God was in charge, you know, he wouldn't have had his problems. I'm like, "The [ __ ] you talking about? Look at the book of Judges before the kings came in, right?"
Well, they would just say that that was that was our sin. Our sin must up.
Well, well, obviously God's not the answer to our sin because we were still sinning. Go look into the the the civil war that Israel had in in the book of Judges with uh the tribe of Benjamin.
Like it was just it was just utter nonsense. Go read the story. It it won't you'll be like kind of like pulling hair trying to make sense of it. But like it it you know it just some some really some really basic principles of liberty would have done them well there and so there was plenty opportunity for them in the Bible >> but for some reason they were absent.
>> So I mean >> got you where where in the Bible were you pulling it from you know so no it's not it's not a Christian nation.
>> Yeah >> that is got you >> I just thought of something else I'd like you to help me do. So, somebody on my Facebook page just yesterday brought up the discussion that I had with um the Christian apologist Eric Hernandez >> and you know I you know I had made some post and they was like oh you acting like we have like we didn't watch you basically just get trashed by Eric Hernandez in that debate. I'm like first of all I invited him on for a discussion not a debate. I didn't prepare for a debate. I didn't have all my points and all that kind of stuff. He came ready for a debate and he only came on the channel. You you debated >> we had two we had two discussions that they weren't debates they were to me they're discuss I don't do debates like you're you're now that's debatable that's you okay >> we would it's discussions >> but I didn't know who he was I didn't know that he was worldrenown author apologist and all the all this stuff debated Matt Deahante and all kinds of folks >> and so when he came on he's throwing all this like philosophy at me and I'm like I'm partially like trying to understand what is he even saying not no shame part some of his words I couldn't even make out and then I'm just like and so he's like yo uh the person that commented was like yo you act like acting like we didn't just see you get trashed by Eric Hernandez. I'm like, first I was not there for a debate. I invited him on for a discussion. And then two, I'm not a philosophy guy, but our second discussion, I think, went much better because I knew where he was coming from.
>> But I think it would actually be dope if you came on one day with your philosophy chops and we got a chance to walk back through the discussion debate, the first one >> that I had with him and and sees like sort of where what he was trying to say.
I think I got him now. I didn't realize he was doing a presuppositional argument. Yeah, he's a precept terminology.
>> The terminology wasn't uh wasn't known to me. He's talking about uh undercutter defeaters and this that and the third.
I'm like I'm like, bro, what are you even talking about? So anyway, I'm gonna be hitting you up for several things in the coming weeks.
>> All right. Yeah, pre presuppositionalism is nonsense. I I had Matt Slick on uh last month. Um it it was funny. It was this one part uh my co-host my co-host wasn't there for most of the show but he jumped on and he asked Matt Slick some questions and Matt I guess I guess he felt cornered and then the >> the conversations just went haywire and he started cussing at each other and all that kind of stuff but we got >> go subscribe to that that's debatable and watch the real debates he's having with with theist. Yeah. Yeah.
We got the conversation toned down a little bit, but but what I really wanted to say was um I think at the beginning you were talking about I guess like what atheists believe and how you know then atheism is really just a re a rejection of God concepts.
It's not saying that >> God does not exist. It's just saying like there is no God. There's nothing that exists that I believe is worth calling God. There there is no God concept that I've heard of that I'm convinced that believe, >> you know, that convinced to believe in.
And >> I I want to say I I often I I challenge atheists to kind of go maybe a little further. There there are depending on how you define that God. There are some some gods you say >> yes do not exist and there are >> hold on hold on hold on because here's how I say that. I say there are some gods that we can rule out unless those gods are liars. Like the Bible god could exist. He would just have to be a liar or a bumbling idiot.
>> Right. So I mean like >> Right. So I would say if if if he's a liar, I would say that's not the Bible God. Right. Or Right. But A liar can say I always tell the truth and still be a real liar. So Bible God can say I'm not a man that I should lie and still be a lying God. Like he could be that kind of being.
>> Facts there there are certain definitions of God that that is often time invoked in Christianity that you can certainly rule out like like for instance like he like the Christian God. He's often described despite the way he's described in the Bible. Christians will describe him as all loving, which is weird if you know anything about the Christian Bible.
Somehow he's all loving >> and he's allful.
>> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes. and and all so well any god that is all powerful if you define all powerful as the ability to do anything except logical um absurdities and then you define allloving as the desire to remove all unnecessary suffering there shouldn't be any suffering >> whatsoever because >> because none of it should be necessary if he's all powerful >> yes yes if you're all powerful then all suffering is now unnecessary M >> so so that by itself that rules out that God you there are another another version is um I had a guy on my show we talked about um the hypothatic union and depending on yeah >> oftent times Christians will describe Jesus as being 100% God and 100% man >> and so I I look for clarification I was like >> is man a subset set or a superset of God. Meaning basically, is God a type of man or is man a type of God? And they would say, "No, man is a non-God. He is not God." Now you have a problem because now you're saying Jesus is what he isn't.
>> You're saying he's 100% God >> and he's 100% non-God.
>> That makes no sense. That is a logical web. can rule that particular guy out.
>> Well, would you accept it if they if they changed the equation?
>> Remember my song Incredible Walk? I say, uh, that's two, isn't it? I don't know how to configure it or what digit they hit to make the equation equivalent.
What if they changed the equation and said, "No, he's 50% God and 50% man."
Would that make it more >> Yeah, that Yes, that that can that can work. You can't be 100% is and isn't.
That that makes no sense. But yeah, you could be you could be half and half. You could be like like what I think it's called modalism when God would morph into God and morph into man >> and and or or you could say like like a container, right? Like God just contained a man and he contained a God or something like that, right? Or Jesus contained a God and contained a man. But but most Christians are not willing to say that because all of those doctrines are are ruled out as as heresy. the the biblical authors said so many varied things that you have to end up creating new categories to incorporate everything that these competing authors said and that's how you end up with the hypothatic union >> right and and and that's why like often times I remember in school when I was studying theology and we were we were studying like the hypothetic union and they would say like there was like there any meta once you defi describe a metaphor once you come up with a metaphor that can perfectly describe the hypothatic then it's going to be a heresy. Yeah, it's going to they said about the trinity and and the now here's the problem that that should be a red flag.
>> Anytime you come up with a concept >> that literally any metaphor for it is going to now render it incoherent or incompatible like that's a problem because like real things like there's no real thing I can think of that couldn't be compared to some other real thing.
>> Well, no, for me that's not so much of a problem. I see Carlos backstage. Big big brown dad is backstage. Were you looking to get in on this combo or you just waiting to to get in next?
>> I'mma bring Let me do one at a time because I want to um make sure I keep the line. I'mma go one at a time real quick. Um to me that's not a problem though, uh TripleA because if God is other, >> I would imagine that there would be or should be a limit to what you could compare. Matter of fact, it's in the Bible. What to what will you compare me?
God says, right? There should be some kind of metaphor breakdown unless that thing also has the same qualities as Hold. Let me bring Carlos in now because maybe he's got something to say on this.
>> Okay.
>> What's up, Carlos?
>> Peace. Peace. Peace to you, Tremollet.
Peace. What's going on, brother?
>> I think there should be some kind of like the metaphor has to stop working because God is other unless this other thing has these divine qualities too.
Would would you agree that that it sort of makes sense that the metaphor has to break down somewhere?
>> It it shouldn't render it in like it shouldn't like render the idea incoherent like so so obviously like there's going to be some met there's going to be like a metaphor.
>> Hold on real quick real quick real quick. I'm getting getting feedback from somebody. Either somebody's headphones up real loud or something.
>> I don't know if it was happening before I bought Carson or not.
>> Yeah, it's not me. Yeah, I'm >> It's good now.
>> Okay.
>> Oh, no. No, it's not. Still there.
>> Oh, that might that might be me. Let me let me get off my headphones and let me just go regular mic and see if that fixes it.
>> I was going to say so like so unless something is identical to the thing that it's being compared to, which means that it is the same thing. So, there's going to be at some point where the metaphor is going to break down, but it it it shouldn't it shouldn't be to the point where you couldn't use a metaphor to understand the things being compared to like for like for instance like when when we talk about like the the trinity, right? Like how is this thing Jesus is God, Holy Ghost is God, but Jesus and the Holy Ghost isn't the same thing.
Like and >> think of that diagram that they always show, >> right? And and even the diagram itself, it like doesn't really depict it, right?
>> The father isn't the son, the son isn't the holy spirit, the holy spirit isn't the father, but they're all God, >> right?
>> Y'all seen that, >> right? And it's all like, could you say like you have the judicial branch, the legislative and executive, and they're all part of they're all like part of government but not each other. Like, no, that's a heresy. I'm like, so like when you run into stuff like that, that should be red flags.
>> Like it it shouldn't be exactly equal, but like the the point of metaphors are to help you to understand understand things. This to break things down in similar terms, right? And in terms you can easily understand. Now, if you're saying anytime you use a metaphor, it's going to be a heresy. Like come on. Like it's what it sounds like. You're describing something that isn't real.
And you and you can do you can practice with like other non-real things. Like think about something that is like a square circle. A square circle, right?
>> Think of a real thing that you could compare to that like there like nothing >> because they're negations from each other.
>> That is a red flag.
>> That's because the the real the real things I like >> rely upon the laws of reason. This nonreal thing does not. That's why the metaphor isn't working because you're like, >> "So, so hold on. I would love to hear.
Let's bring Carlos in." So, I asked the question on my Facebook page today. I asked it months ago, never got a good answer. And the question was, did God determine what his nature would be? Did God choose his nature or did he have no choice in the matter? And Christians saw right away like, "Yo, this question is a trap." Because if I say God had no choice in the matter, then he's not sovereign. If I say he chose his nature, well then that means he was some other way before, so he's mutable. And there's all kind of problems with God choosing his nature. But even the squared circle, think about what's logical. Why is a squared circle illogical? Is it because God could have made it logical, but he just didn't? Or is God even hemmed into even he couldn't have made a squared circle when he was coming up with his idea for the world? Is God confined by anything?
Is logic just a reflection of him or was God even sort of some kind of way um you know uh beholden to there are certain things I just can't do.
You know, these are all like these are all perennially difficult >> questions which I'm sure we can summon some answers. One thing that I think is interesting about the dialectic is that as I've experienced it is like um we we get as believers we would get answers increasingly elaborate increasingly sophisticated all the way up the chain so that we kind of get breadcrumbmed into accepting an ultimate mystery. So like I' I've thought through a lot of these issues and then >> at the end the trinity was one I was like ah well okay I can I can throw my hands up here but at least I didn't throw my hands up way back there and I didn't try to think through all these other issues. So like the nature of the dialectic I think is interesting because even today I still feel compelled to say [ __ ] maybe there is some things that I can't fathom. That said, I I'll take another step and say, well, if that's true, then the nature of this whole project is suspect at best. I can't get to some firm ground, then maybe this entire enterprise >> is is feasible or whatever.
>> So, go ahead, TripleA.
>> I was going to say when you had said like there are some things that you perhaps there are some things that you can't fathom and I love that the epistemic humility there, right? And here's the problem with that approach though like obviously don't don't say if I can't fathom it it can't exist but >> argument from infidulity >> right right however like there are if there's something that that you can't let's say there's there's two there's two objects one is too complex for you to understand the There is no sense to be had.
>> Sure.
>> Right. One's absurd, one's just too complex. Epistemically, they're going to look identical.
>> How could you tell the difference between the two? That's And that's, you know, I love this because I was thinking the same things in different words. The way I would have said it was >> if you and Carlos, the way you said that, breadcrumb breadcrumbmed into accepting a mystery. I would almost be willing to do that. like, okay, if if there's a God, it's got to be at some point I'm going to have to say, okay, I got to bow out here. This is too too much for me. Um, but if that's what the process is, you can accept this, you can understand this, you can wrap your mind around that, but then you're going to come to this point where you have to say, I can't get that. Why accept this version of that, the Christian version, instead of some other like why cannot the Muslims say, "Oh, no, no, no. Once you get to this point, it's mystery. Why can't the Buddhists, why can't the Hindus say, "Oh, no, no, it's going to be." Why accept this mystery over some other mystery?
>> Now, maybe this comes back to your kind of introductory question, and I think this all comes back to whether or not for me there is mystery that might be driven by incalculability.
Like, this is too hard for me to calculate and I can't determine it because I don't have the engine to do this work, which is fine. But then there's an incoherence challenge which I would reject. So I wouldn't say my admission of mystery is an admission of incoherence. I I would reject that. This might double back to your question about is God kind of by nature bound by logic.
My impulse is if there if that question makes sense probably or something like that. But I don't even know if that question makes sense. But that said, I I do think the incoherence is a strike against any reason to believe a thing. You know what I mean? Probably a a death blow even maybe. I What do you think? The question, could a God have made it so that as high as his wisdom is or his ways or his thoughts are above ours, as high as the heavens are above the earth, could a God have made it so that we could understand and we wouldn't have to check out because, oh, that's just too much.
Like, could God have done that? And for if he could have done that, but chose not to, how do you blame us for getting frustrated by either the mystery or the incoherence?
I as a Christian I would have said no that that God could not create logical absurdities like in that sense like God could be God. I mean God could not be God >> you know God could not be himself like you know there you you with if God is able to do that there's problems I mean even if even if think about this if God can violate logical like it say can vi he can violate the law of non-contradiction then if there's contradictions then perhaps he can't do it as well >> you know like you're right it's kind of it's a self-defeater Yeah.
>> Right. So like >> okay let me ask you this because and I' I've resisted this. I'm not scientifically inclined and but I listen to these guys all the time talk about quantum indeterminency and there's some component of nature that says that there is a thing can be in two places at once or >> oh some superp position. Yeah that doesn't violate logic.
>> That doesn't violate logic.
>> It doesn't I can yeah I got to write this down real quick. So, so, so it's thinking about like a like a a particle, right? So, that's that's spinning up and spinning down at this at the same time.
So, now the the uh log logical absolutes aren't concerned about opposites because that's what ups and down is. Up and down, up and down are opposites, but they don't care about opposites. They care about logical negations.
>> Okay?
>> So, in order for it that particle to violate logic, it would need to be spinning up and also not spinning up. M >> it needs to be spinning down and not spinning down.
>> No particle does that.
>> And but isn't the don't they claim the particle is in two positions occupying two locations >> at once and we don't know which location it's at until we observe it or whatever.
>> It could be in two positions.
>> Well, actually it's not the particle that's doing it. That's the wave function.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And but I was I was going to say but even just think about like spatially the the spaces like two particular spaces in time aren't logical negations of each other >> right >> but is there a truth >> is there a truth value about its position that would exclude its >> so if a particle was here like let's say a particle was here and a particle was here right >> so this is not that wouldn't violate violate logic It would need to be here and also not be there >> not be there. Right?
>> That is the way you do that.
>> That's it doesn't care about opposites like it doesn't care about being contrary.
>> It doesn't care about logical negations.
>> That is it.
