Talk Heathen 07.25 with ObjectivelyDan and Jamie the Blind Limey

Hey, Jamie, let's read from the good Book today. We got Matthew Chapter ten, verse thirty four says, do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in law against her mother in law. Yeah, not really, the prince of peace. Huh No, No, I don't think so. Well, if you think this is a good thing, I'd love to hear why, because I don't think so.

I don't know Jamie doesn't think so. But we have a call in show where you can tell us otherwise, and it's starting right now. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Talkie Then. I am your host today Objectively Dan, and we are live in the Austin Free Thought Library in Austin, Texas. Welcome everybody in the audience today. So happy to be back in studio. I am joined with second time appearance on the show. Here we have Jamie aka the Blind Blimey Jamie. Welcome to talk Ethan.

Well, thank you very much. I'm just quirked up. What boy with a little bit of lunch good reason must get dance secular style. He's listen. You said you were going to do the lyrics and you you committed, and I'm I'm glad that you did. Jamie. Welcome back to talk Ethan again. This is a live call in show. It is today a Sunday, June twenty, twenty twenty three, and we are again joined in the

studio. So folks at home, if you ever want to come down to Austin, we do do this once a month live in studio and it's it's so much fun to have people watching. So again, this is Talkie then. This is a call in show produced by the Atheist Community of Austin, a five O one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, the separation of religion and government. So if you want to call into the show and talk to us today, you can

totally do that. It's five one two nine nine one nine two four two. If you want to call in through a phone or they got these things called compute us now that you can use. I don't know if you heard about it. They're a pretty big deal. I think I think IBM makes some an Internet business machine. One of those people. Yeah, and anyway, if you'll want to call in through the computer, you can do that.

It's tiny dot cc slash call THH And we'd love for you to do that because we have open lines right now and we'd love to get to you.

And also I have a I have a challenge today, um because I talked about this before Jamie, because I was like, Jamie, you know, Jamie, the blind line you are, you are league league line, cannot see and so I thought it would be great if you know, James Randy had that thing where it was like, you know, if you can, uh, you know, prove that the paranormal exists, the James Randy Foundation will give like a million dollars to you if anybody today can call in

and heal Jamie's blindness while on the show. I will personally give everything out of my bank account to make that happen because I think that's a good thing, Like I want you to be able to have that. So I would be ecstatic. Yeah, and I think it would be fantastic proof. Yeah, supernatural. It'd be something. I mean, it'd be something. I don't know what it'd be, but it'd be something. So anyway, that's my challenge today. If anybody can call in and do that kind of healing,

that's cool. But hey, this is talk Ethan. We talked to you about religion, we talked to you about atheists, we talked to you about a whole bunch of things. So we don't want to limit ourselves right now. So anyway, we do have at least one caller on the rhine and I'm ready to get started. You already, just go for it. Let's get it home, man, All right, let's get it on. We have a caller. This is Z calling in from Texas. Z. You are live on Talk Heathen. What's going on from Houston, Ber of

Houston, Texas. How's it going? Yeah, yeah, we can hear you. How's it going, Ze? Good? Good? How are you doing? We're doing great. Welcome to talk Heathan. What'd you want to talk to us about today? Why was the guy who was like, you know, you everything if it's turned into a monkey on the on the live chat? Okay, I just want to kind of substantia that I'm not really a theis, I'm not really like a Christian art of it. But I just wanted to let people know that evolution theory is, and it's up with

dogs. Well, it's the same thing. So when you say I've never seen a fish turn into a monkey, I mean, like, I've never literally seen a fish turn into a monkey. But before we even go there, in your own words, what do you think evolution is? They say we came from a single cell, But to say, all my kingdom the

single cell organism undneath. But it doesn't really make sense. Okay, So all life on Earth comes from like all multi cellular life on Earth eventually came from like far enough down the line from single cell organisms, right as we know. I think that's that's the way to put it, right, yeah, at all? Well, what would constitute for you as proof if if, if that idea could be true, what would you expect to see even

move? You know, it doesn't have to be the single cell to the multi cell Okay, but I learned that they think some sort of shash, some sort of water life form grew legs and walk on Earth, right, Yeah, but something more complicated than that that there's just the second. First of all, you might want to call in on a day where our good friend Forest Valkai is hosting because he does this for a living and I can

paraphrase some of the things he says. There's plenty of proof the evolution is a ongoing, active process, fossil records, the genetics, and all kinds of very technical stuff that's above my head because I haven't studied it particularly deeply, though I do trust those that have um. And the thing is that it's the best model we've got right now, that fits the best with the evidence that we have right now. So do you have a better model,

have a better model. But I'm saying this model you have to believe things in order to produce model to work for you. That's what I'm saying. But it's not dogmatic. They have changed it several times in light of new evidence. It's true. It's true we I mean our true of biology when it first came out. When it first came out, they used it to try to contentiate white people were more involved than black people that you are in Darwin. Do you know if it Darwin's does. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Anthropology in the early history of its science was incredibly racist. In fact, anthropology was basically almost I would say hot take invented to like justify racism. It's really bad if you look at it, and there's no defending the early opinions of anthropologists. But if you look at what anthropology has done today, one the frank disvolopment of what early anthropologists have had to say. But if you also look at what the evidence they had to use to justify racial

superiority, it doesn't hold up. Right. We're talking about things like phrenology, right, the study of one's head sizes and head shapes to determine things like personality and things like that. You know, other kinds of metrics that were used to that are no longer used in modern day science because they don't justify the conclusions that they allegedly are purported to, you know, support.

Right, So like, yes, anthropology has a wicked history, but that doesn't mean what we talk about today an anthropology reflects those views that existed over one hundred years ago. Right. And I would like to push back on one small point. You say that we have to have belief in things to go along with evolution, and I think you're trying to construe as in the

trust in the evidence. I believe the evidence is true because I trusted with beliefs in faith, just belief without of something between us, this and a monk, your land creep. There's no these things. You have to prove that an animal, that bird can turn into a wolf, for one type animal to turn to any type of animal for any reason. What if what if I told you that your DNA is more in common with a chimpanzee in

some circumstances than other human beings on Earth? Would you believe me if I told you that our DNA is like closest out of pigs too, Yes, that's true, that will happen to be quadruple. And yet and yet, despite our DNA being so similar to other particularly mammals on Earth, right I hope you're listening here, if despite us being so similar in DNA structure, on the outside, right, like, we do look completely different. And

I think that's where that kind of confusion draws in. But it turns out, you know, these differences in the combinations of nucleic acids can make a huge difference in our phenotypes, right, our outside figures more so than what it maybe reflects on the inside. I mean, like that in itself, the fact that most like multi cellular organisms on Earth do have these same combinations that in itself is evidence of evolution. I wouldn't expect that if we were

all created separately. I wouldn't see a reason for us to have these kinds of similarities. And there's plenty of evidence is that even a lay person like myself can understand, like, I have a vestigial tail for no reason other than that my ancestors had one. Yeah. Yeah, and I had my appendix removed when I was twelve because it was going to rupture. An appendix doesn't really as far as most modern science has been able to determine, it

doesn't really do much for most humans. Pretty much kill people more than it really helps me, right, I mean, that's an example of a instigial or it came from evolution too. Sorry, these are the mystery science has to figure out. We can't just they have conscience, came from evolution. They were proof it out at all, and just we've laid out that there

is plenty of proof we're not evolutionary scientists. Yeah. I actually got was and got the proofound in the form that it's presented, it would be very complicated. There's no definitive proof of these things. Evidence is evidence. You can use the same evidence to pain a whole different theory, evidence of proof round the same thing. Okay, what do you believe to be the difference between evidence and proof? If someone was murdered out a bar and you were

at the bar, I could say that's imperical evidence. I could use that to say you murdered them. I can say you didn't like them. That could be true. It's more empirical evidence. But a picture of me came out doing the deed, that that's proof. Okay, I could see that

distinction. I would say in a legal setting, they both count as evidence, right, like they would both be submitted the reason that you evidence improved and legal and science because they're trying to get to something definitive and both. Okay, I work. I work in a field called e discovery. I don't really talk about my real job outside of here, but like I work in legal cases, they use the word evidence, they don't use the word proof. That's that's not a thing at least an American court of law.

Right, you used evidence in discovery. So I just want to point that out right there, right, Evidence is the term that we use because evidence is exactly that evidence proof. You know in some fields that that's applicable like mathematics, for example, they use proofs. But evidence means a very particular thing, and it's important that we define these terms right. When we talk about the evidence that leads us to the conclusion that evolution is the best theory

that explains what we observe, we have exactly that. It's it's just signs that indicate it may not be deductive inferences, although sometimes they are. A lot of times they are inductive. Let me finish, please, But but we can still make very coherent and very cogent arguments about what we know about our observations the world and how they reflect our better understanding of our history through evolution than we can with literally any other explanation that has ever tried to describe

multicellular or even unicellular life's origins. Right, Like, there's been no other explanation that has had the best explanatory power that evolution has. Period. That doesn't mean it's true. It may not mean it's true. But why should I believe anything else? Well, you just said you need to believe it. That's what I'm saying. You have to believe it because the preponderance of evidence leads to these conclusions, it's the best model fits with what we observe.

