 Guys, welcome to another episode of Breaking Down. Get in there! That was very hands-taking America. This is a video that I take at the University of Kentucky. On campus itself, Ashley had a friend who was a professor who helped me set up in the school itself. So I highly recommend that you do that. It saves you from getting harassed by campus security multiple, multiple times. Gotta get those inside friends. Anyway, I set up my table and I'm greeted by this guy who wants to chat. Seemed a little guarded at first. I'm trying to show that there's value to a face-to-face communication compared to, like, texting on the phone, or, like, Facebook Messenger and stuff like that. That there's value in face-to-face. That there's ways to have conversations about anything with anyone, regardless of what they look like, the big leagues, backgrounds, whatever. Biochemistry. Cool. Yeah. And so I go to parks and I go to campuses and I just set up a table. I think it's a really nice contrast between what that guy's doing over there and what's going on here. That's what was on my mind here was... And I'm not a part of any religious conversation. Yeah. I'm really just trying to have a conversation with someone in a cordial way. How effective do you think... Cordial! Let's go! Obviously, you've got a pretty solid opinion on this, but how effective do you think it is for them to be... for their method of information? Let's make sure we're coloring the complete canvas on what's actually going on here. So I'm set up in front of a building called White Hall. And just behind me, there's, like, one of those West Barrow Baptists, you know, kind of guys with a giant sign and telling everyone they're going to hell. And he's masked a rather large collection of people around him. It's kind of like your classic YouTube situation where... Silly dude does something, thousands and thousands and thousands of people around him. And then says, well, dude, we're right here, you know, well-addressed, got his glasses on, having a normal talk. Hey, maybe, you know, hey, it may not get the views, but I think, to me, is more of a demonstration that anybody can do this because you don't need to have the crowd. Anybody can have a conversation about anything with anyone, particularly on a one-on-one, and it only takes one person and a willingness to try it out to make it work. And that's what I think is kind of cool about it. So, yeah, there's a street preacher behind us going crazy, and I set up near him, hopefully out of earshot. Not really so much, but I try to get it far away enough that his, you know, screaming wouldn't get involved in the video. And I was just talking to some of the stragglers that are around him or people who are coming in and out of the building. Talk to this guy. I believe he was an atheist, but I think he was a little guarded at first because, just like, I don't want to be... I don't want to be recorded. Why are you recording me? So, I'm just like, hey, man, this is literally just a thing to talk about whatever you're comfortable talking about in front of the camera, and I'm just trying to show people can have that face-to-face conversation because if we can't demonstrate that, and the only example we have is that guy behind us, where are we left with? It's worth to make this effort. How about it? You want to chat? And I think we had a good one. Let's see. Persuasion, which is primarily yelling, primarily accusational. I think some people buy into the confidence to be perfectly honest with you, but it's not very much, but it's so cheap for them to do that that it's worth it. Boom. It's so cheap to just be silly and loud and have people listen to you. I was studying for my PKM exam for a couple of hours, and then I went back to that for a few minutes. It seemed like a real problem. But do you want to try it? Yeah, sure. Okay. Okay, so now he's in. And you don't mind? Just to chat about anything. And you don't mind if I record, right? That's fine. Okay, so I'm fine. He's a little bit more sold into it. Eric, again? Let me tell you something. The handshake at the start is really good. And I think I started doing this only a couple of months into it, but you got to shake hands at the start. When people are, like, so, like, crossing their hands, crossing their arms at the beginning of the chat, when you reach over and you're just like, hey, man, I'm not going to bite you. And you get that handshake in. I think it just loosens everybody up a little bit more. It's just really good. Eric, so... That contact, you know? Since the team of that guy is over there, would you mind if we had a chat about something that you strongly believe is true or something you know you can't be wrong about? Oh, there's nothing I know I can't be wrong about. Ooh, I love that. We could have a discussion about that in itself. Is there anything... What's the most thing that you're absolutely sure about? What's close to that? So, note how I'm pivoting here. He said, and I'll explain why I pivot. So, the pivot is, the guy says, there's... Generally, I'm not 100% confident about anything. Do you want to talk about that? Confident about anything? Do you want to talk about that? Do you want to turn that into a topic? And I'm like, I don't want to talk about that because that's not an interesting conversation I've had it before. It's a sort of conversation where, for example, I think the last guy I had this conversation with was a guy who was from South Africa. Like, I've seen the routes of that conversation. It tends to be the case that people who claim that there's nothing that they're 100% confident about tend to have something that they are 100% confident about. It just turns out not to be a religious thing. It could just be a personal philosophy or a motivation, or just a weird little, you know, thing that they have that's not particularly important