to Recording and Zoom. Welcome to Elmo's World Podcast. I'm here with my friend Bryce and he's been a you know very great supporter of the podcast for how many years I've been doing this and I'm really thankful for him being my friend and like really supporting me even even though we're in the worst of times. It's in my life. Bryce has been there. So Bryce, can you tell me to introduce yourself to the audience? You know, like what?
Who are you? What are you all about? Yeah, my name is Bryce Cornell. I am used to go by Bryce Rody on YouTube. I guess I still kind of do although I haven't uploaded much content lately. I've been kind of inactive because I've been moving around a lot. But I, yeah, where I start. I think for anyone who doesn't know my story. I am a former Christian apologist turned
atheist and I ended up getting involved in the secular humanist atheist community online and discord and various other places. And you know, I had my own YouTube show for a while where I would interview people who were still believers, people who would come out of belief, people who were in different religions, people who have very strong opinions on that sort of thing.
And then we dealt into other topics as well politics we touched on and you know, just socio economic issues. And the show I think had kind of run its course. And I just started getting a little bit to involve in other things. And so I had to kind of take a break from that. I may go back to it at some point, but yeah, it just kind of like I felt like I had talked about everything, you know, and there was really nothing more to tell.
I kept hearing the same old arguments over and over and reaction kind of the same old discussions with new people. And it was very little new being brought up. So I kind of got tired of that. I have born of it. And yeah, now I'm, but just outside of that, I'm mostly into like a comic books and, you know, collecting comic books is kind of a hobby of mine. It's getting to be any sense of hobby. So I'm having to throttle back a bit.
But yeah, I'm just if anybody is curious about like what I do for living, I'm actually retired military. And so I'm not. I'm kind of like in between jobs, but I don't really have to work. And I'm also married to an activity US military member. So, um, so yeah, I pretty much do like whatever I want.
I don't really have to do anything, which is, which is kind of cool, but it leaves me bored sometimes and looking for stuff to do. But we can get into that or we cannot get into it. I'm curious about you.
Yeah, at this point or like because the last time we talked publicly, you were interviewing me about my atheism and you are still a Christian believer. Yeah. And so I always enjoyed talking to you then, even though we had, you know, differences in, in belief, just because of the way that you approached the discussion. And you seemed very open-minded and very intellectually honest and curious.
So I didn't want to like, you know, push my beliefs on you or kind of pull you out of your belief system or whatever I just thought naturally, organically, if you were a critical thinker.
You know, understood rational rationality and skepticism that eventually you would probably come out of it and find your way out the reason alone. And I turned out to be right, but I didn't let you know that at the time, but I could just tell the kind of things you were curious about and the kind of questions you would ask me.
Well, we can't we can't for certain like, absolutely say that we're right, you know, but like, subjectively from all the evidence that we've analyzed with the data we gathered, you know, the logic arguments. And just for me, I have concluded that there is no model of God that would convince me that, you know, that that's like true, right. So, so, so I guess when it comes to like why became atheists, it was a very long process.
Very emotional too, but like, I yeah, if if if if if if emotion was just there, I would have stayed because I actually becoming an atheist actually led me into some dark places, you know, because I talked about this before with my previous guest Jason.
And I said that that before my foundation of beliefs, you know, my worldview was founded and God was a center of it and God was the foundation and when that when that disappeared, everything fell through right like yeah morality, meaning, you know, Genesis.
Yeah, what is the purpose of everything your whole your life is kind of aimless at that point when all of your when everything is geared around this idea when you find out that's not true or that's not representative of a reality, it's like, well, what do I believe now what what matters now, what do I go from here, you know, you have to actually think for yourself.
You can't really choose to be a theist because who would want to be a theist who would want into living a dark world where no, no object in morality, no guardian, no, no God, nothing like we're just we're not even like technically alive alive, you know, there's no like fundamental difference between a living thing and not living thing, you know, we're just.
So I would say I would say that's an interesting question because I have a different perspective on that you you the way that you framed it was like who would want to be in this world where you know there's no God or there's no objective morality, but I think that the reason people want to be in that type of world is because they started off believing that that's the way that the world was and then they found out it wasn't.
And then it's at that point when you ask well this this sucks because this is not this doesn't match my expectations and this is against everything I grew up believing and I don't know what to make of this world but consider someone from Japan for example who never had a belief in this God in the first place or this type of religion you know they're still able to find meaning without the objective morality or.