I think to let's let's let's clarify here, because you're you're making a distinction. You're saying I believe something, and you're saying you know something as a fact. So I think, I think, yes, I know for

a fact birds, that's a fact, right or sure? I mean, but when when I say believe, that's because I may also think it's about organism, that that's something else completely Well, I need to be clear because when we're saying no and believe, we might be saying the same thing here, right, I don't want to get caught in a semantic argument here. When we say believe, I mean that proper, like as Jamie was saying, the preponderance of evidence best suits this conclusion. So I believe therefore this

conclusion. That's what I mean when I say that that can also in some circumstances count as knowledge as well. But again, like, I want to be very specific when I use my words, so I don't think there's like quite the difference that you're saying here. I also believe that birds have hollow bones, and I guess you could say I know for a fact, but I do believe it. I've never seen a bird's hollow bones. To be

fair like myself, I have to trust that that's like a thing. So you know, there it is. I mean, yeah, talking about semantics, you know, that's why I kind of want to do. That's why I even say anything about some proofs. These things aren't the same word in English and not the same words in sciences. And people do this a lot, even for theories. People like to say theories are facts when they time

to use these words. In science, a theory is they Let me say this, in science, a theory is the highest level to which a model can before I heard it before. I know that, bro, So why don't you Why don't you say that I is knowing. You can't believe something. That's like you can never truly know anything. Informating you can receive. You never truly absolutely know anything. Then we just discovered, you know,

are you even listening to that? Look? Look again, this is a this is a semantics but this is a semantics argument here, right, You're saying you know things for some reason, and I don't know how you're qualifying Your knowing things is different from my believing things like, how is that different? You say? You say, let me put it this way. You say you know birds bones are hollow. I say, I believe birds bones are hollows. What's the difference? I feel like a different You know you

don't too. I don't know why you're saying you believe because I do believe it different, I can. I can know something. I can know something and also believe something, right, Like that doesn't have to be different. Right, what are you saying? Say again, what are you saying exactly? I'm asking you. You're saying there's such a big difference because you know that bird's bones are hollow, and I say I believe that burns bones are hollow, and you're saying, oh, well, well I know it.

Like what's the difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying? I could, I could show you and then you can know it too. Oh, I can show you that birds bones are hollow too. I could, but I still believe that in any way possible. But I can. I can show you that birds bones are hollow, and I can still say I believe birds bones are hollow, right, So, like, why are you making this big deal that you say you know things, and I say I believe

things, and that's somehow like epistemically different, Like I don't understand. I just said. The first thing I've said was this is a dogma. It requires belief. That's the first thing I said. I'm not going to listen. All knowledge claims require belief, right, Can you tell me something? You know that you don't believe the sky is blue? I don't have I don't need to believe. I know for a fact, I know that every day. Do you believe that the sky is blue? If I asked you,

do you believe the sky is blue? What would you say? Blue? Okay? But but if I asked you, do you believe that the sky is blue? Would you say yes? I would say I know? Okay? So wait, wait are you saying you don't believe that the sky is blue? I know it's bo but do you believe that the sky is blue? Do you see my point here? All knowledge claims require belief. This, this distinction you're making is nothing. There's nothing to this. You're

just saying things. All we believe is dogma and we have to require some sort of magic belief. And that's what evolution is. No it's not. And this is a strong man argument. Right, we believe things because we have a proproderance of evidence, right, as Jaba said, we can call it knowledge, you can call it whatever you like. We're still looking at the evidence here. That's what draws our conclusion. And the irony is that I stick to the word belief in something because I don't want to be dogmatic.

I want to be able to be open to change. Right, new evidence comes up, better evidence, I don't want to go Nope, that's not what I know, so I'm going to retrict it. So No, that's why I stick to belief and only saying I know things. Oh really, yeah, that's okay. I'm not going to just believe something because ninety seven percent of scientists do. Okay, you know what Depo's persuasion is. Are you familiar with Trump? I'm very familiar with persuasion. Yes, I

mean logos persuasion, logos persuasion, yes, use of logical rhetoric. Yes. And then you can't produce even a fossil of the in between of a fission among you, But we and we can, and we do and about something that can happen. They are, first of all logos ethos pathos. Right, using logical arguments versus ethics arguments versus emotional arguments. Right, very familiar with rhetoric. Okay, you don't have to teach me anything on that

front. Other point, Yes, there's tons of transitional fossils. In fact, literally every fossil that exists ever is a transitional fossil because of how evolution works. Right, you're different from the way your parents look, and you're not an exact copy. You do that because there's an exchange of information when you're produced as an offspring. And that's just how evolution happens. It's not getting into the semantics, right, what's the semantic distinction there? I don't

know what what to distinct now with? What with apes and monkeys in primary they came from primates. That's that's the scientific term. Right. Well, we're all we're we are primates. Yes, yeah, okay, so that's all I'm saying. What are you saying? I don't know what you're saying. Women aren't in a transitional state. So yeahs find is transitional? Yes,

yeah, every every every fossil we find is transitional. By definition, it's transitional because all life is transitional, there's no the only static copies we see in nature animals and transition that you're looking for halfish half monkeybrid fossil, then you I suggest to take a biology right No, no, no, listen listen again when I said earlier, right like most like if you look at broadly speaking on Earth, especially between manimals, but also even between other

animals, who wouldn't expect like with reptiles and birds, right like, we do share most of our DNA, Like, most of our DNA is the same. That's that's what we would expect to see under evolution, right, but phenot typically even though Jamie and I share like literally ninety nine percent of our DNA, you notice we look very different, right, So, very small differences in DNA can make very big differences in the way people look. So like, that's that's why that you're the same race, you're the same

animal. Right. So, but when you say DNA and all DNA is similar, it's further than what evidence because we share a lot of DNA with bananas too, which like worse like bananas, yes, because saying does they really make yeah, because they're multicellular life. There you know, I'm saying You've got a lot of incredulity as to the current as the current model of evolution, and it just seems a little contrarian to me. I would suggest, if you really want to find out about it, go and learn about

it. Yeah, you're not willing to trust, then go learn. Yeah. However, I would like to ask one slightly tangential question. Okay, let's say evolution is not real. You've proven it wrong. Yeah, what do we do now? That's all I'm really trying to get across. So you don't have anything to replace it, or any idea of what we should do instead, or any methodology that we could follow to better explain of these world that we see around us. Then it's not explain, you know,

but like you can believe it, That's what I'm saying. Like you can believe if you want saying what you can believe? God just pulled everything out of know it's the same thing. It is not the same not because there's no een that God created the world as far as I can say, Okay, so that's back to the same thing. Why we don't mean transitional species that we find fossils for you've it sounds like you've learning this world transitional species

and you're just parroting it at us. And yeah, and also I really don't feel like you're listening to what we're saying at all, because we've said several times every fossil is a transitional fossil, right, because we're constantly in transition when when sexual reproduction happens, like you're going to get new combinations of

genes. That's that's how evolution works. I get that. But there's still such a thing as a bird, Like, that's the type of animal, right, Like a bird is a type of animal, saying, right, human as a type of animal, that's correct. What about ne Enderthals? What about uh, you know, any literally any other you know, like homo erectus, right, these are also animals, but they also could be counted as human, right, Like, Like, there's there's obviously evidence of

Neanderthal DNA within ourselves. This has been demonstrated on multiple occasions. What does that prove though, Well, why would a Neanderthal be able to have offspring with one of us? Were lay people in this field as well? You're kind of asking the wrong guys. You're asking us to defend We can't go on to have a baby with a primate with a monkey. So it other thant makes sense? Does it? Well? If if if if if a Neanderthal ensus was around today and you had an offspring with it, what does

that mean? Does that mean that it's a human too? I mean, like you know, these kinds of constructs we have to describe species my greater point, right, are ultimately arbitrary, right, like there's there's, there's there's. Yes, they are. I mean, ask any scientist who studies the field of evolution. They are arbitrary, but they're not arbitrary in the sense of, oh, we're just going to randomly pick here and there. Yes, we generally use viable offspring as a category for species, but there

are also species that are listening. I have to talk, and you cannot interrupt me while I'm talking, because that tells me that you are not listening. Do you understand? Do not waste my time. I will let you go, I will drop you. I will I'm happy to do that. In fact, I'll do that right now, because I'm only interested in talking to people who are willing to listen. Okay, obviously you're not listening. If I can finish my fucking point, lions and tigers. Guess what you

make lgers. That's the thing. Two different animals, new species. Whoa is this species depends on who you ask. Species differentiation is ultimately arbitrary categories come up by scientists. Viable offspring isn't always the most consistent attribute you can make a different any any actual evolutionary scientists out there listening apologies that like Core

was like no, no, but there's better points to make. But the thing is is like you're asking us to do offend this, and and no, belief in a scientific theory is not the same as belief in God. Yes, also again assert the fact that, look, if you know something, you believe something, right. I don't know what it means to know something and not believe it. I mean I just don't know. I don't know what that means. Right, So these sort of arbitrary kind of just

