I'd like to give our feast callers the benefit of the doubt, but I can't be evolution consciousness, the origins of the cosmos, any phenomena that we have good naturalist explanations for, plenty of evidence behind. I'm so so tired of it always boiling down to I don't understand this. Therefore it must be God. Your personal incredulity is causing you to commit the God of the Gaps fallacy. And more than that, you're making gaps to shove your God into. God has never been in those gaps ever. But if
you disagree, call the show. It's start now.
Welcome everyone. Today is August tenth, twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Doctor Bennon. With me today is Jamie the Blind Liamy. How are you doing, Jamie?
I am a act similarly of a copy of a man in a place in a hat without a hat. I'm FINEO.
Yeah, yeah, And especially talking about God of the Gap, sounds like there's a lot of frustration with with more years going back to this priest suppositional position of well, something must be real there for God and not not just being willing to say, you know, maybe we don't know the answer to everything, So I'm definitely frustrated about that as well.
Yeah, I mean people say that God, God is the is the most likely answer, or the most logical answer, or the most believable answers. Well, it's an answer, but in my estimation, not a very good one, because I like evidence, you know, to be to be provided for such things rather than just but it has to be, it just has to be. I find that not at all compelling. And I've been at this long enough now
to now find it just grating, just tiring. There are people who've been in this space a lot longer than me and have a lot more credentials than I do, and much like yourself, Ben, I don't know how you haven't just gone completely start raving Bongers about it, having to deal with the same arguments over and over and over again.
Yeah.
Well, it's that idea that humans are very patterned sinking animals, and we want to just into it that you know, A plus B equal C, and will just jump from A to C and not think about what the B is, or we'll just not think about other possibilities of answers. And when we're talking on this show, we're not saying, don't have God as a possibility, like keep your options open, but be willing to consider other possibilities and be willing
to be wrong. And if there's a good reason to believe in God or spiritualism or any kind of belief system, we should be able to arrive at that conclusion if we considered other options. So it's just let's have a conversation. How do we know that this is the one answer? How do we rule out these other ones? And I'd love some people to call in today and answer that. For us, it can be about God. We can do
that same conversation about aliens or extraterrestrials. We can have the same conversation about ghosts, about spiritualism, about pantheism, deism, any belief system. Bring it to us and I want to talk about it. Or even if you have a story of something that happened to you that seems like it isn't entirely natural, call in. We can talk about why that may have happened, why we think that may have happened. Because this is a call in show, this
is talking. Then we're open to all of your questions about these topics and about morality, philosophy, science, secular humanism. Bring us all the topics that you want to talk about and we can discuss that with you. Talk Heathen is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five oh one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government. And like I said, this is
a call in show. We want to hear from you, So get your calls in at five to one two nine nine one nine two four two, or you can go to your browser at tiny dot cc slash call thch. We're here live every Sunday at one pm Central on YouTube, but you can also find us wherever you get your podcasts, so look for the podcast. Also follow us on Patreon, where you can get access to bonus content like early releases of episodes and some other other fancy things that
you get. And also you might have your name right out later on in the show when we get to that section. But enough of that, we have somebody special that we'd like to bring up on on the stage right now, and that is our backup post. Eli here to deliver us the question of the week.
Hey, guys, how's it on? So last week we asked you guys, no, sorry, that's next news. What prayer will God always answer? And here's the top three answers we got from last week. So number three, see not what prayer does God almost always answer? The one from priests, reverends, pastors, et cetera. Oh, Lord, please make sure they don't actually read the Bible themselves. Make them accept what I tell them the Bible says.
It's a pretty good one.
That's great.
Yep, then you're in trouble if they start reading it. Number two X million, God always answers when I pray, Dear God, please never bother me.
That's fantastic. That is fantastic.
The one hundred success right on that one. And then number one also x million, well done. God always answers when I pray, Dear God, please imbue your followers with an impiously arrogant insufferability as great, pretty high success on that one. So yeah, those are a pretty good well done everybody.
I'm sorry, Okay.
Next week's question is going to be what gap can God always fit into? Jamie question?
An answer for that one, Yeah, so you can fit in the gap on the dial of your shower between there and there, which is where the water is comfortable between scalding hot and freezing cold. That's where God lives.
That's a good one, Doctor Ben. Did you have an answer as well?
My answer is very terrible and I'm kind of ashamed for this, but the Bible made me say this answer.
Mary, that's good. It's a good answer. I just have.
This is this is my answer. It's just my that's my God of the gaps right there. Soh yeah, that's that's it for me. The question for next week on gap can always? Can God always fit in to and put your answers in the comments not in live chat you won't see it.
Than we are now approaching immaculate conception station. Mind the gap, mind the.
Games, yes for sure.
And some other people who uh may be fitting in some kind of gap somewhere are the crew.
Let's see what the crew is doing.
Thank you so much, Crewe we have our video and audio people as always, moderators, notes and stamps people, and the call screeners. Thank you so much for working very hard every week for these shows. We would not will not be able to do this without you.
Truly, we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Absolutely giants that can also fit into the gap.
But get some.
Yeah, we need a spackle for these gaps.
We do have a theist caller on the line, Steve. He him from Nebras. Sounds like you want to talk about photographic evidence of artificial satellites. Tell us a bit about your position.
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, Hi Jamie and doctor Benswigan. I'm calling this week to discuss a very recent scientific paper titled aligned Multiple Transient Events and the first Palmar Sky Survey.
And this research is led by astronomer doctor Beatrice Vral and the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the research study has uncovered photographic evidence found in an analysis of nearly three hundred thousand photographic plates from the Polymer Sky Survey that captured the images of pezens of transient objects which will reflective of sunlight high above the Earth's atmosphere well before a launch of the earliest satellites from Earth.
And the appearance of these non human technological artifacts hovering in space above for coincides with nuclear testing events and also coincides with a UAP math citing event that occurred on Unduly twenty seventh, nineteen fifty two, when multiple UFOs over Washington.
D C.
Were tracked by radiar. So I think we've got.
Can you share with me the study title again so I can look for it.
Yeah, So yeah, it's a very recent it's a pre it's a pre print, so it hasn't been subject to pure review yet.
This is not so this is not a published view. So this is not a published study. This is something But you said it hasn't been period, It was not in a journal somewhere.
It will be. Yeah, hopefully it does get to that point, and it doesn't.
Get So we're in a position.
We're in a position where the thing that you are citing is not yet evaluated and vetted for accuracy and applicability. Right, so we're already the impact the impact of the study that that you're using already is not is not yet to be deemed credible.
It will be. It's it's you can't say that though.
You can't just assert that something will be credible because you say it is. Are you are you a peer of these scientists? Uh? Like? Are are you an astronomer? Are you a cosmologist?
Like?
Do you would you? Are you rating yourself as a part of that.
No, I study. I study, But I'm not I'm not an expert, you know, Like like she is, she's an expert. She's a physicist or an astronomer.
So what's so, what's the title of this.
She's a credible scientist, she said, They're a.
Credible They are credible scientists that say stupid things. There are credible scientists that say stupid things and reach outside of and field of expertise. So we can't appeal to somebody's authority. Like I'm a physician, I'm not a surgeon. I like, just because I say something reasonable about preventative care does not mean that the same thing I say about neurosurgery is true. I could be wrong, and even even anything I say about my own field, I could
still be wrong about it. It does matter where I get my information and what information I'm communicating. So, but what is the what is the title of this study?
So it is titled aligned multiple transient Events in the first almar Sky Survey. Okay, and it's probably a link if you google this on where you can find find the preprint of the paper.
Yeah, I'm finding.
The scientific community doesn't block this out and I hope it does get period, you know, a hostile to scientific community when when they're all saved by Steve government.
Steve, based on based on our conversations previously, I have very good reason to doubt your intuition about whether something is valid science or not, because, if I remember correctly, last time, you were claiming that a paper said something that was not set at all by the papers. So I'm a little bit skeptical going into this. But we can evaluate this kind of together. Is there a place that you've been able to find, like the entire out here there is a Oh no, I can't access it.
It is behind to pay Well, I can see the abstract, it's.
Yeah, it's new. Yeah, the abstract that's exactly what I saw too. You're probably seeing the same thing. Yeah, I can see that.
But other thing, Steve, Steve, you can't.
You can't just go buy an abstract and abstract is not a paper, it's not You can't tell anything about their design just by the abstracts, like it gives you such minimal information.
Right, But there's some more information online on YouTube, your YouTubers and YouTube.
YouTube is not a credible source, Steve, Steve can I, Steve, can I go to YouTube and find incorrect information?
