 on this computer. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPFM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, November 27th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes, or Doubter 5, and as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Hey, it's me the Wombat. Our guests today are the Dread Pirate Higgs from Western Canada. Welcome. How are you there? And the John Richards from England. Welcome. How the devil are you? Doing quite well. Thank you. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books and superstition. And if you think that you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not. You're in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt. We have a group of over a thousand of us. The Atheist Society of Knoxville or ASK. We'll tell you more about them after mid-show break though. So stick around and join us on our journey today. Wombat, what is our topic today? Can you choose to believe? Which I am so shocked is not a classic song from the 90s or 80s. You think that the topic, the title is right there for the picking. Anyway, we're going to talk about belief, the nature of belief and whether or not you can choose your beliefs. I'm sure we have all various points on the subject matter. But can we believe each other from our own little conversation? Anyway, before we get into that, I consider that our main course. Let's open up with a plate of pasta led by our own Dreadpower Higgs for a weekly vacation. Can I request that the pasta comes with plenty of sauce. I don't like it too dry. That's one ear then. Hail marinara full of spice. The flying spaghetti monster is filled with the tasty art thou amongst sauces and blessed is the fruit of thy jar tomatoes, although fools believe them to be vegetables. Holy marinara, chief amongst toppings, save us a plate for us now and at about six o'clock when dinner is served. If you would be so kind. Guys going to try to stay on time today and I'm going to go straight into the topic. Can belief be a choice? The reason we're talking about it is last week we had a really interesting discussion on the nature of belief, but we didn't have time to delve into it with a previous topic that we are already going into. So I said let's save it for this week and we'll talk and dedicate a whole show to the idea of can we choose to believe things? Like, are we responsible for what our beliefs are? Are we culpable for it? And can we be held accountable for our beliefs based on choice, whether or not we chose them or not? Long story short, can we choose our beliefs? Now, I know this is going to be a sort of conversation where it's important that we have a meaningful vocabulary that we're sharing with all of us. So I say let's start with a roundtable discussion by what we mean by belief. I'll start real quick. For me, belief is essentially whatever I'm convinced to be the case. I use the word belief as a shortcut to say instead of saying, I am convinced that it is the case that blah, blah, blah, blah. And so if I'm not convinced, I don't believe it. If I'm convinced, I do believe it. And there's some work that I can actually do to put in work to understand what I'm convinced and what I'm not convinced of. But I don't want to play my hand too early, but I'll throw out how do you define belief, Dread Pirate Higgs, talk to me. Well, I think belief is supported by facts. So I don't think that when it comes to a belief artificially, they don't just pick and choose that beliefs are informed by facts. So especially when you think about people in their religious upbrings, those beliefs are supported by the facts that their culture or their parents or whatever are providing the groundwork for what their belief system is. Dread, can I ask a question? If beliefs are supported by facts, is it possible to have an unfactual belief? Yes, of course. Because you can have a conclusion. What's that? Maybe instead of based on facts, more like observations or apparent reality, like. Well, based on premises, right? Okay, premises. Yes. Clusions are drawn on the basis of premises, which are held to be valid, which would make the conclusion true. So, you know, if a person is told over and over again that God is true or that these things point to the fact that God is true, then the conclusion under whatever that argument structure, then the conclusion seems to follow from those premises. Okay, I just wanted to make the distinction that you're not saying that all beliefs are factual because they're based on facts. You're right. You're right. That was a bad use of that term. No sweat. No sweat. Okay, so belief could be based on premises as they lead you to a conclusion. Larry, what do you think? Oh, certainly. I'd like to get back to what Dread was saying though. I don't think so much that you start off believing in God is that you start off believing that your soul will go on. There is an afterlife and then for you to have a soul and an afterlife, there needs to be rules around it, you know, where will your soul go, you know, and why and what governs all of this. And then that will lead you to believe in a God because God would be the person who created your soul in your afterlife and all this stuff. So really, premises are based on belief in the afterlife. And then I believe that the soul, I mean, a God would kind of follow from that. But it's all, to me, I think it's all belief without facts. But again, you can say that the evidence is a fact. The Bible is a fact because it exists and has stories in it. You can certainly make that claim. You have people that you love and trust telling you that everything in the Bible is true, that you should take it on face value is true. And they tell you that from the earliest childhood and not give you any choice to disbelieve at that point. I mean, they tell you about the The Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus and God, but they disabuse you of the first two and never do. Disabuse you of the second of the third one. Right. Larry, I love the soapbox, but how are you defining belief? What does it mean to you when you say it? Oh, I think I'm with dread is it belief is or you the belief is what you're convinced to be true. And believing good things, I mean, correct things, factual things, or you can believe in things that aren't it's whatever you are convinced