oh you just believe it because it's doglet. I mean, that's just again, it's just a straw man and it doesn't prove anything. We get a little bit heated on these things because the kind of distrusting science that comes with this, this blanket distrusting evolution has so many horrible repercussions. It's why we have things on anti vaxxs and stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, anyway, No, I get I get heated when when when people just are rude and don't listen or just don't care, like it just waste my

time. I'm interested in having fun, Jamie. I want to have some fun on this show, and I want you guys call in and have some better conversations with us. So we should talk to you more of you in a second. But first before I do that, I need to talk about the question of the week. I should have done this before the calls, but I was so excited to get into calls, Jamie, that I forgot to do it. So we're gonna go ahead and do it right now while

we have some time here. So every week we are doing a little type called talk Heathen to Me, and that's where we want to pick your comments in the comment section based on a topic that we present here today. So last week we asked you what would you have ordered at the last supper and why, which is a great, great prompt. I'm really glad we got that one online, and we have three great comments that we're gonna read to

you right now, our top three picks. Number one, sorry, number three, it's coming from Don Degmo, who says, at the last supper, I'd order Jesus toast, which is great, which is awesome. I wonder how many of those exists in the world. Did Jesus toast? Thing of thing? Man? There's more than one. Do you think you could sell like loaves of Jesus bread and do the Jesus toast or does it only happen in toast? Is the French Jesus toast? Yeah? Like, I

don't know that that would be a cool brand. Right if you can genetically engineer loaves of bread widges his face on it, then it's like what now, I don't know. It's not a special right? Yeah? Is good? Yeah, that would be funny. But number two we got David French who says I would order some of that fruit of knowledge, which is also very good and also, uh does make you wonder what kind of fruit is it? Because it's always to pick it as an apple, but like,

is it even good? Like would it make a good salad? I think during like and then you know what suffering is you? Yeah, you're probably right. Oh that's a good that's a good point. I like that. Number one is from Nick Parkins, who says, at the last supper, I wouldn't order anything. I'd stick with the free bread sticks and have Jesus change my water into wine, which is also, you know, a pretty

good deal. It does. It would be really funny if, like Jesus, instead of like going to someone's house, was just like at an olive garden or something. And then like every Bible in the world says, and then Jesus went up with his friends at the olive garden, and I will have to tell you the story of where we got one of our friends up on stage at a talent show changing water into wine as a thing. And really it was hilarious. I'll tell you us that sounds that sounds that sounds

really funny. But yeah, thank you guys so much for your comments. I love reading the comments for our topic of the week. I think they're really hilarious. And of course, we have another prompt for you that you should answer for this next week. This week's prompt, it's going to be wrong answers only when God uh sorry, my contacts. I slept in my contacts last night and it's just it's not a good idea. You shouldn't do that. Roy answers only, when God looked down on his creation, he

saw it was blank. Okay, so that's the prompt for this week. Let us know when God roy answers only. When God looked down on his creation, he saw it was blank. Leave your comments below, we'll pick the top three and we'll read them for next week and it should be a good time. But before I move on, Jamie, what do you think? Well? I think that God looked down at his creation and saw that he hadn't gone through enough testing. But if he threatened or at least bribed

the users enough, then they probably wouldn't complain. Yeah, you're probably right about that. So I'm gonna go ahead. And since I did that now out of the way, I'll get a few more announcements and if that's okay with the rest of you. Just so you guys know, we have a limited time only T shirt. We of course, have limited time shirts every month. This month's shirt is pretty cool. It says those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities, which I think it's true.

And if you want that on a shirt, you can get that and more by visiting our website. It's tiny dot cc slash merch Aca and check that out and get your shirt. Now. It's the end of the month, so next month we will have a different shirt, so limited time only on that thing. Please like the video, subscribe to the channel if you like which you see so far, and leave your comments below about your favorite caller. Give Jamie some love coming back today doing fantastic. Yeah, he craves

acknowledgement. Please fulfill his needs. Um and uh yeah, we would love it if you could do that. Um. And if you want to become a channel member, that is also another way you can support this channel. You can click the joint button below the video. If you want to do it, you'll get custom chat emotes and you will help perpetuate the mission of Talk Heathen and the atheist community of Austin if you do that. So that's

a good deal. Good deal. You should do that. And you can do it for as Lill's ninety nine cents a month, which I know the economy is bad, but ninety nine cents, you know that's pretty good.

Listen, So one last thing before we get to calls, um, and you didn't If you didn't know this Talk Heathen uh is going to uh talk Heathan has a TikTok okay and uh if We're going to be going live there pretty much before the end of shows, before the beginning of shows on Sunday, So you should go check out and follow the Talk Heathen TikTok page. Try saying that five times fast TikTok Heathen. Yeah, yeah, we should have called it that. Yeah. Well yeah, well definitely go look at

that and help support the tiktoks. We do post clips on there as well, So if you don't want to listen to a whole hour and a half long episodes and you just like the highlights, yeah, the TikTok's a good place to do that as well. Okay, that's it for announcements right now. I think we should go back to calls. Absolutely, what do you think? Okay, let's do it. We have a couple of people who want to talk to us on the line, very excited about everybody that wants

to talk to us. Let's talk about Oh boy, oh boy, let's talk to Tyler. Tyler who is calling in from Canada. Tyler, you are live on Talk Heathen what's up? What's going on? Guys? How you doing having a having a grand old time? Tyler? How about yourself? Oh, I'm having a great old day on the on the day of the Lord. You already know. Um, So yeah, essentially I'm I'm calling in. I thanks to you guys, And I mean this was all positivity. You guys have sort of kick started this um, this sort of

pursuit of I guess the truth. I guess like you know, I've always been an atheist, um, but you know, since discovering like the ACA, like, you guys have really sort of kicked it into gear. And I like, I've kind of really fallen into the rabbit hole about like logic and stuff. Anyways, so I've kind of stumbled across my first sort of

roadblock when it comes to I guess my beliefs here. And so I brought up the Ark of the Covenant because I was on TikTok the other day and I was scrolling and there was this like preacher guy and he basically was like, oh, they found the Ark of the Covenant. You should all be so scared. And I was like, okay, whatever, like sure, like I've heard that one before, right, and so, so I started doing a little bit of research and I learned about this guy, Ron Wyatt.

Are you guys familiar with him, Yes, we're familiar with Ron White. We've talked about Ron Wyatt on Talk Heathen before. At least I have, oh cool, familiar with Ron Wyatt. Not personally, I'm I'm I'm listening with fascinatingly. I want to know what's going on with with with you A long yeah, tell us what you know about Ron Wyatt to Tyler. Okay, So, for my understanding, Ron Wyatt was this when I looked him up, he was he's apparently like an anesthesian, so like he's like

a doctor. But fun fact, he decided to go to Jerusalem and like dig up a bunch of stuff because you know, claims to have found the crucifixion site of Jesus and you know, the Ark of the Covenant, you know, God's earthly throne and so and so this guy, this preacher TikTok guy, like I commented on this thing, and I was like, okay, like what next, And he's like, well, go go look up

this stuff. So I did. And so I'm reading about Ron Wyatt and um and so he actually has like an archaeological research page, and and so that was actually like the last thing that I looked at. But I was looking at all this information about um the Ark of the Covenant and you know, maybe it's whereabouts, and you know, a lot of a lot of articles said that they don't they don't have it, they don't have all this.

And then so then I go to Ron Wyatt's page, right, and he's got all these all all these pictures and like it's a pretty big article. And within the article, you know, there's lots of pictures of some of the stuff that they found down there, Like they found like this gold coin which apparently dates back to like one thirty five a d. And they found like the hole in which like the crucifix was like in the ground, and like all this stuff. And so I'm like, I'm looking at all

this stuff. As I'm reading it, I'm like, well, that's like I don't know, I feel like that's a pretty big deal. But then there's all like essentially I feel like I'm missing something because a lot of a lot of you know, a lot of the articles I read, they're like, no, you know, they haven't found it, or it's not it's not real. And then I look at Ron wyatt stuff, and you know, he's got like pictures of all of this, all this stuff that he

finds on his dick. He found some bag blood on it, and I'm like, okay, crap, So like, what like what am I missing here? Let me tell you what, Jamie. You want to talk first? I firstly, how has he actually verified all these things to be authentic? And have I been independently checked? Well, I'll tell you this because I know a little bit about Ron Wyatt. Ron Wyatt, Okay, if

you're talking about creationists, Okay, creationists don't even like Ron Wyatt. If you want to know about a creationist that gets criticized by other creationists, Ron Wyatt's your dude. You can look up the Genesis uh broadcasts, uh, you know with with with ken Ham and you know those guys even they have a written argument against Ron Wyatt's discoveries. Um, and it's theusiologists don't make the best archaeologists. Turns out, also, you can find fucking anything on

TikTok. It's great. I literally saw a TikTok last week of a girl who said that other planets may not be real because she's never actually seen one in a telescope and she thinks that, you know, like like you know, and that gets like a million views because you have to do what somebody called this this Sorry I'm going on a tangent, but like you ever see a TikTok and they and they do this voice where it's like, did you

know that in nineteen oh five scientists actually came up with the word and they're homosexual and it didn't exist in the Bible before, you know, like they have that. Somebody called it the transit classic. It's the Transatlantic accent for TikTokers, and it's it's the funniest term I've ever heard in my life anyway.