Well, yeah, but but it doesn't mean it's wrong to you know, just because it's on YouTube.
It also doesn't mean that it's right. It doesn't mean that it's right, Steve.
So we can't say that because something is on YouTube that it's correct. So how do we evaluate information to see if it's correct? Like I think you're giving us these papers, But I think the big underlying issue here with the calls that we have with you is that I'm not convinced that you know how to vet your sources. So I want to explore a bit how do we
determine what is true information? And I want to let Jamie jump in in here too, but maybe let's let's approach that before we kind of get into the UFO stuff.
Well, they have the photographs. You can see those photographs online. They have all these plates, these transient images on them that's online.
Okay, by that we have a collection of photographs that and again we have to start assuming things that they've been vetted and verified to be authentic and not timmeled
with and things like that. And He's one of the issues that I have with the conversations that we have, Steve, is that you come to us with a paper, a paper that we didn't know existed until you tell us the title of We know nothing of content of it, and we have to take your word for what's in it and the interpretation thereof we are a calling show.
We can't just stop it for fifteen minutes to skim the paper that you are presenting us at so, as Ben alluded to, we have no way of verifying how well you're interpreting the paper, If the paper itself is even credible that kind of thing, it's going to be very difficult for us to make comment on it because we don't know its content, or its context, or its veracity. And so what I'm wondering, and not to derail the conversation slightly, is that what do you hope to get
out of these courts? Why are you calling us with a paper we haven't read and didn't know existed. What are you hoping that we say or do?
Well?
I am caring to present the evidence of extra terrestrial intelligence and volved with humanity.
But that's not what you're doing. You're calling to your interpretation of some possible evidence that we have no reference for right now, so we're literally taking your word for it and the actual citation is trust me wrong.
Well for now, but it won't be long before this gets pure reviewed. So maybe I'm jumping the gun and I don't want it. Maybe I should be jumping the gun, and maybe we have to wait and for further you know, they probably need to get more photographic evidence from other telloscope.
Well, but you're also jumping the gun because I did find the full paper. I did find the full paper, and here's here's again a disconnect for what you are expecting the study to prove and even what the study is expecting to prove that it's disconnected from what the evidence actually is.
So we have these.
Pictures that show transient events that we don't know what they are. This is it's just people who can't see this image like it's a picture with a bunch of like random dots on it, and it does look like they're I'm not a physicist, but essentially it's the photographic evidence is this picture of a bunch of dots on a on a white page. So the issue I have and they're asserting that there's they're asserting, they're asserting that that these are UFO and that they they even mentioned
in their discussion like that they are artificial objects. I maybe need some more, maybe someone to explain to me what all the physics is that they're doing here, what exactly they're measuring and not like I need to analyze, like I need to read through this paper because it's fairly dense. But what I'm gathering is there's there there's pictures of a bunch of dots that we were able to obtain.
We don't know what these are.
They were there before like Earth had released satellites, So it's not that, but could it be something else?
Like it's it's just up.
In the air of what this thing is and you're jumping from we don't know what this is to extra terrestrials, like we know.
They're satellites before satellites were launched from Earth. What else could it be?
How do we know that their satellites? What part of the paper says that their satellites.
They reflect, they're reflective of sunlight. They resemble exactly they appeared.
Everything that reflects sunlight is everything that reflects sunlight. A satellite, the water is satellite is a mirror.
Satellite geosynchronous orbit. Yes, synchrono in geosynchronous orbit around Earth. Reflective of reflecting sunlight.
Yes.
How do you know that celestial bodies are often made of things? They're reflective, Comets are made of ice.
These these are these are these images are not streaking, They're not comets or not. If they were on a photographic plate and they were they were moving like an astrog you would see a streak on the on the plate. These heard pinpoint light images. He heard exactly how satellites.
My point is that reflective materials that may seem to look like the reflective surfaces. I'm assuming you're you're assuming things like solar panels or metallic structures, ice crystals can look like that. There's metallic elements out there in the universe. It is not impossible for a completely naturally occurring chunk of something to have settled into an orbit around Earth that is just shining.
In stationary orbit, not not moving in a different speed than then the Earth is rotating. That doesn't happen naturally.
How do you that's a declarative statement. You would have to back up with some kind of evidence that it's not possible for something to settle into a geostationary orbit.
These images are the objects, these transit transient objects appear exactly how satellites would appear today on these Uh. But this happened before. This happened before spucknet. These images were taken before for you.
Here's here's the same problem we keep running into. Is that we have an unknown variable. And what you could do, what you could do in this moment is say, hey, this paper is showing some unknown thing that has these particular properties that seems unnatural to me. And instead of staying there and saying I don't know what this is, you're jumping a huge leap to say these are extraterrestrial things like these are are like unnatural extraterrestrial made satellites,
And I don't think we can get there. Like why are you so against like waiting for things to be demonstrated, Like why are you so hesitant to say I don't know what this is, but we can keep investigating. Well, I'm not thinking you want your answers. It seems like you want all of your answers right now, and we can't. We can't always have that, and there are answers were not going to have.
Well, I think it's not. It's just a matter of time. I think it's going to be very soon this work will be verified.
So but so the answer hasn't come yet though, right, And so instead of saying this is what the answer is going to be, why not stay in the moment and say, you know, this could be an answer.
But it might not be.
Well, find that. I'm not saying it's aliens, but you know, it does look like it.
Steve, this might be a slightly odd question, maybe slightly out of left field. Do you want aliens to be real?
Do I want? Yeah, I'm rooting for them.
Okay. So this is something that I encounter quite often in my day job. I work for a cancer charity. Many people call in having seen something in the paper or having seen some new miracle treatment that's been studied in a study and it's got it and it's been published in some paper or whatever, and they want it to be true so badly because it's life and death. So they are presupposing the outcome and just hoping that
the evidence will fit. And I'm feeling a similar vibe from you that you're presupposing what it is and trying to find evidence to fit it. Because that's how you want the world to be. No scientist wants an outcome, No true scientist wants something to be true. They are compelled to follow the evidence and whatever it points them to, and to stop when the evidence runs out. No one wanted gravity to be real. No one wanted evolution to be real. No one wanted atoms to be the component
part of the universe. They just are. So I would strongly advise you to remove that really quite glaring bias from your reasoning when it comes to your interpretation of these papers. Because even if and let me give you all the toy, let's say that we don't have a reasonable explanation for these phenomena, and that it is an
interesting phenomena that should be studied further. If the paper itself has not yet mentioned anything to do with extraterrestrials, and you're plugging that in, you're already jumping the gun, and you're exemplifying this thing that I am frustrated with with people calling in, I have a presupposed reason for this happening, and I'm going to shove it in to that gap until at such time as it's either completely indefensible or proven true. And I think that is not
a particularly great way to go about thinking. So so what do you say to that.
Well, I realize I have some maybe I have a little bit of confirmation biased there, I'll have that. I don't think that means I'm wrong.
It doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong. But you have to again, I'm asking you for a little bit of empathy here. Look at it from our position. We are skeptics, and we're pretty hardcore skeptics as well. Both Ben and myself are trained in some sciences, medical science, on computer scientists, that's not really science, but anyway, but we pride ourselves on skepticism. We pride ourselves on going where the evidence
takes us and making as few assumptions as possible. And the thing is, when you come to us with an obvious assumption as part of your argument, you must understand that it's going to harm your credibility with us and many of the people who are intellectually aligned with us. So, if you want to make your argument compelling to someone you on their level, think what is going to convince not what convinces me, what convinces you, What's going to
convince them? Because every time you've called, and I've spoken to you a couple of two or three times now, Steve, I don't find any of your arguments compelling because you're falling into these intellectual traps, these fallacies, and it's killing your credibility. So if you want to be a credible person who's credibly arguing, then stick to the facts. Keep your biases out if you can. It takes introspection. It's
not easy. I understand that I've made lots of claims as a younger, dumber man that turned out to be false because I was so certain of what the truth was. So do you think you can do that? Maybe you're a little bit more introspective there, Steve, Well.
I think yeah. I mean I just think this is interesting and it's I mean, it's something that work that you know certainly that warrants further study.
Yeah.
Absolutely, couldn't agree with you more, but that's it. It warrants further study, and it warrants to be taken at its own value, inserting no extras.
Yea.
In this state, I mean, people just tend to just miss this, you know, the aliens, without without being you know, without serious study. This warrants because there is there is, there is evidence, it's out there. The truth is out there.
I don't think they're missing it. I don't think they're missing it, Steve. What the difference is, we're withholding our belief until the evidence comes out. That's what we're doing. So we're not saying that we won't ever believe in aliens. It's just I don't have any reason yet to accept it. But what we've noticed you're doing is you're accepting it before the evidence comes out. And that's where our disconnect is.