The Christian God or really any other kind of supernatural beliefs necessarily you know because they weren't raised with that expectation in the first place so to them the world is the world this is the world we live in and we have to find a way to interact meaningfully with each other so we should probably develop a system of morality and not hope that there's something out there like giving us morality which we can't test and yeah the evidence seems to be against that so.
So so it's a matter of perspective right I think it's for you and I we both grew up in a Christian mindset and having certain expectations and then when that fellow what we realize that's not necessarily the way it is you're left wondering you know what is this how do I make sense of this but someone who started off without that is not in that situation well there's actually a dilemma that I'm facing right now it's either that I I've come to terms with my.
I've come to terms with my atheism and become and do it and proclaim it publicly you know and like and really live an atheist life not going to church telling my friends that I don't believe this or not participating in these religious ceremonies you know and like telling the next girl that I don't believe in God and like you know she'll just be turned off because like an atheist like we're though you know or I could like even like or I could still like be a cultural Christian and go to church and be part of it.
I'm not a church and be part of the community be part of this religious Christian nationalist nation of the Philippines like that would have got to make my life so much easier but I choose not to because I only have one life and I guess like for me my I want one value of developed is that to to be an apologetic you know to be based I just love expressing who I am and what I really believe in no matter the judge or whatever.
Yeah whatever people think about me it's just I'm living through it you know that what you just describe is you just expressed an aversion to the idea of living a lie you know and what you just tried what reminds me of the reality that a lot of gay people and trans people in the LGBTQ community experience when they are faced with the prospect of coming out you know yeah you could pretend to be straight and I'm not going to be a real man.
You know you're just going through the motion so that you're not alienated from. Yeah I'm happy with yourself if you were gay you did that with you you yeah you could pretend to be a Christian and think that you know go to church and all that stuff but really you're just going through the motion so that you're not alienated from.
Yeah family or your community or whatever but are you being real like would you would that be sufficient for you to be happy and life probably not you know yeah but if you're in the Muslim country and if you're going to have that option. You don't have that option so yeah you don't have that option so give it give it give it a day you know staying the closet for now or move to another country you know it's it's a it's a reality yeah.
And even really you know you said in a Muslim country but in a lot of areas of this country I'm in the United States right now if you're in the Bible belt and you grew up in a fundamentalist Christian you know environment state neighborhood community. You could be gastricized for this people who could get fired for not being Christian enough you know like I know a few of them so so yeah it's not just a Muslim thing although it is definitely worse in most of the Muslim countries.
Yeah well now that we're talking about like right and wrong and live it like and you know living a lie or not living a lie what do you think about like morality you know. Do you have a developed morality that you think is objective like there is like evil or good out there in the world or is it just you know social constructs. Yeah so so that's a good question so my answer is is complicated I'll try not to make it convoluted but it's complex is a better way to say it.
Do I believe in objective morality no because the way that I define morality is pretty much the standard dictionary definition it's principles concerned with the distinction of right and wrong or good and bad behavior right.
So by definition morality is a judgment it is discerning between what is right and what is wrong and if it's a judgment between what's right and what's wrong that means it's mind dependent and anything that's mind dependent is necessarily subjective you know there's nothing intrinsic in the world that is good or evil those are not qualities or properties of the universe they are judgments that minds make you know.
So we have to assign a good value or bad value to a behavior if there's no minds to assign a value to a behavior then good and bad right and wrong those are meaningless terms you know what good for. There is a you know atheism is a spectrum right but there are a lot of us secular secularists who who don't believe in God or religion but believe that there's like this objective morality.
Yes I'm aware of a couple of things and I'm like yeah but like you're just making a new religion you know like what's the difference between that and like that you know being a Buddhist it's it's it's no different.
Yeah I mean in to be fair atheists don't have a creed or doctrine of atheism you know and an atheism doesn't address morality so anyone who is an atheist who thinks that they have a moral system they have to derive their moral values from something other than atheism because there's nothing there to provide that right yeah so secular morality takes a lot of different forms there's a lot of different theories of normative ethics and you know
some people believe that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few so they have a utilitarian model some people believe in you know this is a lot of different models some people believe in social contract I think is one of them that you mentioned my moral system takes a little bit from everything well not everything not Christianity obviously it doesn't take from but it takes from a lot of different you know basically I studied a lot of different ways of doing it.