Okay, so so obviously TikTok's not the best source of information. But Ron Wyatt famously criticized by other creatious because he just kind of goes to places and takes pictures of stuff and says, hey, look I found this thing, and this is like of Jesus or whatever, and every other person who actually works in the field and spends years of their life trying to even publish and and do digs are like, no, man, that's that's not how it works. If you go to Jerusalem, I mean there's full of places.

There's like nineteen different places where you know, Jesus were supposedly crucified, right like, like you know, it's a whole tourist industry over there. But Ron White is one of those dudes who has tried to make a living off of this. Um and again when when your homies in the creationist movement or even like I don't know about this dog, like that's how you should

know like something is wrong because they'll use anything. And here's the thing as well, Right, let's imagine, let's give him all of the benefit, all of the debt much doubt that there is. He found some artifacts that were that old, Yeah, verifiable. He found a rag with blood that is that old? Is that old? Does any of that prove that God's real, Jesus ended, any of the mariracles actually happened. That it's not just a box and a coin and a rag. You know that's another echelon

above. Yeah, you've gotta hit man. Yeah, yeah, it's true. So pseudo archaeology is very big, has a lot of players in it. Ron Why is just one of those players? Um, so that's that's that's my take if you want to out. Yeah, no, totally, that's great. Um, you know, I guess you're totally right. Like it's like, how exactly does that? And that's and that's where I was kind of confused, and I was like, what better place to call, you know what, to get this sorted out than one of these shows.

Um, and so I was like, where, like am I missic something? And yeah, essentially I kind of agree with you, you know when you kind of put it out in front of me like that. You know, it's like this box, It's just a box at the end of the day. It's a box in a rag. And like, you know, my kind of thing is like I believe that Jesus was a real person, you know, and I think that, like I don't doubt that any of these like biblical people were like real, Like I don't know, Like it's

a pretty elaborate story if you ask me. It's like, sure these people might have been real, but like all the miracles and stuff like that, Like I guess it's to me, it's a bunch of JABRONI. Um, so yeah, um, I guess I guess to kind of further that question for the future, like how like what sort of like methodology would you recommend

that I use? So if I ever come into another one of these roadblocks, like just more research, or like, what what would you suggest I do in a situation like this in the future, Go and see if it's verified by other sources that have no actual or as little biased as possible, as a little skin in the game as possible. So creationist geologist finds this, or geologist finds this, I'd always try and see what biases the people have, and everyone has the house biases, I have biases, down has

biases everywhere. We're human. Yeah, yeah, sure, check the biases, double check out the sources. Here's a couple of things. One, this is like an unofficial sort of quick can't thing. Check if that person or topic has an article on rational Wiki. I love looking at rational Wiki because they catalog just like weird conspiracy stuff and also pseudo archaeology and stuff. So if they have an article on their chances are it's bs. They're not

completely unbiased, obviously, but it's a good starting point. Another thing is, look if you're seeing a claim that's being made, especially a big one like that within the field of archaeology, right, and it is like going against the grain, if it's really going against what you've commonly been led to

assume about what's mainstream in the field. I have to take a step back and look at it and realize, even if I think that this is convincing, even if I think it's a good point, I'm actually not literally qualified to say, oh, actually I think this should be accepted within mainstream archaeological sciences, right, Like I just want I don't have the credentials, But anybody else who is knowledgeable about this subject, they're going to be interested,

right, and they're going to be able to want to verify that stuff. Ron Whyat is one of those dudes who has several people who has written about his work, specifically in debunking it. So like, if you look up the name and you look at other sources on a particularly academic ones, if you want to go to the Google scholar route, you can like that that's one of the ways to do it. But you know that's tricky too,

because Ron's like a more popular person. If you find one of these more obscure ones, you should be even more you know, skeptical about that because like I want to see if they've actually published something through a university first before just saying hey, I wanted to Jerusalem. Just I took a shovel out on Calvary and I just hey, man, I just found Jesus's body. Actually, so you know, we're just gonna totally, we're just gonna go with that. I didn't even know Ron why it was up to all that.

Yeah, I had no idea Ron why it was like not this like super incredible guys. Yeah, like that's actually really good information to kind of take away from this. Yeah, and I appreciate that you you know, uh what you know, we try to want the truth. Yeah, that's another show that we have here. But like like we do, we do. We are interested in that. Whether you completely agree with our conclusions or not, that's one thing, but like we are interested in the methodologies.

And I appreciate that you are willing to call us and talk to us about it, because like that's that's important to us. It is. And apply that kind of intellectual rigor to everything, even things that you feel are true or come from credible sources. Don't always I mean, don't don't paranoid and

distrust everything. But always double checks. But well, okay, you can distrust everything you see on TikTok. I am willing to say that look if if if look I know, like it used to be, Facebook was like oh I saw it on Facebook. Now it's like TikTok's like, oh yeah, I saw it on TikTok, and so I know it's legit. Right. That's that's the new thing. We're living with it. But anyway, Tyler, that's that's pretty much all the time I can give you today for

this call. We do have to move on. But I appreciate you so much for calling in. Thanks so much for that, and thank you so much for your time. You guys, I really appreciate it. Of course, of course, have a good one. See that was a great call. Yeah, it was nice to know that someone out there who's actually not he's thinking and he's willing to be a bit introspective. I agree. I got the perspective, or I got the intuition that Tyler maybe is an atheist,

maybe doesn't completely agree with our conclusions. But value is what we have to say enough to say, hey, what do you think about this topic? And different that conversation was from our first one. This morning, is like, it's like, that's what we want to see on this show. Like, I don't like being mean to people, Like I want to have a constructive dialogue and not to like say like, oh, we should be

the experts that people should consult us on and everything. It's like, no, like we have to have some discourse though, right, Yeah, you call myself an expert on basically anything. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. But anyway, that was a great conversation. Thank you so much Tilt for that. Before we move on to some other callers, I do have a couple more announcements. I do need to get out of the way, so sorry, my contacts are gonna be so much trouble today, guys.

But the ACA does want you to know what's going on in the community and where you can find more information. You can do that by going to our website It's Atheist hyphen Community dot org for that and check out what the organization is up to, what our policies are, and what's going on. You know, we post all of our events and stuff on there, so check it out. And if you want to know that your feedback is being heard,

like you can do that. You have an email address. It's tv at eighthist hyphen community dot org, and we get tons and tons of emails from folks. They don't always go to individual hosts, but it's someone is probably going to see it. At the ACA. We have some wonderful volunteers here who shield us from the delustion. Right, we don't need to see everything will be the host side anyway. I can attest to that of you know, the YouTube comment section is already enough as it is, but email

is a great way to get in contact with us. Let us know your thoughts and uh, yeah, what we can do better? So we we do really like to hear that. Let's take should we do Let's do maybe one more call here and then after that, well we'll do our top five patrons. I think we should do that. But um, let's see, we've got uh, we've got Patrick calling from Washington. I think we should do this one next while Patrick, you are alive on Talk Heathen. What's

going on? Hey? How going going? Pretty good? Yes? I just wanted to respond to the to the pull on on the chat about whether or not Christianity is a peaceful religion? Yeah, yeah, what do you think? I think it's a complicated question. Um, I would say his storagely has not been peaceful. But um, I think if I think it's important to look at the actual dactual doctrine, like what what actually teaches rather than um, well, not Christians historically I've been. Obviously they have not

like they have not been. But yes, you know what, Patrick, I agree with you. You're right we should look at the doctrine. Like the verse we read this morning, Jesus came to bring the sword, right, he came to separate his father from son, from daughter from mothers. So yeah, I agree with you, we should look at the doctrine. Christianity definitely sounds like a pretty violent religion, right, Yeah, I'm I'm

I'm I'm joking with you here, Patrick, I'm being facetious. Okay, it is complicated, right, Like, look, yeah, obviously there's very peaceful Christians. There's Christians who have done horrible things. When you have a religion of billions of adherents, you're gonna have like a spectrum, right, But like, I'm not particularly interested, I'll be honest, Patrick, in saying what the true theology is to be, or what the true doctrine says,

because like honestly, like that doesn't matter. What matters to me is okay, are the claims that they're saying true? Like is Jesus like this dude that rose from the dead, is God real? Did he come to save humanity? Because like, if he's not those things, anything he has to say about morality I can take with a grain of salt, like I

can with anybody else that's written about morality. Right. Yeah. And the thing is is that when people want to say, well, you know, like a true Christian is a peaceful person, that kind of thing, Christianity is peaceful, I have trouble with that because in my lifetime a pub in my hometown was bombed by Christians fighting of the Christians, Like the troubles in Ireland were not a long time ago. Yeah, Sectarian violence was part of my upbringing. And and you say, well, no, we're we're a

religion of peace. I'm like evidence sort of says otherwise, chief Sure, Yeah, correspond to to the of course the birds that you brought up absolutely, um, Because I'll say, for my son Off like I've always been like in my own family, I've always been the one that kind of hold

my tongue to keep the peace and it's all like my whole wife. I've always felt like my family was was together and like like you know, my my parents aren't divorced, and you know, I've never really fought with my sisters, but um, I don't know, like so so there's been like