Okay, we'll always serve my judgment until she gets peer reviewed and that maybe there's some other explanation, but it just it seems to me it's pretty compelling evidence.
I mean, I'm assuming you have studied a lot of issue you're very interested in, you are, I'm asuming you're aware of the Drake equation and the Fermi paradox.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, the great equation on what the probability years were technologically.
Alien life out there somewhere, and then the Fermi paradox of why haven't we seen them yet?
Right?
Because I think they're there in plain say, and we just don't want to see it.
I think you are very much denigrating the entire scientific field because many discoveries that people would prefer to have not have discovered, truths about this universe that are not great, have come from scientific inquiry, and the concept that scientists would on the whole suppress something that's true. I mean, yes, we have examples of government sometimes getting involved, but it doesn't last forever. And we've been doing SETI for nearly
one hundred years now. We've been looking to the stars, to the sky to see if there's anything else out there for as long as we have been able to, and we've been doing it really in earnest since the seventies and still and that data is publicly available, and there's little anomalies, and there's the wow noise and all this kind of stuff and things that you've told talked to us about before. But all you've ever given us is like individual papers and fringe things that are from
people who aren't particularly well credentialed. It isn't particularly compelling, and the and the thought and when we challenge you, like, well, why hasn't the consensus of all of the other astronomer astronomers and all of the other physicists and all of the other researchers in this field come to this conclusion, you start going, oh, well, they'll just cover it up they don't want to see And I'm like, oh no, not conspiracy theory again, because again, a conspiracy of that
magnitude to obscure what you're saying is obvious evidence of extraterrestrial life that we are seeing with plainly, it will take orders of magnitude more organization and resources to keep that stub than basically anything else. And if you're thinking, well, there's been plenty of conspiracies that have come out though were really big, it's like, yes, they've come out, we know about them because you can't keep these things secret forever. So again you kind of torpedo an incredibility.
I think we need congressional investigation on this. I know we've had some progressional investigations about laps and extraterrestrial intelligence, but we need to look into this some more. These images too. Interestingly enough, little side know these plate images were taken back in the early fifties. Well they were the Harvard or the guy that ran this that was in charge of these plates had them destroyed later on. So the plates like from nineteen fifty seven into the
nineteen sixties were destroyed. Why that happened, boom, I wonder.
Why because the storage resources that required often outweigh their apparent use at the time. There were just plates that were studied and discarded. I mean, the BBC deleted entire series of Classic Doctor Who because they couldn't be bothered to store them. And that's a pretty trivial thing. No just basic snap their fingers. An entire series of a beloved t what was to become a beloved TV show went into the ether just because they didn't want to
store the tapes. And also storage media of the time was notoriously fragile. You know, everyone thinks that data is an immutable thing now because we live in the data age, But even now we have things like bit rotten and stuff like that. Like how credible were those plates? How well preserved were they're what equipment did they use to take the photos? I mean, camera technology has come a long way since then. I mean, maybe we should redo
the sky search with modern technology. That's possible, you know, if we get the funding. I'm all for science funding, yes, please, please, please please, And I agree that these things should be investigated, but assumptions should be left out of the equation. And that's again where you seem to come in, like it's aliens. It's got to be aliens and what it might be, but it might well not be.
Okay, well, my people will just have to wait and see. I mean, it's still what some more needs to be done.
Any less tools they've been now.
I think I think we're on the same page as far as like we need to see more information, and I think, like, I do really appreciate you bringing the papers. I appreciate you bringing what you believe is evidence, and
I want more callers to do that as well. The thing is, though, I kind of want to take these papers and instead of just synthesizing the information into what we believe, they say, like, maybe we can break them down into what like what does the paper like, what is the hypothesis of this paper, what are the methods, what is the data they actually collected? How how did they collect this data, how did they analyze the data? What are the stats that they use to determine the
significance of this data? And then what are they actually saying the significance of this paper is? And that'll help help us kind of avoid inserting claims into the paper that maybe weren't there and just evaluating it for what it is. So I encourage you, like keep calling in, keep bringing this stuff. I just think we're getting a little bit disorganized in how we're like relating things together.
Forgive us our incredulity, we do have quite life standards of evidence because we're just decades long.
Yeah, thanks, thanks for how far doctor beach. Uh this astronomer gets with trying to get plates from other telescopes of that air other other plates and what kind of roadblocks that show run into on that, so that that will tell us a lot.
Yeah, well, well we'll see and if more information comes out, definitely call back in and we'll we'll revisit. But I hope you have a great rest here Sunday, Steve.
Thanks, ma'am.
Yeah you usual world. Thanks.
Yeah, I mean right. I think one of the reasons I find Steve so frustrating is the he's obviously kind of like he's got like he's got the spirit he wants he wants to know a truth, what's true, but that it is that presupposition of wanting a particular truth to be true and anyway.
Yeah, for sure, but some exciting things to talk about, which I'm I'm super pumped for this upcoming week because it is the Back Cruise twenty twenty five. Is this upcoming weekend August sixteenth at seven pm. Sounds like there are still tickets available, so get them as soon as you can, because I think they're going to sell out if they aren't already. People like Caitlin, Jonathan R and Kelly K already got their tickets and so I'm looking
forward to meeting them on the Back Cruise. But you should totally, I'm totally not peer pressuring you into coming, but it's a it's a fun time and I think you'll have a great time if you get your tickets
and come join us. But if you're also, if you're if you want somebody else to enjoy the Back Crewise, but you know that you can't make it yourself, you can also give a donation in the live chat to help purchase a ticket for one of the hosts or one of the crew members so that they're able to go for those who maybe wouldn't have been able to go otherwise. So go to tiny dot cc slash back crewise to get your tickets and we'll see you this next Saturday. I'm so pumped, and don't forget as well
for a back cruise weekend. It's not just the back cruise, right, there's also the Sunday. Let's say you can't you're in Austin, the Austin area and you can't afford to go to the back cruise. That's okay because on Sunday we're doing live shows from the library, So show up, come say hi. We'll be doing Talk to Ethan and XP with multiple different hosts playing musical chairs, and it's going to be a great time. So I want to want to see all of you there if you're able to get in.
Yep, ye all the there's a lot of the hosts coming into town. It's going to be great. It's always a good fun party. It actually all starts off on the Saturday and the game all the way through to the Sunday's a weekend long party. And even if hosts aren't going to be on those Sunday shows, they'll be in the building, like we'll all be here. So it's a unique opportunity. We often get a rush on tickets in the final week, So yeah, do get yours in quick.
I'm bringing you a couple of friends with me who are awesome, and yeah, I can't wait to Pesta forest Alqai in person and make him squirm and you know, play with j Mike's beard and that kind of thing, usual shenanigans.
It's going to be super super fun.
Also, just as usual, you can send in your super chats during the show and we will read them at the end. As many as we can read during the show, we will read them. You can also become a channel member click the joint button below the video and you'll get custom chat emotes, early access to clips and shorts, and you will help perpetuate the mission TALKI Than and the atheist community of Austin. And if you're looking for a non monetary way to support the channel and the ACA,
you can like the video. That goes a long way. People don't understand how much that like button does for increasing views and getting the message out there to others. So click that like button, subscribe to the channel, enable notifications and comment in the live chat and below after the video, and all of that goes a long way. And we appreciate all of your comments and your likes on these videos.
I love the fact that the EMO that they made for me as a host. Emos mean that, don'tlin As.
It's hilarious. I love it.
It's great.
So we have a Yeah, we have another caller, and this one actually is a great one, I think for both of us. This is atheist Lisa. She Her from Canada wants to talk about what atheists slash the science the community can do about religious beliefs interfering with medical care. Lisa, you are alive on Talk Heathen. What is your discussion topic today?
Hi?
So I'm a little nervous problem, so I can of just give like an example of what I mean by that.
Absolutely, Okay.
I volunteer with a mental health organization in my city and we deal with people, you know, from all different kinds of mental health disorders. And what I mean is, how do we, like, let how do we stop religion from interfering with people getting proper health care. There was someone there was someone who we were trying to help in the past and they were living in a group home.
They needed some help taking care of themselves. They had schizophrenia, and all was going well until the people who are running that facility, thought that they should do an exorcism on him, and you know, things like that not only do not only are they bullshit, but it causes I think a lot of emotional damage to people. You know, some people don't want, don't won't take their kids to the doctor, you know, thoughts and prayers kind of thing, you know. Or maybe we're just being tested and our
faith needs to get better and they'll get better. But I think sometimes that religion interferes in more areas than we think it does, and it's the religious people who suffer as a result of that. I'm not saying that all religious people are not I'm not saying that all religious people have medical neglect. Obviously that's not true. But I do think that religion can interfere with our physical
and mental wellness. And how do we as atheists try to try to put a stop to that from interfering into some one getting medical services.