to be true. So it sounds so so so far it sounds like we're all on even ground so far. John Richards, would you agree or do you have a different idea? Let's go. Let's throw a wrench into the matrix. Let's go. Okay, okay. Well, you know how the word gay has changed its meaning in the last 50 years. I am not. Oh, I'm the only person on this call who's not over 50. So let's believe it used to mean sort of jumping with happiness is sprightly and changing over the last 10 years. Okay. Okay, as you see, I think the word belief has has been changing is not so obviously known as the difference as it is in the case of gay. But you see, 150 years ago, we actually knew very little. We didn't really know even how to find out very well in, except in a few sort of traditional areas. We, we didn't really know what evidence was. We took, we took all sorts of hints that might be supporting an idea concept, like stories about things like even poetry about things that we use those to reinforce our beliefs. Because that's all we had we didn't have much in the way of knowledge. So we had to rely on belief. Now I think things have changed. Okay, I think that now we have quite a lot of stuff that we can bank as actual knowledge. And so I think those things do not need believing they are true, whether we believe them or not. And you gave the outset tie you gave the description, the definition that you have to be convinced by evidence in order to believe things. Well, I take that a stage further. I'd say that if you are convinced by evidence about something is gone beyond the need for you to believe it. I see, I see, I see. So like belief is sort of just a transitionary step towards demonstrable knowledge in a sense. Well, okay. Yes, it is a stepping stone towards knowledge in the more modern context. And when I say I believe I can drive a car it's like I don't have to believe that I know I can drive a car. And you're saying I no longer need the word belief anymore and I can actually reduce that. That's exactly what I'm saying. I want to explore a little further because in order to be convinced by the evidence, you have to consider it. And I'm saying these things, these concrete things do not need your consideration. I would love to hear dread, your thoughts on this and then I'll weigh in after it. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I was going to say that I think belief, maybe in john's definition here is taking two forms. One is the form of faith, the one is the form of belief, and belief is carrying the weight of the definition of faith in, in part in his definition here. So I think that beliefs, so faith, of course, can be belief but not justify true beliefs, right? Like it's not true. Hang on. Just like justify true beliefs are those that are based on facts, which are supported by the evidence. And that faith, of course, is like in Hebrews 111. Faith is the hope of things. Or is the, what is it? Substance of things hope for the evidence of things not not seen right. So, some people terrible. Yeah, just the worst definition possible to explicitly put in your holy book. It sounds so fancy, but when you're like, wait a second, this is not some moron. It's the worst. No, it's the most explicitly don't ask questions just believe it without seeing it like that's your fundamental pillar of proof. Yeah, but it's like the first three words are faith is evidence. Right. That's not evidence. It's terrible evidence. It is to evidence. It's just terrible, terrible evidence when you have a standard you want. It's the worst thing. Sorry, Jed. Sorry, Jed. So, no, no, I'm just trying to point out that beliefs are supported either by faith, or by evidence. And faith is fake evidence, right? Where it's not real evidence. So, John, I'm sure you have a rebuttal going ahead. And then let me let me try to find the even ground and then we can move forward. But it's not quite a rebuttal. I want to agree with dread that there are two sorts of belief. There's, you can, you can use belief to mean that you accept something as true. And those things that you accept is true like the existence of gravity, the force of gravity, you don't have to consider what might happen if you jump out of a roof window, you know, because. And so I would say that the other usage of the word belief is where you have your choosing your plumping to believe something like I believe this horse will win the race at 330 this afternoon. Sure, sure. And that's a different use of the word belief that's where you're determined by your own force of will. I'm going to accept that as a true thing. It's not just, it's not just something which you don't need to worry about. So in other words, that sort of belief is going to be doubtful. Yeah, or should be or at least be. I would say there are multiple uses of the word belief in English, which we know isn't the most clear language in fact it deals a lot with compromise when I speak English, you're hearing sounds and you're making an interpretation of the sounds that I'm making. And hopefully that interpretation is the intent that I had when I made those sounds but oftentimes they're not a complete crossover 100%. And so we have to make compromises compromises with our understanding. And we run into this weird scenario where we give one word, multiple meetings. And, and belief is one of the most heavily loaded words out there, because in the religious sector the scientific sector layman talk adults talking to kids kids talking to adults belief can mean so many different things and that's why it's not just clarify the police. None of them are inherently wrong it's just make sure that we understand where we're coming from. So that way we can understand the intent of what we say. It's having a clear terms of reference essentially right right because we can spend all day. That's right. That's how many, so many arguments or discussions go right. Simply because people are talking past each other right and that's just just on the definitions of the of those key terms right absolutely absolutely. I think. Oh, Larry, did you have a hand. No, John, go ahead go ahead. It was me. Yeah. Well, my, my preference. Obviously I don't have any control over the meanings of words. But if I did, I would want to not use the belief, the word belief for things which do not need consideration. I would say