>> But okay, I don't Yeah, again this is a little bit out of my but >> a lot of people are probably listening like wait I I don't like people check out once you start trying to explain quantum figures. They like the double stood experiment. They like Schroing Schroinger's cat. When it's explained a certain way, when it's explained as you look at something and that makes it real. When it's explained that way, people love quantum physics. When it's explained the way that that actual uh physicists explain it, people check out.
And so, >> yeah, I got I guess you were driving that and I don't know the answer to this, but like I wondered, is is there a sup is there a supra logic? Is there a logic above logic that allows for apparent incoherence or but maybe you just I don't know.
>> Good question. So for me that supra logic are the logical absolutes identity excluded middle non-contradiction. Those those are those are just it like if you talk to a priest up like I had this priest up on my channel >> and he was talking about what holds the logical absolutes in place >> right like why he says like can a be can like can a not be a does it has to be a and now now think about this so the logical absolutes they're not prescriptive it does not say that a has to be a it say that a is a that is it is is is only describing.
>> So what he what he wanted to do was ask the question but why >> why why is something what it is?
>> Mhm. That is the most fun that is the most fundamental level that I can see because the negating negating those you are affirming them like there there it's a self-defeated if the if the law of identity is false what did you falsify >> right >> because the law of identity has to be the law of identity for you to falsify.
>> Here's what I'm gonna give y'all some of my my my uh my when I'm high thoughts.
There's something that I'm working through right now >> that I want to I want to write more about. But I I'm willing to begin to to consider that the law of identity is only a seeming law because I think that there's something about reality that is there's there seems to be this ongoing battle between being and becoming. And I'm willing to say that there is really no there is no pure being. Being is always becoming.
Like when you think about why we think about anything being permanent, nothing is actually permanent. It's just that we're on the scale of the scale of reality that we're on.
>> Things can exist long enough for us to think there's something like permanence or normaly or laws. But really everything is becoming. Everything is radiation. Everything is so even if whatever the ground of our being is is radiant, it is always radiating. So that being is always becoming and the identity just seems permanent because it takes so so long at the scale of being that we're on. But if you're on another scale of being, maybe you see much more clearly that there is no being.
Everything is always becoming.
>> So I I agree. So I think reality is always in a state of transience, right?
So like hard I would say hardly anything's permanent like hey everything I can think of is is always changing but you know so the law of identity doesn't require permanence right it doesn't it's just whatever it is is itself like it can be changing and while it's changing you know is it is what it is >> it's purance I think they call it >> purance I think it's the term it's purance yeah >> purance oh okay >> a thing's identity through time yeah >> say that again what's the Perdurance.
>> Pderance.
>> Perurance.
>> Perdurance. A thing's identity. Oh, >> purance. Oh, okay. Yeah, I get that. I get that.
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, yeah. A philosophical theory of time and identity. It posits that an object persists through time by being in a four-dimensional um hole composed by of composed of different um distinct temporal parts. Okay. Yeah. I I gotta look into that. The Christian me wanted to put God in this unique place of being and never becoming. And that's what faded as I became an atheist of is this idea of pure being.
>> Yeah. Are do you know John Ivan Gil by chance?
>> No.
>> Uh he's a former Christian hiphop head turned philosopher, philosophy professor. He teaches um >> what >> uh he teaches uh >> John Gil.
>> John Ivan Gil. Yeah. J O N I V A N G I L. He has a book on phenomenology and hiphop and uh you're talking phenomenology like I think John Hick or something like that. I forget the actual school of thought here but yeah everything's in pro process theology.
>> Um >> oh process I'm familiar with process theology.
>> Talk Christian to us.
>> Yeah my bad. My bad.
>> Yeah process theology comes from pro um um process philosophy. Yeah.
>> Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
>> Like North North Whitehead and all these guys or whatever.
>> Yeah. Bombay kicks that. He's he's he's a good guy. Uh he's black dude. He's in Minnesota. He teaches at he teaches in Minnesota now, but he's on the west coast often and he kicks a lot of this [ __ ] It's pretty dope.
>> Okay.
>> So, >> go ahead. I want to wrap this up because I'm going to clear the line for some some theist in a minute, but go ahead.
Well, I I wanted to say so, uh, we were we're talking about like the really quick the fundamental nature like of reality. And I this is the the real problem presuppositionalists have because they want to say God is that fundamental nature of reality, >> but like he he can't be the God is contingent upon things for his own existence. God cannot be God unless the law of identity is true.
The law of identity could be without a god. It it there's there's nothing incoherent about that. God without the law of identity makes no sense because God is not God.
>> So >> well no when you say the law of identity can exist without God. I'll go back to the question that they that they asked you. What enforces the law of identity such that it can be?
>> What makes something what it is?
>> So the law of identity. So the law of identity. So re I I would say the law of identity is a description of reality.
Reality has no enforcement mechanism. It could not >> except just another part of reality because that enforcement mechanism if it's real, it's just part of reality.
>> And and that enforcement mechanism is also contingent upon the law of identity. The enforcement mechanism needs to be the enforcement mechanism in order for it to be the enforcement mechanism. That's the law of identity.
So that that's what I was saying like that is the the term Matt Slick was using he said the uh he said the terminus that that wasn't that was a new word for me and that like the most fundamental layer that is it it is not God disappears you can still reason >> yep laws of logic reality disappear no God makes no sense incoherent >> y >> hey talk about this hours and maybe we will one one day Triple A, I'm going to let you go. I'm going keep calling us for for a few minutes.
>> All right. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me on.
>> Thanks for checking in, bro. Get with you.
>> All right. All right, man.
>> I was just going to say it's kind of like I was thinking, but you ever see that um documentary on uh crossworders?
Cross word cross word like fanatics.
People meet all over travel all over the country to compete in cross word games.
And it's like why do people do this, bro? Like, >> and sometimes I think the same thing about us when we get into these conversations. It's like >> we're just we're just puzzlers, bro.
We're just We're just taking this puzzle and trying to move it here, move it there.
>> We want to know. We I think we want to know. We want to turn it over. We want to um Well, no. I think that's a good question because somebody could ask, why do you want to know? Why do you like Why do you think it is that you're like you're turning these things over and over in your mind? Why is it just for for fun, for shits and giggles? Like why?
Why not? No. Why? Why? Um, blame it on hip-hop, bro. How about that?
>> You know what I'm saying? Like, always wanted to say something. Always wanted to and not be wrong. You know what I'm saying? Like wanted to say some [ __ ] that hit like >> and then and if it could be And then like I came up in like early 90s, mid 90s, some of these guys were dropping like just jams. I'm like, "Oh, >> conscious rap." Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I want to do that. Like what can I say? You know what I'm saying?
Like so >> uh there was some of that that probably got me going. You know what I mean? Just wanted it >> Yeah.
>> to to happen.
>> I think for me I hope this I hope there's innocence or a purity in this.
For me I just want to know >> and but but I I will say and I don't want to be wrong. And so I want to rule out the things that we can rule out >> um to the degree that we can. You know what I And maybe there's some things we've ruled out that we need to bring back because we didn't have good grounds or maybe we we've learned things. Oh, remember that old hypothesis? Now maybe it could work. I just want to know because >> if you look at reality as this this constant back and forth between being and becoming. Um I want to know what the possibilities for becoming are because maybe we're not all we're cracked up to be just yet, but we can be. Maybe we could be different than we are. And I want to know what those what those possibilities are. And so for me, it's always learning, always seeking, um always hearing. That's why a lot of times I listen more than I speak because you might say something that might trigger something in me that I need to like consider more. Even the Christian, >> you know.
>> Yeah. There's like a there's a sociological impulse for me too. There's like a like, you know, trying to understand just trying to understand who I am, where I am, how does all this work, who's in charge, where does power come from, who has authority, what's the history? It's like once you once you get enlightened, it's like you're on that path and >> you know, get ready for the avalanche type [ __ ] you know?
>> Well, and you know what? When you put it like that, I guess I could actually I could thank my Christian upbringing because I didn't care about all of this stuff before I became a Christian. When I became a Christian, it gave me questions that I wasn't asking. Where do we come from? Why are we here? Because I was young. Maybe if I would have got older, I would have asked those questions without Christianity. But Christianity introduced those things to me. What happens when we die? And then it gave me answers. Once I got to the point where I rejected those answers, I could have taken the the path of some people and just stopped asking the questions, >> but I didn't. I'm still concerned about the questions. I just don't like those answers anymore.
>> Right. No, it's it's also like uh I started boxing a few years back and it got me thinking about martial arts, too.
It's like uh it's dope to come from a school. It's it's cool to come to have like like oh you're a student from what school? Oh, I go to this academy. Okay, that tells me a little bit about you.
Like, all right, cool. Uh the these are my values. You kind of coming from a tradition >> gives you a place in the story. You know what I'm saying?
>> And the larger story. So it's always like there was always a value in that to me too like coming to have a tradition to operate out of.
>> Yeah.
>> I converted at 18 so I didn't come up you know it was like oh this is brand new. This is wow 2,000 years of history or more to get kind of get get familiar with.
>> So I was like yeah there's a there's a real appeal to that to >> imagine like coming across a fighter who had no formal training. It's like >> I don't know better get your formal training up. He might be he might be dope or whatever, but >> odds are odds are slim. So, there's something about the >> the the formal training we received in this enterprise that I think still benefits me. You know what I'm saying?
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and I don't know there there's a Christian watching like maybe you hear me say this and like, oh, so he's not completely hostile. Like, no. I think I think there are some things that I I don't know if I'll ever be able to shake that I got from the faith. And maybe I don't want to. Like I think I want to ask these kind of big questions, but I just don't want to be BSed into what the answers might be.
>> That's correct. You know, I was I was thinking too like especially when I was talking with you and your folks on your show is like I used to go into some of these conversations like and I'm sure this was true of you as well as when you're in your apologetic mode. It's like >> you're not exactly able to think freely cuz we know what positions we want to defend, >> right?
>> Like I know I have to land here.
>> Exactly. So yeah, I can I can we can play or whatever like thought exercise, but I know where I got to go. But like now I kind of don't have these positions to defend. Like I'm just kind of curious like what the [ __ ] I don't know. I don't know what I think. I'm not It's okay. It's okay to not know. You know what I'm saying?
>> You don't have to arrive at at X conclusion which means you're free. Like typically as a Christian, the one of the things one of the things I could say about me is I could carry on some of these conversations longer than a lot of my Christian brothers. But then like you, like you just said, at some point I'm like, "Okay, okay, I gotta get home.
I got to get back to home base, >> right?"
>> But now these conversations can be as open-ended as they actually are, and I can consider all kinds of Now, there's some things I'm not willing to consider.
Like, you start talking about certain conspiracy theories and aliens, you know, not that I don't think that there could be, but you start talking about the aliens that we've encountered already, I'm like, "All right, I I'm I'm not going there with you."
>> Right. Right. Right.
I could travel pretty far on these roads now because I don't have this predetermined destination >> right now. You know, I was thinking about cuz you know, I was trying to think about the the different aspects of my faith journey, experience, history that I can't shake.
>> And uh one of them, as you mentioned, aliens, which is really like not about aliens per se, but about what if the grand narrative really was one that I didn't like? Cuz right now, I've been one all along, even as I like rejected my old Christianity, I was like, "Oh, what? I'm going to arrive at the truth and that's good." You know what I'm saying? Like I gave up. I'm on this truth journey or whatever. What if the truth is unfucking sightly or whatever?
What if there's some like I'm naive?
Like I'm so naive, bro. I think I think good is going to win or whatever the hell. Like nah, bro. Like why think that?
>> I was resisting the urge a minute ago to give the analogy, but you just gave the perfect uh, you know, introduction to it. It's like the Matrix. I hate saying it because it's so cliche, but once you realize like, oh, I've been brainwashed.
I've been living a lie and been being fed fantasies. And now you got to decide, am I going to go back into the matrix and and let them keep lying to me or or am I going to live out here where, like you said, the truth might be unsightly?
And I mean, maybe I'm lying to myself now by not recognizing how unsightly it actually is to be out here without a God protecting me and without a community praying for me, without a this, that, and the third. Um, even though I I kind of do still have people praying for me according to >> Love you, Brady.
>> Praying for you, Brady. Right. Uh, that kind of stuff. But outside of that, I'm just like, >> it's not so bad out here. The though whatever good we're going to see, we kind of have to fight for it ourselves.
You know what I mean?
>> Right. Well, like now there's like this the threat the threat of an emerging narrative meta narrative that's kind of making me unhappy. like, oh wait, like >> maybe there's a bigger story and like I really have to come to terms with the fact the story that I assumed was correct is not. It's like >> I'm not I'm not happy with that. I'm like I don't I rather not, you know, but what are you going to do?
>> But I appreciate this platform, bro. You know, you're doing good [ __ ] You're having uh deep conversations, important conversations u with people that look like us and and come from our background. So that's that's what's up and I want to encourage you to keep it up.
>> Hey, thanks for for tapping in, bro.
Appreciate you >> for sure.
say with you.
>> All right. So, this is a call-in show and uh as the title says, ask an atheist. Uh I get people who have all kinds of questions and if you email me, you know, I will go back and forth. It may take me a while, but I will get to you and we will go back and forth as long as you'd like because I'm trying to share perspective maybe just to to open up the aperture on your lens that you get to see a little more light, a little more, oh, I guess I can look at it like that without totally deconstructing. There are people, Christians that I talk to all the time, they they never go down the deconstruction road, but they do kind of open up and say, "Ah, okay. I can I never thought about it like that." Um, so anyway, if you've got questions that you've always wanted to ask an atheist, and like I said, this particular atheist, because all atheists don't don't have the same world view, uh, the link has been in the chat. I'll put it back in the chat. If you're on Facebook, it's the top comment. If you're on Instagram, it's in my bio. Somebody on Instagram said to me, uh, some Christian was mad like, "If you're gonna leave the faith, just leave the faith." And then he said, "Uh, you make these videos and turn the comments off." Like, no, I don't turn the comments off. The only way the comments are off on Instagram is if you're watching it after the live is done and then you can no longer comment.
I think, let me go to Instagram right now and just see.
I think if you're watching it on Instagram, you should be able to comment.
And if I'm wrong, somebody who's actually on Instagram, let me know. But I think you should be able to comment.
Let me see. No, cuz there's a a thing here that I can click that says turn off comments, and that's not clicked. So, I think you should be able to comment, but I don't turn the comments off intentionally. If you've not been able to comment, that's not on me. Um, but I don't read the Instagram comments when I'm on because I'm uh YouTube has the has the more folks on it and it's too much to be going back and forth to the different platforms. And as you can see, I always forget to go to Facebook to even check what's going on on Facebook, which I'm I'm doing right now just in case there's any comments there. But no, no comments. So, um, always check YouTube more than I check anybody else.
So, anyway, but do got a super chat.
Mixtress Monica, what's good? Thank you for the $5 super chat. Said, Brady, stay away from the Terrence Howard School of Math and Logic even while you're high.
Ah, if I ever start sounding like Terren Howard, uh, that's the day you need, you know, you need to come get me. But I appreciate you. Thanks for the super chat. Um, Mixtress Monica.
