AS213: Thoughts on the Dillahunty-Giunta Exchange

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 213, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Okay, as promised, I'm finally going to get to a bit of a breakdown of the Matt Dillahunty and Blake Giunta episodes. I think I can mainly focus it on comments, because I don't often get to talk about listener comments, and there's just a few general ones I'm going to use. But also, just a quick first little announcement. I have a tiny favor I'd like to ask of my listeners. Apologies for this, for imposing, but if you listen to the show, if you like the show at all, maybe if you're not a patron, you haven't been able to give back to the show, that's totally okay, understood. But if you can do this thing that's totally free and easy, go to atheisticallyspeaking.com and click on the survey button.

0:01:20 Thomas: There's a little survey. It'll help the show to get a little survey done about the show and everything. It'll really help me out. There's a certain number I need to get done. So if people just do it, I will never bug you about it again. Because once I hit the number I needs done, that's that. If no one does it, then I'm going to have to ask you again. And look, none of us want that. You would like to have the show just continue on, and so would I. So please, it's not going to take many of you if you could go there at some point today, anytime, atheisticallyspeaking.com, check out that little survey. It'll help out the show. Thank you so much for considering. And again, if you guys just do it, it's done. I won't have to bug anyone ever again about it.

0:02:06 Thomas: Okay, so on to what we're going to talk about. Wow, I've got so much. I initially was going to do a bit of a breakdown of the debate, but when I went back and listened to the two episodes, I don't know that that's going to be worth it per se. I'm not going to go point by point because you guys already heard it. I don't want to rehash a lot of things. So what I think I'm going to do is I'm gonna talk about a number of things that I thought of while listening to that. I mean, I'm I'm going to also critique the debaters a little bit, Matt and Blake, a little bit. I have some general notes, but I'm not going to go like every back and forth, oh, he was saying this, then he was, saying that, you know, it's just too tedious and it could explode into just infinity, really, because it'll just to compound upon itself.

0:02:52 Thomas: First, I want to look at a couple of responses just to discuss a general point. Here's one on Facebook, for example. Please spare me Blake Giunta in the future. I've listened to him numerous times on this and other podcasts. I'm tired of his claims to know what God wants, his nature, and his modus operandi. His basic strategy is to shift the burden of proof. In this episode, his basic argument is that the more hidden God remains, the better it is for man. Sheer lunacy, insert facepalm. I could read others to that effect. I got actually quite a few of those. Don't worry, I got plenty that enjoyed it like I did. Personally, I enjoyed the conversation. I enjoy any time I get to hear Matt Dillahunty go up against someone, so it was fun to host it on my show and to have a chance to at least get a few words in there, but mostly to just listen to the discussion.

0:03:47 Thomas: Here's another one I could read just to illustrate the point further. There's literally nothing more annoying than listening to the semantic word games that comprise this and most type of apologetics. Low key, it seems like a huge waste of the opportunity to have Matt on the show. I'm not sure if low key was some autocorrect, because that doesn't really make sense to me, but... The two to three appearances from Blake that come to mind have all been similar apologetics like this, and frankly it's just too irritating after the premises have all be laid down and everyone involved knows which type of bending of logic the apologist will be employing today. I just don't really share this point of view. First, on the idea of a waste of Matt coming on the show, this was actually a conversation that Matt and Blake had agreed to have.

0:04:33 Thomas: They wanted to have it, and then it was a question of where they were going to do it, because Matt was aware of my show from when I had Blake on originally. It just sort of ended up, it sort of fell in my lap and I thought it was a great opportunity for my show. So, it wasn't really a question of me getting to say, hey, Matt, come on the show. Let's talk about this. I don't know if, hypothetically, just to explore that, if I could have Matt on the Show for any reason, I don't know that it would get much better than actually debating someone because I just, I don't get that much out of speaking to someone I agree with for the most part. And then we just, I'm not really, I mean, I could try to challenge stuff, but half the time it would be devil's advocate, or I could trying to find a little parts of his stuff that I don't like or something, but then that feels kind of weird.

0:05:25 Thomas: I don't, I don't know. I think it's a better use of time to have Matt debating because that's what he likes to do. That's his, that's where he's made his, you know, his fame, I guess, in some ways. He's a pretty well-known guy. He has made it through debating believers. Honestly, if there's one discussion I could have with him, it may be on abortion, because I'm curious about how he thinks the... because the debate he did with the guest I had on the show a while ago. Christine was her name from Pro-Life Humanists. I thought that was a really interesting debate and I would have loved to ask him some things about that, but I remember after that he said he was done with it forever, so I wouldn't dare ask him. I think that would be, you know, poking on some uncomfortable territory, so wouldn't ask him to do that.