these things in the accepted sense of belief where the, the, the proposition whatever it is is very very evidential and hasn't been hasn't been falsified in 150 years. I think those things are beyond the need for belief. I would prefer to use belief for things that are dubious. Yeah, so like you can say I have faith that blah blah blah instead of saying belief because it seems like the stronger of the two so people have adopted belief, but you'd rather have people say, I know it because I can demonstrate it to be the case. Yes, I don't want to use the word faith. Right. Rather than belief and obscuring the two. Yes, I, and I think it's the word belief is used as a subjective acceptance of the framing of whatever it is we're discussing. Well said. So, when you say I know is that is that is that necessarily justified, you know, yeah, because that that puts it outside of the realm of a subjective acceptance. Yes, it puts it into a form or a formal reality, and we can test that may not be accepted by other people if I say I know French, and I can't demonstrate that then I don't know French right but if I say I believe I learn French. That's the subjective commitment. What does that mean what does that mean what do you say I'm just saying things that make me feel great. Here's an example of a piece of knowledge that doesn't require believing. For example, if I know how to build a cabinet. Okay, that's not a justify. It's not a JT be a justified true belief, because it doesn't have any truth value. Nevertheless, I know it, you know it's something that I know how to do. So it's a piece of knowledge that doesn't require any belief. I just want to make the point here. I'm fine with both usages of the term, but when I also find value in the statement of belief being something that I'm convinced to be the case. And so if you said I know how to build a cabinet, and you show me it. Not only would I know that you know how to build a cabinet but I'd also be convinced of the case that you can build a cabinet I both believe it and have knowledge of it at the same time and they are two slightly nuanced different statements on the reality that I exist in one that I'm convinced that something is true and two that I can actually test it and demonstrate it to be the case. Slightly nuanced and yes they overlap a lot, but I feel like they are distinct enough in that definition to be useful. Dread what do you think. Well, it's interesting because I just one of the philosophy books I'm just reading about is differentiating between different forms of knowledge. The knowledge say of building a cabinet is a know how kind of knowledge, whereas other kinds of knowledge like that. There's gravity or or that the earth revolves around the sun or that we live in a galaxy amongst millions and billions of galaxies in a big universe. That's a different kind of knowledge. That's a knowledge that's tested by empirical study and experiment and observation and all the rest of it whereas know how I know how to breathe. I know how to walk. I know those can all be tested though. Yeah, I know but it but it's a different kind of knowledge claim. That's what I'm saying is that knowing knowing yourself how to do things is a different kind of knowledge than, you know, other. I mean, there's different kinds of knowledge I guess there's different kinds of belief. I'm fine with that. What. Yeah, I'm open. I'm open to the idea that there's different interpretations of both belief and knowledge, and we can categorize them as such, though I am interested in the main topic of today's show, which is, can we choose our beliefs, using the two definitions that we talked about today which we'll go into in the second half of the show, but the first section, just as a review first review is belief can be something that you're convinced to be the case. It can be based on premises those premises could be factual or non factual, and then the second idea of belief that we'll talk about and determine whether a culpable and accountable for it is belief being used as a statement of faith. We certainly have the evidence to demonstrate something be the case you can still have belief in it. Are you choosing that belief as well. And let's go into it in the second half of the show at least let's get the top of the hour clearance, the way. Stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour and w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. This is the second half of the digital free thought their radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's talk about the Atheist Society of Knoxville for just a moment. ASK was founded in 2002 we're in our 20th year. We have over 1000 members now. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville, Old City and Barley's taproom in pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top table, or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have Tuesday evening zoom meetups. If you'd like to join us there email us for details at ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org, or let's chat s e at gmail.com. You can also find us online at Facebook meetup.com or go to the website at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville you should still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. That's right. Where do you want to pick up there one by one. Yeah, we're going to be talking about if you are responsible for what you believe can you choose your beliefs. You're accountable for them. And let's go into it John Richards, what do you think. Yes. Oh, I hate sitting but we're talking about different. Not on the fence. No this is, it's time dependent. Nice. My position is, when you're born. You don't have any beliefs, because no concepts have been explained to you since you don't have language. So there's no communication between the newborn and anybody who pre existed. You pick up a faith, for example, sure. In your youth, as you are learning how to speak. Yes, because the language is wrapped up in whatever godliness, your parents and the other carers around you believe in. So you don't have a choice of initial belief. You're given it with language. Okay. However, subsequent to that, you can make a choice. When you get to an age of in when you get to an age of determination, you can, you can suggest to yourself that you want to give up the