Um, is Terrence Howard still doing his his grift or his I mean, I don't know. I don't know if he's griing as much as he's just out there confusing people and and demonstrating how confused he is. Is he still doing that? I would hope not.
But yeah, if you'd like to ask a atheist a question, if you're an atheist, you can call. If you're a theist, you can call. If you're agnostic, you can call.
And if you are somebody who's in your Oh, no. 100th Monkey says yes, he is.
Geez. I see. I I think I saw Professor Dave do a recent video about him, but I didn't know if he was revisiting something old or if Terence Howard had said something new. Um my gosh. Um but yeah, uh this is a a questions day. I I do have topics that I could throw out there, but I want to just kind of leave it up to up to you all. If you want to call in and chat about something, we can do that. I'mma stick around for a few and if nobody else calls then I will uh scadaddle and go uh go get me some some grub. But um I wanted to be here today.
I'll be back on tomorrow as well. Oh, also this week Wednesday I will be on the line with Matt Dilla Hunty. Uh Wednesday I think it's at 700 p.m. uh mountain time I think. Um, so check for that. Also, uh, for the book reading, um, book review, book, what is it? It's not a review. It's a book response. Um, I said I was going to give you guys a date. Let me just get a date right now because I I kept putting it off. I got to travel this week uh for a funeral, but I should be back sitting pretty by next week. So, let's just say I don't think I have any. Oh, no. I do have something. Okay. So, August 1st, I'm going to be doing a conversations with Christians, Derek Cologne.
Um, we'll be doing that. Um, I think that's at 700 p.m. Eastern, Conversations with Christians. So, man, I don't even know when I could do the book club. Maybe we could do it on the second of this month. I mean, of next month, but no, I think I want to hold off.
I think we're not gonna be able to do it until till the 15th, y'all. Saturday, August 15th. I'll put it in in the Patreon. We can either do Saturday, August 15th, or Sunday, August 16th.
I'll put it in the Patreon and then we'll see what we get more um what more people vote for. Maybe I'll do both. I don't care. I'll get on on Saturday and Sunday uh just in case somebody can't make it. But I I'll put it in the Patreon and we'll see what's up. But look at August 14th and 15th.
All right. For the um Anthony Flu's book, There is a God. That's what we're going to be reading. All right. I got two people in the chat. One name looks familiar, so I'll bring in Vince. And then I'm going to bring in Zius.
Zius Quo. I think I I think I had Zanius Quo on before because I remember trying to pronounce it right. But we'll see. Uh Vince, your camera's not on. If you want to take a second to turn it on, you can.
If not, that's fine. Um, I'll give you a second to make any kind of changes and then I'll bring you into the studio.
All right. Welcome, I think, back to Vince. What's good?
What's good? Be good. How you doing, Chel?
>> And correct me if I'm wrong. We spoke before, correct?
>> Yeah. Um, a couple times briefly.
Okay. And remind us, you probably put it in, but I can't see. It's kind of small.
Prolife.
It's so small. I can't see what's in your description. So, what does it say underneath your name there?
>> Uh, yeah. I'm an atheist and I typed prolife atheist. There are dozens of us.
Um, because I was going to ask you about that topic.
>> Okay. Now, somebody called in to ask me about that before. Was that you and I that talked about that or somebody else?
>> Yeah. Yeah, it was a while back and it was pretty brief, but um >> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Yeah. So, cool. Holla, let's go.
>> Yeah. So, I guess if I'm trying to think of how to form it as a question, um what do you think about the idea that uh Christians should be more pro-choice?
If you given the idea that I think many Christians believe that um you know babies are are in the womb or or not um go to heaven when they die um whereas atheists believe that this is the only life you get. Um so if if that life is ended you know that's that's it. So what do you think about that idea?
>> It's a tough one. It's a tough one. I'm gonna deal with the atheist first and then deal with the Christian. Um, I think no matter how you look at it, it's always going to be a tough choice because somebody could say, "What about the life of the mother?" Somebody could say, "What about the health of the child?" Like, let's say, "What if what if the child, you know, if it was if it was known the child was going to um the quality of life might be challenged because the child was going to be, I don't know, parapolgic or, you know, some some kind of some kind of health issue. Um, could it be considered compassionate to say, you know what, we're going to terminate this pregnancy?" Uh and so life of the child is not always for me mean and so the child must get a chance to live. Um I really do think that that decision and this is not on some babies are a gift from God just because the the the the unborn child is is is dependent upon the mother. I think the mother has a very uh weighty decision to make in terms of whether she's going to bring that child into the world. And I would be inclined to respect that mother's decision, but I also would be inclined to say, and this is probably gonna get me in a lot of trouble. I hope not, but I'm just shooting from the hip here. So, if you're mad at me for saying this, it's not something I thought about. I'm just shooting from the hip.
I'm just thinking here. If you have a woman who's had, you know, 50 abortions, at some point it's like, okay, what at what point do we sterilize you? because it's like like we're trying to we're trying to we're trying to be compassionate to you and consider the child, but you don't seem to be being compassionate to these potential lives that you're creating and then aborting.
Like I don't know how to how to how to deal with that. I just but I think if if if the life that she's got this weighty decision to decide whether she's going to actually abort or keep the child and and she's making that decision kind of flippantly which most if not all women who have abortions are not making that decision lightly.
They're not just on some oh a baby get rid of it like it's it's a weighty decision.
>> But if somebody seems to not be appreciating the weight of that then I'm like like what are we really doing here?
the to the other question, the Christian, I think you're 100% correct that the the person who believes >> all infants, all babies go to heaven, >> but we don't know if the children who are born are going to grow up and receive Jesus.
>> Like, you ought to be like handing out pamphlets like, "Hey, you could abort that kid." Like, to fill up heaven with these people that you're so certain if they die in the womb, they're going to heaven. To me, that makes the most sense. Why let them play out this Russian roulette with their life where where they may not get saved? So, that's that's where I'm at. And if I if I've offended anybody by saying what I said, I'm just I'm just responding to your question on the spot. So, I don't know how that plays, but that's where I'm at with it.
>> No, I I definitely agree um with what you said about the the Christian perspective. And um yeah, and I think I I think to some extent I agree with what what you said about the atheist perspect and atheists perspective on on that topic. But um >> I I guess the follow-up question would be you know if I'm under if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying you you're your natural tendency is to give the benefit of the doubt to the mother on that weighty decision. And I get that and I understand that and I think I agree. I think maybe what goes unsaid often times is that at some point that at some point in the pregnancy that calculus changes um to where >> it I think we would at some point in the pregnancy there's probably overlap where me and you would both agree it would be more immoral to terminate that pregnancy and end that um and that life. Um >> Mhm.
>> So maybe another question is is the real disagreement just about at what point that is?
>> Yeah. And I'm going to be honest, I haven't thought about this long and hard enough to even really be able to opine any more than I have. Um I don't know, you know, how how viable is viable at viability. Um, I don't know at what point, you know, the child can survive without the mother. If we were to, no, let's not abort it. Let's, you know, do some kind of we remove the child, but then we allow it to re we incubate or whatever. I don't I haven't looked at it enough to to really speak more about it.
What are your thoughts?
>> Yeah. Um I for one I think that almost everyone has some kind of inconsistency in their philosophy on abort abortion myself included. Um because for the Christian for example if you know the phrase you might hear a lot is abortion is murder. If that's true, then I if the day comes where we have technology to to uh be alerted on our app or some on our phone of >> pregnancy that's you know one minute into pregnancy and then somehow that can be terminated with some electroshock. I you know I'm just spitballing here. The Christian is supposed to say that's a murder. That >> of that seems preposterous, you know, to >> to say that a you know, a one minute >> in one minute pregnancy terminating that is murder. But on the very end of the other scale, you know, again, it's a hypothetical this doesn't happen. But if you like if if baby's you know about it's about time to push and the mother somehow terminates right then you know I'm nine months and >> that to me I find that immoral you know and so >> I get that I get that >> I don't know you know so like to me I I do >> somebody could say somebody could say it is immoral but we all do immoral things and therefore for I mean this is one of my immoral things. Like is like would you would you would you aside from calling it immoral would you go further and say and we're going to do to that mother and the doctor what we do to people who murder people? Would you go that far with it?
>> That that's a that is the a great question. And I think that I I think that my answer is yes. Let me be direct first. And then I think that, you know, comparing that to how do I how would I feel about if we were instead of one minute pre-birth in this hypothetical, if we were one minute postbirth and that child's life being ended.
>> Um, yeah. And I heard, you know, I heard, okay, a mother mother goes to jail for killing one minute old baby. I I wouldn't blink an eye on that, but but somehow, >> you know, so so I think it's natural to not feel totally different about the baby two minutes before when he's still in the womb. You know what I'm saying? Um, >> but this this really just highlights our speciesism.
>> Go ahead. Go ahead. Finish what you said. I had a quick thought, but go ahead.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's it's hard and um and I I I put in my tagline pro-life atheist, but you know, pro-life, I think the the the title doesn't maybe say enough a lot of times.
There's some assumptions that go into that. So, I don't know if I would just go around saying that, but I'm definitely more pro-life than the average atheist, I I think. And >> so, so what about this? Would you say that there's an inconsist inconsistency?
Not just on what you said already because you said we at some point we all end up being a little inconsistent on this issue, but I think it it goes further because >> you could compare the one minute pregnancy to the one minute after birth and say, "Ah, how come I'm okay with this, but I'm not okay with this?"
>> But then look at other species. Look at the way we slaughter cows and pigs and chickens and they're well into their lives and we don't have any problem with killing them so that we can consume them >> like >> and the only reason why we're doing that is because they're so different than us that that we don't >> it like we the the same lack of empathy somebody might have to a one minute old pregnancy because how was that how I can't empathize with the one minute pregnancy? I don't I don't remember what it was like to be one minute old. In the same way that I don't remember what it's or not remember, I don't know what it's like to be a 2-year-old, you know, cow either. And so there's no empathy in either direction. Oh, but that one month old baby or that one minute old baby, I can see me in that. I saw my baby pictures or I had a child. So, I think even in in that trying to be moral with those statements, we're actually showing inconsistency there because we're picking and choosing when we're going to be pro-life.
>> Yeah, I I I 100% agree with that. Like, it's it's just interest it's interesting to think about that exact thing of I mean, I could go I will be totally fine if I don't consume bacon for the rest of my life. I will be fine. my health and body-wise, I'm not going to enjoy it cuz I've had bacon and I would continue to I would like to continue to eat it. And you know what? Even though I've like learned about how pigs are like kind of smart and I'm I'm just not a good enough person to say like I'm not eating bacon the rest of my life. So >> there you go. So let me let me make it more complicated for you because I've said that I've said this on the on this uh podcast before. I cannot wait.
There's some people who are afraid and like, "Oh, look, that's the devil or that's the government, whatever, who are afraid of the idea of lab grown meat."
I'm so here for that because I cannot wait to get to the point where we could still eat meat without animals suffering. But here's the thing.
I am I am not saying this as like I want to do this, but even that statement is a little crazy because if I'm willing to say, "Oh, give me the lab grown meat of a cow >> meat of a cow. I I would not say give me the lab grown meat of a human, >> right?
>> You know what I'm saying? So, like there's still some inconsistency here.
>> Yeah. But you wouldn't that wouldn't be your request because of some I'm assuming here, but correct me if I'm wrong. I think you wouldn't request that because of some natural builtup ickiness of that idea, but not not because there's some immoral uh way of >> I see.
>> I would I would like to think that there is some overarching moral principle that has me saying no to lab grown human meat, but yes to lab grown cow meat. I I don't I don't know that I could trace to one other than the only thing I could think of is this is a crazy crazy connection. So, somebody got arrested for having >> um I'm hearing a bit of echo me coming back to I think your your headphones or something.
Um, >> somebody got arrested for having AI images of child uh of child porn.
>> And somebody could say, "But it's AI. No children were hurt." And then and it's like, "Okay, then what's the crime? Is the crime that that you wanted to see it or is the crime more if we allow this, how could we ever be sure that no children will ever be in this position and that it's always going to be AI?
Like what what's the crime there? And in the same way with the human lab grown meat, is the crime, oh, you wanted to eat a human even though you didn't, or is there something beyond it that's like, no, this is just wrong. And this I think this is where the Christian would come in and say, "Ah, see that's why we could say we're made in the image of God and therefore that's why you're not going to eat lab grown meat and that's why you're not going to kill the one minute old pregnancy or you know the the one uh one minute old uh born child because they're made in the image of God." It's like when you throw those kind of things out there, they're easy answers to these very difficult questions, even if they're not very good or reliable answers because how do you know you're made in the image of God? Some book told you you can't really identify or or demonstrate that.
Um, but having those easy black and white answers keeps us from having to have the kind of discussions that we're having now.
>> Yeah. you you I mean it's it's a benefit like and it's unfortunate that it doesn't work for me anymore but having an answer many people value that >> more than than having an answer that satisfies or or >> that a bit of poking. So, you know, >> I get that, you know, having an answer is >> can be helpful. Um Um >> and here's the thing. It's like where >> you got when you need them.
>> I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm Go ahead.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I I know you got other calls, but you you mentioned um uh The Matrix and uh Mind Shift recently put out a video comparing Christianity and decon conversion from Christianity to The Truman Show that I thought was very >> poignant. Uh and um so I would recommend that for anyone who hasn't watched that.
>> Good stuff. Shout out to Mind Shift for sure. Hey, thanks for checking in, bro.
Good talking with you always.
>> Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right.
Yep. Peace.
>> I need to start making a list of uh callers so that I can know because I now it was towards the end of that call that I remember. Oh yeah, I love talking to Vince the few times we talked in the past but it didn't click until the very end some of the other conversations that we had. Um so I apologize for that.
Zonius Quo is next and then art is next.
If you are a doesn't matter if you're atheist, atheist, agnostic, deconverting, deconstructing, struggling, wherever you are, today is ask an atheist. And it's really ask this atheist because I cannot answer for all atheists. And I'm not saying that everything I say now is going to be everything that I 100% stand behind because some of these things I'm just answering just off the cuff. Uh maybe I'll take some time and think about them and and like, oh, I didn't really want to respond that way. But uh so please don't don't uh crucify me. Uh no pun intended for uh the answers I'm giving today. I'm just I'm thinking on my feet here. So Zonius quote, if you want to cut your camera on, you can. I'll give you a minute to make any adjustments and then I'll bring you in.
And if you're in the chat and you got a question that you don't want me to miss or comment, super chat it to make sure it stands out. Otherwise, I'm probably not going to be able to identify it. Um, or maybe put a bunch of question marks behind it because maybe that'll make it stand out if you can't afford to super chat it. So, okay. Welcome to Icapad Zonius Quo. What's going on?
>> Hey, not much but a lot. How are you doing?
>> Not much but a lot. And we have spoken before, correct?
>> Indeed. We've spoken once before.
>> Okay. Okay. Once before. And can you tell us remind me uh atheist, agnostic, theist, where you at with the god question? Uh, I'm a Christian.
>> Okay. Uh, so this is ask an atheist day.
So, uh, was it something that was said that you wanted to respond to or did you want to actually ask a question?