It is a conundrum, and I don't just take it from an atheist standpoint. It can become a broader topic of people who do not properly engage with medical services due to misinformation. Of course, religion and religious doctrine is very powerful but you've also got things like the anti vaxx movement stuff like that. There's two things. One if it's the caretakers of people who are not engaging with the medical field, that are on behalf of the person
they're caring for, especially parents. We do have laws and things around that, but one of the most sacrisanct things, in my opinion, is bodily autonomy. And unfortunate as it is, we cannot force someone to undertake a medical or mental health intervention without their permission unless we can declare them unable to make those decisions themselves. And that's very important
to me that patient autonomy and dignity is preserved. And yet we have religious denominations that in their very doctrine prohibit things like blood transfusions for Jehovah's witnesses, that kind of thing, And there isn't really a very easy way to do it on a broad scale. We can't ban these religions. I wouldn't want to ban them. I wouldn't want to make it illegal to refuse doctor's orders or to have people compelled to undertake a medical procedure that
they don't want to do for whatever reason. Now I am only secondhand in this I work parallel to the healthcare system in my role in a cancer charity, but these issues pop up now. I've also seen the flip side, where people are in bold and to keep going and to engage with the medical things when things like really horrific side effects keep people feeling sick and chemotherapy is briillt off on some people. But their faith is one of the things that keeps them strong enough to keep going.
So I'm not saying that religion as a whole is entirely detrimental to people's ability to seek the best medical outcomes. But I haven't done a medical ethics class. I think you talked about might have a bit more insight on that.
Yeah, like I said, maybe I was referring more to, like, you know, stopping kind of these I don't want to. I'm trying to figure out how to say it without stopping kind of like religious Like if someone's a caretaker, like you said, and they're religious, like there has to be I just think that it.
May I ask a quick question for the example you gave about the exorcism, was that a group home that was explicitly like labeled as a religious institution or was this like like a group home that services the public and serves as you know, not a specifically religious entity.
I'm not sure if it was religion based.
I don't think it was, because if it wasn't, if it wasn't a religious institution, like if the patient wasn't consenting to be placed in a religious group home, that's.
A big legal problem.
Because even if you are a minor, or if you're an adult, or if you have whatever condition, it doesn't matter, Like you should have the ability to consent to what religious procedures are done for you in the same way as medical procedures, like if this is a group home meant to help take care of you and keep you safe, make sure you're getting your medical treatments, et cetera, and you are not explicitly and apparently a religious place. They
should not be forcing an exorcism on anybody. They should not be doing that at a at a public institution. So that's that's one facet of this.
Like I just think that personally, just my opinion, I don't think that religious organizations should have like their own hospitals and be selected based on that religion's morality.
Yeah, I agree, or to disclude.
Certain right, Like, there was a case in my province a few hours north of here, and there was this they had. One of the things that we're kind of struggling within the West in Canada is they're creating more, you know, hospitals that are kind of like run by religious groups. And you know, and I don't care what anyone's opinion is on abortion. My opinion is that it's
part of healthcare. I don't know the reason, it's none of my business, but you know, to to not offer you know, I live in a province that there's only two cities. Everywhere else is a rural place, so there aren't a lot of options. But to deny someone like, you know, they could possibly be a life saving procedure. But you know if they say, like they're miscarrying or something, but the nearest hospital is Catholic run and they refuse to do that procedure.
Right.
I just don't think that medical groups should really be involved in medical care. I think it's wrong. And I also think that and this is just my opinion, right. You know, when people are suffering, when people are desperate, sometimes they do turn to religion. And that's not like to criticize them. You know, we've all been there where we want something to grab them to because we're afraid.
And I think that along with and I'm not saying all religious organizations you don't do that or manipulate them or whatever, but there is an influence with ulterior motives in some places that I've seen. And I also think that as a result of that, there's a lot of emotional abuse that goes on. When I was when I was thirteen, I grew up in a very Catholic household, and when I was thirteen, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I just started having seizures and I didn't grow out
of it. Some people grow out of it, some people don't. And I didn't grow out of it. And you know what my Catholic mom told me was, you know, this is a test from God. And I thought to myself, a chronic illness is a test from God. What could I have as a thirteen year old, What could I have done to have some sort of you know, need to be tested this way for the rest of my life or you know, some people will say you're sick because you're sick, because it's a punishment you did something wrong. Well,
I don't. I don't know. I just think that it doesn't just cause physical harm, it doesn't just cause harm in the medical system. But I also think it's emotionally abusive.
Oh.
Like, and when I was twenty two, I went to I was traveling, and I don't know if you've heard of this before, but there's this place in France called Lords and they have like apparently there was this miracle where the Virgin Mary came down and by the Lord's fountain and healed people. And so I went there, not because I believe in God, is I wanted to get some water from there. As a president for my Catholic mother. I just thought I just thought it would have meaning
to her. And yeah, I see people, you know, they're from all over the world bringing human you know, humongous jugs to I almost said it out loud.
I didn't.
I'm glad I didn't, but I almost said it, Like, you know, it's just water, right, and like, can you imagine like funding someone from South America with religious donations to fly all the way to France just to get water, and then these people are going to be disappointed because well, obviously they are not cured.
And money, and that money and the money could have been used to give them evidence based treatment, like it might not cover all of the treatment, but it could at least give them a head start in getting a specialist evaluation or something that's more tangible and more likely to succeed. And yeah, I'm I'm with you on how
frustrating this whole thing is. I've worked with a fair number of religious physicians I've worked at I did rotations during med school at Catholic facilities, and it is very frustrating when you have this disconnect between, you know, religion and evidence based medicine. And I wholeheartedly agree that I don't think that churches should be able to have like
basically a monopoly like they do on community health. They have it on like rural health, and a lot of the more service based medical charities are run through religious institutions. And I think kind of the one of the big ways that we can fight this is by establishing more secular organizations that can do the same thing without requiring people to adopt a certain belief system, that won't require people to sit through a sermon in order to get
their medical care. We can have more people with initiatives setting up evidence based groups in secular groups to go out to these communities who may have only had missionary groups show up. I mean, if you have a missionary group of doctors show up and you get treatment that you need, of course you're more likely to lean on a religious belief after that because that's the only group of people that gave you help. So if we start kind of getting on board and establishing services like that,
I think that would help. As far as the autonomy issue, I'm one hundred percent with Jamie and the fact that we can't force people to not make or make decisions based on their own religious perspective. There there's kind of some nuance with how you play out these conversations, and I think a lot of this is related to education and how we present the information. Of course, there's always going to be people, for example, Jehovah's witnesses who won't
accept a blood transfusion. There's informed consent that you have to have with obtaining a medical procedure, but there's also a degree of informed consent with declining a procedure, and there's a very detailed discussion that you should be having with patients either way. Like I can give a recommendation, and if somebody is declining the recommendation, I should be having a good conversation with them, making sure that they actually do understand the risks of not accepting this particular
piece of care. Ultimately, they do get the decision. They get to make the decision of whether or not they will accept or decline. But we should still try to answer the questions, make sure that they're not declining because of misinformation, and if there is misinformation, we can address it there and then, because sometimes it is on me. Sometimes that lapse in communication is because I phrase something inappropriately, or if I thought that the person knew something that
they didn't know. A lot of that does fall on the way I'm presenting info, and I will admit there are times when it is useful to rely on a bit more religious wording for things, knowing that this particular issue isn't going to be what deconverts them. But the important thing is in the here and now for that person, maybe saving their life so that later on they can
evaluate their belief system. But you can kind of almost take like a little bit of a straight epistemology stance with this and just kind of ask ask the questions that maybe they didn't think of before. For example, if they think that an exorcism is going to cure them, but then they also might have a belief that doctors are put there by God and have been blessed by God in order to do their job. Where's that disconnect
at that point? Why are you if you believe that these experts exist because of your faith and because of your God, why is that seen Why are these people seen as like the secondary option, or why are they seen as less credible? Why are you not trusting them in the way that you are trusting the exorcism. There's some inconsistencies that you may here with religious people in that.
I don't know if any of that helped.
I am and I just I just you know. In concluding, I just wanted to say, like, I don't care what a person believes in. I just when it comes to essential services like hospitals, I don't think they should be church run. I don't think there should be that religious influence, especially if it's in a rural place where whether you're a Christian or not, that's the nearest hospital to go to.