as far as the creation of the universe, but more like a mundane thing that they think you should always do. Like, hey, man, you should always have peanut butter in your trunk when you're driving from California to Nevada. So it's like, what? Really? Is that what you want to believe? That's a much more interesting conversation. Let's have that. Let's talk about that. So, I'm pivoting here, the pivot. And remember, I only pivot at the very beginning of conversations, not typically like halfway or third into the conversation. But the pivot here is, okay, so you're not 100% confident about anything. Why don't you tell me the thing that you're most confident in and we'll talk about that. And that is kind of close to the idea of, like, I get that you're not 100% confident or that you're not absolute about anything. Like, you have a reasonable amount of skepticism for most things, which is healthy. I think that's good. But in the interest of having an entertaining conversation with me, a complete stranger, why don't we talk about something that you are really interested in or are mostly confident in? And like, what's the thing that you do believe? Not the stance of you don't believe anything to a high degree. But what's something that is substantial and substantive for a conversation that you do believe in? And that's the pivot. I think at the very beginning of a conversation, it's a good idea to try to get that trajectory towards interesting talk. You'll get to meet your levels faster. I think it's just a good way to do it. Let's go. Absolutely sure. I think the thing that I would be closest to being absolutely sure, which is what supports my belief of nothing being above suspicion or above argument, above discussion, would be that belief in itself, which is, I'm absolutely sure that the most effective way that I can build up my belief system to be the best that it can be, obviously that's subjective, is to allow it to be open to any reasonable criticism or argument and to always be questioning it. Are you even 100% about that? Yeah, I think so. You're 100% confident about that? Or as close as I can get. Okay, that's a good correction. Typically, that, so that, so me just repeating that question, is the confidence scale? By the way, there's something called a confidence scale. Confidence scale is sort of like, hey, on a scale from 1 to 100, or 0 to 100, I hate scales from 1 to 100, because you forgot about 0, you need to have 0 in there. What is, how sure are you on a scale from 0 to 100 that this thing's true? Typically people who say 0 or 100% are exhibiting the concept of irrational confidence. There's something called like the, I forgot what it's called, the Dunger Kruger scale, is people tend to be at their lowest or highest confidence when they don't know what they're talking about. It's like, yeah, I know karate! Pushed in the face. Actually, maybe there's some things I should learn about. Get their 14th black belt? It's like, actually there's a whole world of karate that I don't even know about. There's a curve that goes from like, you really, there's your confidence, you just started off and you're so confident that you know everything, and then it just levels out, and then you maybe get some bumps, but it never gets to an absolute 0 or 100%. Tends to be the case that people are 100%, really don't know what they're talking about. So all I'm doing here is verifying that he's 100% confident in that belief that he has. It sounds reasonable, but is he so confident that he's not even considering the idea that he could be wrong, which is that 100% level. And instead of me throwing out numbers, which are kind of arbitrary and a little bit complex to like bring in, like to stop the conversation and introduce a scale and explain what the lower and higher limits of that scale are, all I'm doing is just repeating the question. So it's like, I'm saying, hey, you're 100% confident, that's true. I'm 100%. Are you really 100%? Actually, I'm as close to 100% as you can get. It's subtle. It's very subtle. But it's just highlighting that like, hey, I'm making sure are you absolute about this? I'm absolutely absolute. Are you really absolute? Actually, I'm not that absolute, but I'm very, very sure that it's the case. I'm just opening up the door to show that I do care about the nuance of how confident and how certain he is about this belief. I'm willing to hear him out if he has more to say, and it doesn't need to be a short conversation where he's just like, how confident are you? Okay, that's great. It's like, no, I really do care. Are you confident about this or not? Like, and to what extent? And that's why it's worth asking the question again. It gets me an assessment or a scale of how confident he actually is. And it doesn't sound like he's absolute to the point where he's close-minded. It just sounds like he's very certain that it's the case. And is willing to question whether or not he's wrong. And I think that's fantastic. So, here we go. Ultimately, yeah. Ultimately, if somebody, you know, if I converted to some religion and I was 100% confident in that, then it would be, you know, impossible for me. There are some people who are very confident about, like, for example, a guy existing here. What is the next thing? Confidence doesn't bother me. It's just when people are so confident in their beliefs that they're unwilling to question it. Like, they're willing to put logical reason against it. I agree. I would call that the 100% level, or the 0% level. And you can get up anytime you want. It's great. In that opinion, that's when it becomes a potential danger to society and other people. Okay. Why is it a danger? Is it that I'm going to fill this up and out here? Is it because their actions are informed by their beliefs so if they have closed-minded beliefs? No, not necessarily. Okay. Why? Interesting. Where's