belief that you were foisted off with when you were a baby. And you can, or you can, you can choose to change it for another belief so you can become an atheist, or if you're born into a Christian religion you can become a Muslim and vice versa. Second belief you can choose. So you can choose, you can choose what to have faith in you can't choose what you can be convinced to be a, because the society that you're born in chooses that for you. When you're young kid, and it takes a lot of effort to get to take that out of you. Dread what do you think. Well, yeah. Okay, again, like I was born, I was born, I was raised Catholic, born into a Catholic home. And over the years, the criteria by which I evaluated the claims of that religion changed. And so I did not suddenly choose not to believe in God, but that I chose a different way of evaluating those claims. Yes. And that over time, my belief in God was no longer supported by the claims based on the criteria for which I evaluated those claims. And after a period of time then, and it was actually years that I finally became or came to the belief that there is no God, and no evidence to support the claims. I gradually moved into a belief, which becomes stronger and stronger, of course, the same with pacifarianism, the evidence points in a different way and I evaluate the claims. And how I evaluate the evidence has changed over time to support my new belief. I want to hover on the idea of your your criteria for evaluating claims improved over time. It definitely changed, but I would also say it became more rigorous, maybe a bit more evidential bit more reasonable compared to where when you're in your infantile state, and you're absorbing information as people are giving it to you had a you you had a strength and criteria as you got older, were you able to parse true things from false things in a very way. And just for the sake of argument, we call that epistemology. It is a word that's used to describe how we come to know things, and it is possible to have a bad epistemology where you just believe whatever people tell you, or disbelieve everything people tell you those are two bad examples of epistemology, or you could have epistemology where you say, I'm going to believe tried my best to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things as possible. And it requires me to have a criteria to assess claims as they're given to me and sort them appropriately. And if I make mistakes, I need to be able to self correct that and the things that I put in the false basket that were true. I need to put back into the true basket, I need to be able to have the humility to recognize where I'm wrong and correct it and improve my criteria as I go through life. That is a lifelong process no one has a perfect epistemology, but we can work towards better ones and it sounds like that's what you did right is that accurate. And I'm trying to think of another word doxastic, which is sort of the framework I guess that your, your evaluations are put within, and people can be closed doxastically which people of faith generally are where they're not open to new evidence that may contradict their beliefs, but if you're open, if you're open doxastically, well then you are you've allowed yourself to say, I cannot be 100% sure I'm 99% sure on anything, which means that I can change my mind. If the evidence bears it out. So now I have to ask you this because you brought us here is a person who is done. Oh, geez, help me out. Is someone in that closed minded state of being, are they responsible for the beliefs that they had, did they choose those beliefs, can they be accountable for them. And again they choose not to have those beliefs. Yes. And that's where I think is is really at the issue there is that you can't choose. Right. It takes time. It takes time. All right. I was just going to say that back when you were a believer you couldn't have just chosen not to believe. That's correct. And now that you're an unbeliever and nonbeliever you can't just choose to go any more than you could choose to believe in Santa Claus. Right. Truth fairy. Right. You can't do it anymore. Hopefully, hopefully you can. You might some people might be able to but that's the epistemologies that I'm talking about are on the weak side. John, what do you think. Well, you can. There are some things that you can reiterate enough times until you are convinced yourself that they must be true. And there are some things which are simply not on the menu. I mean I can't believe that I'm going to float upwards now because it's not available to me. That's simply not available. It's not well not on the menu is a good way of saying it. All right. I'm going to throw out an example. I got a cat and he's great because he can do tricks because I've always wanted a dog but I didn't have the time to take care of a dog so I got the best both worlds a cat that thinks he's a dog it's fantastic. It's a cat it's still a cat because I come home and he's like pet me and I pet him for like 10 seconds like I'm a cat leave me alone I'm like totally cool I got other stuff to do to so it's the best both worlds. I'm going to do this trick where I have a piece of food and I'll pretend to throw it and he'll be like he'll he'll like chase after it even though I've kept it in my hands I didn't throw that piece of food. And in my head and I know he's thinking he I believe this guy through a piece of food I'm going to go look for that food, even though I know I did it. In my head, that is just an example of a poor epistemology because I can do that over and over again 100 times and they'll still look for the food every single time. And he's basically without he, even though how to, I'm trying to tie it together with evidence. He's believing without evidence over a number of historical instances. He just wants to believe that there is food behind the couch or where's food wherever I do it to, even though he knows I it maybe, maybe I don't I can't I've never been a cat, but he basically is just constantly doing that same thing too. In the same sense I could have a kid see a magic trick a kid who see the first magic trick in his life and I can pull like an ace of spades out from behind his back of his ear. That kid might be convinced, might be convinced of the case that I can actually do that magic trick and be like that guy pulled that card out of my ear. But these are, these are examples in my head of like a poor epistemology being used something that you could be tricked of as an infantile state may people who might have other agendas in mind. I see raising your hand going ahead, you want to throw something in here. Yeah, well, isn't it American turkey day coming up. It's already been the case. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I thought black Friday was the day after the, it's the day after Thanksgiving. So this is a great. Okay, here's a here's a great example about. All right, all right, keep going to go to the. Okay, Turkey. Yeah, it's bad. Yes. And next day, he gets fed again. And he's taken into a special pen he gets special food. Third day, same thing. Same thing over days and days and a couple of weeks. He comes to a gradual belief that he is special in the farmers mind. Okay, but that's something he holds in himself, which is not necessarily justified. Based on the short amount of time that he's been in this special position that Turkey chose to believe that he know he didn't choose to believe it. He came to that belief because day after day after day after day. He, his belief or his growing belief was supported by the regular occurrence of him being a special getting special treatment from the farmer. Okay, okay, okay. So he comes to believe that and comes to an expectation that every day will be followed by another great meal from his farmer buddy who's his best pal until that one day when he doesn't work out so well. But this is it, if it had only been one day that Turkey would not have a sudden expectation that he was going to get treated well. Okay, it is built up over time by a series of events that repeat themselves. It's induction right it's inductor reading. And so beliefs are supported by induction. John. Yeah, I agree as well. John, what do you think. I think that Turkey needs a listening critical thinking. Yeah. And your, your cat has too much faith in you tie. Let me let me finish this point out though. I could do one magic trick to the kid, the first time pulling a space out of his ear, and he can either choose to believe that it was a trick, or choose to believe what I tell him, which is, I just did this thing where I pulled a card out of your ear. He can choose either way and just based on the phenomenon the experience that he just had, he might choose to believe that I have magical powers that can pull cards out of his ears. I can still rely on faith by choice. If they're dox axically closed and don't want to have anything challenge their faith I've had conversations with people in my science class were like, I hate what this teacher saying, because it's making me question my religion. I'm just not going to take this class anymore. I'm like you made that choice that happens that happens in the scholarly setting as well. But I, I hold those as people who can choose what they believe believing in the sense being what the environment has given them as an option. And maybe that was the only option that they were given, and that's the one that they have it's tied to their ego. It could just be a lack of information, or could just be I choose to believe the cooler answer cooler of the two answers because sometimes the truth isn't very cool. And so they'll believe the card comes out of the ear rather than oh it's just a slight a hand check it's like dang it I like the cooler explanation better. But I also believe that people cannot choose what they believe I have this as an example where dread as you were saying you raise Catholic. I'm sure the transition from Catholic to 80s and has caused divisions maybe in your family, or stress in the context of how you think about the reality and realizing how much time you invested in something that wasn't true. And the people who still continue to pedal those falsehoods. It makes you distrust them even more and think about what society is like in general. That causes a lot of paranoia a lot of people leave religion have that mindset or have to go through that period. And it would be so much easier if it was just no wait a second I am a Christian I'm just going to. I want to be a Christian because I'm in the best political group to be a Christian in I'm in the best country to be a Christian in. Why would I give that up. Why would I give it up. And I find like I can't convince myself be a Christian, even if I want it to be the case, even if I want to believe, because I don't have a criteria that is satisfied by the premises that are presented by Christianity. And so I have a book wouldn't do it. Exactly. And so I have a position now where I cannot choose to believe in Christianity. Christianity, I'm stuck being an atheist. Yeah, and that's why the very means of how you evaluate the evidence supports the claim right exactly I'm just a guy that wants a reliable way to reach conclusions. And if you can present me a reliable way to reach the conclusion that a God exists I will happily take it. Otherwise, I'm stuck with I don't know and that's or I don't believe that's the case. And that leaves me with agnostic atheism I'm totally fine with that because that's intellectually honest position to be at. That's in my head, a thing that I cannot choose change, you have to convince me otherwise because I have an epistemology that has a criteria that's high enough to block falsehoods from getting in if I reduce it too low. I don't want to be using magic cards, and my cat will be like my cat, or I can just keep tricking over and over again I don't want to have that kind of life. I want to have a high standard of evidential claims. And that is the reality that I want to meet and it shouldn't be high enough that a God couldn't meet it, but it should be very telling that a God hasn't hit it yet. If he also wants me to be convinced of the case. I just wanted to qualify one thing you said there you said that you want to believe as many true things as possible. Matt Dilla huntee of course many fall and as few false things as possible. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, John Richard. Yeah well again, you've you've dealt into the concept of time here because indoctrination starts young. Yes. You're trying to indoctrinate people in their mid 20s. You have a difficult task. But the longer that you have accepted that indoctrination, and the more it's been reiterated in your mind, the more times you've said your prayers every night the more times you've fasted on the Friday or whatever the regime is. The more you've invested in it, and you get older in your life. And it's harder than to think, Oh my God, I've been a fool all these years. Right. You don't admit it. Yeah. Well, you know, and, and I agree with John on that that people believe that's true. But, you know, some like the end supported by the sayings like you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But, you know, again, that's just a matter of whether or not you want to. Yeah. Convince yourself that you can do it and then therefore believe that you can. Right. I will say, just to add this in a vulnerable people are very easily targeted for these kinds of indoctrinations. And I have seen people in our graduate school course in their 20s mid 20s come in but they're from a different country and realize I'm trying to get a green card I'm trying to be a good student. You know what, I'm just going to go gung-ho America. I'm going to say, Ah, screw my old country. I'm going to come up with the American flag. I'm going to start learning how to shoot guns. I'm going to, I'm going to gain like 40 pounds eating bad junk food. I'm like, Why are these all American things? That's so terrible. But I've seen people in a vulnerable state be easily indoctrinated by nationalism, prejudices, dogma. There's no shortage of what can be happening. And the fact that it can happen to us as a kid should be an indication that this could still happen to us unless if we improve our standard of reasoning. Yeah, well that's where I wanted to come in because, and by the way, I love you as stereotypical American. Can I have that in writing? Sure. Go for it. Go for it. What I wanted to say is that these people who do fall foul of that sort of belief, they need better criteria. They're, they're, they're, they are taking narrative as if it's evidence, and he isn't. They need to know what repeatable observations by independent observers in different locations at different times actually means, you know, that's the important stuff and taking somebody's word for it, listening to an anecdote. That's not important. Right. You know, and this is one thing that, that really makes people gullible that that word gullible fits people who don't have robust criteria for evaluating evidence. And rich get rich quick schemes are all over the place that there are so many scammers out there because it's taking people taking advantage of the fact that people don't have sound or robust epistemic epistemic epistemological reasons for believing the things they do they believe there's such a thing as a free lunch. So there's a free lunch. I don't have to do everything I can get everything. And that's how people get suckered in because they believe these things. I really want to hear what Larry has to say on this because I don't. Well, I think we're missing an element of laziness here. And learning the scientific method and reading a lot of books to know the subject well and gathering information from various knowledgeable people is hard, and it's time consuming. But if you can take one book know it really well and say that all the other guys are just wrong. Right. No, that's very easy. It's an easy path to follow. And a lot of people get taken in by that easy path and nationalism is one of them. But there's also the idea that it's similar to late laziness. It is also a desire by people to look like they are self important or to be valued. And it's, it's not just scalability and laziness. It's the same people who buy a designer watch that tells the same time like every other watch, but it costs $4,000 because they want people to see that they have this expensive watch, or an expensive car. It's advertisers who are marketing to people who want to have an inflated sense of importance, and they can target those people as well. And what greater marketing team or propaganda team is there than Christianity, which is your father and best friend is the creator of the entire universe. Get diamond. The powerful one. Yeah, you know how much Jesus love crosses. He's going to come down and be like, oh yeah, I love crosses high five. Hey, yeah, fill that with diamonds. Yeah, that says me. That's all what I'm about. It's the marketing behind it. And we're just a subset. We're just as susceptible to that as we are to what so it is we drink. And, you know, things that we believe to be true. We have to recognize that even in our adult hook, we're very vulnerable to that. And it's quite funny too that the that, you know, Christianity teaches humility. But of course, it's the antithesis to what is actually being claimed here. Yeah, you know, I'm the personal favorite of an all powerful being. Yeah. How is that in any way humble. Right. That's what I'd like to know. John. Well, I was wondering whether you would like to add exploitative to your list of stereotypical American characteristics. Okay, what do we got exploitative and gullible and what is it lazy lazy fits in pretty well too. All right. And yet we win all the gold medals. We have drones on Mars. Like it's just a great. It's a great spectrum America. It really is. I will throw this out. Are we responsible. All right, that was the main meat of the question I heard from John Richards that it's time dependent that over a period of time you can say yes you are. And I would say yes I would be less inclined to punitive punish or hold accountable a child who was born in a Christian household who believes the same thing his parents believe that's very rough. And in fact, I just blame the parents for like passing on their indoctrination to their child. But even if they did it, parents can do that in their best and what they believe to be their best interest for the kids, because they've never gone through their own steps. And it's such a traumatic process to get that child who's in religion out of religion and back in a more reasonable mindset, and it's better for the community when they do it as well. And I would say this, I wouldn't hold them accountable for what they believe after at that age, and then at a certain point, I would say yeah if you know what at a certain point I would say you can be more comparable