0:06:16 Thomas: But anyway, that answers that. So as to the other point of Blake and how he argues, I personally, I don't understand it. Now, I even put it to a commenter on Facebook, I said, okay, let's go with what you're saying, you know, just for sake of argument that, oh, you know Blake has all these qualities you don't like. Is there an apologist, a Christian apologist who's any better or worse? Because to my mind, Blake is one of the better ones to talk to because he's able, in his mind, he thinks he has fully rational arguments for what he's saying. And he's a very, very thoughtful, thorough person, a calm person to talk to. If I get someone on the show who just says, well, God talked to me, I believe, I mean, Jesus is real, man.

0:07:05 Thomas: I believe. Like, how far can that go? I mean I can say, well look, in all likelihood God didn't talk to you. It's, you know, it doesn't, but they can just say, I don't care. God talked. You know, like if it's that kind of believer, that's not going to do much. I've had a couple other believers on on the show. I've had Tyler, of course, I've had, um, uh, what's his name? Whose name's eluding me? I've got a few others on and, uh, oh, Elijah, Elijah T. And it's honestly, Blake is my favorite to have on. I, I, it's kind of weird. I'm curious if, I don't know how people, a few commenters, at least I don't want to paint the picture that this is the majority of people cause it's not. Um, but if, but you know, it's, it's significant. There's probably half a dozen commenters that said this.

0:07:50 Thomas: It's somewhat significant, I guess. I'm curious why. I don't know that there's a believer I can have on. Do you want me to just get someone really dumb that I could just trample all over? Because Matt gets to talk to, on his show, on Atheist Experience, maybe it's more fun when he gets to talking to someone who's terrible at arguing and he just tramples over them. Personally, I mean, there's some entertainment value in that, I think. But that's not really what I'm into.

So, I don't know. This is a very curious comment. I didn't really expect it, and I got a few of them. So that's your opinion. Of course, I respect it and everything, but I don know that there's a good alternative. And I also don't have Christians on all that often, so I'm pretty happy with the amount of debates and actual Christian apologetics we do on this show, in the royal we, I do on the show, I guess, because it's not too much. You know, it's every once in a while, and I think that's a good amount. So, that's what I don't get. Do you want there to never be a Christian on the show? Do you want there to be some different, like, Christian?

If you have suggestions, by the way, if anyone has any suggestions for, like, here's a great Christian who I think will come on your show, and it would be a good discussion or debate or whatever. I am fully open to that. But if it's just a complaint without any sort of alternative, I don't know what to say. Because personally, I think Blake's one of the better ones.

Next point, quickly, somewhat related, Blake does something that I want to make sure people understand at least what's happening, because there were a few criticisms of, oh, all Blake is doing, and Matt said this too, and to a certain extent it's a valid criticism.

0:09:37 Thomas: Some people say, well, Blake is just taking every possibility and saying, well God could do this, or God could do that, and all amounts to nothing. I want to at least point out that Blake himself has told me in the past that he's not happy with that answer. He's not happy with the answer of, well, God has his reasons. So, Blake is at least going slightly further. I think we need to give him some credit. He is going slightly further in saying it's not just, oh, God works in mysterious ways. You'll never hear Blake say, God works in mysterious ways. He's not going to use that as an argument, and that's to his credit. He said in the debate with Matt, he said, well, this divine hiddenness argument used to bother me because, I'm speaking as Blake right now, he says, because I don't like, I never liked that I just had to accept that there might be reasons.

0:10:31 Thomas: I wanted to know if there are actual plausible reasons. He says he accepted it, that God existed for other reasons, but didn't have good reasons for this. So, this little divine hiddenness, you know, response that Blake had was his way of saying, okay, I've gone from God works in mysterious ways to here are some reasons that God might have. And that's at least something. I still think, and ultimately many of you may think, well, it's worthless because you're just speculating about God and you don't know anything. I think. Sure, but at least we can argue with him. If Blake puts up a plausible reason, we can say, I don't find that plausible for this reason, and then that's a good response. So I think we ought to at least acknowledge that he's doing that work.

0:11:17 Thomas: And I actually will, because I think that's one thing that Matt never did for his own reasons, totally fine, but it's something that I may take a chance to do, which is actually poke holes in all of Blake's little responses that he had. We'll see if I have time to get to that, but that's something I would do, and then at least that provides the opportunity to argue. Whereas if you say God works in mysterious ways, the argument's over. You can't, okay, well, I don't buy that, and I do. It kind of ends the discussion. Here's a comment that I want to give credit to because there have been, let me just tell you guys, there have been comments I've read a few where I've thought, wow, I'm really glad I have this person as a listener because this person made a great point and that proves that they're intelligent. I have intelligent listeners out there, which I think is most of you.