I studied a lot of different theories of morality and I look at the ones which seem to work which seem to be able to provide some use depending on the context and you know I take a little here so there's some of it is based on consequentialism utilitarianism some of it is social contract some of it even can't even ethics you know
I think morality is situational I don't believe that there's a book of morality I don't think there's a list of rules or a list of moral proclamations you know it's morality is not black and white you choose your own morality is what I think you know well my morality is based on well being and you know I'm stealing from other people but to me that's the goal because I want well but you chose the being like which I suggest to be well being not that's not right.
No it doesn't so for me well being is important to me I want to live a longer life a prosperous life I want to be happy you know I don't want to be sick or ill or in pain or suffering I would rather be you know loved and pleasure and happiness and all of that and I think that that's what most other people want to so I have to live in a community with other people where my actions have consequences on them and their actions have consequences on me
we better work up a system where we can all be happy and prosperous and live longer healthy and all of that so to me that's what morality is about that. Well for me actually I've been diving into a Max Turner and anarcho egoism so it's more of like a society where every individual it's not even like a society it's just an amalgamation of individuals who are ultimately self interested or purely egoistic
and so every social interaction is simply derived from from mutual benefit so voluntary, consensual mutual benefit or mutual aid so that I mean like that's that's an idea you know doesn't even have to be that kind of society it's just how you how I live my life for now is just about me and whatever interaction I have with others it's also for my self interest but I guess like I guess I developed my my morality system for that in a way where where my behavior is checked by individuals
because if they if I like do something wrong to them or if I do wrong to others you know then it'll backfire to me and will be and bad behavior is against my self interest so that to that kind of like correct I correct myself you know it's a check and balance.
So there's a reason there's a reason why the golden rule is a religious principle in many different religions even religions that contradict each other pretty much every religion has this idea every major religion has this idea of the golden rule or doing
others what karma or whatever they want to call it what goes around comes around and the reason they have this is because it's through observational experience you know people understand that social beings humans when we live in a collectivist society if you do wrong things to people they're not going to trust you they're going to be skeptical they might even kill you so maybe it's better to treat them right to protect yourself just purely through self interest you know self preservation
self protection self happiness if you treat others while they're more likely to treat you well if you treat them like I don't know if I can curse on you again again you treat yeah if you treat other people like shit they're going to treat you like
shit and you're going to feel bad and it's going to suck for you you know and so it's just I don't want to say common sense because that's not really a thing but it's it's intuitive you as a social being but yeah go ahead what about what about like we're sample like if you compare China let's say to the USA you know where collectivism if China were individualistic it would not be as productive and like as powerful as an ecosystem
powerful as an economic or a country as it is as it could have been as it could be or as it is right now right so so in a way like why don't know that for sure but I'm going yeah let's say let's say that collectivism work for China you know commonism socialism it work for China right
and so like even if that it doesn't have the like the ultimate well-being of the individual you can you can still argue that that collectivism is necessary for the Chinese people you know because in the end it was so that in this economic powerful country right well you could argue that but my counter argument that would be what is the benefit to Chinese people of China being a huge economic power if they don't personally benefit from it like if they you know if they're left behind if they are
killed or star because they have COVID or if you know their human rights are being violated like is that beneficial when you say this is better for China I would ask is it better for China what does better for China me but it's certainly not better for Chinese for most Chinese people right so to me what's better for China is what would end up yielding the best result for most Chinese people I think if given the choice between living in that type of society or living in
America well if you're looking at it from a utilitarian perspective truth doesn't really matter what the right thing doesn't matter as long as like the maximum number you know potential like people who who are made like satisfied I guess that's that's the real goal for utilitarian right if you're purely utilitarian I'm not purely
utilitarian I incorporate utilitarian principles generally speaking I think the goal should be to help the most amount of people but not at the expense of the suffering of a minority for example right that would not be justified because you're causing suffering to people who are part of your community so if the goal is to if the goal is well being for the community you don't
have to be able to do that by harming a subset of your community I remember what do you think about empathy well it's funny because I was actually going to bring that up before you start so I think that empathy is evolved trait in social species so most humans have empathy most dogs have empathy you know chimpanzees grows really any species that lives in a like collective type society they have a sense of empathy because they have
a sense of empathy and that's why they live together and they have to have moral rules and you know to govern their society so it's different from species to species but I think that as a social species human beings we naturally are empathetic we see other people who are
like us like we can recognize when someone else is suffering most people feel some kind of way when they witness an innocent person suffering you know that's a natural response and that's necessary if we are to have personal relationships with each other so I think that that is foundational to any moral system