this appearance of peace. But now that I'm like now that I reflect on it, like, um, you know, you know I held my tongue um and something like I don't know, like it like it wasn't good for me for me to do that, like sure because I really I really suppressed myself. So, um, Patrick, do you still identify as a Christian? Now? Um? Yeah, I was an atheist for um about like yeah the last seven years. Um. But I think as I've been realizing

this stuff, I've been uh like questioning what what exactly love is? And um like everything that I thought was loved growing up ended up not being loved like like like like like I know my parents loved me, but um like in another sense, like I sat in front of a screen for like more than half my childhood Like so like is that really love to let like to let your kids do that or like and that's affect ways that has like really

hurt me. Yeah, And so absolutely neglect is a thing, right, Neglect is a thing that could be harmful for people's upbringing in Unfortunately, in my opinion, Christianity doesn't really address a lot of that. In fact, it does even tell you, like you should ignore. I mean it literally says, not just in the verse I read, but in other places in the New Testament that you should ignore your family obligations in order to be one

with Christ like follow that understanding. And this is a religion that has expanded and evolved its theology for over two thousand years, and so different Christians in different times and places are going to have interpretations. But at the end of the day, at every single instance where an interpretation has happened, it's always

a person at the other end of that, right. And so my criticism, Patrick, and one of the reasons why I don't call myself a Christian anymore is exactly why what you've describe my sense of morality, I don't get it informed from the Bible at all anymore. My sense of ethics, my sense of what I think is right and wrong, is coming from what I believe other people want for themselves, and what I want for myself, and

Okay, like how do we meet that compromise? Right? Like, that's that's pretty much what ethics is at the end of the day, right, And like, you know, there's things in the Bible specifically and the Christian religion that holds me back from being able to love other people the most way. If I listen to what the Bible has to say, I would have to tell my LGBT friends that they're living a life of sin and that they need to repent. And I don't think that's loving evil and broken rings.

I don't think they're actually doing any harm really, just living their lives and

loving who they want, right, And that's one example. But but you can see how as I have growing up as a Christian as well, Patrick, I've also struggled with this idea of what did my Christian friends and family really mean when they talked about love, because that is I think their definition failed to be honest, you know, And to kind of bring it back to the original question of like, is Christianity a religion of peace or peaceful?

I think the wider question might be, is any religion, especially dogmatic ones like Christianity and know the aparamic religions. Can they even can they be peaceful? Because they are prescriptive? Sure, and you live this way, you follow these rules and you believe what we tell you to believe, and if you disagree, we don't have problem, right, and that brings conflict, right. And if it's not people giving the violence, it's God,

right, it's God saying no vengeance is mine. That's literally a quote from the Old test of It, right, Hell is the consequence for disobedience? Yeah, which isn't supposed to people as it you know. So there's there's conflict and strife all the way through religion in general, but Christianity teens specific at least from where I'm sitting. And while it does have messages of peace and love in there that can be interpreted in ways that are more positive.

It's kind of like why following instruction book where seventy five percent instructions seem bad and twenty five are okay? Yeah, yeah, I agree, We're not just have a better instruction book. Or maybe we don't just have one book, maybe we have a library of books. Right, I don't know that We're talking a lot here, Patrick, What do you think? Yeah, um, yeah, I mean, so before I was an atheist, I started going to a church that kind of ended up being like a cult,

which which is what led me to being an atheist. Um and um yeah and then so um what brought me back was really learning about, um, how my actions are affecting my life and like what I was leaving forward. Um, I do want to like talk about um we said about about loving who you want I guess yeah or not um um and not not specially about LGBT, but um uh what I lived from myself um actually came from a slip knot song. Uh you know ba million Yeah, I'm I'm a I'm

a nineties kid. I was wedding tool. Yeah yeah re million Actually like changed my life with this because um, like my whole time in high like in high school and stuff, I always loved that song and uh recently I looked up what it meant and the commissator said it's either about um, his struggle with with drugs or could also be about trauma bond and um, how like a someone can like become who like who you want them to be.

And then uh he mentioned how like um that can often like it often does lead people to suicide or like being institutionalized because it is like a like a in a way a drug addition like like and um, yet why I related this so much as that you know I wasn't I wasn't in a or yeah, I wasn't a trauma bond and I might be now to like and so um and and you know my my girl, my girlfriend in high school did take her life. Um. And I know I'm not like the the main

cause, like I think the main cause is from her own family. But um, yeah, Patrick, I yeah, I I appreciate you sharing. This is obviously an extremely impactful thing. And and I'm I'm honestly uh, I'm I'm flattered that you would tell me that and tell Jamie that. I think that speaks a lot to your trust and our abilities to help you with that. But I think what you're talking about now, I think you're venturing into a territory that unfortunately I can't actually a comment or even help you one

because I'm not a licensed therapist. I have no background in in doing that sort of thing. So I think the kind of issues that you might need help addressing need to come from a professional and somebody who really knows what they're doing and not to goofy talk show hosts. Yeah, I mean we we we empathize and it is brave for you to share that, absolutely, but for many reasons, ethics chief among them, I'm not help with it. Okay. So I wanted to like relate that to how what that's to do

with Christianity in a way. Okay, I mean, are you saying that you're finding comfort in religion? No? Actually, like almost opposite. Okay, you're saying like like like like like you're are you making a comparison that like you're upbringing with Christianity is sort of like a trauma bonding experience. Is that kind of the analogy you're going for. I'm just trying to understand.

No, I think I'm trying to point how how like Christians has pointed out that that has kind of shed the light on what like it's like everything I thought in life is good ended up being like off, like I don't know, like it showed like on like on what the reality is in all this stuff like and um, so yeah, I think it's been rather difficult to um not come from at all, to like to be realizing these things.

Yeah, it's almost like I was living in like the state of denial, Like, well, we can recommend things like recovering from religion and things like

that. There are great organizations out there that can help you untangle these emotions from the experiences that you had, and right, yeah, it seems because it sounds like there's a lot in there, man, and you've gone through a lot, and um uh, we are not qualified, nor would we want to dissuade you from anything that's going to make you happier in health.

Yeah, we just encourage you to. But but the point of that is that that showed me how sin does result in death, like and right, why so I I was afraid that this was like the conclusion of like where this was going, And like, again, I can't advise you on what you should do with your life. But my opinion is that that worldview is

harmful. And the reason why that world view is harmful is because sin as a concept is extremely ambiguous, not very well defined, and tends to do a lot more harm in my experience and the other people in this building's experience than it does good. And part of that is because it doesn't seem to

address human interests. It seems to address God's interests, and how we know God's interests is from human interpretation, and when human interpretation is involved in that process, it gets messy, right, and it gets arbitrary, and it

can get really really bad. So like, like, I don't describe anybody to look at their life in how they are if they're right with God or not, if they're living with said I really my point of view is you should look are you making yourself happy and the other people around you happy? And are you doing what's I think we could both give examples of people we know who have found happiness in sin, right by the sort of biblical or

dogmatic version of it. If what you're saying is like, bad actions or bad bad decisions can lead to bad consequences, of course, but they don't necessarily sin. Right. It's one thing to take responsibility for your own actions, right, and being accountable to that that's a great thing. Yeah, I totally advocate for that. I don't advocate for doing that within a sin construct or a sin model, because again, it's arbitrary, it's ambiguous.

I don't think it's helpful, and if anything, it's caused people to have a lot of issues within themselves that they've had to resolve after they've left religion because it's so deeply ingrained into some folks psyche. But look, Tyler, we do have I'm sorry not Tyler Patrick. Tyler was our last caller.

Patrick. We do have legidio because we are running a little bit low one time for this call, um, But I do appreciate you calling in and sharing your respective But I hope, I hope what we said makes sense, um, in regards to why I don't like when people say, oh, I realized, like I was a sinner. I came back to because I really realized I was a sinner. I'm like, yeah, and again, we can't really unpack that. From a professional level, I would just say

that scamp people and maybe even see can't secular help. Um, But I take care of yourself. Many, Yeah, whatever, whatever you're going through, whatever you're like working through with that, like, I hope you find help that you need. And I'll leave it at that, right, Um, But let's go ahead and move on. Let's let's let's look at our

top five patrons. We got to get that done today. So I am going to read, uh, the top five patrons for today if you want to support us, you can totally do that at tiny dot cc slash, Patreon thh. And if you are a top five donor, then you will get the shout out on here, which we always do here on talk even. But we are going to do our top five here are. Number one is of course Dingleberry action always love reading that name. Number two is I

yam a. Number three is oops all Singularity. Number four is Dave or Valgian. Number five is kal kaleval Hallev. My contexts are not doing me any favors today, Jamie. There's like, I'm also like kind of blind today. It's like not, it's not great. We need one of us to do you see the lengthy mus go to to get a fraction of my lack of pallets. It's it's not looking good for me today. Um. And then of course our honorable mention is going to go to Carol Lynn.