0:12:04 Thomas: But anyway, this is, this was someone who really got it. And it just makes me so happy when I hear that because if I have listeners like that, that's where I want to be. I don't want to have a bunch of mindless drones listening. Not that I thought I did, but it's just encouraging to see. So here's the comment, I want to give credit to Matty D, is the username. It sort of reminded me of times I've seen an academic, Blake, on a show with a political pundit, Matt. They both were trying to do something totally different in the conversation than the other person, like they were each having a different conversation. Unlike a lot of commenters, I actually think Blake wasn't being dumb or circular at all. Hmm, see, I kind of agree. He came to talk about a very particular argument in philosophy and his counterpart wasn't interested in it, and then they had no disagreement when it came to Matt's weaker version.

0:12:56 Thomas: I've spent a lot of time listening to Matt, and I think his interactions with the more fundamentalist theists have produced a very specific approach to the dialogue that just isn't really appropriate with Blake. Matt sticks to a very safe agnostic atheism, and is never willing to take on any burden of proof, and his go-to argument is basically to accuse his opponent of assuming their conclusion. I think a better person for the job would have been a stronger, well, this part isn't important, but he has a suggestion, John R. Shook, Dr. John R. Shook. At least he's actually interested in the actual content of philosophy of religion. Surely we can do better than just hide behind not having the burden of proof all the time. Schellenberg actually has something to say. In contrast, Matt's weak version of the argument really doesn't.

0:13:41 Thomas: When you present your entire argument and the theist goes, I completely agree with all of it, it does zero work. In the last half of the episode, Matt and Thomas finally started dealing with some of the content of Blake's presentation, but then things get derailed in accusations of assuming the conclusion and circular reasoning, which were totally inappropriate given what Blake was responding to when he said the things he did as an answer to Schellenberg. I totally agree. I honestly think that Matt Dillahunty, not Matty D, that's a little confusing. Matty D is the commenter whose comment I'm reading. I think that Matt Dillahunty did get a little off track there because he, at a certain point in episode two of the two-parter, he kind of forgot that Blake was defending Schellenberg and he thought that Blake was using, what did he say there?

0:14:36 Thomas: He thought he was using circular reasoning because he was assuming such and such. But what Matt forgot was that, yeah, the argument assumed these things already. So it was okay to answer with those assumptions because that was already in the premises of the argument. And it did get a little off track, just like Matty D said, which is why I picked this out as a great comment. It did get off track because, let me let you in on a secret, and Matt Dillahunty did kind of acknowledge this, but it was in a little cryptic way that probably none of you, I'm guessing, would have picked up on. He actually thought we were talking about a different topic. So there was some sort of thing, and I don't know how it happened because I was perfectly clear in my communication and Blake was on the same page as me.

0:15:22 Thomas: We were going to have a discussion on divine hiddenness. Matt was ready for another topic. When that happened, we said, well, yeah, I'm sorry, Matt. This was the one we both thought we were going to be talking about. Matt did kind of call an audible, for him anyway, and he did have to be ready to talk about divine hiddenness. As a result, they weren't really on the same page with what they were arguing because, as you know, Blake talked about Schellenberg's argument about divine hiddenness and Matt didn't really accept it. So, it was a little tough. Ultimately, I think it was okay and And we did get some good argument out of it. We got some good interaction. I'm always, again, I'm a fan of hearing Matt. It was such a difficult scheduling dilemma because, you know, Matt's incredibly busy.

0:16:11 Thomas: We had to reschedule several times because he's just got an insane schedule. So I did not want to risk that the episode would just never happen. So, I thought it was okay that, you know, we just try to go with Blake describing Schellenberg's argument, and then maybe Matt would be able to tackle that. But Matt didn't really want to go without it all. He could have been a little more charitable to Blake, I think. This is a little bit of a criticism of Matt. I'll be just honest about it. I think he was a little too combative for what was going on, I think. I think a lot of the end of the first episode, in listening back to it, it was a bit tedious because Matt seemed to be just focusing on little words, like little word choices that Blake was making that, in my opinion, and maybe this is just a difference in style, maybe some of you, I mean, there's a reason Matt is as popular as he is.

0:17:09 Thomas: I love listening to Matt. Certainly, I'd in no way mean to insult him or anything like that. But in this particular interaction, I thought that he could have maybe just been a little more charitable to what Blake was saying. And sometimes I think he was outright wrong in his criticism. I considered pulling audio in to show you guys, but then it was like, I don't want to be... I'm already talking about episodes that already happened. I didn't want to actually be playing episodes that are already happening and doubling that content. But let it suffice to say, just off the top of my head, in the beginning of episode one, Matt spent a good amount of time arguing with Blake about, well, how could God reveal himself?