the danger? So, again, I'm agreeing with what he's saying, but I'm trying now. What I'm trying to do right now is throw out the reasons why I'm agreeing with him and then seeing if that's reliable or if that's a reasonable reason for why I believe the things that I believe, because it seems like we're agreeing on the same topic. So, I'm throwing out my route of reasoning of how I reach that topic. Hey, people are motivated by the things that they believe. People don't just believe in a vacuum. Their actions are informed by their beliefs. And if their beliefs are factored on something that's unquestioning and closed-minded, because they're so sure, that could lead to actions that are problematic in a society where actions have consequences on other people. And I find that to be the danger to society. He says, no, that's not the case. And now I'm willing to open up my perspective and learn from him. This is now, again, I think it goes back to the video that we did with Maria. SC is not just a one-way street. I'm trying to learn as much from my interview partner as I can hopefully get out of a conversation. SC in its own right isn't really a teaching method. I think I said, like, I'm not trying to explain to someone why they're wrong. I'm trying to understand why they're right. And I think that's the crux of what makes SC a really great conversational tool, because I'm not telling or teaching this guy anything. I'm trying to learn from him. And he, in the same right, is reflecting that same attitude. And he's learning from me. And it ends up being this conversation where we're both talking about this thing that we strongly believe, but are willing to take a reliable or a reflective way of understanding why we care about this thing. And we can do it communitively. And I think that's just a really cool thing about SC. Anyway, here we go. The danger is because when you are so certain of any belief, I mean, religious or otherwise, literally any belief, that you would not question it. Let me tell you something. I went to Walmart and I got this sippy cup, right? And the cool thing about the sippy cup is it's got a lock on it and a spout, which was like, the only thing I really needed, because I used to do a lot of running back in when I was in Kentucky. And I would have a water bottle on me, but it would either a smell like plastic, like the water smell like plastic after like a day, or have one of those spouts where you have to like squeeze the bottle to push water into your mouth. And I'm like, dude, I just want to be able to drink water and not have it like force down my throat. I just want to be able to drink water. Like drink, like glove, that's it. And I'm like, it's got everywhere. So I found these really small sippy cups. They're really, they're colored in an interesting way. And I was just like, these are really great. They look like little kid four-year-old sippy cups, but they functionally work. And in my opinion, if it looks silly and it does its job, it's not silly. So I can still laugh at it, but I can tell you these were a fantastic buy. Anyway. For any reason, then there are, in holy books, you know, or have an outsized effect in this, there are plenty of violent and violent phrases and verses and every holy book that I've read thus far, which advocate all sorts of terrible things against people. And so if you're not willing to question your beliefs for anything, then you might come up across that verse and say, if I truly want to be, I need to want to follow my beliefs that I honestly believe in. I feel like we're saying the same thing. That question, the only way for me to do that is to hurt somebody else. So that's why it becomes dangerous. Eric, can I throw something out at you? Sure. If I would present you a holy book for the religion. Ah, here we go. All right. So, I say, so just to recap, I'm saying that the actions, people don't believe in a vacuum, their actions are informed by their beliefs. And that's why I think it could lead to harm to society if people are performing actions against one another, or we live in a world where our actions have consequences in other people, and we're not willing to be open minded about that. And we are performing our interactions and conduct based on an absolutist belief that is unwilling to question, change, or modify itself for the better. And Eric's point of view was the same thing, but more focused on the concept of, well, you know, there are religious books that tell you to do bad things, and if people aren't willing to question that, then people will do bad things. And what I'm trying to do is remove the nuance of just having, remove that narrow-sightedness of just, it's not just the holy book, that's the problem, because there could be good holy books that tell you, hey, go love your neighbor. If there was a holy book that only said love people would, and you believe that to 100% certainty, would that be any more rational way to conduct your life? Or should we at least just be willing to read anything we want with an open mind, and then inform our beliefs based on that? So like the idea is, and I know I'm getting a little, I hope this explanation gets really short, but like, I'm trying to get to the general foundation of the argument, which is, don't be absolutist in your beliefs. Try to be open-minded, because those open-minded beliefs will lead to open-minded actions. And in the society where our actions have consequences on each other, that is leading, that will lead us towards an evolution of behavior that will ultimately to improvement of everyone's lives because we can change and modify how we conduct ourselves for the better end of everybody. And it's not, and Eric's point is, while I look at the bad situation where there's a holy book that can tell you to do bad things, but I'm like, it's not just the holy book that's