So thank you so much to everybody that donates on the TALKI than patron. Of course, Jamie and I do not get paid to do the show, nor do any the volunteers that help make the show have it, but it does help perpetuate the mission of the ACA and for that we aren't grateful. Um, so let's go ahead, and uh, I think we can take another caller. Let's just let's let's do it. Uh, let's see. Uh oh, this is an interesting one. We have Innocent, who is

calling in from Malawi. Innocent, you are live on TALKII then Okay, First of all, I'm glad that there's a show that matches my time soon because most of their shows, said Jacket one. Yeah, I imagine you're the maybe the only person I've ever talked to in my life from Malawi. So I'm gonna have to trust you on that because I don't know where where it would be at time zone wise. I guess it's centralized. Yeah, that makes sense, but it's it's central African type. Oh okay, okay,

yeah, that's interesting. Okay, So, uh, Innocent, what do you got for a say? So you guys believe that believes are no

choices right doing well? Personally, we're talking about determinism. Yeah, And my thoughts on determinism are that if I had the capacity to anticipate all of the myriad inputs and senses and physics and stuff of the universe, that all if alls other things could be modeled then yeah, maybe there is no actual free will, But because the system is so amazingly complex and there's no way to comprehend it, I'm going to move forward through life thinking that I have

choices and acting that I have choices, because hey, it's worked out so far, and you know, worrying about my fate being predetermined does me no good. Yeah, Like, I think I would kind of echo that I'm I'm like a determinist as well. In that sense, I am mostly a naturalist, mostly a physicalist, more importantly a constructive empiricist. But at the end of the day, I don't really have room for forces outside of really

physically describable ones that would be able to determine my decisions. Right, So I think I, as a person, objectively dan is a physical system and is therefore subject to the laws of nature. Right, So I may have the illusion of free will, but I think like, in an ultimate sense, I may not actually have it. So yeah, it's kind of complicated hold into the universe in which we resigned, Right So anyway, that's our

that's our take on that. Okay, So my question is, what's the point of these kind of shows, of these core inshows I mean, I can come in give my evidents. You gave you allsions. Why you're not condusted that at the end of the day, no one's mind would be changed because we are not conducted by what other people to us reject believe. So well, what's the point of trying to get someone out of religion when it is not a choice to be in there? Like your question, trynot control

whether they believe it or not. So I think that we are physical systems, right, I think that we exist in the physical world. We're a part of the physical systems. You can change the output of physical systems. A computer is a completely deterministic machine, but I can choose whether to make an open Microsoft word or Adobe Photoshop, right, Like, I still interact with it and change its outcome. So I think human beings are the same

way. Just because we're determinous systems doesn't mean that we can't change the way that we operate. Yeah, I was a Christian. I'm actually very public about this. There's a video you can see of me as a Christian talking to an atheist, and I had my beliefs changed and we I really mean it when when I say that our emails. We literally get people every week from folks saying, oh wow, like this show changed my mind on a lot of things. So M yeah, we may not change every single caller's

mind. I think that's true, right. I don't expect people to just completely change their worldview after a single conversation. But our clips and our videos get watched by thousands of people, and some of those people are thinking about things in a new way. And I think that's that's the kind of change

I'm interested in and looking for. And he's the other side of that coin, in the fact that, although you know, he's very obvious that we are challenging my fea stick India stick in sugnatural worldviews, I still am open to evidence, like again, the ten thousand dollar challenge of can you fix my eyes? God? Kind of thing may sound facetious, but I'm honestly like happy if someone could prove give sufficient evidence for something outside of my current

sphere of knowledge. I am going to be so super psyched for that because that means I'm a little bit better at knowing what world I'm in and which is one of the things I want to do with my life. Yeah. Absolutely, So that's a little secret about this show, Innocent, Well it's a secret, but it's an open secret. I treat every single caller with respect and with the intention that they're going to listen to me and they may not change their mind at the end of the day. But I'm also doing

this for an audience. I'm doing this for people who are watching at home, and like, really, that's what I'm interested in making this content for. It's not just the conversations I'm having live with the folks here, it's everybody that's watching. I think that is really where the impact happens most of

the time. And because people's beliefs inform their decision making and reform the way that they interact with the world, we want to try and have it that people are making good decisions because this is a world we have to share, yes, and where we have people that we care about living in it. Absolutely, So there you go, what do you think could answers? So I got curious, Yeah, what do you think makes someone it's not a

choice? What makes It's complicated? You know's different people believe things for different reasons. Like we want to be empiricists. We want to believe because of evidence, but some people just believe on feeling like it makes them feel nice, so they'll believe it it's true. We you know, we've I think

the science of psychology has tried to study how people come to beliefs. And I don't think we have a great explanation as to how we have some ideas, we have some through lines, but we don't even know how our brains work. Honestly, Like, as the top neurologists in the world that tell you how much do we know about our brains, I almost guarantee you they'll probably say, we don't know as much as we should, right, Like,

like there's so much to human beings that we still don't know. What we do know is like anecdotes and personal testimony, because that's all we can do with human beings. Like literally, if a person is saying I changed my mind because of this, that may not actually be true, like it may just be a reconstruction, but it can give us a pointer or some better ideas. The other thing that is, of course, observing people's life.

For me, I encountered a method called street epistemology, and that was really impactful in the way that I deconstructed my ideas but maybe it wasn't street epistemology. Maybe it's just like my physiology just happened to react to the ideas in such a way that made me find them more convincing. Everybody does have a set of internal values that maybe may not be so malleable, but we can still make appeals to those values to convince people of ideas, right.

Yeah, And of course, like aspects of neuroscience and the fact that people's brains are wired differently, if our neurotive vergent will have you know, things like that, and the way you believe in the way you think is different to you know, and that has to be taken into a game. Yea. For the record too, I totally believe that there are people in this world who, on certain issues it is just literally physically impossible for them to

change their mind about something. I am absolutely I agree there's definitely people like that. I don't think that's everybody, though. I think if you ask people and they different surveys that have been done on people's religious beliefs over time of significant population of people have changed their minds on very fundamental ideas, and so I definitely know it is possible. Is it possible for everyone. Definitely not I don't think so, but it is possible for some people, and

I think that's important. Thank you for those answers, because I really wanted to get the fish point of view on this. As in my country there is a very sure I think it's about six yeah. Yeah, so actually this is my first time ever talking to an ee. Well great, I'm glad you got to talk to Jamie would I would say one thing, there's there's a difference between the number of atheists and the number of people who will admit them. That's right, fist, and it depends on things like the

government and stuff like that. That's true pretty much worldwide, atheists are still probably one of the lowest positively received religious minorities like in the world right, Like, I don't know if it's the lowest worldwide, it's it's uh, statistically, from what I've seen from Pew survey, is the lowest in the United States. I imagine that's true in most in a lot of countries. Um. But yeah, that's another aspect of it too. There's probably more

people out there than you realize. If you know, MALOI that don't believe but probably are too afraid to say it. I know people in the US where it's hard for them to come out. I can't imagine what it's like. And that's another reason why we do what we do, to give seen someone a safe space to talk exactly and and a literal safe space to come in and be yes, yes, we totally believe that's a good thing. But yeah, and he said, any other thoughts you had before we wrap

up this call? No, no, weedy, because I guess, yeah, you did check that off the buckets to make equis you. Yeah, so if you ask me a question, you can go and do it. To be honest, we we I don't know. We have other callers that definitely want to talk to us, but do feel free to call back. We're all questions we could ask. We just don't have the time to go over and like what do you believe? Ye, why the whole epistemology thing?

Exact time? It definitely since this is a good time for you to watch the show, call in with another host and be like, hey, this I believe in X y Z and then have those hosts ask you questions about it. And that's a that's a great way to start a dialogue. With us, But for now, we do have other callers that want to talk to us, so we're gonna go ahead and get to them. But Innocent, thank you so much for calling us. And great conversation. What

a great We're having some good conversations today. I'm not for us one. Well, they can't all be good, you know what I mean. That's that's that's the that's the nature of the game, baby. But we are doing another quick announcement here and then we'll get at least one other caller, maybe two other callers after that. I want to let you guys know or at least consider the thought. Have you ever said, Man, I love the ACA and I just want to listen to it like all the time,

just like twenty four seven. I want to listen to it while I'm sleeping. It's gonna be like that episode of Dexter's Laboratory where like he listens to the iline do fromage where it's like, I don't know what will we say. We would say like where's your evidence or something? It's something lame, anybody, what do you believe in? What? Yeah, so you can do that. You can brainwash yourself if you want to. With our products.

The AC is gonna love that I said that, But like, look, if you want to listen to the shows twenty four seven, you could do it. We have not just one live stream, but two twenty four seven live streams. You can check out one on YouTube and another one on Twitch. Maybe we're on Twitch now, and I believe this is also streaming on Twitch, which we should recognize. So hey, shout out to the folks on Twitch where we're watching us today. So check out those live streams.