0:17:54 Thomas: And then how would you know, you know? How would you not just think you're crazy or how would you be able to differentiate? And later on in the same episode, he said, "Now I assume your all-powerful God would be able to reveal himself in a way that I wouldn't know that I wasn't." He literally contradicted himself. So I think he just went, and I think the reason for that was he was just being a little too picky in what he was trying to argue with. And now maybe some people say I go too far the other way. Like I just, I'm a little too charitable and I just kind of listen to what the person's saying and I let people get away with too much. I know people said that a lot of my debate with Tyler Vela on abortion. They said, I just let him talk too much and I led him. So maybe there's a happy medium there.

0:18:40 Thomas: It certainly could be. But that's the criticism I had of Matt in this. That being said, now it's time to pile on some criticism on Blake's arguments. Personally, I think Blake did a great job conducting himself. I mean, in terms of how he handled it, how he... I mean he did cut in, he did insist on finishing at times, but I thought it was appropriate. I think he's... that's another reason why I love having him on. I just think he is good at listening when he needs to and then talking when he needs to. I think you did great on that respect. Respect. In terms of his arguments, though, I think they're pretty lacking. I want to first cover... Justin Schieber did a Real Atheology video, you'll remember him, I've had him on before, and of course he's from the podcast that, well, no longer exists, but the Reasonable Doubts, right?

0:19:30 Thomas: Yeah, Reasonable Doubt. Now that it's no longer there, I can't remember. So you know him. He has a YouTube channel, Real Atheology. I did the intro music. I don't know if he puts that in the credits anymore, so just thought I'd say that. He's someone who is far more into the actual philosophy of religion. He's into the technical stuff, so he and Blake are kind of a match made in heaven, as it were, because he is already somewhat of an expert on divine hiddenness. He said, just quickly, that Blake's main problem. Problem. And it's a little technical, so it may be, just check out his Real Atheology video if you want, but I'll just summarize briefly because it was something that was a little bit on my mind, but, I think Justin put it a lot better than I could have and he referenced that Schellenberg himself actually dealt with this in his original writing.

0:20:24 Thomas: He, so, Blake's argument relies on there already being a non-resistant unbeliever or a, it's like inculpable, I think, is one word he uses, non-believer. And they're already, like, every scenario that Blake assumes, like oh, maybe he will enter into an invalid relationship, it all involves people who are already experienced in life, and they've already apparently been non-resistant unbelievers for some time. And Schellenberg's argument says that there will be no non-resistant unbelievers. So for your counter-argument to say, well, if we had a non-resistant unbeliever, and then, you know, God revealed himself, then such and such, that already assumes that the argument is wrong, and therefore it doesn't work.

0:21:16 Thomas: So it begs the question. So it's a little bit technical, and I still, when I think about it, I'm not entirely sure it makes sense, but I think it probably does. So, check out the video for that if you want a little more clarity on that, or check out Schellenberg's original writing.

If I were to talk about the major, well, not the, there's all kinds of things, I'll branch out on all kinds of things but if I were start with a major point of, I would almost say confusion, not really disagreement per se, probably disagreement, with Blake, it's that he seems to think there's a vast difference, in all his arguing, if you recall, there seemed to be a huge difference in how someone would act if If they were made aware of God's existence by God just jumping out and saying, hey, I'm here, hi, I've been here the whole time, he seems to think there's a huge difference between that and the other ways that people come to know God. And I think that's a false assumption. I think when you examine it further, the more I've thought about it, the more I realize that doesn't make sense. And I think it's something that I would, I'll just say, I don't really care. You know, I'm not going to critique how the discussion went with Matt and Blake. They went on their own.

They had their own different ways they were coming from. I get it. If I were to have this debate with Blake, and I'm almost interested in trying to have this very same divine hiddenness discussion with Blake. But I'm sure you guys would like that because you've already heard it. Or you already heard Matt do it. I don'T know that that'll happen. But if I were going to, I would challenge this.

0:23:01 Thomas: I would say, Blake, you are assuming that there's some huge difference. Like, for example, one of Blake's, you know, little counters was, oh, upon learning, I'll read it. Actually, if you go to beliefmap.org, it's actually a pretty kick-ass website. I'm going to give Blake credit for designing a really good website. It's got all the arguments and then it breaks them out and says like, oh what about this objection, and then it breaks it out further and gives references. He's very thorough in this stuff. So, the first one, I'll just read it. So this is, you guys know I'm directly quoting him, I'm not strawmanning or anything. Some resistant non-theists, upon coming to belief, would immediately reject loving relationship. After all, many testify they'd resist, and that was the Dan Barker thing where he said, oh, Dan Barker said he would never accept a relationship with that God.