>> Um, uh, a a bit of both. It's interesting. Uh, your last conversation.
Well, before I continue, my condolences.
I heard you have a funeral that you're going to. Uh, so >> appreciate your loss.
>> Appreciate that.
>> But but yeah. Um, one of the things that was interesting in your last conversation um was about just like the Christian perspective on um on abortion and if uh someone believes that their baby will go to heaven if they if they're if they die, you know, that would be more reason to um to allow abortions. I I think that's such >> Hold on just let me both both sides of that coin. It's not just because they believe their baby will go to heaven if the baby dies in the womb. It's because if the baby is born, there's a 5050 chance that the baby could go to hell for eternity. So add that into the guarantee the baby will go to heaven.
And to me, it becomes a no-brainer if you really believe that stuff. I think that yeah, I think that's uh that's an interesting take uh because it kind of doesn't allow for them to to have a choice in the ma in that matter at least.
>> And just taking a choice to get shot at a party or not.
>> Say, you're going to a party, you know, you know somebody's going to shoot up a party and your kid wants to go and you know that they're going to get the the place is going to get shot up, but you don't know who's going to get shot.
Would you give your child a choice to go or would you forbid them from going?
>> I would Well, yeah, I would for I would say don't go. I would forbid them from going.
>> That's all I'm saying.
>> I I I also I agree. I agree with that.
But also at the same time, it's on is also on that child to be obedient. They could always just sneak out and do what they want to do. like >> I can't literally tie them to a bed or or if I did that that'd be that'd be a little bit wild.
>> But there's still that uh opportunity for them to actually listen to me.
>> And even if I tell them go to go to your room, you're staying in your room for the entire night.
>> You know, >> that's you know that's still on.
>> What if what if it wasn't what if it wasn't like go to your room and stay in for the entire night. What if there's a much better party that I'm gonna send you? Matter of fact, I'm going to send you to to to your to your aunt's house in a different city because there's a much better party there. I'm going to send you there and you don't have a choice in the matter as opposed to I'm going to give you a choice to go to this party where you could get shot. Would you would you remove the choice if you knew you were going to send them to a better party in a different city?
>> Uh remove the choice as in like would I what does removing the choice look like?
Would you say >> like you don't even have the choice to go to the party that's going to get shot up. I'm sending you to your aunt in a different city and there's going to be a better party there. You've got no choice in the matter. Would you as a loving parent do that to your child or would you say nah, I want them to have the choice?
>> Yeah. Uh, as a loving parent, I would motion them to uh Yeah. I would I would set up arrangements for them to go to that party, but it's still >> Would you make them >> make them is make them is odd. Uh cuz it's like that implies like you're forcing them or like you're putting some >> No, I'm not implying it. I'm Would I'm saying it would you force them to go to the party in another city where there's going to be no violence and you know they're going to have a good time or would you give them the choice to go to the one that you know is going to get shot up? but you don't know if they're going to get shot.
>> I think that's an interesting dichotomy because it's like um you got to take the the child into account as well like >> because uh they could be like, "Okay, I'm I'm going to go." Or they could just be like kicking and screaming and and saying, "I hate you." And all that jazz.
um while you go to that party and that kind of be an encroachment on on like what they want. They might show up to that party. They they may be safe, but they gonna be hating you at that same at that same time because it's like, "Oh my, I'm I don't want to."
>> Nah, because you know, you know, when they get there, just like you know, however, like the the scenario doesn't say how we know, but just like you know the one party's going to get shot up, but you don't know if your child is going to get shot. You do know your child is going to have a great time at this other party. Because that's the scenario with heaven, right? We don't know if people are going to get saved here on earth, but we know there's not going to be a tear in heaven. We know that at God's right hand there's pleasure forever more. You know, the people who make it there are going to have a great time forever. So, the to me the analogy that I came up with is pretty fitting.
>> I I don't know. I I I wouldn't um I think there has to be like some sort of as a parent I I'm personally I'm not I'm not a parent myself but I know if I had a son or even just like the kids in my class I try to meet them like where they are and get them to see that the decisions that they make you know they they want to be able to make those good make the right decision out of their own out of their own will even though I'm the one who is like teaching them and guiding them and saying stay in your seat you know like listen to the lesson don't be talking and things it'd be if I were to like duct tape their mouth shuts or something like that or if I were if I were to do something I don't know it that that I think the the issue comes with me is like is that is that force you know, it it's kind of like encroaching on um on like are they doing the right thing because, you know, they want to or are they doing it because they necessarily >> they necessarily have to or like I mean not or else but they necessarily have to given the opportunity or the circumstance that I've forced them to take >> uh yeah, I guess I'm trying to I'm trying to keep keep the the the analogy close. Last thing I'll say on this, I almost brought it up in the other call because I just think that this has to be taken into account.
Um, you as a theist, as a Christian, >> what do you do with the idea that like somewhere between 15 to 20% of all pregnancies end in what's called spontaneous abortion where there's no doctor, there's no morning after pill, there's no and and mom loses the child. Um, do you do you say, "Ah, that's just a part of the fallen world that we're in." Or do you say, "Oh, no, that's God like he's responsible for that." Like, what do you do with with the high rate of spontaneous abortion that occurs?
Um, I think one of the things that we're really called to do is is meet the needs of those who imagining like the mothers themselves who are going through those kind of spontaneous abortions. They're suffering, you know, in potentially the child of the womb in the womb, you know, if they have those nerves developed the things they're experiencing suffering as well, you know, >> and it's it's kind of our job uh our job and um to go out there and be of service to us people to to let them know that >> I get you on that part, I guess. Well, I get you on that part. What I'm asking is knowing that that that the rate of spontaneous abortion is so high, can you really make the case that God is pro-life?
>> Um, and I to that I think that I would uh for the same reason that I was giving I would say yeah because that's supposed to be our mission is to is to do that. If he wasn't, then he wouldn't allow the people who are trying to follow uh who are wanting and seeking to follow him to be there for those people.
>> But God seems to have no problem saying, "Hey, come to this party up here, kid in the womb," as opposed to no, he deserves a choice to come all the way through the pregnancy and make it to earth and grow up and then choose whether he wants to come to this party. for that 20% that spontaneously uh abort, God is like, "No, if if if they're if they're all going to heaven, he's calling them home from the womb." Like, shouldn't that make us say, then there really is no problem if we join in and say, "Hey, I don't I don't want to have this child, and I think I I'll just send him to heaven." Like, wouldn't that Aren't we just following suit?
We also have to take into account just the uh the the consequentialist view of it as well because while while >> there are cases to be made for um you know babies uh making it to heaven and things uh because you know where there's no law there's no sin that kind of that kind of thing that still has a lasting effect on the people who are still here on earth and and that can't be discounted.
>> Yeah, I hear you. And I I probably I want to maybe maybe pivot to to a different conversation because I know there are people who've had this experience and this is not hypothetical for them and >> right >> some of them have found help in their faith and then some of them their faith has not helped them at all. Uh, and as there are other people who maybe they were they be converted and they maybe wish they were still believers so that they could get some comfort. And so I don't want to dwell on this this this point any longer unless you have something else you want to say. We can pivot to um uh what else you were calling for.
>> Yeah, I I completely understand and um yeah, I know it's it's a definitely a te a touchy subject.
>> Um >> so I I I I'm fine with moving on.
Okay.
>> Um, >> so this is ask an atheist. So any any questions that you would have for me?
>> I do. I do. Um, I know that I um, last time we talked, I think I I talked to you about me discovering your channel a couple years back. Um, >> and I one thing that I do admire about you, you said uh, you said you were having a call with a Christian sometime soon. And I I do I do like the fact that you had these kind of conversations within uh different spaces that you're not you're no longer a part of and you're just not a part of as well. And I think that that's a um and well-rounded way to be. Um >> appreciate that.
>> Yeah, of course. Of course. But yeah, in your in your experience, what would you say that um like the broader atheist community or what aspects of the broader atheist community would Christian would the Christian community have to gain and vice versa?
like are there any aspects of uh of either side um yeah of Christian >> you know >> so I think I think I think without getting hurt is there anything Christian from like adopting or or um um taking taking into their into their saying >> there's something going on with your audio by the Okay. Okay.
Uh, >> all right. How was it now?
>> Better.
>> Okay. Appreciate that. Um, I saw a bunch of nines in the What's the nine?
I don't know what the nines are about, but I appreciate the people that were saying, Mike. Um, but so are you saying are there aspects or aspects of the atheist community?
Yeah, like uh either online space or like you know uh cuz I think that um just seeing where a lot of um like atheists and uh deconstructionists they they do kind of have a they find community within one another's uh presence and there are different aspects and there's different like >> uh I for lack of better words, there was like a different culture >> than what's found in uh when found in most Christian spaces.
And so I was wondering like what aspects of each uh of each of those cultures do you think could benefit from one another?
>> Yeah. I don't know if there's and maybe maybe it's just because I'm kind of a recluse these days and I'm not kind of out in the streets like yo what's going to the atheist conventions and and all this kind of stuff. So maybe I don't know. But the things that I see happening in atheist communities, whether it be uh them doing charity or whether it be them doing conventions or whether it be um uh just supporting each other and um you know activism when it comes to to to um whether it be politics or I see this kind of stuff and I see it in the Christian space too. I don't think I see anything happening in the atheist space that's not happening in the Christian space. What I do think is I'm getting feedback. I'm hearing myself coming back through being picked up by your mic and maybe maybe your headphones. I'm not sure. Is are you using headphones?
>> Oh, I just muted my mic. Could you still hear it?
>> Uh if you mute your mic, I won't hear it at all. Um so, okay. Um, what I will say I think is maybe in the chat you guys can help us out. Is there anything happening in the atheist space that's not happening in the Christian space? One thing I will think of is I think the atheist space is just a little more inclusive >> because the atheist space doesn't have these reasons to stiff arm LGBTQ people or you know this is not so judgmental and so it ends up being more inclusive.
But I don't know if many Christians can do that without having to drop some of the tenants of their faith. And so I don't know if Christians can do that.
But but what I do think is different is even if atheists are doing some of the same things Christians are doing, they're doing them from, I think, a better place.
>> Like atheists are loving people not because, oh, you're made in the image of God, so I'm not really loving you. I'm loving God and then you for Christ's sake. atheists are doing it because yo, you're hurting.
Uh, just a little while before I came on, heard a loud noise outside, but a crazy like I've never heard that noise before. And then I looked out the window and saw that this big tree that's like kind of like it's across the street from me, but it's so huge that its branches are hanging over on my side of the street. A huge branch fell.
>> I'm still getting that feedback, my man.
If you can mute, that'll be good.
>> Gotcha.
>> Yeah. Um, a huge branch fell and smashed my neighbor's window.
Uh, her car window, her windshield, actually. And, uh, and then a car across the street got smashed by the branch as well. My car is typically under that tree, but my car didn't get get touched.
Now, I could have just been like, "Oh, wasn't me." And stayed in the house.
There's another guy to a few doors up the street who doesn't even live on the block anymore, but he still owns a home on the block. He was doing work on that house. Me, him, and another guy that was helping him, we went out, we cut up the tree branch, we moved it off the car, we took pictures because the neighbor who's whose car got smashed wasn't there. Took pictures. We're doing all these things.
And I know that the neighbor who's up the street that was fixing up his house, I know he's a Christian.
I'm sure he did what he did because God's watching him. He wants God to be pleased. He wants to represent God. He wants to be able to say to the neighbor that he helped, "Hey, God loves you. You know, Jesus loves you." I did it for completely different reasons.
Some selfish because if it happened to me, I would want people to help me, but also because this is my neighbor and I don't want my neighbor to go through it unnecessarily. I think though Christians and atheists might do some of the same things, I think the atheist does those things for reasons that I would be much more proud of as opposed to the Christian. And I think that's probably the the best thing I could say in terms of what are atheists doing that Christians are not to what Christians are doing that atheists aren't that they could benefit from.
I can't think of anything, but maybe in the chat if y'all have anything, let me know. Um, uh, Zonius, you can tell me what you if if Do you have an answer to that second question or the first one?
I'm curious.
>> Yeah. Um, I'd say definitely uh the way that you guys I I would agree with you on the inclusion thing. uh the way that the that I've seen atheist communities really just come together for for people who are aching no matter like uh it it's kind of regardless of of their background. I think that's one of the things that um that Christians really like the broader Christian space could do a a lot better especially, you know, since since people still since people are people since we're all human >> and you know I I to your point about um your neighbor and the motivations of your neighbor loving somebody, I think that's interesting. Um I because um it it kind of seems like it it'd be like an it would be an ulterior motive for it can be a lot an ulterior motive for a lot of Christians in the way that you said. But I also would say the the way that um I'm sorry if I seem a little bit pedantic. My bad. Um but um what am I trying to say?
Coming uh helping someone from a genuine place is still supposed to be the Christian thing to do.
>> And uh if you're not doing it from from uh from your heart, you know, then where are you really doing it from?
>> Yeah. you know, um, and as a Christian, that's that's one of the things that, um, that Christ and the our worldview says like Christ is supposed to work on.
It's really like the motivation and the will that that truly matters. Are you helping the other person for uh, for the right thing's sake because that person because you know, you genuinely want to help that person. You see the value in them. Well, see, you know what I'm thinking? I don't I don't think when I was a Christian, I would have said, "I'm not doing this from a genuine place."
>> Like, love your neighbor as yourself.
You think about the good Samaritan.
>> But still, even embedded in that is your your your heavenly father. Like, you're doing this to what does the scripture say? uh um uh let your light shine before men so that men might see your good deeds and glorify your father who's in heaven. So >> there's a genuiness to me loving my neighbor as I love myself, but it's still connected to that person glorifying God. And like if they just thanked me, I would be like, "Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm doing this because God helped me." And so, you know what I mean? Like it it doesn't it can't just stop with me because it didn't start with me. even if I genuinely feel like I need to help this person.
>> Um, I think that's also um an interesting point because um it never really does start with us. I mean, I guess because uh I guess >> now >> Well, what what I'm saying is what I'm saying is uh we display the behaviors that we see um enacted by by others and the people who have taught us and the things that we read and the things we're exposed to.
>> You know, I get compliments all the time. It's like, "Oh, your mama must have raised you well." I'm like, "I guess because my mom taught me manners. She taught me um she taught me these things.
She raised me up in a in a way that u would show respect to people who who I've never met. And in and in that way it's supplemented by of course like uh uh like my uh my faith my faith is like um an instrument in that as well. But if I was taught to um to exercise the faith in a different way or in a or even if you exercised your love for somebody in a in a different way, it it'd more than likely be because of the things that you've seen and the way that you've uh learned how to express those things from other factors external to yourself.
>> Well, and to be honest, like I couldn't say I love my neighbor. I don't I don't know that I love my neighbor. I love humanity and my neighbor is part of humanity and I think I'm doing it more for that than than specifically my neighbor because I don't really know my neighbor that well. It's a new neighbor been here less than a year and I'm just like no, >> you know, you're part of you're part of the tribe of humanity.