culpable when you are explicitly using you define it in your book as conviction without evidence conviction without the things unseen conviction and things that I just hope to be the case. If that is explicitly your rule set for why you believe things are actually the case then yes you are culpable for what you believe to be true, because at that point you are explicitly not using an evidentially or evident evidence based mindset or outlook. And I would bring it to what you may not notice but the actual harm of the community that you are participating in, whether it's how you determine how meetings, political meetings and your board begin, or who you elect in the office, or what taxes you choose not to pay because you decide your tax exempt state when it's only when it's convenient for you, or subjugating other people of other different belief systems because you have the preferential based one because you have the institutional places of power, like these fringes that you put into society are your fault, and you should be held accountable for it. And so I don't blame atheists for being atheists I blame Christians for being Christians. I blame the religious people for holding on to it specifically only because of the faith definition what do you think. Yeah, I would say that. And that's why law has to remain secular. Yes, yeah. That's that is the important thing when determining a person's culpability, because you know, a person could be, you know, as we said, doxastically closed, where, where, you know, critical thought cannot penetrate right. And, you know, not everyone ever gets there, you know, ever opens up doxastically they could be, you know, staunch, whatever religious belief until the day they die. Right. The fact that their culpability is not something that has really anything to do with the religion. It has more to do with the secular law and that's why I think it needs to be kept secular because it's an outside view of what the beliefs are it's right. And I think that's, I think that's the real line to this dread because it's important to be doxastically open it's important to be open minded, and it's only when you're closed minded that you become the accountable party for what you believe to be true. Whereas, I'm a very open minded atheist it's just a question of, can you please present me enough extraordinary evidence for me to reach that God claim. No one's done that yet but I'm open to it, but it's not going to look like a book or tweet or anything like that. And I wear my, I wear my hat when I go putting, and it's been working out pretty well. Larry, I would love to hear your train of thought do you think that we are responsible for what we believe do we choose our beliefs. No, we don't choose our beliefs, I think that in this day and age when we can get on the internet. And we're presented with all kinds of evidence from every direction. We, we can choose to believe, maybe, in this set of evidence that but it's usually because of what we want, you know how we how we perceive that we want to live our life in the afternoon after life or whatever. But I don't think that like, I don't believe that belief is a choice you can't just rationally choose to believe something. You can choose to entertain this set of beliefs versus that set of beliefs because of prior mindsets from your upbringing. But no, I think that in today's age you choose not to hear something or not to accept something. But as far as just switching your belief from one thing to another, no, I don't think that you, you can totally choose to be closed minded and operate under a very poor epistemology such as faith, right. And then work with whatever that system gives you. And if that's the case you're responsible like you should be a held accountable for that. But you can also be open minded and start with a improper belief or unfactor belief and maybe improve it over time. That is open to whatever your rigor and and experience and culture that you're around can influence it but hopefully, and what we see more often than not, is people who are open minded and work on objective tests to determine if things are true or not true, end up at the point, right, come on like a reasonable scientific basis, like a demonstrable real world view, compared to those who stay in their closed dogmas and believe in a fractured by bifurcation of many different aspects of the same dogma that, you know, evolve over time. It's just crazy. What is my takeaway here. Dread pirate, I'd love to hear final thoughts. Oh, we're well, that's right. That's right. We're not over time. We have like about 15 more minutes left. I would, I'd like to get this. I'm going to pull up some comments that were posted on a similar conversation about whether or not it's possible to believe and choose what to choose what you believe. Go ahead, Dread. Go ahead, John. While you do that, why don't you find the comments. I'd like to offer a bit of advice. Go for it. If, if, if you know, if, if you, if what you are being offered is something that you want. Be very skeptical. Yes. Because you could be being tricked into wishful thinking entity. Yes. You always ask people like I believe in God. Do you do you want to believe in a soul do you want to believe in the afterlife do you want to believe that there's a God that's looking over you. And the most, and the most sincerely sad thing about it, not to go into this small tangent, but like, everyone believes that God is their father. Right. But he was also their father's father too. Like their father probably believed that but no one ever wants to believe God's their grandpa. And the thing is their grandpa is also believed that God was their father but no one ever wants to believe God was their great, great, great, great, great grandfather because that doesn't have as much power as the father. They don't have generations of people who keep thinking consistently that God's their father but like if you just thought about that. There's a great stand up joke in there. So, you know, and the same true is for, certainly in North America in Canada at least of Native Americans who compress their closest relatives with their oldest relatives into ancestors. And then it becomes just more like this nebulous being of belief, which ties them immediately to their, their most recent ancestors, and they're most