Yeah, And for example, like another thing, because I've kind of been in between jobs lately. I was looking at ways to do some more community medicine, and pretty much the only organization going out well, I guess there's two
organizations going out on ships like big hospital ships. The only one that's like not military run is a Christian organization And if you apply to work there, they require a statement of faith, So they require you to share your testimony and to be sure that you believe the right things before you go work on this hospital ship. So that kind of calls in a question, is your agenda to actually heal people or is your agenda to evangelize?
And so we need, we definitely need to step up our game on the secular humanist side and say, you know, we can have a boat too, not only have a boat and go out and do the same things, but just not have the faith statement question, just have what are your credentials and like, can you do the job that we need you to do.
Yeah, in an ideal world, it would be great to be able to excize like religious bias from these things that all hospitals and secular run and nonprofit if possible and these kinds of things. But if we just as the world stands right now, just excise religion from medicine. One, we're cutting off a massive source of resources and funding for everything from the medical care itself to research and all that kind of stuff and charitable care. And secondly,
we are cutting off community outreach. Like if, for example, the organization I work for refuse to work with religious organizations because of their potential biases, more women out there would have missed their breast cancer screenings and their cervical cancer screenings, because it's those Sundays groups after Mass where the ladies get around and pass out the pamphlets and talk about when they should get their mammograms, and it's like,
is it ideal? No, but it's kind of it's the world we live in, and the change is going to have to come incrementally and really quite painfully slowly. So I don't think it's an easily solved issue. I don't think it's one that's going to go away anytime soon.
And as Dr Ben was saying, it behooves us in the secular humanist community to try and provide better alternatives to allow people to just get what they need without any of the whole and don't forget to thank Jesus for for this healing that you have received.
Of course. Okay, well thanks for the conversation. I just wanted to know your opinion on that.
Yeah, I think we're very much in agreement with you. We're very much in agreement with you, Alisa. Yeah, we are very frustrated to.
Okay, well, thanks so much for us. I really do appreciate the discussion because I don't think people sometimes I don't think that people consider like different ways religion can harm people. And I'm not saying that all religious people are like that.
That's not true.
It's mostly when you see things like that, it's mostly just kind of people who are on the extreme side. And yeah, anyway, I gotta go, but thank you for answering my question. And I do hope you guys have a good weekend.
Intend Thank you so much, Lisa, have a great rest of your Sunday. And with that, it is it is that time. It is that time of the stream, Jamie, would you like to do the honors and read the top five patrons.
These names of those that have given of themselves for our cause. Champions, heroes, every jack of them, and they are at number one oops all Singularity and at number two still it's been two years, Barry Jackson, whoever they are, I will never not giggle when I'm talking about your name. Number three, Calari Helvetti, number four, Carlton, number five, moldread d malcontent awesome, and our honorable mention is Ted Duision
d Ui Duisian Duision. I'm sorry I've butchered your name, but thank you very much for all of your support. We literally couldn't do what we do without you. And if you out there in great listener and want to be included in this pantheon of wonderful people, you can do so at tiny dot c c ford slash, Patreon t H and give whatever you can.
Every little helps absolutely. All right, are you ready for another caller?
All right?
So we have Benji. He him from Alabama. Sounds like he wants to talk about real religious people are in denial of God being bad. Benji, you are alive on talk? He then, can you clarify your your conversation topic for us?
Yeah? Uh yeah, so I was in earlier and I'm kind of I didn't mean to bombarded the guy with a hundred different you know, kind of problems with the Bible, but they just kind of came out naturally pretty much. And then I told him that God created evil and he was like, oh, well, no he didn't. You know, evil came in the world through humans and sin and YadA YadA. And I said, which I couldn't remember the verse, but it literally says, you know, I created good and
evil like you created light and dark. That in evil, YadA YadA. So I told him that, and it's like his brain just malfumpson, like he taught about it for maybe like a split second, and then he asked me, well, where's it at? And I was like, well, I think it's an Ezekiel, but am not one hundred percent, sir, but I know it was. I knew, I know it's in there. And and then he just kind of he kind of just blusted off and kind of just you know, like thanks to subject pretty much is like you stay
in for church. I'm like, no, not today, but I mean it's like, you know, it just kind of threw me on guard a little bit, because, like, you know, if he's a Tristan, because he said he's been a Tristan for decades, you would thank somebody that's been that way for decades. Would at least lead the Bible, because if you weed the if you absolutely read the entire Bible,
you're gonna end up reading that part anyway. So like somebody that says that about Tristan, you know, they would already know that, And the fact that it surplied him and he didn't know that what on pretty said he didn't know that because they caught him off guard. I was just gonna get y'all's opinion on that. I mean, I feel kind of bad for the guy too.
But I mean your initial question of religious people, I mean, it seems like you're talking specifically about Christians, and there are the major religions do predicate that their God is good. You know, God is great. Not all religions do very Historically, a lot of the pantheon based religions like Greek and Norse and stuff, their gods were more like people, flawed and potentially bad and capable of doing wrong things. They weren't paragons like the Abrahamic God is often lifted up
as But you are correct. Again, I don't know the exact versus the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure there is a a verse in the Bible where God literally says I do all these things. I create the light in the dark, I create good and evil. And also there's the whole. If he's triomne, they be all powerful. Then everything that happens is his purview, good or evil, and it's all part of the plant.
Which would make cam boast any boy.
Yes, depending on your interpretation. But there's an entire religious philosophy called the theodicy, which is explaining evil under the auspices of a good God, and that's been going on since before Christ, like the Epicurean trilemma is the famous example. You know, whence it come with gard and all that. We've been wrangling with this idea for longer than Christianity has been Christianity, and and no good answer has yet
to be brought forward. So I mean you are pointing out something that in some cases for many, for many religious adherents, especially Christians, Muslims, Jewish jew I think maybe there may be an argument that Jewish people understand that God's not the greatest guy on the planet. But you'd have to ask what you have to ask them. Yes, I agree it is. It is cognitive dissonance. But like you're basically calling in saying water is wet. I mean,
it's almost self evident. Got any thoughts on this, ben.
Yeah, Yeah, it's a situation where essentially Christianity has to deal with inconsistencies in the Bible and even direct contradictions between.
The Bible and their worldview.
And so the verse that we're talking about is Isaiah forty five to seven, which says I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil.
I the Lord do all these things.
And of course, oftentimes when you bring this up to a Christian there's a lot of mental gymnastics going on because they have a couple options. They either have the option of, you know, reconciling that like there's a difference here and saying, you know, the Bible can't be the perfect, unaltered word of God. Or they can say, well, the Bible's the correct and that my viewpoint was wrong and I'm going to adjust my belief to what the text says.
Or they can try to keep this dissonance and just not do anything about it but start making excuses for why the text actually confirms what they already believed. And that's often what people do. So they'll make statements like, oh, no, but he didn't. He didn't create evil. He created the circumstances in which evil could take place. He gave the free will which allowed people to do evil, But he
didn't actually create the evil. But then they're not recognizing that it says that he created the evil.
He didn't.
He wasn't just the dungeon master playing the role in setting up the scenario. He was the one that caused this to be in existence. And so you'll get you'll get different answers to of no, No, he wasn't creating the evil part. He just created the consequences of evil.
So, yeah, what he did was the first time you just said he he literally said half of what you just said. He's like, yeah, well no, he gave us free will and gave us choice and this and that, and I gave him the rebuttal, which was, you know, if God knows every time, then he knew that. You know,
basically he allowed and in the first place. So he's still responsible either way, even if he didn't directly create it, which it says he did, Even if he knew about it ahead of time, that still makes him responsible because he could have stopped it. And I also brought up
the point that somebody. This was years ago that one of y'all pointed out, but I pointed it out to him at a few minutes ago when I talked to him about this, I said, I said that if God, if somebody killed someone, right, and you're saying God is all good, then that means somebody killing somebody was good. Either God could have stepped in and stopped it. But if he didn't, and it was part of his plan,
which means that he allows bad things to happen. But under their worldview, they would have to look at every evil and good saying is good since they considered God to be the ultimate good, which means any bad he does he does would also be good, which is self confidentially, But they don't look at it that way.
And that's the point basis of divine command theory. Yes, where got everything that God does and instructs is inherently good because it's God?
Yeah?
Okay.
The idea that it is possible to still grant free will and child proof the house like it doesn't take away your free will to put the covers over the outlets and make sure that appliances aren't on when the children are like nearby and stuff right, and.