>> Um my my sister just uh I don't think she's watching today, but she just texted me and said, "Hey, one of the geesemen got hit." And if I if I say that, you might think the geeseman is like, you know, a family that we know or something. She just told me about the geeseman yesterday. She's just talking about, you know, when she goes on her walks, she sees animals in the park and she named this one family of geese of ducks. She named them the Geeseman and one of them got hit by a car today and she felt it like she felt for the Geeseman family. And I'm like, >> yo, just they're not even part of her tribe of humanity. But as an atheist, she felt for the duck. You know what I mean? Like it's I want Christians >> I would love for them to feel their connection to humanity without having to outsource it to a God. That's just something that I never had as a Christian. I always outsourced it and said, "Oh, that's why I'm loving. That's why I'm now when I do good to people, it just feels good to just be part of the human tribe and say, "Hey, I I love us.
I'm doing it for us.
Yeah. Um I I also um now uh in my perspective um I I do I personally do try to do goodness for goodness sake. And you know >> when I was a Christian I would have tried to correct you but go ahead.
>> Yeah. And because uh goodness for goodness sake uh well um uh what do you mean by uh well what would you say in your in your your Christianity? What would you say?
>> Uh I I remember one of my one of my label mates uh ambassador um >> another rapper from cross movie. I remember him lecturing on like we don't do good for goodness sake. We do good for God's sake. We do it for the glory of God. And you know this is the Christmas song so it be good for goodness sake. No, that's not a good enough reason to do good. Like, what is that? That's abstract. That's d. So, I probably would have actually agreed with him and maybe maybe tried to get you to to to elevate your reason for doing good. Goodness sake is here for God's sake is is much higher.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh well, I would not necessarily like uh to to con uh to conflate, but to understand that God is uh in in um in the Christian worldview, he is the source of all that is good. So to align with uh with God is to do the good thing. Mhm. So that um >> so in doing it for goodness sake sake, you're still doing it for God. You're saying >> um in doing it for uh it's not doing it like for God, it's more so doing it in alignment with God than for God. It's like >> Yeah. It's it's not anything as um Yeah. It's not like I'm doing anything on like as a favor for for God or anything like that.
>> Okay.
>> But it's more >> but it's more so because out of my heart I see someone who's valuable, someone who has these emotions the same like you said in the same tribe as I >> and I see their their need for something and I see that I'm able to help them in that. And so in that alignment in what uh yeah out of that me doing that is in turn uh for that sake is in turn aligning myself with God.
>> Well I can be honest and like I I guess I already said it but I'll underscore the point here and I won't deny that there's something selfish in it for me as well. Like when I do the good that I try to do I'm trying to create the kind of world that I want to live in. was not just that it feels good because it does but I'm trying to create the kind of world that I want to live in. I want to live in a kind of world where if somebody sees me down bad they will come and help me out. And so to kind of create that kind of world maybe I change my block by doing that thing for my neighbor so that next time something happens happens somebody else comes out their house and they help. And that's the kind of world that I want to live in.
As a as a non-theist, I can be honest about that selfish motivation. Whereas a Christian, I would I would have probably tried to sanctify that some way and not admit that I had a selfish motivation for for, you know, partially selfish motivation for doing that. And so I think it's it's just good to be able to be authentic about my reasons for doing certain things.
>> Yeah. Um, I think that uh do you not think that both can be can be true? Like someone could be wanting to do do something like what you're saying trying to create the world that uh >> you can as a Christian you're told to do nothing out of selfish ambition.
So you gota always be checking your motives to make sure that there's nothing in it for you.
>> Yeah. So it's not Yeah, I I I agree. But um it's an interesting argument because it's like uh if you're trying to submit in the Christian worldview, you're trying to submit u your will to God, it's like you're submitting your desire because you want you want that. So it >> is that kind of selfish in a way >> sort of but like >> u you're submitting it because you want to in that sense it's a it's a selfish act but in in that sense also it's selfless because you are trying to adopt something that is you're you're in pursuit of something that is not within yourself to do. M >> I got somebody who's been waiting for quite a while. I want to ask you one.
No, no, you're fine. You're fine. One last question.
>> The other that do you think that there's anything that Christians are doing that atheists could like learn from, benefit from if they adopted?
>> Definitely. Um I think that um one of the things that I uh I see is like within the the atheist space um I would say when it comes to activism in in c in certain capacities, you know. Um, I'll see a lot of the like the the food drives in my area and just I guess maybe it's I'm speaking from my own little bubble, but I see like food drives in my area from different uh from different churches and um and different like things that the churches do for uh for the community. I think that um in the pursuit of of just humanity and and goodwill, I think it it atheism could benefit from uh from more communal practices and communal like >> for uh in pursuit of creating that better human uh human community >> because uh while while there are different atheist communities, it's not as um I think >> the infrastructure that church Do you have an infrastructure that's been in place for centuries, >> two millennia, you know what I mean?
Like one of the earliest things they did in Acts was we're going to take a collection to help the widows and you know what I mean? Like that infrastructure was there since the beginning and atheists just don't have that. So I would agree with you um there.
>> Yeah. So that that would be one thing that I I see that uh Christians have that atheists could benefit from.
Mhm.
>> Um, but yeah, that's uh that's about it.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
It's been it's been a really engaging conversation. I like it.
>> Hey, appreciate your call, man.
>> No problem.
>> Just as much as the last time we talked.
Yeah. Do the same, man. Get with you.
>> All right. Peace.
>> All right. Art, thank you so much for holding uh all this time. Uh if you're still engaged and ready to go, your camera is off. If you want to cut it on, you can. You don't have to. I'll give you a second to make any adjustments you need to and then I'll bring you into the studio.
Um, let me just scroll through the chat to make sure I'm not missing anything. I did put the link in again in case anybody was looking for it and wanting to call.
Let me do it one more time because I saw the request come from Mythos Boy. So, appreciate that.
All right. Uh, welcome Art to Echopod.
What's going on, Art?
>> How you doing, Fanatic? How you doing, man?
>> I'm doing extremely well. Can you just let me know real quick, Art? Have we spoken before?
>> No, we have never spoken, man. But I've always wanted to speak to you, man. I'm a >> I like it. Uh, give a shout out to the first time caller, y'all, in the chat.
Art, can you just let me know real quick? Uh, the fact that you call me fanatic means you know me from my Christian rap days, but are you currently uh theist, atheist, agnostic?
Where are you at with the God question?
>> Yes, I'm Christian and uh >> Okay.
>> Yeah, long time fan, man, since uh the House of Representatives. And uh >> love your album uh The Incredible Walk.
And man, I still listen.
I'm an old head.
59 years old, man. So, I've been listening >> Christian since I was 17 years old.
>> Wow.
>> Wow.
>> I was really uh taken aback, man, when I heard that you defected from the faith.
Um, >> the word defected is just real wild to me. But go ahead.
>> Well, whatever, you know, however you uh define it, that's >> Yeah, I got you. No, you're good. You're good.
>> Yeah. Um, but my question to you and I guess the conversation I want to always have with you about that and I've heard, you know, the different little podcasts that you've had and all that was what really made you arrive at where you are now >> and and I've heard some of your comments that, you know, where is God now? Where has he been in in your searching and thinking, but what really made you arrive at your current state of uh of thought now?
>> Okay. Uh hopefully the longtime listeners will not tune out because I've told this story a lot of different times. So, I'm going to try to tell it in a way that I haven't told it before.
I probably can't because I just want to tell the truth and there's certain things that I have to say. Um how can I try to say this in a creative way? Um, not for you. Like I said, for the people that have heard it a million times. Uh, I guess I'll give a synopsis and then let you chip away with any follow-up questions. I arrived at where I'm at now. It's been a a My decon conversion happened in an instant, and it happened over a 10-year period.
In an instant, it dawned on me that Genesis 1 through3 cannot be literal and may not be historical. Matter of fact, it's probably not historical. Um, that evolution from common descent, human evolution from common descent with other living beings, particularly the great apes, our closest living relatives. Um, and when I say closest living relatives, that means if we're here and the other great apes are over here, they're our closest living relatives, but there are other relatives that would have made us closer to them that are no longer living. They're in the fossil record. So, the great apes are our closest living uh relatives. But if you go back far enough, you'll end up at a at a common uh ancestry. And so, we say common descent with the great apes.
But then all of the living uh things on this planet, there's uh there's there's there's common descent. Uh when I learned that that was likely true and I learned about that from a Christian that that was likely true and then I had to consider if that's true, then Genesis 1 through three, one and two really not I didn't get the three yet, just one and two. Genesis 1 and 2 can't be literal. And if it's not literal, I can question whether or not it's historical.
>> Gotcha.
>> And if it's not historical, that leaves room for this evolution thing. And then I just from that little thread, I just begin to pull on that thread to see, well, wait, how historical is any of this stuff that I'm reading?
Genesis 3, Genesis 5, Genesis 6, Genesis 11, 12. How historical is any of it? And the more I begin to pull on that thread, the more I begin to realize that none of it is historical. Like the the evidence for all of it is so specious and and so poultry and so demonstrabably untrue in many cases. And then in the other cases where it's not demonstrabably untrue, it cannot be demonstrated to be true. and and I was in seminary while I'm I'm tossing all these things around and I've got the tools to actually study the Bible in its original languages and I'm seeing just how and I don't say this to try to pull your faith or anybody else's faith away. You're probably firm in your faith. So, I hope I can say this without you uh being too negatively affected. But as I'm studying the Bible in the original languages, >> I'm seeing how much of a mess it actually is. And I'm reading not just the translations, but I'm reading the translators notes. Like if you if you go look at the way the Bible has been translated, you can go see um like with the Greek New Testament, you could see the translators notes of why they translated it this way and not this way when it could have gone that way, but they chose to translate this. And you really get to see how much of a work in progress the Bible actually is to this day. Which is why if you get a good study Bible, you've got a tremendous amount of footnotes because everything could be looked at differently. But we chose to translate it this way and not that way. And and so the more I just began to put all this together, by the time I graduated in 2015, I told I I still was praying, but my prayer was to God, I can't see you in this book anymore. I need to see you in your world because I can't see you in your word. this this Bible this is I wasn't trying to be offensive to God just this is trash I cannot get with this anymore so God I just need to see you in your world and I just began to look for God to do miraculous things in the earth every fortunate coincidence I said that must be God that must be God because I needed to see God outside of the book but the more I began to see those coincidences and say that must be God that must be God the more I begin to say did it have to be God like couldn't that have just been a coincidence?
Couldn't that have just been? And I began to find all of these naturalistic explanations to things that just a few years ago I would have said that could have only been God.
Long story short, the more I deconstructed, the more I realized that that one moment I had back in seminary where I said it's probably not true. And I was only talking about the literal nature of Genesis when I said that in 2014, this is probably not true. And I felt something in me just shift like, oh shoot.
And then I tried to patch that up. But the more I went on, the more I began to realize, nope, that moment that you had in seminary where you said it's probably not true, go back to that because that would explain everything you're seeing in the Bible and in reality that's not adding up. If it's not true, it would explain all of it. If it is true, then I got a bunch of questions as to how can this book be true. Yet, I'm seeing all of this. If it's not true, that explains what I'm seeing. And that's how I ended up where I am now.
>> Got you. So, what is it that you're seeing that is not adding up to what the Bible is?
>> What do you think?
>> Yeah. Not to not to uh give you a shameless plug, but I wrote this book called Let There Be Gaslight. This is me walking through the things, and it's not even all the things. I left a lot of it out of the book, but the things that I'm seeing in the Bible, how the Bible is not consistent with itself, and then how the Bible doesn't correspond with reality outside the book, that's what I talk about in this book here.
>> But then beyond that, Oh, go ahead. I was going to say, can you stop right there? You saying it doesn't what you're seeing. What are you seeing that doesn't correspond because everything that I see is corresponding exactly what >> Yeah. Yeah. So about >> that's going to get into that's going to get into your understanding of the Bible. So the question will be for you, the Bible is the word of God, right?
>> Correct.
>> And is the Bible inherent and infallible? meaning there are no errors, mistakes, contradictions, untrue thing.
Like if if a character in the Bible lies, then yes, that was untrue. Like if if his character like let's say um uh who lies in the Bible, trying to think of anybody who lies in the Bible. Um I don't know, pick a liar. If there's a liar in the If that character tells a lie, then yes, the character lie, but that doesn't mean the Bible's a lie. I'm not talking about those kind of things.
When I say inherent and infallible, I mean the things that the Bible affirms.
Would you say anything the Bible affirms, we must affirm because the Bible tells the truth in all the things it affirms. Would you say that?
>> Yeah. No, I I I understand what you're saying. and the infallibility of the word. You know, like you said, you you have the ability to go back and look at footnotes and things like that and there are contradictions and things like that, but I'm talking about the general just what we know is truth. What are you seeing has shifted your your viewpoint, you know, when it comes >> So, yeah, that's why I went into the to the inherent seeing infallibility thing.
Are you So, let me go back to what you just said a second ago. When you say contradictions, are you admitting that there could be contradictions in the Bible or would you say no, that can't be?
>> No, I'm saying I'm asking you what are you seeing as contradictions that >> Right. Right. So, but before I get into that, I need to know, are you are you asking that because you're incredulous of the idea that there actually could be such a thing or are you accepting that?
where I'm aware that there could be, you know, uh, in >> interpretations or whatever, but is that an overall thing to where it leads us away from truth or is that just like you said, maybe the translators or what have you? So, >> well, how would I know the difference between a translation error and what the original said when we don't have any access to the originals? Because maybe all the errors or contradictions, if such a thing exists, maybe all of them are the are are the um result of translation er scribes. But since we don't have the originals, how would we know whether it was the scribe or whether that was actually in the original? How would we determine that?
>> Well, I guess you would have to go on history and and how things have uh led up to where we are now. uh for the Jewish people, the law, the Torah, you know, things like that. And then for Christians, our records of what we have and how we live today. Now, of course, you the the last caller, I think you asked him a a question. what would he uh encourage or I I I forget how the question was was was uh shaped or crafted, but what would Christians do uh that atheists can learn from? and and and today, believe me, I would agree. I I would say kind of nothing because the example of what Christianity is is so blurred and so off of what the Bible says and what we have as God's written word. It it it makes everybody question, even Christians. And I think that's why a lot of people are defecting because you don't see it being lived out in a way where you can see Christ. You you see people you see like you said uh different intents. You see different mindsets and why people trying to be good and inherently to to please God in a way that is not what he prescribed in his word.
So I get what you're saying but that doesn't >> No but but none of that is what I'm saying. Like to me, I've never had a problem with Christians not living out their faith or living like Jesus because I was one of the Christians who tried to live like Jesus and part of a community of people who tried to live. So whenever we saw Christians not living like Jesus, we would just say, "Oh, um, let's pray for them. Let's let's teach them. Let's hope that they get into a good church and let's disciple them. I'm my issue is not with Christians not living it out.
>> My Christian is what the book actually says, >> right? I mean, my problem is what the book actually says. So, I'll go back to what I was what I was teasing out a minute ago.