telling you to do bad things, because if it was a holy book that only told you to do good things, and you believe that absolutely, that could lead you to just as many problems. That absolute, if it was a book that says, hey, always love the person who's three feet to your right, and you believe that absolutely, and that three-foot person, the person three-foot to the right of you is like a psychopath or a serial killer, which is a terrible girlfriend. Hey, give me, I won't do impressions. No, she is like, give me your credit card number. And I'm like, dude, I don't want to give you a credit card number, but the holy book says you should love her. This will lead to problems in the future. We need to have conversations about finances. It's not just about romance. You have to communicate. They won't tell you stuff like that. We got off on a little bit of a tangent here, and like, hey, you got to think. Thinking was what's important, not just absolute loyalty to a holy book. Whether it says bad things or good things, it's about thinking. It's about being open-minded. And that's the concept now that I am challenging. I'm not teaching. I'm just challenging it. So I'm not telling them, hey, you're wrong, and this is why you're wrong. I'm now throwing out an idea of like, well, what if it was a holy book that only said good things? Would you then follow that absolutely? I normally always ask very gently and I'm not offended by seeing the holy book. But if there was any holy book that had zero violence in it whatsoever, it was all about peace and love, and how our God wants you to have peace and love, blah, blah, blah, would that confirm to you that the book's true? That there was no violence in that book? I say true here, but I think... I think in the conversation... Okay, I think in the conversation, that's the point, but in my head I'm interpreting this conversation differently. So, here's the... Here's the extrapolation that I'm making. If the book is nonviolent... So he's saying books that are nonviolent... Books that are violent don't deserve our absolute confidence in, whether or not they're true or not, or whether or not they should be used as a guide for behavior. And I'm throwing out, okay, so what if we had a book that only had positive, nonviolent things? Would that make that book true? True in the sense of it's worth believing in full-heartedly, worth an absolute degree of certainty and confidence for, and should be used to guide all of our actions and actually be the case for how reality was, you know, presented or created for us, whatever, take your pick. And so now we're thinking more truth. Let me just replay that. What's the nature of the book that something not being violent make it more true? Yeah, something being not violent make it more true. Obviously not. So it's not so much about whether or not the holy book says bad things or good things. It's more about something else. If he comes to that realization. No, I mean, there's plenty of violent things that are true. So what's more violent that's true? What's your limit for determining if something's true compared to if something's not true? There is no perfect metric. That's why I always go back to that rule or belief or whatever of questioning it. I like it. Because, you know, I mean, if there was a book that was truly that great, then I could say, I would say I could believe in it to the point of belief. But it wouldn't really be belief because it would be verified and always never above question. I want to throw out some of the things that I heard since I started setting up here. I heard that there were some people who believed that it's true using faith. Does faith have any value to you as far as a determining mechanism of if something's true or not true? Not really. Because I see faith as contrary to verifying something. And that's not to say that I don't... What do you mean by that? To have faith in something means that you trust without verification, right? Most likely, yeah. I think it's a reasonable definition, yeah. And so, although I certainly have confidence... Faith could be a reasonable word. Like, I have faith in the consistency of my parents to look out for what's best for me as they see it, right? I may disagree with them, but I still trust... And see, that's where I think faith is a little bit of a testy word because it has so many negative logical connotations to me although if it was defining a context where you just... It just means you're putting your belief in someone past which you can immediately verify. I get it. So I don't know every... I completely forgot about this conversation, but that is, in my opinion, a nice way of defining faith. It's like, I'm believing past my ability to verify that this is true. Is that a reliable way to determine if something's true or not? No, obviously. But is it typically what people mean when they say faith? Yes. And I think if people understood it like that, that would be so good. That's a really good way. Let me write that down. Faith... I'm just making a point. Faith is trusting... Or putting your belief beyond what you can verify. Putting your belief... Your belief beyond what you can verify. And this is really good, you know, study for me as well. But yeah, I think that's really good. I think that's a very on-the-point way of defining faith, especially on the way how so many other people use it. Everything that goes on my parents' minds, but I still have faith or trust that they're... But he's not using faith to verify what's true. So then what is he using to verify what's true? Are you currently convinced of any God claim? I don't think there's good enough evidence for it. Is an atheist a good way of defining what your position is at right now? Yeah. Okay, okay. I'm one too. It's not a big deal. Are you scared of hell? Why did I throw that out? No, I mean, when you