distant. And that's why they say, Well, we've been here for 10,000 years so get off our land. But 10,000 years ago, what did your ancestors know. And what was his name. They were ignorant. We've learned a lot in 10,000 years. Yeah. So Larry first question to you from downtown command. I believe that it is. I believe that belief is a choice belief is a choice because you can believe in nonsensical fairy tales with zero evidence to support them. So basically what he's saying is, Hey, it doesn't make it true, but you can believe in things that aren't. Well, his, his nonsensical fairy tales are somebody else's truth. I mean, they're not going to call them nonsensical fairy fairy tales you're talking about someone who has serious religious beliefs and they were inculcated at the earliest childhood. Right. They don't consider them ridiculous. Right. They were always told by the people they trust most and love in the world that they're true and they believe it. I mean, But they actually believe it. But that is the point they believe in things that aren't true and people can do that. And that's what he's making the point it's like. Yeah. Who, who sent this question in downtown command to nine five. Well asked him if he thinks that those same people can just choose not to believe that. So here would be my thing. If you are convinced that something is true at a point when you don't have the faculties to properly assess it with a with a modern or intelligent or an informed criteria for evaluation. I don't think you're the one that chose it. I think someone chose it for you. And they simply pushed that into your mind state. That is indoctrination. And that's why I'm on the same page with john where it's like, that's abuse. That is not your fault. And I feel like when you're growing up older with these bad concepts, you have ownership of them but those weren't yours to begin with those are things that were forced that to you. You're not a bad person for getting rid of them. And so for people who need to transition out of religion, it's not your fault. It's truly the system that you're in, maybe even be your parents fault explicitly. But like, I got trapped within. I'm going to have to quit on my face. Yeah, your background is flying all over the place. Thank you so much, John. It was great having you on. We'll see you at 11. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Two reasons. One thing is I'm being attacked by a child. No sweat. No sweat. The other is I have to go and fetch her father. I got a question. I just promote free thought channel because I go for go for go for John. Yes, yesterday we had a great chat with you. Watch out. Watch your eye. Watch your eye. Watch your eye. Don't turn around. Don't turn around. Rosa Ruby Condi or take a look at that with his name is Bill Helmslow. And it was a great chat we have with him. He's a creationism and intelligent design debunker. You'll love it. Okay, sounds good. Bye bye. Thanks. Next comment from our Satanist friend who is going to hell for seven seven going to hell for four seven says so what if you can choose to believe or not believe it doesn't make anything true. Belief doesn't make anything true. What do you think about that comment? Well, that's absolutely true. And I believe it. You know the weird thing about Satanist is I rarely hear them say things that I disagree with. But you know, and I guess just to keep pushing the point, you know, when the vaccinations for COVID-19 came up, right? It wasn't like suddenly people, you know, all of a sudden believed that, you know, it caused autism or, or that Bill Gates had a chip that he was trying to insert into you. And these are, you know, the idea of vaccinations came up, and then you started hearing things. And whatever sort of support, whatever was supported by your own sort of internal epistemological machinery was how you were swayed one way or the other. And all of a sudden, you know, you were listening to Wakefield on his autism stuff. And, and what's the guy on Fox News, Tucker Carlson and, and Donald Trump, all of a sudden, your, your inclination was becoming supported by a growing number of things that you were inclined to accept as reliable and as good sources of information. Right. And then eventually you come to a firmly held belief that vaccines have this negative impact on you. Right. It's not something you just woke up and said, you know what, I don't give a shit about. I don't give a darn about COVID-19 or vaccines. I just, I'm not going to take it just because it has to be supported by the claims or whatever you think is evidence in support of the actual belief. It's just not by itself. Dred, I love it. That was those are great. Final thoughts. Where can we find your stuff at? I'm live streaming this still at seven a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on on the West Coast here, Sunday mornings. My channel is Mind Pirate, M-I-N-D-E-Y-R-A-T-E. Nice. And like all things, belief is a conditional statement based on what you mean by whether or not you're culpable for it or not. I would like to believe that it's always good to have a good epistemology. The stronger that you have it, the better. You can never have too strong of a standard for evaluating claims. And it tends to be the case that the stronger you have it, the less likely you are to believe in falsehoods, which is a good thing. And have to, and have to remain doxastically open. And staying open-minded. Yeah, you can have a good epistemology if you're in any way doxastically close. You have to be open-minded. You have to be willing, like science, to correct mistakes that you've made in the past and always strive for a better approved system to know true things and false things. You can find my stuff at Let's Chat on YouTube. That's about it. Larry, why don't you take us out? Okay, my content can be found at digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for Radio Show Archives eighties songs and many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel is at doubter five and remind reminding everybody to keep their mind open but not so open the brains fall out. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. And we'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock. Say bye everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye, man. And that's a wrap.