So, you you you're aware that the Bible could have some contradictions, but you don't necessarily know how you would determine whether like if I were to present you a contradiction right now, you don't know whether you would say, "Oh, that's the scribes fault." Or whether you would say, "That's the Bible's fault." Right? You don't How would you determine which of those two it is?
Well, what you would do is does it line up with truth? Does it line up with what we know as what God says or what he doesn't say? Where what where would it lead you is the is the ultimate thing because this is a path that we're following. Correct.
>> Yeah. But if if the path is being laid with untrue things >> and you say, "But still follow it. Even though it says something untrue, still follow it." Like would you would you keep following a path that you keep stumbling on? Like if I believe what it says here and I believe what it says here and I believe what it says here, I'm going to misstep.
Do I keep walking down that road?
>> Well, listen. This is this is my thing.
The Bible says that we follow the spirit. The spirit said the spirit will lead and guide you into all truth. And I understand I understand what you're saying about what's written. what's written. I I think you would have to do an extent. I think you would spend most of your time studying and finding out what's true and what isn't true. And people will do basically like what you did. Either they will no I don't believe it or some will say hey no I choose to believe it whether there is inherency or not. So that's where we're arriving now.
We're we're arriving at what is truth and what do you follow as truth. So you can't you can't just throw out, you know, the whole Bible because of you found inconsistencies here or there. Are those inconsistencies big enough to throw the whole Bible and God away?
>> What would be a big enough inconsistency for you to make you say, "Huh, if you could show me this wasn't true, then I might have to rethink these things." Is there anything that that's in that category for you?
>> Like what?
>> Sure. There >> the biggest inconsistency that you would have to show me is >> after the death, burial, and resurre death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, people being filled with his spirit. If you can disprove that after I have the evidence of it, then >> what evidence do you have of it?
>> Because maybe I can.
>> Okay. Acts 2 and 4 when they were filled with spirit and began to speak in tongues. Now my experience was I grew up in a Baptist church. My great-grandfather found church. So I came here in church.
>> But when I was shown just like kind of kind of like with you. I went down that road when I was shown, hey look, you're going to church >> but this is something that you don't know about being filled with the Holy Spirit.
>> Okay. So I was introduced to it and I I didn't go back to I didn't consult with man. I didn't consult with my parents or grandparents. I consulted with God. I said God if this is true if this speaking in tongues or this Holy Ghost is real like like they did in what? Acts uh 19. We didn't we don't know whether there be any Holy Ghost. That's where I was with him.
>> Okay. And I I'm at 16 years old and I asked God myself, Lord, if this is show me. So when I went down the altar and I wasn't even at the altar uh uh fanatic, I wasn't at the altar yet. I was walking down the aisle. The lady saw me. She said, "Raise your hands and praise God."
And as soon as as soon as I raised my hand, I began to speak in other tongues just like the Bible says. So right there, if you can disprove that to me and it happened just like the Bible said, and then I watched my whole family have the same experience, my brother, my sister, my mom, my dad, cousins, I I saw people have the same experience. If you can disprove that, then you can disprove the whole Bible.
>> Okay. So before I disprove it, I would like you to actually prove it a little more because from what you said, how do you know that what you experienced was the Holy Spirit and not just a sociological you're in a place filled with people?
You heard about an experience. You probably have even seen people exhibit this behavior before and now you heard about it, you wanted it, you prayed about it. How aware were you at the time of your own physiological workings? Like do you understand what happens to the mind, the nervous system, the human body when you're in a public space and all the eyes are on you? Like when you get flushed with fever and like do you understand just how the human being works so much that you could have an experience like that and attribute it to a spirit when really it's just a naturalistic thing that you went through and you responded in the ways that your culture taught you how to respond. How could you prove that it wasn't that and that it was actually the Holy Spirit?
Okay. So, how can you prove that it was that? And you're just going off of what you said, something that you learned.
You You see what I'm saying? We back.
>> No, no, no. I don't. What do you mean?
>> Okay. What I mean is what you just said, all the sociological, all the way the body works, the mind works, um, you know, expectations of what is going on, you should do it to that. How do you know all of that is true? And see, because this is, listen, this and this is why I say that. I didn't ask people for this experience. That's listen to what I'm saying. I did not ask anyone. I read something in the Bible that I knew very little to nothing about. But like the Bible says, when you believe him, I didn't I didn't consult man. I consulted the God of the Bible or God himself.
>> Had you never seen anybody speak in tongues before?
>> Ever, never. I never knew, heard, I didn't know anything about it. I was introduced by somebody that said, invited me to church. And when she said, "Hey, listen. This is in the Bible."
And I read it for myself. That's when I begin to ask God, "Lord, you have to show me. I'm not consulting with man.
This is your Bible.
>> So, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Somebody told you that there was such a thing as speaking in tongues, right?
>> According to the word of God. They gave me >> I'm not disputing that. I'm not disputing that. They told you that there was such a thing as speaking in tongues and then they showed it to you in the Bible. Correct.
>> Sure.
>> Okay. But you had never seen or heard anybody actually do the things. Is that what you're saying?
>> Ever. Ever. never heard of it.
>> And they just said and they said there's there's a thing that happens where you speak and when they said speak in tongues, did you say >> no? Listen, me, let me give you a little bit more background. I I met the church lady. She invited me to church. I went to church with her. I heard people doing this thing, >> okay? I heard them.
>> Stop. Stop. Stop. That was my whole point. And here's why I'm like I want to I want to hold your feet to the fire here because sometimes people try to be a little deceptive. I tried very specifically to ask you if you had ever seen this phenomena before you did it and you sort of made it seem like you had never even saw or experienced it before. But now as I press a little harder >> Go ahead.
>> Okay. No. Yeah. No, I before that experience before I heard them. No, I had never heard of it.
>> That was my only point. My point was not had you never heard of it before you heard it that one time. My point was, had you ever heard it or seen it before you ever did it yourself? Even if it was one time, you at least had that model laid out for you is what I'm trying to say.
>> Okay. But is it okay? Listen, that doesn't prove what you're saying as far as Oh, I'm expected to hear. No, listen.
>> All right. I'm trying to rock with you here, but it's it's not looking good. Go ahead.
>> No, no, listen. No, I hear what you're saying, >> but the Bible says this. It says this promise is to you your children and all those that are f as many as the Lord thy God shall call. See that we have Bible to back that up. You you're you you're trying to say okay because you saw it because you heard it. I wasn't expected to hear it. I didn't believe it. I didn't know it. I didn't understand.
>> You're missing my point. You don't have to have been being you don't have to have been expecting to hear it. You heard it. You knew what it looked like here. So, let me let me ask you this, Art.
>> If you hadn't heard it and saw it that one time, if it was only one time, I don't know that it was, but you're saying now after some pressing that it was one time you heard it.
>> If you hadn't heard it and saw it that one time, and this friend just said, "Hey, Art, you know there's this thing called speaking in tongues, right? When the Holy Spirit fills you and she shows you the passages in the Bible, and you don't even ask her what it is. You just say, "Oh, word." and you go pray to God, do you think that you would have done the exact same thing when you walked down the aisle and the woman said, "Young man, raise your hand." Do you think that the glosselia would have come out of you the same way had you never seen or heard it before?
>> Yes, sir. I think so. And this is >> I doubt it. I highly doubt it.
>> Okay. Can I give you scripture? Can I give you >> No, because scripture is not going to help here. You saw something. You emulated what you saw.
>> No. Okay, listen. You're saying, okay, this is kind of going back to your point. This is going back to your point of >> how do we know the Bible is inherent or not? This kind of proves your point.
>> So, okay, let's use scripture to validate what I'm saying to you. Let's use scripture.
>> It's not It's not going to be able to do that, Art. It's not. If you had told me, if you had told me you've never seen anybody do this before, you've never heard what it sounds like, and you just read that there's such a thing as being filled with the Holy Spirit, and then that was your your your your um your natural outburst when this woman said, "Raise your hands." That would have been a little tougher to contend with. But the second you tell me you saw it and then you did it, scriptur is not going to help me say, "Oh, well, the Bible says it's going to happen, therefore this must be the real thing." That's not going to help. Scripture is not going to help me >> agree that this must be spiritual. All right, let's see. Let's see. Go ahead.
Go ahead. You got it.
>> I think it will.
>> Let's go to Acts 10.
>> Go to Acts 10.
>> When when Peter got the vision about Cornelius and to go to his house, I know you're very familiar with.
>> Okay. So when Peter got there and he preached to them and the Holy Ghost fell on them, he I didn't there's no prior reference to them hearing about speaking in tongues, knowing about tongues or >> but we don't know that that happened.
Art, that's a story.
>> Okay. Well, wow. If it happened back then and it's still happening today, [ __ ] you got to really >> No. All right. We don't know that the Holy Spirit fell on anybody and they spoke in tongues. All we know is that there was a group of people and glosselia broke. You can find glosselia in cults, not just in Christianity. You can get you get people standing up and doing this a static speech and it becomes contagious. I don't know if you remember back there was this thing called laughing in the spirit where there was this contagious laughing in the spirit for a while. Uh Rodney Howard Brown was going around um waving his hand over crowds and they would fall out in laughter. But it's the contagion of what happens in the crowd. Doesn't mean that anything spiritual ever happened on the day of Pentecost or in Acts 10.
>> Does it?
>> It does not. Well, how can you say when when that because listen the the to the witness of those that came with Peter?
>> He said, "Wow." They were amazed and astonished because the Holy Ghost fell on them just like Yes.
>> Exactly. Just like it.
>> Art.
>> Art. Do you know what propaganda is? And do you know how to recognize propaganda?
You think that's propaganda or do you think it's scripture? Because >> I think if you understood the way propaganda and social engineering works, there are very many passages in the Bible that you would read and say, "They're trying to play me. They they wrote this in here specifically to shore up other readers who would read it and say, "Well, it happened, therefore, it must be real. It's you're be you're being led by propaganda." Can you can you give me an example of that because I'm I'm not aware of that and I would love >> So so the idea that a man could rise from the dead is unbelievable if you don't see it yourself. Would you agree that it's it's it's it's reasonable to doubt it? Would you at least agree that it's reasonable to doubt the claim that a person was dead and then rose from the dead? Right.
>> Yes, sir. Yes, sir. If you wanted people to believe this story, but you didn't have the living body to produce so that they would have to believe it, what could you do to shore them up?
You could tell stories about other people who doubt it just like you probably will. But those people, they actually doubted because it's understandable. But then they saw the proof and then they believe. And then you know what was said to them? You believe because you saw, but blessed are they that have not seen and still believe. That way you never have to produce the body to those in the future because you're telling them about somebody in the past who, hey, he doubted too, just like you. But but guess what? Blessed are you if you believe without seeing. See, Thomas, he was on that corny stuff. He had to see to believe. More blessed are they who haven't seen. That's propaganda. That's somebody telling the story because they know they can't produce the body. So, let me tell you about somebody else who doubt it. They got they got the proof they wanted, but then God dissed them for needing proof. You believe because you saw and then you are in 2020 whatever you come along. You say, "I'm not like Thomas. I don't even need to see the body and I'm still going to believe and I'm more blessed for that."
That's you falling victim to propaganda.
>> Okay. Well, that's not how it happened.
I hear what you're saying, but that's I had none of that to to go on to believe propaganda or not.
>> All right. You're you're you're missing what I'm saying. You asked for an example of things that could be written in the Bible to propagandize people. And I'm just giving you that as an example.
>> No. And and I I get what you're saying.
But see, when when you have a a historical event that keeps happening according to how the Bible says it and you have this thing that keeps happen, if it wasn't true or if it's not real, then why does it keep happening? And if God is God or not God or >> because of sociology.
Because of sociology and physiology. If you could if you would take some time to study social biology, you would realize how much of a creature of like how much of a slave to your your neurons, your your perception, uh your habits of thinking, uh group think, other people's opinion. How much a slave to all those things you are. And then you'd realize, oh, that's why I cheer for my quote unquote favorite team, but I'll move to a new city, and if I'm there long enough, I'll end up being a Cowboys fan when I used to hate the C. Like, if you understood social biology, you'd realize you're a you're you're a victim of the processes that are going on inside your head that you're just not paying attention to.
>> Okay. Do you think that's in every case, though, because I I don't think that's in every case. But I think that is in cases just like everything in anything else. That's not >> I would agree with you. I would agree with you. It's not in every case. But here's the thing. If it's at least possible in some cases, how would you know whether or not this is one of those cases?
>> Okay. Well, listen, just like everything else in the Bible, just Okay. remember when he uh they said okay I think it was um Paul's teacher who who >> yeah when when he said hey leave these men alone cuz if it's fake it'll fade away if it's not true >> right >> that's not true is is Islam false >> yes >> has it faded away >> yeah it's fading it >> just because something Hold on hold on hold on but wait somebody could say the same thing to Christianity Just because something has not faded away does not mean it must be of God.
There are many things that started before Christian. Hinduism started before Christianity. It is not faded away. Does that mean Hinduism is of God?
>> It it doesn't mean it's real.
That that's my >> Does it mean the experiences of Hinduism are spiritual or can they just be culturally, socially, physiologically things that people will do in their culture and not necessarily something spiritual happening? And if that could be true of Islam or Hinduism, why can it not be true of Christianity?
>> Well, because sp Christianity is spirit.
He says you worship >> your thing is spirit, right? Not their thing. Huh?
>> You're saying your car, this is called special pleading because a minute ago you said, "Leave these men alone. If this is of God, you won't be able to stop it. But if it's not of God, it'll fizzle out." I just showed you two other religions that you don't think are of God that have not fizzled out. And then you're saying, "Oh, well, they will. And our thing is of the spirit. That's why our thing is still lasting." But what I'm saying to you is when you say your thing is of the spirit, you're a special pleading because they would say, "No, our thing is the is the of God thing."
And you going to fizzle out.
>> I got you. I got you. I can I can see your point there. But as we know, and and I'm not going to go to the end, but you you you know how this thing plays out with Christians. God's God's truth will stand and others will not. That that's But I hear what you're saying in the >> say every religion ever. Got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you.
And so I see how you arrived at where you're at. You're You've gotten to the point where hey, if if this can be true or not true, and I'm my only thing to you for is this. How can you prove that what you're saying is true or not?
>> What am I saying is true first before I end up trying to prove anything? What am I saying is true?
>> Okay. You're saying that these evidences, these proofs, these these uh notes and things that you've acquired uh to find out that scripture doesn't line up or add up, you're taking it as truth, as hey, I if if you can abandon something that you once agreed with, now all of a sudden you abandon it, then you're taking what you found out as truth. You're you're attributing. So, so, uh, kind of typically when we're talking about the Bible, um, so that's why I asked you about, um, what you what you believe about the Bible a minute ago.
Um, do you believe that, uh, Genesis 1 is telling us the truth about reality, about creation, about how the world came to be?
>> Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
>> Literally, or or like maybe figuratively?
>> Literally. I believe God's >> literally. So, so now I'm going to now I'm going to give you a chance to ask me the question you just asked me, but I want to ask you first. Um, what do you think came first, the Earth or the Sun?
>> The Earth.
>> The Earth. Uh, what do cosmologists and astrophysicists, what do they say came first, the Earth or the Sun?