He brought that. He also was like, oh, well that would affect to our free will. I might, No, it doesn't. And then I told him those free will on oers and those free will in heaven, you know, hypothetically, He's like, oh, well, there's no free will in heaven because there's no evil in heaven. I'm like, well, then how did Lucifer increase force and the angels decide that what it gives God?
And these are all arguments we've had in the past with fasts that have called in. Yeah. One of the things though, I would say is that unless is saying God is good and therefore that's why you should follow these teachings, and his morality is better than yours. It's kind of just an academic discussion, you know. It's an interesting point to sort of go, hmm, some inconsistencies there.
But unless someone's put trying to like litigate or legislator push that morality on me or people they care about, I'm gonna just let them wrangle with it unless they want to have a discussion about it. Because this that I.
Went earlier, they make a point of asking I mean, they've asked me like ten different times in one day. Literally if I you know, do I know God is
God in my heart? YadA, YadA, And I would sit down and say, well, yeah, of course I know God, and I know the Bible at the back of my hand, and I would litually troape them verbatim, you know, the stuff that they're getting at, because the third it's a search, a trust I believe, if I'm not mistaken, and their stuff is basically a combination of both I believe Baptists
and Methodists and a little bit of other stuff. And then I bought up the you know, the good insane because I maybe, you know, similar to a Gnostics essentially and believing in the old Christie had you said, where if you're doing good and good rewards you and that helps you get in the heaven. And also, I don't really believe that you have to go to search to get to heaven. That's you know, not really with fire Man's I mean, it wasn't mentioned like that.
You know.
Let me just let me just jump in here, Benji, just for a second, because I've heard you say a lot of this already in previous cause and things like that. I don't want to matter it too much. But from my perspective, we may as well be having an argument about the morality of lex luthor like and imagine every
person a fictional character. So while this is all very you know, astute observation on your part, the fact that you are taught you from your perspective, are talking about someone you believe exists in actuality and I don't because I haven't had any evidence compelling enough to convince me of it. This is just this is just Bible fan wank right now pretty much.
So to see in mind, if I try to put God to you, if I could try that just for argument's.
Sake, to quote the great Matthew Mercer, you can certainly try.
Yeah.
But also also on the like, while we're just kind of leaving that initial topic, I would love for you to try to say the people that you were having these arguments with, please have them call into the show. I'd love to address that particular issue about God creating evil with the people that you're having this discussion with. If they're willing to reach out, that would be awesome.
I don't know if they would actually ask them, but I mean.
Yeah, just go to a shot.
It would be it would be interesting, and we're we're willing to change our minds if they're willing to, like, if they bring in good arguments for it, and if they are convincing.
So well we already know how that turns out. I was gonna go ahead and try to argue for God myself, so I don't want to say hypocritical.
Yeah, go for it, go for it, give us your argument for God.
So why I'm trying to decide which one to go with because I don't want to fall into a fallacy. Well, I could seeo edically, I could do it this way. So I was watching a video one of y'all's videos yesterday, and there was a point with I don't know if he's still on here or not, said, I can't remember the guy's name now, damn it. Well, basically he was saying that any evidence that would be presented to him would be insufficient evidence because it would fire its coordinary
evidence and not just ordinary evidence. And so in my mind, you know that, do y'all not falling into the terror fallacy with that? Like if I was to present evidence and evidence is dependent on your you know, observations or your experiences or even subject to y'all's either one of y'all's opinions on if that evidence is good enough for you or not, because at the end of that, you know, it is pretty much subjective because it depends on you know, if that would you. It's not like I'm climbed.
No.
Evidence is not subjective, and there are degrees of how convincing certain pieces of evidence are, and I think that's what we're dealing with right now. Like there, it is easy to demonstrate that this chair is going to keep me held up for the rest of the show, because over and over and over again I've sat in the
same chair and it's pretty reliable. I could calculate out the statistics of how many times this chair has successfully held me up during a Talkie Ethan show, and it's pretty significant.
It's and if I told.
Jamie, you know, hey, this chair is pretty surty, I'm confident that it's not going to fall over during the show.
I could still be wrong.
It could be the time where it breaks, but I have enough evidence to where I'm convinced of the proposition. The difference is nobody really cares about my chair most of the time. Nobody gives a crap if I go out in public and I say, hey, did you know that my chair is really sturdy and it can it can hold me while I sit in it. Nobody is really going to baton I because that's what the chair is supposed to do, and everyone has been in a chair that has done a good job being a chair.
Uh.
But when we get to God claims in supernatural claims, that's why there's the standard of evidence to be convincing changes because you need number one, you're trying to demonstrate something that is less common, and you have you have the burden of having something that is statistically reliable to like, uh, make future predictions and to you know, be have that same truth demonstrated over and over again. And we we don't get that with God claims. So yes, there is
a difference, but it's not subjective. And you can even break this down like statistically into like what very what variables do to the statistical significance of the particular problem. And so yeah, it seems like it's subjective octive that is, that is objective, and the majority of the majority of people asking for evidence with this are asking for objective evidence. We're asking for something that isn't going to be reliant on me having faith in it or not, and it
can still be out to me whether or not. Like I accept stats, but that is not a problem with the stats. That's a problem with the person understanding the stats. But if if something can be statistically demonstrated, that's going to be a lot harder to debunk and a lot harder to disbelieve.
Well, I mean I could do this in a few different steps. I mean I could say, number one, that the the universe evolved in a way that created life. And then I should say that the Earth evolved in a way after millions of years for life to form and toak someone earlier.
That's that's a claim, that's a claim in itself.
That's not evidence.
That's not evidence, right, right, But the clients are supported by science. So I could go step by step.
No, no, no, But here's the here's the problem.
Here's the problem though, because yes, we have the the idea that like we have our planet, we have our universe, we have organisms that evolved over time to what they are now. However, we cannot like we have that stuff demonstrated by science. We do not have a reason, we don't have evidence to say that God is connected to that at all. And the problem with a lot of God claims is that there isn't a way to connect them. It's just asserted that this is a possible answer.
If I took if I took all of those steps right at the universe beginning the Big Bain model, the universe having multiple galaxies and planets and everything else, the ods forming, the sun forming uh, the os forming water, water created lives or bacteria that created the lives or elements lather that created the live and and then life evolving for millions of years and creating people like Benji.
Do you understand how probability works? So wanting so, do you understand how probability works?
Yes, it's a fifty sixty.
No no, no, no, no, no no.
So this is this is actually a more complicated aspect of probability. So like, let let's say if I have a bag of marbles and I have a certain amount that are red, a certain amount that are green, a certain amount that are blue, and if I said, my, my, it would be cool if I had three red marbles. If I only picked three mar three red marbles in a row. When I start, before I pull out a
single marble. Sure, if all the marbles aren't equal amounts, sure, there's equal probability of getting any of those marbles, and it's a less chance that I'm going to get three red ones in a row. However, if I pull out a red marble on the first try, the probability still is higher that all three of them are going to be red.
Then if I pulled out a blue.
Marble, Like if I pulled out a blue marble from the beginning, there's like a zero chance that I'm going to get three red marbles in a row at the beginning, But if I pull out a red one, then it's more likely that the end result is going to happen with three red marbles. So what we have here in our universe, Yeah, if you calculate, if you think about probability, as in, there's such a small chance that all of these things could happen in the way that they do.
The problem is you're not starting from ground zero every single time another event happens. You're starting from the place where an event already happened, and now the next one the probability of the next one happening after this first event happened, So you can't look at it as if probability from a vacuum every single time. And I think there's a misunderstanding with what what is the probability of these things under the circumstances that have already occurred.
And the other suit you pull is going to be with that's not a guarantee.
If you pull a guarantee, it's not a guarantee.
But do you understand that? Do you understand that? Do you understand that we're not starting from zero every single time? The fact that an event occurred changes the probability from a would have been before you had picked up any marble. And so that's what is we're seeing here, Like, sure, it sounds like there's very little probability for all these events to happen, but as they happen, the probability changes for another similar event to happen.
Right, But you're still starting from strant the more you're not in and trying to pick them all when it's one one, one circumstance, one circumstance where you're starting from zero from what we from what we know, and we don't have, we.
Don't have evidence, we won't probably won't ever have evidence of how many rolls of the dice, if you will, things had in order to get to where we're at now. But the fact is there is only that one time where it went from from ground zero to then having an event occur. And so but once you have that first event occur, the probability is not the same as from being ground zero every single time.
Okay, if you will to dice and the dice lands on one, and then you will the dice again and it lands on one again, and you will the dice again and it lands.