0:23:54 Thomas: Historical examples exist. I don't know how you could say that, because you've never had a historical example of someone actually being revealed by God, you know, God actually revealing himself to them, that we could verify. And it even goes to his second objection, and this was one he brought up at the time. Some non-theists would form a perpetually improper relationship with God if in their current state they suddenly believed and entered into. Examples were they don't recognize God as good, the human lacks the right desire for God, they do it just for gifts, religious experiences, etc. Some, let's see, they would abandon the relationship later in life. Life. All these things. Now, what's unfortunate is I brought a little bit up with this, with Blake, rather, on this at the time.

0:24:40 Thomas: And Blake brushed it off as, the one in particular I criticized, I don't remember which one, but he said, oh, okay, so maybe that one doesn't apply, but all these other ones apply. And it is a littlebit slippery because when we look at all of them, we, they don't, one doesn't, he thinks one is going to be like a catch-all. He thinks like, oh, okay, so you got around this one, while number two or number three will totally catch it. But they don't, because they all rely on this false assumption. This assumption that somehow a Christian, just think of most Christians. This is what made me think of it. Think of most christians. Do you think they have all these qualities? Like, how do they come to belief? The vast majority of Christians believe in Christianity because their parents did.

0:25:25 Thomas: I'm sure there's converts, whatever, but most of them, and most of them I know, they were raised with it. And their parents just told them, yeah, God exists. You know, there's no complex process of coming to know God in the appropriate way and therefore the relationship is perfectly, you know, reasonable because, or proper rather, I think is the word Blake used, because of this process. No, their parents told him he existed. They went to church. Everyone there said God exists. You know?

How is that any better, better? How do, so, so in Blake's mind, and for this argument to work, that's somehow a lot better than if God actually came and told you, hey, I exist, because, because for Blake, he thinks, oh, if people, if God just says, hey, hey buddy, hey Thomas, I am here, I totally exist, and he did in some way that I wouldn't think I was crazy, by the way, Blake's whole thing is, oh well, I would just reject it. Well, yeah, but the same could be said for any other way that I would, you know, come to realize God existed. You know, if that's true, it doesn't matter how I come to realize god exists. The reason I don't have a relationship with god now is because I don't think he exists. That's what it is.

This was a big problem with all of Matt, with Blake's premises, because there was something that was interesting during that debate, was Blake, Matt, this was one of Matt's better points, and he had a lot of good ones. I don't want to take anything away from Matt. He had a good points over the course of this.

One of them was when he said everything, all this divine hiddenness stuff pretty much acknowledges that atheists are all correct, because this divine hiddenness thing would not even count if the evidence for God was as overwhelming as Christians would have us believe.

0:27:18 Thomas: Christians like Tyler Vela, actually, and Elijah T., the other ones I've had on, I mean, honestly, maybe they're overcompensating, but they'll come on and tell me, no, this is all obvious. They think believing God is so obvious that they're going to build their life around it. They think the evidence is just so overwhelming that we're all almost in denial of it on purpose. Look, they're not presuppositionalists, they say, but in their mind, I wonder if they may be. Not to do any mind reading, but if I were someone who thought that this argument is totally sound, it's A, B, therefore C, it's totally laid out, it is totally obvious, and then I see an atheist who's like, no, that's wrong.

0:28:05 Thomas: I don't accept that. What else would I think? Anyway, this might be a little tangent, but let's just focus on the key difference. Blake is assuming there's a key difference between God revealing himself and us coming to know him through other means. And I just don't see it. I don't think there is. Let's pretend that the, let's say the Kalam Cosmological Argument or some other crap, Let's say the Bible, whatever it is, let's pretend that it's 100% foolproof arguing and that any sane person, if they looked at the arguments, it's like gravity. It's like science. Anything, most sane people who look at it, see the arguments would say, see the evidence, say, ah, God exists.

0:28:52 Thomas: How is that, in Blake's mind, that's somehow different, but it really wouldn't be. I think there's sort of a disconnect going on because I think for these Christians, they don't understand that atheists actually are seeing holes in their arguments. Like, we just don't think God exists. If God did exist, these arguments wouldn't have the holes in them. So it sort of muddies the entire thing. The one I particularly challenged Blake on was that he kept saying one of the ways we'd have an improper relationship would be if we just desired God because we wanted to escape punishment. And I said at the time, and I don't think I got a satisfactory response from him, I said, wait, isn't this what Christians already do?

0:29:40 Thomas: I mean, this is completely, it just has nothing to do with how God is revealed to you. Whether I come to my belief in God because I believe in the Bible, which says, hey, if you do something wrong, God is going to cast you into eternal flame. Okay, well, that's somewhat...