Not only do we have pretty much all episodes of Atheists Experience, but also we've got talkathen clips in there, We've got Truth want to clips in there, Psychically Sexual Audience, and like you know, pretty much all of our shows are on there, so check it out if you want to see some of the old stuff. And there's pretty much always people in the chat there, so if you just want to talk to some other people as well, that's a good place to do it. Um, So check out those

live streams if you haven't already. UM, And uh yeah, let's let's take another call, Jamie. We've got some good conversations going so far. Let's keep up the trend. I think we should talk to Uh oh, let's do. Let's do Quincy. Who's calling in from Texas? Quincy? You are live on Talk Heathen. What's going on? Hey? Man? Um, I got coop of God he existed. And also most of the atheist they don't know there some of themselves to hell. You know. I

don't want that to happen to you, guys. I love you and Jesus loves you. I don't want to go to hell either, No, Um, I mean I will be frank. I don't believe that hell's a real place. But maybe you can convince me of the wise And I am fascinated. What you're proof forgot is? Yeah, let's heart, Quincy, what you got for it? I got through the I actually I actually got physical proof from the Bible. That's health well, physical proof from the Bible.

Okay, yeah, what does that mean? Physical proof from the Bible? Actually to touch a Bible? Bible physical physical proofs Okay, God exists? So would you accept then? I have a Koran right here? Does this mean that maybe the God of Islam is Okay? How about how about how about how about how about this? How about I'll say something the future that's going to happen. Say again, how about I'll predict the future in front of your face right now? Oh predictions? All right, okay, I'm

down. What do you got? Okay, in the future might be earthquakes and wars. Okay, yeah, yep, that's cool. What does that to do with God though, I'm just predicted the future in the front of you. Yeah, yeah, I predict that I'm going to take a breath. Yeah yeah, I'm just predict the future too. The thing is, for predictions to actually be anything other than useless, they have to be specific, they have to be explainable by nothing else, and they have to be

useful. So can you give us one that meets those criteria? All right? Um, well I got one that's that's going to be recently. You're gonna you're gonna deny that God. That's not a prediction that he's just an observation. Yeah, we've already denied it. So that's not even like new information that the basic pattern recognition. Yeah. Well, it's up to you guys whether you believe or not. Because the Bible say, okay, so God's real. Because the Bible says he's real, Why should we listen to

what the Bible has to say because because of God's word. And how do we know that? Because the oh okay, so let's break this down right, Bible says that God's real and we should believe in the Bible because it's God's word, and we know it's God's word because it says it in the Bible. Am I fallow? Am I falling through? Correct? I just want to make sure. Couldn't see you there? Oh no, Quincy, we lost him. Well, that is what's called a circular argument. We

don't accept that because it's circular, right, doesn't really go anywhere. I could say, literally the exact same thing if any other book I could pick up, pretend this is a book. Yeah, I was thinking that was the Bible. Bad Gita says that Hinduism is real and that the Hindu gods are real and we can trust it because this is the word of the Hindu gods. That's not what the black of bye Gita is. But you know, Toto scrolls, uh, yeah, you could really literally do anything.

So not really super convinced on that and think he's the bodyble, he's not the pretty It easily claim Yeah, that's right, that's right. Well that was disappointing. I think we should do another call. Um, let's see, let's talk to Let's talk to Love is my religion? Calling from New Jersey. Love is my religion. You are live on? Talk Heathen? What's up? Love is my religion? Are you there? All right? I think we have also lost this person. I got to return you into

the queue just in case we uh still have you. But I am going to switch to somebody else. Let's talk to another person we have. Oh, this is a good one. Let's talk to Uh. This is Cairo, Cairo, Cairo, who's calling from Montana? Kiro? If I'm mispronouncing that, please let me know. Kiro, you're live on? And tark Ethan, what's up? Hi? And it is? It is Charis right?

Um? I actually wanted to ask Jamie about his experience with religion, if he has any Um like, I grew up in a religious household or whatever, and I was I was kind of curious about any intersections who might have experienced between religion and being blind and okay, well that was like yeah, so, um, I grew up in a relatively secular household. I was baptized Roman Catholic and confirmed though I did not take the Eucharist. I did not God. I didn't attend many services, and that was mainly to

aplicate my Irish Catholic grandparents. I said my prayers when I was a kid. I also went to an Anglican school, so it's a religious primary and from age K through eleven so to speak, okay, three twelve, So we did hymns, we did prayers, we did the Nativity at Christmas and things like that. But it was very it was not pushed hard upon us that this was the truth and the light. But I come from England, which is a more secular society in general than the UK than the US.

Now I have had more interaction with the supernatural in general because while my mother, who's who was her parents, who were the Catholic grand parents that wanted us in the faith, broke away from that, she did not lose her love of wonder and has and still keeps some supernatural ideas and she might be

watching now him. But so talking about things that have supernatural background are very much part of how I grew up and how I became a skeptic and started realizing how to try and find out what was true as it pertains to my visual impairment. Of course, I have seen the folly of it. Necessory prayer. I'll pray for your son's eyes. I'll pray for your son's eyes, says Nan and Granddad and all of their friends. And it didn't work. And then we went for a faith healing, not a Christian faith healing,

but through a probably a con man. And I think I called in to an earlier show regarding that, and so I'll spare the goody details. But basically that didn't work either. So any time that faith and my eyes interceded I was, it was no effect at least in improving the condition itself. The one cool thing that I did get was that I got large print Bibles, so I was given free bibles, being the large print if I wanted to read them. But other than that, it hasn't really intersected.

My disability was dealt with by the National Health Service, which is a secular organization of the UK government, and are the charities at the Royal r and IB Royal National Institute from for the Blind, which I guess is tangentially related to God because of the oils are pointed by ard dispose. That's about it really. Yeah, there you go. We'm glad we captured your biography on Park Heathen now so folks can know you a little bit more. So what

what what aspects are you looking to pick out of there? What questions you have? Oh? Well, I was just curious because, um, I mean I've seen you on the show once or twice and I really enjoyed your perspective and stuff, and I was just kind of curious about your life and you know, yeah, well thank you. I mean, so I was just curious. I mean, if you want to know more about the religious background in the UK, I mean you can, you can, you can

sort of read upon it. We were quite a melting pot as well, Like I hung around with a lot of Sikhs and Muslims and a few Jewish people because we're a big old melting pot, especially Birming where I grew up. So look up those religions as well, because I crashed into those a

bunch too. So yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, but I just I just know that, especially in the US, you find a lot of there are a lot of people who grow up with all sorts of disabilities and stuff where religious like there are these really kind of horrifying intersections between the you know, their experiences with religion and whatever their disability is. And I was just, yeah, I was curious if if that was

something that, I mean, you want to get cynical. Praying on people's disabilities and illnesses is affector by which certain religious groups get people in promises of healing, promises of comfort, promises of a better life after this one, even though you've been dealt a craphand and I have no truck with any of

that. Yeah, Yeah, for sure, absolutely, Yeah, And I'm I'm glad that you know, Like you know, we're joking when we were saying, like, hey, you know, anybody that wants to call and pray and he'll you know, like obviously we don't expect that to happen, but like you know, it is a point that we're trying to make here, Like, look, when we really want this to happen, You've had

your entire life to have it happen, and it hasn't. It's like, what what does it mean you say that this religion can do these things? Like what makes this so special that you know no one knows the caveat you'll like these because you deserve it right, and that's terrible, especially if you're talking to like fucking children, like but also like if you don't even know that person and you're just going to make a blanket judgment like that. I

mean, that's just fucking shitty. I don't know anyway, not too much students. Yeah, well, Kyro, I appreciate you calling in and given Jamie a chance to speak about his past because I like hearing about it too. Thanks so much. I'm gonna go ahead and let you go, though, because we are going to try to squeeze at least one more caller in today. I do have permission from the crew to go a little bit over,

so we're going into overtime. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, So we got We're gonna try talking to Love is my religion again, Love is my religion from New Jersey? Are you with us? You are alive on talk Heathen Ah, still not there, don't know what's going on. I'm gonna have to return you back to the queum. Yeah. We we want to be able to have a conversation. I have a just a monologue here. That's that's not a calling show, that's just a podcast. You

know, we're better than that. So anyway, let's see we know, I mean like a little bit. Yeah, we look, we got a lot of cool conversations today. I'm really happy with today's show. We have at least one. Yeah, let's see. I want to Oh this is man. We're getting calls from all over the place today, Jamie. We have uh this is r F E RFB calling from Thailand. Uh so yeah, Thailand, Malawi, all over the place to say you're alive on Talk Heathen. What do you got? Oh, so, greeting us as a

prompt, said I it's it's not small. I mean, it's kind of half question, half um conversation. It's kind of concerning about the definition of fate and how the commission your conversation is held between um atheist and thieists. Yeah. Absolutely, can you elaborate on that? So? Um, I think when theist I claim that atheists have faith, I think they usually mean that atheists, although as you know, it's not necessary that it being an

atheist would assume on once believe in other things. But I think most people would, I think things would assume that atheists believes in science the same way they believed in God. Either, it's not not true and not for me. But but I think concerning this issue, I think I do have something that you would call faith, But I'm not sure how I would go about explaining that or you know, when if the conversation should come up, well,

you know, it could be perfectly appropriate to have faith. It just depends on what you mean by faith, right, So let's start with that. What do you mean when you use the word faith? Um, I in this case, I was talking about sexual conviction or at least some kind of conviction in something that that there is no evidence of. M Yeah, except I think in my case, I mean as as an atheist and also a naturalist, I would say I still have to assume. That is why