look... That was a bit of a tangent to it. And another just, you know, side point. Sure. But I would say... I've never been... Not never, that's not sure. I used to be religious, quite religious, and my journey towards being an atheist actually was in a pursuit of... Yeah, exactly. You're saying, Joe, that's exactly the same path right now. Yeah. A lot of atheists become... But I would say... I'm not afraid of dying. I'm just afraid of not living because, ultimately, as an atheist, I don't believe there's anything after death because I don't see good enough evidence for it. That's to say that I know it won't have anything that will happen, but I don't have any good reason to think about it. Exactly, exactly. Because if somebody presents the evidence for God, that I would absolutely be... I would change my belief right then or else I'd be a hypocrite. But I may not worship that. But I'll definitely at least be open to that. Yeah, that God's true. Because, I mean, there's certain very difficult... I mean, impossible things to reconcile in my mind, which is if there's an all-powerful God, which is how could an all-powerful God allow childhood cancer? And if he does... Yeah, sure. The problem of evil, right? Is he really worthy of worship? Right. There's a lot of issues there. As an atheist, I find that a lot of people use substandard methods to come to the high confidence that their God exists. But, ultimately, their faith is unjustified because they have unreliable methods of supporting God like faith and stuff. I'm wondering... I noticed that before we were talking there was some apprehension, especially with regard to, like, recording. Oh, this is interesting. I guess at this point, I might have been, like... I've talked... Not that I inherently have... We got to some interesting nuggets. Now I want to understand more, I guess, from a tactical standpoint. What can I do to make my stand seem more approachable to people who... You know, might be atheists, people might be religious, what's your perspective? I think that I said something that was unreasonable and then maybe I changed my mind afterwards. But it seems to be the case that people just don't like being recorded. Actually, I didn't really like that interview we did. We wound up taking off the internet. I'd be totally open to doing that. I could even bring a face or whatever. Yeah? Yeah. It doesn't... Um... But I just... I am really interested in how this table looks like to many different kinds of people. Yeah. That surprisingly attracts a lot of different kinds of people. And I try to make it as least assuming as possible. I would say why it was attractive to me, not that that was necessarily a question, but talking in general. So... It was because... I find their ratings, as I would call it, amusing. Sure. But I don't really... I don't really appreciate when people rise to debate and yell because some people do... Some people really are... Their barriers are low enough or weak enough that they really can get past and emotionally hurt someone just by yelling at them. Sure. Absolutely. That's when it bothers me because some people yell back at them and... My view of arguments is if you start yelling, you've already lost the argument. And so their entire purpose to me, as in how they wish to convert people is to... Yeah. It's just loud and not necessarily theological consistency. Sure. And so if you rise to the bait, then you've already kind of lost because you're not calmly thinking about it from the beginning. But that yelling platform is a territory they're much more comfortable in. That's fair. And even though it appears that they're ranting, they are very much more now guided by intuition because they're so comfortable in that environment, whereas the other one's more or less guided by emotion, which makes... I largely agree. Persuasion by rhetoric much more easy to do. And it's interesting and... Oh, man, we're... ...ironically breaking down this guy. ...that on a college campus, people would be so enticed to that. I understand what you mean, but this is a free speech area. I think we're all exercising our right to be a audience to it. Right. I just mean, because as a place of higher learning, our goal is to put behind our irrational ways, whatever they be, not necessarily belief. No, I understand what you mean. But just put behind our rational beliefs and rise to something more logical. Less decisive than this. Yeah. And something that can further, well, as an engineer, some things are decisive. But an engineer, too. I'm an engineer. Let's go. Okay, yeah. Look at you. Nice. But rise to something that's, you know, greater, and I realize that's subjective, but something that's not as privy or as likely to just have these random yelling arguments about. Sure. Yeah. Hey, Eric. I did as well. You got to study for people. You get through, man. Other people. Don't let me disrespect you. I was already doing it. Yes. This calmed me down. Far more than that. Oh, that's nice. Hey, I will say this. No went to end the conversation. Like, sometimes when you ran out of things to talk about, it's totally fine to just be like, hey, I really enjoyed this chat. Thanks a lot. See you around, man. I think that ended in a good place. I like the post-interview summary of like, hey, what can we do to make this table look better? And then here's another guy who's screaming at people right behind us. What makes that so captivating versus advantages of doing that and advantages of doing it like this? And is there actually things that you can get out of that? I think that was a really interesting way to close the talk. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Anyway, yeah. That was cool. That was cool. Okay, so yeah, speaking of knowing when to end the conversation, well, in this study session now, thank you guys for joining me and see you next time.