>> I'm not sure. You exc school me on it.
They say the sun >> in in our galaxy in the universe everywhere we look we see stars forming and then we see planets forming around the stars in the gases that accrete that that gather around the star. That's how planets form. And there are all kind of measurements that you can make about the age of our sun and the age of our earth that will show you that our sun is older than this earth. And it it would seem to reason that if we look out in the galaxy and the universe and we see planets forming around stars that this planet formed around this star so that the star the sun was here first.
Now your question could be how do you know that's true fanatic? And my response to you is once you begin to take these measurements and you begin to look into telescopes, you begin to see these things and you can actually do something, you could actually perform and produce something with this data.
I'm more inclined to believe that the fact that we've got satellites, the fact that I'm in Philadelphia and you're wherever you are right now, that we can do stuff with this information tells me that this is more likely true because I can't do anything with the stories I'm getting from the Bible other than believe them and try to get other people to believe them, but I can't produce anything based off of that logic or or those stories.
>> So, I'm more inclined to believe what physicists with cosmologists with astrophys. more inclined to believe what they tell us >> even though I'm not an astrophysicist myself.
>> Well, you know what? Okay. And I guess that's where we have the issue and the problem because I believe God and then that's what the Bible says. Let >> Why?
>> And listen because the Bible says let every man be a lie and let God be true.
If he says >> how do you know that that's not propaganda?
>> No, listen. If he says just Okay, listen. Is the same thing with you. I can pose the same question to you. How do you know?
>> I just answered. I just answered. How?
Why do I think it's not propaganda?
Because we're in two different cities talking using the technology that was gained from all of the scientific advances that we've made over the last couple hundred years. That's why I'm more inclined to believe that this is not just propaganda. This [ __ ] actually works. Sorry to curse, but I'm just saying like you ask me how do I know it's not propaganda. We're living through scientific advancements every single day.
>> Yeah. But >> but you're living off of what the Bible already established. The Bible >> The Bible established that the Earth was here before the sun. That logic is not giving us any thing that we're using today when it comes to technology.
>> That is not that's not how the world works. If he says in the beginning, God created the heaven and earth, and the earth was this way. He began to shape and form the earth, then he put the light in there to act and and and to produce and do things that they're automatically doing today, then the technology came from him in the beginning in the first place. So, you're just >> If he's wrong, Hold on.
If he's wrong about the earth existing before the sun, wouldn't that stand to reason that >> how is he listen and see that's the that's the thing about the spirit about God and the spirit and because people see things can you can you agree that even even when I'm pretty sure you you taught class you taught in colleges and and things people saw a limited view of God because they didn't have all the facts and figures correct I'm not sure what you're saying.
>> I'm saying when you taught your classes, when you taught Christianity, right?
>> Mhm.
>> Okay. Were there things that people understood only according to their knowledge and where they were? They didn't have all the facts and figures and it was things that the spirit had to take and reveal to you to show you what was truth and what was not truth or a deeper truth or >> I had no way to validate that a spirit was doing anything. I would have probably said I'm I would have probably said I'm here because I have a gift from the Holy Spirit to teach. That's my spiritual gift. I had no way to validate that >> to verify that that that was what what was going on. I believed it because I read it in the Bible. I could not have verified that it was a spiritual gift.
>> Right. Can I ask you something? Did you have you ever spoke in tonesues?
>> I'll answer that in one second. I'm curious. Do you think that speaking in tonesues is more spiritual than pastoring as a spiritual gift or teaching as a spiritual gift? Do you think one is more spiritual than the other?
>> I just asked a simple question, sir.
Just a >> and like I said, I'm going to get to it, but I'm curious before I answer it. Do you think that speaking in tongues is more spiritual than any of the other spiritual gifts?
>> No, I think that Okay, >> go ahead. So, I answered that now.
>> Right. So, I have spoken in tongues.
>> Okay.
>> But those who watched this program before know what I'm about to say. When I was speaking in tonesues, I was not trying to fake it, but I did not feel any kind of uncctioning from a spirit. And so I began to speak in tonesues because I said, "Okay, maybe if I just," and nobody taught me this. There are other people who they actually have been taught this. Nobody taught me this. I just thought it. I said, "Maybe if I get the ball rolling and I just start moving my mouth and my and start uttering syllables, maybe God will see my earnest desire to speak in tongues and then the spirit will kick in and I'll start really speaking in tongues." So, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Listen.
I did that for for several months until one day I was at church and I was I was trying to get the motor going and I was doing my whatever I used to, you know, the gibberish.
And then somebody else in the service interpreted my gibberish and I was sitting there. I didn't say it out loud, but I was trying to signal them with my eyes like, "No, no, no, no, not yet.
It's not the spirit yet. That's still just me trying to I'm trying to get the motor going on the the spiritual lawnmower. Don't don't interpret this because it's not the spirit, it's me. But they were like, I hear the spirit of God saying through you, thus says the Lord, da da da da da da da. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait.
Either God is honoring my gibberish and speaking through me to that person or this is [ __ ] and nobody in here knows. It didn't cause me to deconstruct. It didn't cause me to deconvert. Didn't cause me to doubt God.
It just caused me to say, "Oh, so then maybe everybody who's claiming to speak in tongues is not because nobody in here knows that it's just me doing this."
>> You know what? I got you on that, man.
And I feel you on that. I got you. And that sounds crazy and and I agree with you 100.
>> I think it happens way more than than Christians are willing to admit.
>> You know what? I would agree with you 100%. And that's what I'm saying. It's not that I disagree with a lot of things that maybe you say or don't say. I just think that we haven't had this real experience with God. And so it causes a lot of fake stuff. Well, like the Bible said, in the last days, you're going to see a lot of this false stuff go on. And >> not just false stuff. Mythos Boy, thank you for the $3.33 cent super chat.
Mythos Boy says, "Speaking in tongues, ask him about snakes." Because it says those who follow him, you're going to be able to like be bitten by snakes and and it's not going to kill you. Are you out there handling snakes, too? Because in the last days, he said you're gonna be doing all these things.
>> I know. I don't I don't deal with all that kind of stuff. That's That's strange.
>> Why not? I don't get because he didn't.
>> It's in the Bible.
>> It happened to Paul. Paul got bit by a snake and it didn't harm him. So that's what I think more so the context of scripture is >> says these kind of things are going to be happening to people. Are they happening to you?
>> We no I have never been bit by a snake.
And how do we know that might not be something that is kind of uh like a type in a shadow?
>> But hold on hold on. A minute ago you said you you said people haven't had real experiences with God and therefore da da da da da da. But I just asked you a minute ago is is speaking in tongues more spiritual than operating in one of the spiritual gifts and you said no. So I did have experiences where I believe as an evangelist. I was I was indwelt and fueled by the spirit of God to bring the gospel. People are in tears when I'm giving the gospel. I'm teaching under the power of the Holy Spirit. I thought my raps were Holy Spirit infused. I had all kinds of intimate experiences that I thought was me and God. So just because I didn't speak in tongues, you can't say I didn't have I didn't experience God. I experienced most of what Christians experience.
>> I asked you I asked you a question. I asked you a question.
>> I asked you a question. That was simple.
Had you ever spoke in tongues or not?
That's all I asked.
>> Right. Right. But >> but after I answered, you said you you said people haven't had an experience with God and that's why >> they're saying that they had and you you just said that it's happening more than not or more often than not.
>> Gotcha. Okay. So you're you're not saying that Christian Brady didn't have an experience with God, are you?
>> I didn't say that. I did not say that.
I'm >> I'm asking you for clarity.
Do you think that even though you didn't say it, do you think that >> that you that I think you didn't have an experience >> with God?
>> No. I I think what you were saying I wouldn't I I listen to your albums to this day, bro. I I get off I love your your Incredible Walk album. I listen to this day. So, and I think they are inspired by the word of God.
>> But >> Uhhuh. Go ahead.
So, >> so I was going to say You got it. You got it. Go ahead.
>> No, go ahead. Go ahead. Say what you gonna say.
>> All right. So, I was just trying to wrap that up. If you're willing to say that I was at least um inspired by and maybe going a step further that at the time I would have said I had experiences with God, then you can't use me not having spoken in tongues as oh, I didn't have the real thing. I I'm willing to say I had whatever Christians have. It was it was unique to me, nuanced to me because maybe I didn't have the gift of prophecy or the gift of that, but I had other things that I thought were spiritual gifts. And all I'm saying is now when I look back, I realize that all the things that I was willing to call spiritual as a Christian, they were all sociological, physiological, cultural, uh uh they were nothing metaphysical was happening. You can get all of those responses, all of those experiences. Even the people who speak in tongues, you can get all of that through very naturalistic means. Nothing spiritual has to happen for that to be the case.
>> Okay. But you said you you admitted you said that you were co you were trying to get the engine started, right? So >> on that particular version of spiritual gift, not the other ones. Listen, listen. I'm not talking about the other ones. I'm talking about speaking in tongues. That's what I'm talking about.
>> Why are you focused on that one, though?
>> Well, I'm focused in on it because that is what happened on the day of Pentecost to let them know for sure that they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
>> But Paul says, "Do all speak in tongues?" No.
>> Right. We can go back and forth with that and interpretation thereof. We But I'm I'm just throwing that out to you.
I'm not I don't want to argue that point. You got other callers and and and I've enjoyed our conversation. I don't want to get down go down that road.
>> But that particular one you said yourself you really didn't experience you faked it.
>> I would kind of if you could or if you even thought about it, maybe go revisit that to see if you had the real thing and see if >> So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Do you think I could have faked speaking in tongues and that might be might be evidence I never had the Holy Spirit?
But then all the other things I did under the Holy Spirit, the teaching, the evangelism, the uh the writing, the music, and all that, what were they?
>> Well, I I would just ask you to go back and revisit. That's all. I would just ask you to go back and revisit. That's all I would ask.
>> Why? So, one of the my first question was going to be when you talked about you speaking in tongues is why did somebody have to tell you that it was a thing? If you were really a believer, why didn't the Holy Spirit just come into you and and have you speak? Why did you have to learn about it?
>> See it and then you can exhibit it.
>> Okay. Listen, listen. I didn't learn about it. I did not learn about it.
>> Somebody told you about it, right? That was that's you learning of it.
>> Listen, listen. No, no, no, no. Listen, listen. I I understand what you're saying. I didn't sit down and study speaking in tongues.
>> That's not what I mean when I say learn about it. That's not what I mean.
>> Okay. Learn about >> you hearing about it. You hearing about it is you learning that it's a thing.
>> My question is why did you need to learn or hear that it was a thing before the thing happened to you? If there's a Holy Spirit >> there's a Holy Spirit.
>> Because I'm just like, >> why did they have to hear about it?
>> Because I'm just like the people in Acts 19.
I'm just like, >> why did they have to hear about it? If there really is a Holy Spirit, >> because you have to understand that, hey, something exists that you didn't know about. That's why.
>> But wait, wait, is the Holy Spirit dependent on people telling you about him?
>> I think God uses people. That's why we're here. That's why he says, "Go tell the nations." Everybody in the book of Acts, if you read it, somebody had to come to them to introduce this thing to them for them to understand. And >> so my my 30 years as a Christian, all my Christian service, all my adoration, all my praise, all my devotion, all my worship, all my everything that I did, if I just had asked again, because it's not like I never asked. I was asking for the Holy Spirit as a young buck and thought, I just have to wait for God to get it. And when I didn't get the gift of tongues, I said, "Okay, maybe God will give me other spiritual experiences and which I thought I had." But you're saying 30 years of that and maybe I just needed to ask one more time for the Holy Spirit and then I would have been sealed with the promise.
>> Check it out. Check it out. And I don't want to keep calling you for now. That's what I'm used to calling you.
>> Okay. It's all good. Um >> Um You said you faked it the whole time.
I said for two months I I I faked it trying to get it going.
>> Okay. So I'm saying did you ever do it ever do it without faking it without trying to get the engine started?
>> Not to my knowledge unless the unless the time that that person interpreted my tongues and maybe that really was it but like I said I was doing the same thing I had been doing for two months. I was choosing all the >> That's what I'm saying. See this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm saying right there. If you faked it the whole time, if if you trying to get the engine started the whole time and you never had that real experience without you faking it, without you knowing you're not faking it, that's what I'm saying. Maybe go revisit that, sir, and not fake it.
>> But wait, what I don't understand is why would I if Paul I know you say you don't want to litigate this passage, but Paul says, "Do all speak in tongues?" He seems to me to suggest everybody's not going to have that gift, right? But either way, are you are you saying to me that 30 years of Christianity and may out of all the other things that I thought, don't worry, you don't speak in tongues. You're doing all these other spiritual things that maybe all those other things, the music that you still listen to today and say is inspired by God, maybe all those other things were just the naturalistic responses of me being in Christian community, but not really spiritled.
You know what that you know what if you could kind of visit that thought that would be something because that'll be a new way of music.
>> All right, I'm gonna let you go on that note, bro. Not because you said anything wrong. I just think we're gonna keep going around in circles here. Um, every time I get a Christian ask me asking me to like pray and ask God to do XYZ, I always do it. Not always. Sometimes I do it. I'll do it this time. Matter of fact, right now, let's just let's let's let's pray. Let's pray right now. Can we do that?
>> Can I Can I pray?
>> Why can't I pray? You won't hear me.
>> Yes, sir. Go ahead and pray.
>> Yes, sir. I'm listening. I'm listening.
>> Uh uh God of the Bible, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, if you're real, I don't know that you are. I don't think you are, but if you are real, I would love to know that you're real. I would submit my life to you if you're real.
And Art is suggesting that one of the ways I can know that you're real is if you would not just come in and feel me, but allow me to speak in other tongues in languages, uh, heavenly languages or earthly ones without me trying to fake it or or or or contrive it. God, would you do that and save me and lead me to your son for salvation because my soul is at stake and I don't want to spend eternity without you if you're if if all this is real. I don't want to go to hell if that's real or be annihilated if that happens. I want to know you if you're there and you want to be known. And I'll even pray this prayer in Jesus's name.
Amen.
>> Jesus.
>> Amen. Amen. Listen, I love you, man. I love you. I I I'm almost in tears, man, that you would even pray that and that we had this conversation. Believe me, you've been on my heart. You've been on my mind ever since I heard about what you know your decision and and man, believe me, I I am will continue to pray for you. I love you, man.
>> And and look, let me let me just add this. The Bible says anybody who asks something of God should believe, should not doubt because if you doubt, don't think you're going to get it. So, I'm going to do my best to try to believe, but I'm not going to fake it to make it happen. Either God's going to fill me with his spirit and show me he's real or not.
>> I think he will, man. And and if you're sincere, which I believe you are, cuz you know truth, man. Believe me, the things that you've said in your albums, man, have inspired me. Believe me, man.
And and believe me, I am praying that he will do exactly what you asked.
All right, let's see. Thank you, man.
>> Love you, man.
>> Yep. Good with you. Y peace.