0:30:01 Thomas: Coercive, which was something that Blake said was an unacceptable outcome. He said God can't reveal himself because then we might enter into a coercive relationship where we only did the right thing because we knew God was watching or whatever. That's always true. That's true no matter how God reveals himself. No matter how we come to this quote-unquote knowledge of God's existence, it's by its very nature going to be coercive. It can't not be. It really can't. I mean, if you are absolutely sure this God exists and you're sure of the consequences for doing things wrong, whatever they... And this is another problem with Blake's argument, by the way. Schellenberg's argument talks about all it requires is an all-good God, all-perfect God, whatever.

0:30:49 Thomas: Blake's responses oftentimes require a lot of theistic assumptions and a lot of, like, well, wait, are we talking about the biblical God? Are we talking about a God who punishes? You know, like that's all unclear. And a lot of his responses, Blake claimed that, like well, all his responses cover the the whole range, like cover the gamut or whatever. But that's just not true. They all assume these Pretty much a biblical God in their consequences. But anyway, just to get back to it, every relationship we have with God is coercive. It doesn't matter how it happens. If I believe... Okay, let's put it this way. Oh, easy analogy. Analogy time, guys. If I don't... Let's pretend I am an adult and for some reason I don't know about police officers and the law and all that.

0:31:41 Thomas: Like, I don't know that yet. Yet. Blake is saying essentially, well, if a police officer just revealed himself to you or a judge or whatever, some aspect of the legal system, then that's going to coerce you to do the right thing. Because like you see, oh, oh this person's going hurt me or punish me or the officer's going arrest me, etc. That's going to just coerce you to the right thing and it won't be a proper relationship or whatever. But the same thing is true if I just just read about, you know, the police. I didn't, when I was a kid and I was learning about the police and justice and society, general things like that, you learn, hey, you can't do this. If you kill somebody, if you steal from someone, there's going to be consequences.

0:32:28 Thomas: There's going to be a, you will get arrested, you'll, whatever. I did not need to actually meet a police officer. I didn't need to actually commit a crime and have an officer actually arrest me for that to be coercive. It's coercive no matter what. It's always... I have always... Look, I have a confession. I've always been coerced not to steal stuff and... Well, that's another story because I, you know, I personally don't want to commit crimes or whatever. But let's say it was minor stuff. Let's say maybe you were tempted to just shoplift like a soda or something. Something very minor and you thought you could get away with... Yeah, it's always coercive to know that police exist, to know that the justice system exists.

0:33:14 Thomas: It doesn't matter if God reveals it or rather if they revealed themselves, like they actually said, hi, Thomas, we're the justice system, or if I came to know about it through some argument, through some other evidence, which is really what we need to be looking at, because that is the crucial difference in what Blake is saying. He's saying there's a difference between God just revealing revealing himself to you and saying, hi, Thomas, how are you doing? I'm God. Here, let me get you started here.

Here's life. Here's earth. You know, a nice like orientation package that he could do and just coming to belief in God in another way. And I just don't see that difference. It's, I think the whole thing is flimsy. Just to drive it home, here's another one of his listed possibilities, um, greater goods would ultimately obtain with God's existence being unclear or whatever, more seeking of God, well, here is the thing, I will seek God for exactly as long as it seems as though he exists, you know, like, if I came across some evidence, if I came across an argument that was just perfect, there was no problem with it, it was easy to grasp, it It was like an argument for, I don't know, anything we deal with, any science, any whatever, like history.

Like, I do not have to see or hear that much evidence about the moon landing, about who was president in 1945. You know, like I do, it is pretty easy. If it was something that was that level of convincing, I would stop seeking this knowledge of God.

0:34:45 Thomas: I would say, oh, that is the truth. I found the truth, I am done. There's no difference between that and if I actually met the president in 1945 and he came, what And said, my name is, uh, you know, whoever is the president there, is it Truman or something? Uh, and he said, uh yeah, hi, nice to meet you, or if I was there at the moon landing, like there's no, the seeking only happens because we live in a world where God doesn't exist, so you have to seek until somehow you're convinced by some, you, know, frankly by our view, by atheist view, atheistically speaking, as it were, you're convinced by, you know, it's either incorrect, like your mind accepts some false premise, or you commit some fallacy of logic, or you just stop questioning and you just decide, like I just decide well, the moon landing didn't happen, and I don't even look into more evidence.