On that's not That's not the circumstance that we're talking about. We're not talking about just happenstance each dice roll in isolation. We're talking about how many Like if we're trying to get a yachtzi and you roll certain dice that allow you to get that. Let's say you roll like, uh, I don't even remember how to play yazi, Like you get three sixes on the first role, it's more likely that you're going to be able to achieve a yatzi than if you got like all different numbers on the
first role. Right, So, I think your understanding of probability is limited to a very very basic understanding of stats.
It's not. I just pointed out the flaw that you gave. These flaws in the example you gave with the.
But you're giving, you're giving an argument from probability. So if you're saying that these probability, the probability is so low of all these things happening, how did you calculate that?
How did you figure that out? Did you do the math?
How many?
Okay, yeah, so I'll just point something out. Do you know how many events have happened that could have wiped out before it even mapped?
I don't, and I don't. But that's the thing.
I'm not asserting a claim that anything specific happened to get that. I don't know all of the events that led to here. I'm also not claiming a certain thing to be the start you are claiming. You are making that claim. So if you're making the claim that probably that there's a higher probability that a creator was responsible for that, you have to demonstrate that probability.
So where are your numbers?
Yeah?
So there have been multiple I say, is we have had multiple violence.
That's not an answer to my question, Benji, answer my question, where are your numbers? You said, probability is in favor of a god doing these things going, So, where is your math?
And you gave me the gumball example, Okay, I.
Gave you an example of the kind of math that you would need to demonstrate like you have to bring you cannot say. There's a huge pet peeve of mind people making a claim about probability or using probability as evidence, but then they don't actually do the math for their probability, like you're you're allowing maths to carry a lot of weight in this debate, but not actually bringing that math to the table. I don't want to take the whole
conversation from from Jamie. I know he's having an aurism over there, Jamie, what are your thoughts?
First, it could be any colored gumball. And then even if you picked two wear gumballs, I'm sorry, one ware gumball. That doesn't mean that the other two are going to be were that could still be any other color.
No, no, both you both bends. Please please bens bens plural, Please allow me to have a little, a little interjection. I think one thing is I think the simple thing that Ben was Ben doctor Ben was trying to exemplifies that in his example, the the determining of the probability of pulling out a certain marble necessary necessarily changes the probability of the next marble coming out red because it's a different amount of marbles in the bag now, So it's you know, it's that kind of thing.
Secondly, that well, that's what I was trying to say, because okay.
Cool, so we've cleared that up. Groovy, Please allow them to just say this next thing. I think another thing that that you're committing here, Benji, is you are presupposing that the current state of the universe was the goal or target, not the inevitable eventuality of the natural chain of causality. From that perspective, the actual probability of the universe being as it is one because we only have one universe, we don't have any other universes to compare
it to. And so while any amount and considering that the that we don't know the span of time the universe is going to exist, it may be eternal, or at least close enough to that. Basically there is given enough time space and distance, the probability that everything that
could happen will at some point happen. So again, You're saying that God set this Rube Goldberg machine in motion to get us to this point, and I'm saying we're at this point just because the machine worked that way, and that unless you can demonstrate that it's possible for a universe to exist without life in it and compare and have other universes to compare to, we can't really use probability in the way that you're talking about, because
while it might seem astronomically impossible, and so many things had to go a certain way for us to be here having this conversation, they all did and we don't know whether they could have happened any other way. So that's where I'm coming from. It's the Douglas Adams puddle analogy. Isn't this whole perfect for me? I feel it perfectly. It must have been made for me. It must be intentional.
You're essentially giving me the fine tuning argument. And again, just to go back to the cold open, it's the god of the gaps. We don't know exactly how the universe came to be, and you're proposing a god, and I'm proposing that it's naturalistic, and I feel like you're shoving that God in that gap, we'll say you Benji no.
So I'm not doing the God of the gaps and I'm not doing the pine turning watchmaker argument. What I was trying to say is that if I was to add up right all of the times that during the Earth was forming, that it could have been discarded and hurting when it made the moon because the moon came from the Earth, or you know, all the climate changes, the ice ages, the virus is every other time that
has happened, not counting Noah's florid of course. Then and then I take that and I put one to divide that into because this, you know, it created life, So I use that as the time. And then I say, well, there's a one out of whatever tant that you.
Know but we don't. But we don't know.
There's so many variables we're missing. You cannot make that calculation, ill, because I think you're misunderstanding what the N equals one thing is that Jamie was talking about. You can't determine statistical significance with an N equals one.
I can add up how many times yours almost that destroyed, or I say that that.
Means absolutely nothing. That means absolutely nothing. For the claim that you are making, I.
Can add up all the times to Earth didn't get destroyed. I can add up all the times that we are still The very fact that we are still here. Having this argument is proof that the probability of this existence is the most likely, and there's no evidence that it was done on purpose or has an outside agent.
Fact.
The fact is we are missing too many variables to make these calculations, and so using probability as a way to demonstrate God just does not work because we have an incomplete equation.
What variables? What other variables is there to consider?
If I'm the variables that we don't know, variables that we do not know and probably will never know. We have to account for the unknown unknowns. We cannot do that. The only things we have we only have the one union that we know of. We have this one existence that we know of. We can hypothesize others, but we cannot we cannot confirm that we cannot get I mean, maybe someday we'll get sufficient evidence for these missing pieces
of the puzzle, but at present they are missing. And so that's why we're saying you're falling into God of the gaps, Because the probability, you're trying. You're trying to adapt a probability equation for a scenario that the concept of probability does not work for. Like the math that we do has specific applications and specific times where it is actually useful. If you're outside the parameters of what that math can do, you're not going to get a
reliable answer. So that's something that we have to take into consideration.
Like if I can well vost it and do the exact same thing that you're claiming I'm doing, and I can say that you're doing, oh.
Because no, Because what the different difference in what we're doing, Benji, is that you are saying that there is an explanation and that explanation is supernatural. We are saying that we don't know the variables that we don't know, and we can hypothesize, but we don't know. We don't have enough information to know that wow, And so we are not making a claim to know.
How would that not be the same argument you're using. I mean, I could play god with science and then argue against you with the same thing that you're.
Doing with me not claiming.
We're not claiming that science is the one and only answer. And because science itself is a field of it's a methodology. Science is not an answer. We're not claiming science is an answer. It is a method.
So you're misunderstanding our position.
It sounds like and even if I grant you, Benji, let's let's let's for the sake of argument, Benji, let's say let's let me go with you. Let's say I agree with you that the the occurrence of intelligent life on this ball of rock we call Earth is like calculatively demonstrably like very unlikely, like like like dealing it like dealing, like dealing every spade out of a out of a deck of cards in order, you know, from a shuffled deck of cards. You know, something really really
really unlikely. Just because it's very unlikely does not mean that it necessarily must have been put into action by an external agent. I mean, many things that are very unlikely happened for basically no good reason other than they just happen all the time. I encounter it daily. Perfectly healthy people that, just by dint of a bit of bad luck and the design floor in our genes, are struck with a horrific cancer for apparently no reason, and
so unlikely. Things happen all the time, but there is no demonstration that they happen because they were designed to be that way by an external force.
So the well, I agree with you there, I mean it also doesn't mean that it's impossible either, So.
I'm not I'm not discounting God as an external force as a potential explanation, But until it is evident to me that such a thing exists, or even is even possible to exist, I'm not going to give it as much credence as the fact that the natural forces of the universe can tend for these things to come into coming to being. We know why we're here. For the most part, we can trace it all the way back pretty much to the plank time.
Well before the big band stuff breaks down. But let me let me ask you this. So let's say that I had evidence, right, or just for the sake of argument, so I want to make a point. Let's say that I had evidence that would convince you, Sam, but not convince the other person. Okay, Now, how would I go about it? If I had evidence that would just convince you personally of a god, but not convince the other
person of a god. Then you have different you have different expectations of evidence, then because I don't, because I might, I might give you evidence that would convince you but then not be enough to convince the other person, but it still convinces you, and to have, you know, and no offense to any of y'all. And I know you know,
I respect gall and I know I get it. But if you had a tristan on here that said, you know, let's say that they had evidence and they presented their evidence and they convinced one of you and didn't convince the other one, then what would the point be of trying to call in and present evidence in the first place, Because if you all have different standards of evidence and different levels of evidence that you would accept as you know.
So I would think, you don't really don't really go with this scenario.
I'm down with it. I can imagine that we would be able to spin off an entire extra show of just the now believer trying to convince the rest of their hosts. What a concept. But again, as skeptics, I would want to I would be constantly questioning. Even if something was very convincing to me, I'd still be continually questioning it and.
Why it can be a skeptic and believe in God. That's why you became an atheist in the first place.
I don't want to Well, I've always been an atheist. I was never a believer, but I.