>> All right. Uh that is I think the first time I prayed on this podcast. Let's see. And I mean, we don't have a whole bunch of watchers, but I think if God really wanted to to win people over, he could interrupt me right now and take over and I could speak in tongues and maybe I could speak to the watching audience and maybe call out some words of knowledge to people who are watching if God wants to do that kind of thing.
Let's go.
I think I had another super chat come in or did I read them all? Let's see.
Mo Wheat, what's up, Mo? Mo says, "Isn't it supposed to be a different known language?" Well, that's why when I prayed, I said, "Hey, if it's even if it's a the tongues of angels or the tongues of men, because you know, beggars can't be choosers. I'll take whatever I can get.
All right. Uh, got another call. I don't know if I know this next caller. So, let's uh let's get caller. Your camera is not on.
If you'd like to turn your camera on, that would be a treat for me. You don't have to, but uh that would be dope.
Otherwise, I'll bring you in as is.
All right. Welcome John to Icapot. John, what's good?
>> Hello. How are you doing?
>> I'm doing pretty well. How are you, John?
>> John, can you hear me?
I heard your first sentence and then nothing after that. So, I'll give you a minute to work out what you got going on over there. Let's see if we can get you in here.
All right, I hear you now. Say something else, John.
>> Uh, testing.
>> Yep, sounds good. What's happening, John? Where you calling from?
>> Uh, well, I'm actually calling from Texas. Um, but I'm >> Okay, I'm from England.
>> Okay, that's what's up. And can you let us know, John, are you atheist, agnostic, theist? Where you at with the God question?
>> Yeah, I'm a Christian.
>> Okay. Bible believing Christian.
>> Uh, yes, I believe the Bible.
>> And last question, do you believe the Bible is inherent or um infallible?
>> Um, I'm not sure on that one.
>> Okay, that's what's up. So this is ask an atheist. Uh how would you like to proceed?
>> Yeah. So I saw the the head the title.
Uh I just had a couple of quick questions. Um >> so my first question is um you're an atheist. Do you believe like God is less likely to exist than exist? Or you just someone who says I don't know. So if I gave you two propositions for example, proposition P, God exists and proposition not P God does not exist.
Are you saying that proposition not P is more likely true than P? Are you just saying that it's 50/50 based on the logical possibility? You just don't have a reason to believe P?
>> I don't know about 50/50 and I wouldn't know how to actually put numbers on it.
But I think I think a god existing. I don't think it's impossible. Uh but I think it's it's probably it it registers to me more as an ancient hypothesis than anything that we could actually try to bank on today.
Right. But how likely would you say would you say that you think >> would you say that you think that proposition not P it is far more likely than P or just slightly more likely? If you had to have a guess how much weight do you feel like the probability of it?
>> Uh I'm not sure. This sounds like this this might be about to go kind of like a Phil bro. All I can say, John, is I think there are certain gods that I'm 100% sure those gods don't exist, and the God of the Bible is one of them. As to whether or not there is a God at all, I can't rule that out. I just think it's unlikely and I can't really put a a number on it.
>> Yeah. Uh so the the idea that some gods definitely don't exist. Uh I find it because I I'm thinking in the terms of just general theism. So if like let's say the Bible when you say the Bible God, I don't see it that way. I just see that if the Bible's got errors. It's just making false claims about God. It's not that there's a Bible God and a Quran God or anything like that. There's claims about who God is and whether those claims are true or false. But I'm asking just the general thing. So like if we were to ask the nature of fundamental reality, is the nature of fundamental reality a conscious? You know, like are the fundamental forces of reality purposeful, meaningful, guided, aware, conscious, or are they purposeless, meaningless, unguided, unaware, like a like we're no god exists. So basically, like that's a dichotomy I see. Now, if the Bible makes claims about fundamental nature of reality, uh, and they're false, then I would just think, well, they're false, but I wouldn't say the Bible God doesn't exist. I would just say the Bible makes false claims about who God is. Um, so I'm just asking based on like a general theism type thing. Are you saying that you think general theism is likely to be more false than true or you know I I just it's a genuine question. I'm not trying to trap you or anything like that. I'm just genuinely >> It does sound like you're working according to a script. So I'm I'm a little resistant to answer but all I can say John is when it comes to general theism I think theism is an ancient hypothesis. I think people who did not have the information that we have about what's beyond the the the clouds and uh what happens at the at the level of smaller than what the eye can see. I think those people were free to envision and imagine something and they imagine gods and it makes sense that they would.
When you see motion in the sky, you think motion means movers and movers means intention and agents and therefore there must be an agent and maybe we could please and appease those agents. I think a god or the idea of gods makes sense when you look at it that way terms of the fundamental nature of reality or the ground of being and is it conscious is it purposeful I don't know any of that and I don't know how I could know any of that I don't know if if what we call cause and effect and purpose and are just things that register at our level of being at at a different level of being before the blank time like we just we we have no way to speak about what that actually is and I don't know how to even have that conversation. And I don't think trying to force a a gap filler into our knowledge of what came before the the expansion of our universe. I don't think trying to fill that gap makes any sense unless you can demonstrate what you're filling that gap with.
>> Yeah. I yeah I would say if someone's saying proposition P is more likely they would have to just they would have I'd also say >> John John all I'm saying is I got to cut you you're working from a script because you keep going back to the same thing as opposed to dealing with what I'm saying now and I don't really I don't really want to have the conversation from script you do what I just said just now Yeah. Sorry, it's breaking up a lot. Is it breaking up for you?
>> My my mic was messing up. I'm sorry. Um uh what what's the last thing?
>> I thought it was just ming.
>> No, no, >> I I heard that you said you thought I was working from a script. Um honestly, I can tell you I'm not working >> P not P. This keep going you got something you want to say. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Uh so I was just generally curious as to like on that position but I have a second question then. Um >> Sure.
>> So obviously I'm a Christian and uh you know I've seen your show a couple of times a few times and obviously you are very much you know read on the critical scholarship and everything like that and uh you know and I've looked into the critical scholarship and stuff like that of the Bible. Um the but for me as a Christian so when I became a Christian I was 17 I became a Christian. I didn't read the Bible then become a Christian. It wasn't the Bible that convinced me God would exist.
>> Um I had an experience and it was in the context of Christianity that you know and then in that context comes you know the belief of the Bible and everything like that. So I just take it within its context and I feel like the experience itself justifies my experience with God.
But then because it came in that context also take the trappings of it unless I have good reason.
>> Let me just let me let me stop you real quick. I just I just want to I want to get some clarity. If you had had, is this an experience that you could have only had as a Christian or could you have had this experience if you were part of another faith and then maybe you would have attributed to to to that rendition of God?
>> Yeah. So, it was an experience of God.
That's how it came through. But I couldn't say, you know, I know that this is because of the gospel, >> but it came in from receiving the gospel.
>> Um, so and I had some pretty profound experiences after uh that to me were collaborated that it wasn't just me having them. For example, when I first converted >> uh I was on the computer actually. I was 17 years old. I was playing a computer game actually and I heard and it was like an audible but internal audible >> um I don't know how to explain it and I heard another person >> yes I heard another person was going to sin and I had to go stop him >> and I went uh okay I'll go and then I heard go now so I went and lo and behold this person was shocked that I knew and I was shocked but so to me >> what if that was just me having an eternal experience and there was it wasn't in reality the the chance of that happening was so small to go and find that person was just about to do something and uh you know >> this was somebody you knew right at the time.
>> Yes. It was someone I knew. It was someone close to me >> and you knew their you knew their character, their personality. You knew their habits of being you knew them enough >> what they were going to do. What they were going to do was not something I had anything in my mind that they were going to do. It was like something out of the ordinary. Um but they they just become converted as well. And I heard that anyway. So my point is I had a few of these experiences.
>> Okay.
>> But it came with the you know I didn't read the Bible and then go oh the Bible convinces me.
>> It didn't happen to me. I it was I had an experience and then in that context and so when I see all the like the deconstruction movement and that I wonder if they and this is my second question and I've gotten around to it in a roundabout way.
>> But for me I got baptized. I made a commitment to the Lord. And so the way I see it is even if I'm epistemically 50/50 on whether it's true, I won't break that commitment. Even if I'm I think it's more likely false, I won't break that commitment until it goes on like a very long time. And it's like this. Imagine imagine I'm a professor in philosophy and I meet a woman, right?
And I'm only 80% sure she exists. You know, you know, this is a ridiculous scenario, but I may, you know, I'm so messed up in the head for philosophy.
I'm like only 80% sure that she exists.
And I marry her. When I marry her, I'm not not 80% committed. I'm 100% committed. Even though my epistemic belief is 80%. Now, let's say >> I don't get this analogy. This analogy is very foreign to me. Hold on. You you're a philosopher. You meet a woman, but you're not sure she exists. How do you meet her online?
>> Well, no, you know, in real life, but I'm just giving you a crazy scenario.
So, like, uh, you know, >> No, no, no, no.
That's not going to work because I want to be able to latch on to your analogy to kind of give a onetoone as possible if possible. You meet her, you don't know if she you're 80% sure she exists.
Are you thinking she 20% might be in your head? Like what do you mean you're not sure she exists?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you know like how some philosophers believe in soypism and they have all these you know you know they have very skeptical philosophical skeptical theories and they don't even know if they exist themselves and stuff. So let's just say I'm just giving this as a rough example. So I'm only 80% sure she exists but I commit to her in marriage.
So I'm that doesn't mean I'm 20% of the time a bachelor and 80% married. I the marriage is still 100% commitment even though my epistemic feelings towards it is 80%. Now, let's say it drops to 50%.
I don't just break the marriage. Let's say it drops to 20%, 80% sure she don't exist. I don't just drop the marriage because already made a commitment. So, what I wonder with a lot of these people in the deconstruction movement is I can understand before you make the commitment, how you can say, well, I'm not sure. I wouldn't jump in. But once you've already made a commitment to the Lord, you wouldn't got baptized.
Why don't you Well, I this is my question. I don't know if you did or you didn't. Hold on to that commitment and see it through until you get to a point where you go, okay, I'm completely like this. this is this has got to a point where I could see if God was there he would say no you're completely justified you you held on you know that you did everything you could uh in the face of you know all this confusion and doubt uh and you did hold on very strongly because you made a commitment and now I consider it warranted but a lot of the people in deconstruction movement it's like they get to like a 50/50 and they just drop it they don't think in terms of any type of faithfulness or commitment they made baptism or anything like that and I'm wondering did you um that's my Uh, I think I can appreciate where you're coming from with the question.
Uh, the way I tell my story is, and I actually said it today, my decon conversion h my decon conversion happened in an instant. And it happened over a 10-year period. In an instant, I got the notion that this is probably not true. And my heart broke. And then I spent the next several years vacasillating between, well, maybe it can still be true. Oh, no, it's probably not. And it took me 10 years to finally finally fully own it.
>> So there was no idea like there was no idea of like okay well I'm my mindset now was thinking this is not likely true but I did make a commitment. So let me let me just work staying. No, because that doesn't make sense to me. If if if I if I say, "Let me just let me just keep the commitment because I made it."
But I'm I'm I'm beginning to get the impression.
Like, so for the for that 10 years, it was sort of like a 6040, then a 7030, then a 8020. For that 10 years, I was doing all kinds of things to test God.
Sometimes it was trying to be super holy. Sometimes it was being super sinful just to see what a god would ever do and then it was 9010 and then it was 99 and then it was 100% for it didn't turn into 100% until 2021 when I began to study and research why the Bible can't be true in 2021. That's when I like the the foundation cracked in 2014.
>> In 2021 it was like okay not the Bible.
But then after I 100% ruled out the Bible God, then the question was, okay, well then if even if the Bible god is not true and maybe like I need to spend time trying to figure out maybe there's some other god. But then I had to take into account, well damn, I thought the Bible God had reached out to me, had sought me, had chased me down, had wooed me, had drawn me to himself, had all these, and now I'm realizing that that didn't happen.
No other god has done that. So now am I going to wait around for some other god to do what I thought the Bible god did and then maybe 15 years down the line I realize oh this god didn't do it either.
And so at that point it just began to be a safe assumption that there probably is not a god.
>> That's interesting because your experience is different than mine. Um, so I wouldn't know what to say to it, uh, to be honest.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. All good. We all have different journeys, but at least we're journeying.
We're traveling.
>> But basically though, my only two questions.
>> John, I appreciate where you were coming from and where you were trying to get to. Hopefully I wasn't too verbose and uh, you know, out of pocket for you.
if he responded. I didn't hear it, but I'm gonna let you go on that note, John, unless you have anything else.
I I can't hear any responses, but I know you had some mic issues.
So, did I.
So, maybe you dipped already. I don't know, but I can't hear any responses.
I'm gonna let you go on that note, John.
And we are pulling up on three hours, so I'm going to go. Uh, any more super chats coming in? I don't think so. I will be back on tomorrow.
Um, and I will have a a legit topic tomorrow. I just wanted to give people a chance to call in and ask questions today. Um, but hey, thanks for rocking with IPOD. I really do appreciate all you guys uh especially the Patreon supporters. Like I said, we're going going to do the we're going to start diving into Anthony Flu there is a God uh the weekend of April. I think it said 15th and I'm not April, August 15th, 16th. And I'll put that in the the Patreon. Um, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Wednesday, I will be back on the line with Matt Dilla Hunty. So, catch me there. I'll talk about that some more tomorrow. And I hope you guys have a great night. I'll talk with you soon. Peace.
Related Videos
0:33
Philosophy
Open Tab is a new interview series hosted by Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie
Hypeflicksss
1K views•2026-05-21
27:53
Philosophy
Street Epistemology: Maritza (1) | Student Demands the Truth (Valuation)
magnabosco210
124K views•2019-06-27
1:18
Philosophy
Nel Noddings | Feminist philosophy and education | Whiteboard Video
studioninety9110
3K views•2019-10-13
18:20
Philosophy
LEGAL METHOD CLASS: Law, Order, Justice & Freedom | Understanding the Concept of Law in Society
LAW-MADE-SIMPLE.c
371 views•2025-11-22
1:26:44
Philosophy
Does evolution DEBUNK morality?
MajestyofReason
7K views•2025-03-06
47:07
Philosophy
How the Gospels Pass the Historical Test | Tim and Lydia McGrew
TheAaronRennShow
713 views•2025-12-02
1:03:26
Philosophy
Pluriversal Design SIG Book Club 13: bell hooks' Theory as Liberatory Practice
pluriversaldesignsig2851
777 views•2022-05-24
1:37:10
Philosophy
NICK LAND MEETS THEORY UNDERGROUND (w/ Michael Downs and David McKerracher)
PhilosophyPortal
9K views•2023-10-23
Trending
13:25
Business
Playstation NO DISC/NO BUY Fight Is Over...
DavidJaffeGames
4K views•2026-07-23
16:52
Anthropology
Americans Confused in Australia for 17 Minutes Straight
IWrocker
17K views•2026-07-23
7:38
Blockchain & Crypto
Bitcoin Social Interest: Dozens of us Left
benjaminjcowen
12K views•2026-07-23
11:32
Business
Tesla Profits Plunge & SpaceX Stock Continues Fall
TheJohnJohnstonLounge
6K views•2026-07-23