0:35:43 Thomas: I just say, you know what? I just want that to exist. I want it to be true that the moon landing didn't happen. I'm going to stop even looking at it. I don't need to hear your arguments or your evidence about why it happened because I don't think it happened. I do not want to believe it happened, because that is the world I want to live in. That is when you stop seeking. You stop seeking when you have found God, and that will happen for atheists. I guarantee that would happen for all of us listening to this.

0:36:14 Thomas: Equally, if God God revealed himself, or if there was compelling evidence for God's existence, which Christians constantly say there is. But as Matt said, one of his better points was this is all a tacit, you know, admittance or whatever, that we're right, that atheists are right. There is no good evidence. All the evidence is crap. And so if all the evidence was good, we just would not have this problem. Wow, I cannot believe how the time has flown. So, well, let me make another point related to this... I don't know. There's a critical error in starting, I think, in starting within the circumstances we are, and then saying, well, let's see, if there's a perfect, all-loving God, then, like, this world we already live in, where, you know, children are dying in Africa all the time, or whatever, name your horror of the world, you You know, people are being killed by ISIS, whatever it is.

0:37:13 Thomas: Well, let's see. If we live in this world already and there's a perfect God, then he has some reason. So there's some greater good or there's something else. But it just doesn't work. I was trying to think of an analogy and it might be like, let'S say there were some just abandoned children somewhere. Maybe they're orphans or something. If they just suppose, like they presuppose, well, we have perfectly loving parents, but But given that they're not, you know, like we're orphans, like there are no parents, then it must mean that they think we're going to be better off if they're not here. And they start branching off with all these reasons. Well, maybe they think, we'll learn a better lesson. Maybe they're watching us right now, but they don't talk to us because, you know, if they did talk to me, I wouldn't be able to talk to them.

0:37:59 Thomas: If they didn't talk, then such and such would happen. Like you can't, it, unfortunately, once we're already in that world, it just doesn't work. That doesn't give you information. Those orphans, my hypothetical orphans who are reasoning about why their perfectly loving parents aren't there, they're accomplishing nothing. Nothing is being accomplished by that. This is the critical problem. It really is. And it comes down to everything. So, put yourself in the situation of those orphans. I mean, what would you need to do? You would need to start with your circumstances. Start with the fact that, hey, I haven't, I don't, I've never known my parents. They've never been around. They never introduced themselves. They've done, I've not gotten anything from them. They're never given me food.

0:38:45 Thomas: They have never given me shelter. Start that. And then say, what's the most likely cause of this? Well, maybe they died in a car accident. Maybe they, it could be all kinds of things, but they're not here. The most likely cause is that even if you assume like they would have been loving or whatever, the most likely cause of they were unable to be here, you know, or, or maybe they didn't want me even. I mean, you can't start the other way around though. It doesn't tell you anything, which is why the more I've gotten into, the more I thought about everything, the more I have a hard time jumping back into the shoes of religious people, I guess, which is, how do you make that argument? Because they're already starting with that. They're looking at the world and saying, well, because I know a perfect God exists, and I know, and furthermore, I know a genius, brilliant, all smart, you know, perfect, intelligent God exists.

0:39:40 Thomas: Therefore, anything that's happening in the world, God has a reason for it. Any possible thing. And And you can't get out of that. Think of my poor hypothetical orphans. If they say, no, you know what? I just know they're perfect. My parents are out there. They're perfect, they know everything. They know everything that's going on. Because you know why? They're older than me. They've been watching. They have a bird's eye view that I don't have. You know, they knew a bunch of, whatever. They, so, yes, they're not here now. There's some good reason for that. There must be some greater good. You can't get out of that. You have to look the other way. And that's why when I look at the world and all these hypotheticals just don't work. When Blake says, well, what if God revealed himself?

0:40:27 Thomas: I already can't imagine that because we don't live in a world with God. We just don't. It would be a different world. We wouldn't have pain. We would have a people dying of starvation. We wouldn't have all the, it just wouldn't, be it just wouldn't happen. I I am convinced that that this world would not be that way with God, and you can't really counter that by saying well, maybe God wants such and such, or maybe God, because that's all after the fact. That's after the the children are already orphans and they're saying, well, maybe, you know, our parents are watching us, but they don't, you know, that doesn't help. It really doesn't get you anywhere. Unless it was super compelling. That's the thing. Like, it could hypothetically be possible.

0:41:14 Thomas: Like okay, maybe the orphans find a note that says, hey kids, we're alive right now watching you and we love you. There's a good reason. You know, maybe then, okay, things change. Then the facts on the ground change. But we don't find ourselves in that world. And it's weird because there's not really a way you can argue yourself out of that. It's something you just come to realize, I think. And I'm curious what you guys think, if you're the same way. I have come to realise through looking at the world and considering what a world should look like with an all-loving God, that we don't live in a universe that has an all loving God. I've just, I've come to realise that. But I can't really say like, oh, I'm absolutely right and I have a way to convince, you know, people who, theists, who believe in a perfect God, because they can always create those post-hoc rationalizations.