and any morals anything that's claimed to be a moral system that doesn't incorporate empathy isn't really a system at all it's probably just an appeal to a family are you familiar with that anti-humanism no I've heard the term but I don't know so basically it's it's the exactly the opposite of humanism where human human it sounds like it yeah so humanism is where it centers on on human humanity core values be what is it it means to be human right love
dreams satisfaction around you yeah being human right so anti-humanism it sort of says that you know from for called he's he basically like it treats humanity as just no different from any other species so there's no there's no discrimination of life of life form or not from living and non-living things so basically it's saying like hey humanity it's not the end all be all of what matters in the in the universe you're just one little spec
right so from an existentialist perspective I agree with all of that yeah from a morality perspective I don't take that into consideration at all from your morality because your morality is based on well being right right yeah right so I prioritize humanity and human well being because I'm human and I'm biased this this discriminatory really yeah yeah I want to survive and I'm human
which means I want other humans to survive because I defend on them from my survive and if that means the destruction of the broccoli that I just ate as broccoli is alive right well I mean like yeah so morality morality your
morality is your choice but anti-humanism is just the truth right that you know well that's why I differentiate between existential claims and moralistic claim because I don't think that that has anything to do with morality it may be the case that life in general has no meaning all
that's not easy to non-life it doesn't matter intrinsically that's fine but it matters to me yeah and it matters to most other people who are alive because we're biased so that's all we need yeah so my point is like so let's say yeah the universe is anti-humanistic you know humanity is in the center of it so including empathy which is the all a core humanistic trait right so let's say
yeah so well I was going to say it's a humanistic trait but it's also a trait in other social it is one of a yeah there's a humanistic trait but but if you think about it right like like empathy is only necessary if it benefits the well being of each individual in a society right in a human society but what if the human society does not need empathy to have well being you know and I'm going to say that empathy is and that situation area would be
right you would if the yet theoretically that would be true but the problem with that is the fact that so I'm this is now an existential claim yeah humans are in a pathetic species because humans are social beings if humans were more like tortoises or turtles then we wouldn't need empathy because we would be individualistic and solitary we wouldn't live in society
but we already are right so many people can live by themselves in their rooms or in caves as her mates right they survive alone right but those are outliers that's not the average person
these are people you're like you talk about people who live off the grid or don't want any human contact usually they're older not older but I mean people who have you know been scorned by society or harmed in some way and or feel threatened or whatever the case may be yes there are people like that but those are outliers that's not a general that's not a normal thing for most people you know the natural instinct for the majority of people
is to be around other people and that giving them fulfillment so we have to judge so I judge outliers differently than like I don't make general statements about humanity by describing the mind of the small minority of people who are different you know we have to acknowledge that they exist and yeah they have different priorities but I don't want to live like like I actually want to live in you know most people in this country live in cities
and there's a reason for that you know there's yes there's people who live in more rural areas the countryside or maybe in the suburbs if they don't want but the majority there's a reason why cities are so populated and so crowded and why the majority of people who live in a country live in cities because it's beneficial for them to be interacting with each other you know it's easier
so so empathy is what I'm trying actually trying to argue is that like like it like if let's say there could be a situation where society does not need empathy for for the maximum well being of each individual like I can just throw it away you know and we could be unempathetic individuals you know living the best of our lives yeah but I think the problem with that comes and I don't think that that's a type of society that would survive very long I think it's on
because without the quality of empathy if somebody is needs help on the street and nobody ever helps them then that person could die but at the very least if they survive they're going to be the type of person that doesn't help anybody else because like if it's just normal to never help anybody you're going to end up losing a lot of people but isn't that survival the survival of the fittest right where it is but the problem is survival of the fittest works when you're
oh do we need to do we need to wrap it up or not it's okay we can finish it yeah yeah I think survival of the fittest is something that exists in nature and it's just descriptive of you know beings that have the best chances of survival in their environment but that doesn't
it doesn't drive what is in our best interest to do like it's not a model of behavior for us because what's in our best interest as humans isn't to ignore or hurt other humans that actually works against us because those humans are now a threat to us right so can you how long can you live in a society with people who are skeptical of you who don't like you who don't care about you and you know would see it in their best interest to steal from you every libertarian ever would want that
but how long would you survive in a society like that you know eventually the society is going to crumble and it's going to dwindle in numbers until yeah only the strongest survive and then but how many is that you know how many is they're all basically against each other