Did know there were some that did believe, and they were skeptical, and then they used those skepticism and became that way.
I've never seen someone skeptic their way into religion, at least not honestly into a god belief. But it would be fascinating if you were able to. And yes, everyone's different. Atheism is not an and secular humanism and all these things are not monoliths. We have no dogma, we have no overriding creed. Yes, standard of evidence may well be different than Ben's, probably relatively similar as these things go.
But yeah, I'm not saying it's impossible for me to be convinced of something and Ben to not be convinced of something. But uh, like, for example, I mean, I could try and pull examples out of my out of my ass for things that could be attributed to a God, but I could still give you things like my eyes suddenly become perfect, like like a miraculous, unexplained instantaneous healing of my vision problems which I've gone into in the past, but are physical in nature, like there's parts of my
eyes missing that should be there. Yeah, I've heard, and that would be amazing and it would be crazy, And I'm thinking that anybody immediately go right, We're going to get you into every scanner. We're going to start looking into this because maybe it was God, but it could have been a wizard, could have been nanomachines, could have been could have been anything. Maybe I've just manifested a superpower.
I don't know. So while I could give creed that some amazingly powerful thing just happened, there's still a spectrum of potential explanatory sort of things that could explain what just happened to me. So while I would entertain a god or godlike figure, I can't rule out aliens or wizards or fairies, or spontaneous magic, superpowers, or some aspect of the human physiology little known.
Also, Jeremy, if you don't mind, can I add something to that? So I'd say, for the sake of argument, that somehow your eyes did get healed, right, and you wanted to tell people, Hey, my eyes got healed I can see again now that by itself, by definition is subjective.
No, because I would be able to have them take photographs of my retina and you could see that the scar tissue that was there is gone. Like I say, the things that are wrong with my eyes are very physical and physical and unless they are rectified, they my eyes will not get better.
Right, Well, seeing my point there was it unless you have something you're compared to. Like if you have a photo of your eyes that have the start to issue on them, They're on my Facebook, and somehow your vision gets prepared and then they do it again and it has no damage, then you have something to compare it to.
Yeah, I mean the scenario of that my eyes do not physiologically change, but I can demonstrate that my vision is in fact perfect even though my eyes are still physically broken. That would be stepping into the realm of magic and the unexplained. But then again, how do you
know I'm not cheating. I can take you on a walk around my apartment and the local areas, and I could point to signs off in the distance and tell you exactly what they say, not because I'm reading them, because I know what they say, because I've passed them before.
Yeah.
So but okay, if I was in your apartment and then I moved something and you still knew where, well, is that not miraculous.
No, that's just logical. It's you know, I just because I can't see doesn't mean I can't reason. And if someone's if I know that something was there and someone's moved it, I have a housemate and he does that, love Cole. I'm not going to attribute my ability to track it down as a miracle. I'm just going to be like, well, I was either tenacious or I reasoned that here is a more sensible place to put it, or the person that I'm with is either absent mindedly
putting it somewhere and there for where would they put it? Absolutely, or it's trying to fuck with me where would they put it? So, No, it's not a miracle. It's just it's just lateral thinking. Anyway, I've said my piece.
But I mean the other thing I was going to say too, is that you know that kind of goes into the concept of fates because a lot of presents the way of thinking is well, I can't prove it, but it's better than the book to believe than not believe, and that goes into arkansaser.
Benji, is that a good way to evaluate true faith? Is faith good enough for you? Like is it good enough for you to just insert and answer just to have one even if you have no idea if it's true or not.
Well, faith's in the calonical sense, you know, having faiths in something is different from faiths in the Bible. But I would say, as far as fate's in the Bible, Bible's votion of faith, if I have basically evidence for stuff that's unseen, which again that makes really no sense anyway. But if I had that kind of fate and I attributed it to a God or Jesus or whatever, I think that depending on the circumstances, it could lead me to something that is true and not true. I would say that.
Now.
The reason why people try to claim that it is a reliable way to truth is because it still gets some of the truth sometimes, you know, fifty to fifty, it's a flip of a coin. If it didn't get them the truth at all, they couldn't claim that because it doesn't get them the truth at all, But because it gets them the truth sometimes and they say, well, yeah, it's still reliable half the time. But in y'all's case, your argument is is it reliable completely one hundred percent
of the time? And in that case no, But the way that Tristan's look at it, you know, even half and half fifty fifty is good enough for them because it still gets under the trars half the time, even though sometimes it can get them to something that ain't crue and other times it can get in to something that is crue. And when it gets into something that is true, they say God did it. If it gets some of something that ain't crue, they blame the devil.
Again, water is wet, counting heats, that kind of thing. And yes, that is a conversation we have with a lot of believers about like how can you demonstrate that your faith is any better than just chance? And it has actually been demonstrated that, you know, especially in things are intercessory prayer, it's not. Again, these are pretty in the colo.
Sense is connected too, SAPs like if you have faiths something you take a.
Chance on some well I would when someone uses faith as in I have faith that I'll wake up tomorrow morning, or rather the sun will rise that's trust.
That's it's confidence.
Yeah, like we were talking about with probability, I can demonstrate statistical significance. That'll tell me how how reliable something is, how likely that something is to be true, And that is demonstrable. It can be used to predict things that will happen in the future, not because of divine anything, but just because we have enough data that we can calculate and rely on. Is this eighty percent likely to happen? Is this ninety percent likely to happen? Is this ten
percent likely to happen. That's not faith, that's math.
Okay, well, let's see the faith that they say is they use it in place of trust, So that's or confidence.
But that's but that's not so using faith in place of trust is just to us miscommunicating because if we're having a completely different discussion, and if someone says it thinks that I'm meaning faith when I'm saying statistical reliability or if I'm saying trust, or if I'm saying confidence. That's why I tend to use the word confidence, because it gives you more of a spectrum of options that
you can give. If someone else is here is thinking that I mean faith, when I say confidence, then we need to revisit the conversation and I need to say, hey, no, this is what I mean by confidence, and then they need to say what they mean by faith, and then we will understand that we're not on the same page with how we are making our decisions.
Sometimes it is christens when they say face. Sometimes they just say it's in the calonical sense. Yes, sometimes when they say it's in the biblical sense.
I mean, but the problem is they're using one word to do all their heavy lifting, and then they don't and then they don't have to clearly define it because they just assume the other person knows what they're talking talking about, and it just becomes a very messy conversation. So I think, I think maybe we're kind of reaching the end of a productive discussion. I think call back next week. We'll have multiple hosts next week, and you can try this with a few different people and see
how it goes. But I think, maybe go listen back to this call, think about kind of any other ways that we can approach this next time, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.
And I just dropped him.
Okay, the closest thing I ever get to the biblical concept of faith is hope. But that's a that's a knowing, Like I'm you know, I know that this thing that I hope is going to happen is not likely. It's not like I think it's definitely going to happen because I believe in it so much. But that's about as close as I get to that Hebrews eleven nonsense.
Anyway.
Yeah, well, thank you everybody for joining us this week on Talk he then and I hope to see a bunch of you you this upcoming weekend at the back Cruise and at the live shows at the library. But just a reminder, the prompt for this week is what gap can God always fit into? Reply in the comments and tune in at the beginning of next week's show to hear those top three answers. And we want to thank Eli for helping out today. Thank you so much
for being here. And was there anything in particular you wanted to address about this show.
I think you guys did greet the only I wanted Steven to know that in the article, like in one of the first couple of paragraphs there, it does it that where it introduces the idea that it's you know, reflective material. It just kind of pops up out of nowhere. They're like, one possibility is this if it's real, So that's the sort of evidence that we're dealing with in that, But otherwise I think, I mean, I couldn't add anything to anything you guys said. You guys did awesome, as.
Always awesome, and it is time for some lover rings if we can send those out. Oh and we got a super chat from Miranda Renzberger. Great show today. You have managed to have productive conversations with one difficult caller and made a valiant effort with another.
Oh, I can't see the rest of it.
You guys are awesome. Thank you so much, Miranda. Miranda is one of the MVPs of this show, always showing up those super chats.
She is to the ACA as the Pope was to the Renaissance, like just the payment.
Yeah, absolutely amazing.
Thank you so much, Miranda, And as always, it's great to see the community coming together having these more difficult discussions. And if you don't believe this is your place, these are your people. We hope to see you.
This upcoming weekend.
I'm so excited to meet some of you in person and hang out for a bit and watch the shows together. We appreciate all of your time staying with us every week, and if you do believe, we don't hate you.
We're just not convinced.
We want the truth.
So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays at seven pm Central Call five one two nine nine one nine two four two or visit tiny dot cc forward slash call tw