I think it still counts at faith counts as a faith. You know that I can ignore external word skepticism and that there are patterns you know that you know that the external word skepticism and problem of induction. Yes, I think that's why I think I tech me to still have faith. And I'm not sure if um the other atheists who have a similar belief or epistemology with me would agree with me with using the term like that. Yeah, I mean getting tied up in. I mean, it is important to define what you

mean when you say something. And of course faith is one of those words that gets sticky because of the Council of faith as in the faith right, and then faith as in trust or conviction or priornology. It's almost links into things like pragmatism, like this is what before it will work again. So, um, we colloquially use faith to mean basically, I have trusted in this, and usually you can explain your faith and why we get so frustrated as atheists when you say, no, you have faith just like a person

who believes in God. It's like, no, my faith is based on something other than just because yeah, I mean, at least I can I can defend like but at least at least peers would have to assume that the exponent will exist they want to interact with it, and at least they have to assume some pattern that I would guess there would be to assume that the word of God is through all the times. That's like how we assume that science works not really a natural process, have some consistency, I think how

we do it. But every time faith is tested in a scientific sense,

it tends to fourth apart. Yeah, so, yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about this, Right, So you're talking about external world skepticism, right, Like, why don't we just identify as epistemic nihilists or trivialists even let's say like all things are true because we don't know if we're not brains in a a right, and so like, you know, my response to this is yeah, kind of like with Jamie's saying, right, like, and actually what you said, which is, um, I don't actually

have to believe that I'm not a brain in the vat and still recognize patterns within the world. I could very well be a brain in the vat and still say, hey, there's consistency in the world and in our observations, right, because that's kind of all I have. That's like the only thing we could make beliefs off of, right, it is known to me? Sure. Yeah. When I was a Christian, I used Hebrews eleven, which is faith is the evidence of things, is the substance of things,

hope for the evidence of things not seen. Right, So it was literally this idea of like trusting without having good reason too. I mean that's how you translate that now, Now, Interestingly enough, if you talk to a lot of apologists today and I've had these conversations, they will not define faith this way, they say. They will say, no, no, you know, faith is something that can be defended, that is defensible through evidence.

And if faith is something that's the fencible through evidence, then that's a totally different thing, right, Suddenly that's a worldview that you can have this

sort of rational debate and discussion on. But if faith is inherently interrational, that is literally just trusting because you just want to or you feel like it's a good idea too, not really using external variables there, then yeah, that's that's a different thing, right, you just haven't thoughts about it, right, Yeah, that's like that's like the how do it call it? The case of the example case of equivocation? I would say, yeah,

yeah, yeah, that's why it's important to define our words too. So like some people say, oh, well, you must have faith in your wife, right, I don't have a wife, but that's what people say, right, Oh, you must have faith in the funch world. It's like, well, no, like that trust, yeah, they mean trust. It's like faith the pattern is my hypothetical wife in this situation, hasn't cheated on me or hasn't done anything against what I would want them to do.

So like, I followed that pattern, and so that leads me to believe that they're doing that. They're not cheating or whatever. Right, Like, that's that's still pattern recognition. It's just like not as I don't know, immediately measurable, but it's still measurable in a way. I mean, you can still say, oh, have they done this an X amount of time? Right, That's that's still a calculation. And the problem with words is that they do get fuzzy when it comes to colloquialisms. And so I

say I have a little faith, baby, what I mean? He's like, don't worry too much about it. You're expressing too much. I don't mean, don't believe believe this will happen without any evidence. Ye, stop worrying. It is interesting that when people say, oh, well, atheists just believe on faith, because they're using faith as a pejorative, right, They're like, oh, they're just trusting, And it's like, well, wait, isn't that what you're supposed to do? Yeah, Like, isn't

that anyway? I mean, even even you know problem induction. Yeah, I mean, I mean, don't we all have to do that. You know, I have to assume that way they cross, or I have to assume that there will not be like a card that randomly speed more than I used to and it would hit me. But I'll be knowing something like that. But I think it's kind of useful and kind of testable, even if it's and risky in some case, but at least at least we can get

knowledge to how we work. Yes, that's how I would defend my position if a sis, if a as on that. I mean, it's not much as I said, I just want to explore my understanding and kind of that's why helped defining words. I think that's all. Yeah, No, I understand. This is why I use this term earlier in the show.

I used empirical constructivists. Right. That specific combination of words means is if some of you were to ask me, how do I know that a black hole exists like external to the world, and you're not a brain in a vat, right, It's like, okay, well, actually, the premise of me being a brain in a vet has nothing to do with whether or not my observations match up with what we would expect to see with a black

hole. Right, if we define what we expect to see with a black hole as such and such formula between gravity and whatever, and if we translate these images from the telescope into these pixels, right, we get to see a black hole like that still can follow empirical methodology and have nothing to do with any external world claims like that's that's really they Yeah, like you can

kind of like sidestep that really. I mean like when people say that, it's really I mean I don't have access to the external world outside of myself, right, so I'm always going to be stuck with that. That's just you know, it's not first gold. We had to believe it because you

believe it. You just believe you believe it. So yeah, yeah, yeah, you can still recognize patterns and like, you know what, the Bible even calls for you to do that, right, It's like, look, how how how many times do they have these calls of faith for to

say, look, look how God has helped the people of Israel. You should be able to trust God because he is always faithful to his people, right, and and and and you're supposed to believe that because there's some things there otherwise, he just says, so, I guess, but I don't know, Like there's still that's that's a human thing to do. That's what everybody does, you know. Um. Anyway, I hope we answered your questions there, RFB, do any anything else you want to add? Um?

Nothing, Maybe it's just a little a little bit. That's OURFP stand for random format, but it is. I think that's just a soul fun fact for you today, A fun fact. I like that. Well, thank you so much for the call there. We've we appreciate the conversation. We've had prospectives from a lot of different people. Yeay huh. It seems I'm drawing people from all over the world Icelanders and stuff. Dude. Last time we were on we also have like a worldwide is the world one?

Yeah, we got like all the continents today. Man, that's really cool. Well, I am very satisfied with today's show, Jamie. Do you like today's chew? I did. I thought I was pretty dang awesome. And thank you folks in the audience too for watching us today. We appreciate everyone who came out in person. Um and yeah, that we got a little bit of audience camp. There's some folks are in the other room, but we got folks who are watching, and of course we are going to

be in studio for atheists experience, not us. No, we got our other two hosts who are coming in to do that, so check that out. And one other announcement I wanted to make as well as talking about I don't see it on here, so maybe I'm not supposed to talk about it yet, so I won't say it. I'm just gonna keep with what's on the script. But just FYI, remember we do have our topic this week, our talk Heathen to Mey segment wrong answers only when God looked down on

his creation, he saw it was blank. So reply in the comments and let us know what you want to say about that, and we're looking forward to seeing what folks have to say. Folks, if you want to support the show, please because they're donating on on Patreon, becoming a member or at least hitting like and subscribing. It does wonders for us. If you're watching this on YouTube or of course following, if you're listening on Spotify wherever

else you're listening to our podcasts. We really do appreciate all the support that we get. Of course, we would be remissed if we didn't thank the wonderful, fantastic, stupendous crew that helped make this show happen every single week as well. And there's our crew Camo got folks helping us out in the

back and they are awesome. You can also check out the Facebook page for Talk Heathen as well if you want to continue the conversation on there, and sometimes not today, but they're also after show discussions as well on the atheist community discord Fans servers. So link is going to be there as well, but we're both in person here today, so we're not gonna be doing that, but in the future you should keep that in mind. So yeah, thanks so much, and we did get that audience shot here. I think

it's time we do our love rings. Ready for the love rings. I think I've been practicing a wold month. I'm so glad. Okay, what you want to start us off? Then you should start us off? Ready? Shoot? That gets like extra Yeah there. I think the sonic amplification, it's the visual and audio right right. Love rings are are phenomenon in science as yet fully understand, but we are able to do them so and I'd like to just hid it. Happy Pride, Happy Pride, Happy Pride

Month, everybody. Yeah, absolutely, folks, whether or not you believe, if you are an essential worker, we want to thank you. If you don't believe, this is your community. But if you do believe, we don't hate you. Oh whoa. I just got an announcement from the crew. Yes it wasn't on the script, but well, I do have one more announcement before we go. We have the back Cruise that is coming

up in August this year. Check that out. Information is there on the screen, so if you want to come see some of the hosts in person. We got Forest Valkai coming out. We got a bunch of the other locals who are going to be here. Check out the back Cruise. Tickets are available online and get them while you can because there is a limited number and they will sell out. We won't be able to get any more, folks, but you know, try to get it while you can because they

will sell out. They always do. So anyway, that was the announcement that I didn't see you on here, but I'm glad the crew will be let's let's try this again, Sho. Whether or not you believe, if you are an essential worker, we want to thank you. If you do believe, this is your community. If you don't believe, we don't hate you. We are just not convinced. Thanks so much everybody this has been talking. Then I'm objectively Dan, this is Jamie the Blind Limey, and

we are signing out. Have a good one. We want the truth, So watch Truth Wanted live Friday at seven pm Central. Visit tiny dot cc slash y t tw and call into the show at five one two nine nine nine two four two or connect to the show. I'mline at tiny dot cc slash call tw