that's not really going to be a prosperous society it's not going to grow it's not going to you're not going to have exchange you know it's going to it's going to fall apart basically so if like I said so for the individuals who want to live off the grid and away from society
yeah they don't need empathy because they're alone there's not other people like if they encounter a person you know once every blue moon it doesn't matter but like their lives aren't dependent on them so they could do that but if you're going to be part of society and you're going to be interactive going to school having a job you know making money wanting to be promoted you know if you're going to have all these things you can't you have to have some sort of empathy
because there's a thing where people are going to like you what attitude should one have towards empathy because let's say I'm someone who only cares about my own self interest I could use empathy as a tool to make people to be to be a part of society you know to be integrated because as an empathetic and individual it would be a lot easier for me and society would also benefit for me in a way right if I'm empathetic
and I use empathy for my self interest but what should I should that sort of attitude should I have should I be have like genuine like empathy or can I can I can I just be on the surface what do you think well empathy to me is the quality of actually feeling something for other people so what you're basically asking I think is if you just fake it if you just act altruistic to other people because it's in your own self interest is that bad
and I would say no because at the end of the day what matters is your action it's not your feelings right facts don't care about your feelings you've heard that before right so what matters is how you actually treat people whether you feel empathetic or not if you treat people nice you're better off
because they're probably going to be nice back to you but I would say that if you don't have the sensation of empathy if you don't feel pain when someone when you see someone else is in pain if you don't feel sad or some kind of way about that that abnormal that would be indicative of an abnormal psychology and that's diagnosable you know because that's um I don't believe in the diagnosis I think it's just commutations and evolution you know it's just variations in genetic
okay well that sounds like that may have to be our next conversation because I'm a psychology major right I have a degree in psychology and so I and my mom is a therapist she's a mental health provider so I have a different perspective about that
but yeah that sounds like something we can say and by the way that's cultural too there's you know Eastern philosophy and Western medicine that there's there's conflicting views there about you know what is the cause of you know these behaviors and whatnot so that sounds like an interesting discussion as well so tell me right like in the last five minutes like tell me how do you think what do you think is a life worth living can you describe it
um for me life worth living uh and this is again this is purely subjective based on what I want I want to live as long as possible absent of suffering I want to learn as much as I can and I want to use that knowledge to benefit the human rights so that other people can experience that
I want to leave the world a better place than I found it you know and that requires me learning more about the world learning how to interact with people um and to me the the purpose of life is to enjoy it you know life is fulfilling when you enjoy it
experiences going to places meeting new people um having fun developing personal you know loving connections with other people that's what fulfills me so that's what makes me happy and so to me the goal of life is to be happy for as long as possible that's the primary goal and then the other goal is actually to help other people achieve that as well so for me I just treat life like an amusement park you know if you just maximize the fun and experience that's it nothing else matters
I made my change of course I'm in this phase of my life you know my life we are at different regions how do you 24 yeah you're 24 so I'm like almost twice your age right and so I probably have that stage of
life too you know because I'm you're in the primary your life physically and you know you wanted to I don't know if you're at the primary your life economically that's a different situation but physically you know you have less fear you have um you know you have your whole life ahead of you and so everything seems like a thrill so yeah that's a perspective
I'm at an age now where I'm middle-aged and I've seen a lot of things done a lot of things I've seen the benefits of that I've seen the detriment of it and now I'm trying to maximize my life as possible you know because which parts are you trying to maximize but well just basically everything I said the happiness the reduction of suffering for me and by extension of others you know interesting
and that's what makes me happy now but I couldn't have you know gotten to this point if I was still religious if I was still you know faithful Christian I'm not a real people doing good for the world you know like oh yeah I'm not saying that they don't they absolutely do but my my motivation for being a good Christian would be to make it to the next life right because this life doesn't matter if you're good this is just the this is just the um the rehearsal
yeah the real life is coming next in heaven you know and that's what you have to look forward to so you can deal with the bullshit here and not take it seriously as long as you worship God and obey and do all that well that's yeah so I now just close by saying now that I know I don't believe any of that nonsense I recognize that this is probably the only life that I have this is the only life I know I'm going to get you all
I'm going to maximize you know exactly you only live once and so I I want to make it a good life and so that's how I treat it now well rice thank you so much for being a podcast I'm definitely going to invite you next and I hope that you go back to congregation like what are you doing you you you have you know you you're at home you gotta do that I like being a guest I like it when people invite me on to their
podcast and their shows and their YouTube channels because there's less pressure and less stress on me to have to be to meet everybody's expectations and I don't care but I definitely look at the numbers and the stats too you know like I want to go viral anyway thanks brace and to to anyone who's still listening thank you so much for listening to the almost podcast we are out and