0:42:11 Thomas: And for some reason, that's compelling to them. For some other reason, they already know a God exists. And it's likely because they were raised with a God or they, whatever, whatever, they had some experience or whatever. So those post hoc rationalizations are more convincing to them, but they are not convincing to me at all. And I think a lot of that is what is going on with Blake. Okay, well, it's been plenty of time. I can't believe it's gone. I had more to say. Let me just give a hint of what I wanted. This is something that I could almost say might be a good discussion to have with Blake." Hey, why don't you guys let me know? Write in atheisticallyspeaking at gmail.com or facebook.com/atheistically speaking.

0:42:57 Thomas: You you can message me. Twitter, by the way, at SpeakAtheism. You can also tweet me. And if you want me to follow you back so you can messaged me, I'll do that. Just send me a message or send me a tweet, rather. So those are all the way you can contact me. In Patreon, bytheway. My patrons, of course, can always get a hold of me. Patreon.com/atheist. Let me know if you would want any other kind of talk with Blake. Maybe between me and Blake. Maybe it's some sort of debate or discussion. Because one possibility I thought of is, Blake said in the episodes, he said, free will is a great good. I just don't think that's true. And that's going to be interesting because maybe that's something you guys have thought of. Maybe you haven't.

0:43:42 Thomas: Maybe some people out there would disagree with me. I don't feel free will in and of itself is a good. I actually just don't. I think that it's some rationalization that's created to make it okay that God abandoned us and all that. So it doesn't help us out. But I actually don't think that's true. That could be an interesting debate, discussion. Oh, worship, I would love to discuss with Blake, like, what is worship? Why would we do that? What kind of being would demand worship? Why would you listen to all those questions? That would be something. So feel free to cast your vote, write in, let me know. Would you be interested in discussions like that? Because I think Blake would probably be open to it. I could probably get him back on. But let me know. And if not, if you have any, again, if you have other guest suggestions for Christians that you think would be better to debate with, I'm happy.

0:44:34 Thomas: I'll debate with anybody. I have a far easier time having people on I disagree with than people on I agree with. So, especially Christians, because just, it's always interesting to me to talk to a believer and try to debate with them. It's, I always find it fascinating. Okay, so feel free to cast your vote, and don't forget, guys, because I would love to never have to tell you again. Don't forget to go to atheisticallyspeaking.com. Click on the, it is the upper right. There's a link for a survey. Please do it. If you guys just do it right away, you will never, I promise I will never mention again, ever. I won't need to, because I just need to get to a certain amount. So thank you so much. By the way, a lot of my patrons already have, and I appreciate that so, so much, I can't tell you how much that means to me that you guys went, really, you guys just went and just did that.

0:45:22 Thomas: I was so impressed with the amount of feedback I got on that. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I do still have a number I need to hit, just to say it a third time, once I hit that number, you will never hear about it again. So atheisticallyspeaking.com. Alright, thanks for listening so much! Coming up on Thursday, we've got Eli and half of Cogdiss. I won't tell you which half. We wanted it to be all of them, of course.

I know that's what we were hoping, but somebody over at Cogdiss had a bit of a schedule mishap and they weren't able to make it and we needed to record because, again, sometimes schedules don't allow you to reschedule things. But it was still interesting. It's still Eli and Cogdiss. It's something a lot of you wanted to happen. I wanted it, of course. It's, it's always fun talking to those guys. And there was a lot of disagreement to hash out. So that's coming up and I have, I'm getting to the point where I have too many things I want to talk about on the show. I'm not sure what to do. I already put out two a week. I can't, I'm not going to do more than, there's already people who can't keep up with the two a week, not to mention my other shows. So I don't know.

I mean, I, I've got so many topics. I've portable atheists I'm behind on while you're casting your vote on Blake, feel free to tell me if you like Portable Atheist segments. I'd love to get back to it. Just too much stuff, man. I got too much stuff. I love interesting topics. I love exploring them with you guys and hearing what you think about them. So, man, I've just got a wealth of things and I'm getting to the point where it's too many.

0:46:55 Thomas: So we'll see coming up what we'll go with. I'll try to, maybe I should do Portable Atheists because I am behind on it. So maybe that will be the next thing I do, but I also have other interviews always being scheduled, um, some good ones too. So, all right, enough from me. Thank you for listening. Thank you to any patrons at patreon.com/atheist bonus content out all the time. Plus early access to episodes. If you'd like to make a small pledge to the show, thank you so much for doing so. And I will see you next episode.