 103.9 FM W.O.Z.O Radio. Knoxville! It seems to be the case that everyone, at least from a religious perspective, largely relies on tradition to inform their impression of reality. And I can only see from the outside, different people pointing at very different things with utmost confidence and using tradition to back that up. It makes me realize that perhaps tradition may not necessarily be the best way to reach that kind of conclusion. For something that should be the most important thing for me, whether or not this God exists, whether or not I'm actually getting, like, true information, whether or not these feelings that I have actually are coming from this belief, or if there's something I'm generating within myself, and that would be a great thing to unlock if I actually knew if that was true or not. And while I wouldn't discredit anything that you can get from Episcopal Church, I really love it. I like, I love the concepts, I love the sense of community. I do wonder if the grand conclusions that are coming about with regard to a supernatural deity are justified, and whether or not I'm justified in having them based on an idea of tradition. What do you think? Welcome back. I'm Dottie Five. This is the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM, here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And today we're talking with a guest. His name is Baby Seal. And what's interesting is he's one of the last people that I actually had a SE conversation with. I went up to Nashville, let's see, like last weekend and set up at the park and I got a phone call and turned out to be a guy with a screen name, Baby Seal. He wanted to talk about his church, why he believed in God, and some of the philosophies that he had. And I thought it was a really interesting conversation that we had. So I invited him to come onto this podcast slash radio TV show, not a TV show, just a radio show and a podcast and have a chat. And we've been talking for, let's say, the last 30 minutes about a whole bunch of different things, including his Episcopalian Church and his beliefs and stoicism of philosophy on how we should live towards what we value the most and not waste time on things we don't have control over. We're also talking about stuff like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and a bunch of other cool things. And now we're going to really delve into his religion and why he believes it, which is always like the fast at anything, right? Like the epistemology behind it. So join me and Douter5 as we delve into this guy's beliefs. But hey, let's see if we got any more announcements. Douter5, you got any more announcements for us? Since the school year is starting back, the Secular Student Alliance has programs to give comradering community to any free-thinking high school or college student who might be like to be involved in the free-thought movement or who we'd just like to find other free thinkers to hang with. Everybody needs like-minded friends and atheists are no different. Earlier, no, we didn't actually mention it earlier. No, we didn't. But we do have an atheist call in TV show. What? We have an atheist call in TV show? Have you ever seen it? No, what's it called? It's called Freethought Forum and you can see it every Wednesday between 6.30 and 7.30 on Concast Channel 12 or on Charter Channel 192. You can also watch it streaming online at ctvnox.org. You can also find archive of some of their shows on YouTube where Fan has been posting them. Just go to YouTube and do a search for three words. Freethought Forum Knoxville. Okay, that's all for the announcements back to the show. Today's topic is stoicism. Stoicism with our friend Baby Seal and us. You know, like I said, it's not an interview. It is a conversation. I was telling him during the break, it's like, hey man, you're free to talk to us or ask us questions too. We don't want you to feel like we're the spotlight. And we really appreciate this call. Yeah, I appreciate being here. Thank you very, very much for having me. So we had talked about Mr. Rogers. That's a really, really fun show. I love that show. It's like one of the best PBS old school shows of all time. My opinion, it's one of the best. Then we went into a Episcopal Church, tenets of the Episcopal Church. And then I think we left into the break talking about reasons why we believe. And you had mentioned that you wanted to talk about, Baby Seal, you had wanted to talk about some of the things that you experienced that justifies your high confidence in the god-belief presented by the Episcopal Church. What do you mean? Oh, well, I should clarify. I mean, you know, I think that I joked with you on that last week. There's a joke that whatever you happen to believe, somebody in the Episcopal Church agrees with you, you know, including atheists, like there are actual, you know, atheists that attend church, you know, for the community aspect of our church. And we welcome them. And we actually, I did want to mention too that we have open communion, right? I mean, certainly other Christian churches believe that you have to be confirmed or, you know, believe certain things to actually come and partake in communion. And at our church anyway, we... Dude, you're selling me the brochure. I love it. I love it. No, I know. It's great. I know. We actually say like, hey, you know, whatever you believe, you're welcome, you know, to join us. Sounds a lot like the Episcopal Church. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I think for me, the reason why I still go to the Episcopal Church versus the Unitarian Church, because, you know, in a lot of ways I agree the Unitarians are very similar in that way, is just the fact that I'm comfortable with the liturgy and the words. So I just want to... And I just want to outline, you're free to go wherever you want. This is America. I mean, you're said Texas, so that's like prime America, right? And you can believe whatever you want. We're not here to tell you. What we're asking though is, what's justifying the belief that you have, that the God actually exists? And is it... No, sure. So what do you have? So, again, harking back to our conversation, I thought I was thinking a lot about, you know, how do you get comfortable that my feelings and experiences, you know, the spiritual experiences that I've had in my life around God and feeling, you know, cared for and loved, sort of in a universal kind of sense. Yeah, good feelings. And so, you know, I looked into it and noticed, among other things that, you know, belief in God in the US anyway has gone from, I think, 99% in the 40s to around 90% today. So it can continue to move, right? But I kind of feel like, okay, I'm interested in your take on how... Not that I'm confident in any particular set of beliefs around God, but the fact that God exists based on my feelings, based on the fact that at least 90% of Americans believe in God too. I'm interested in your take on that. Well, let me ask you this. Just as your personal opinion, why do you think that all the different religion and all the different people who believe in God can't agree on what he's like? Or even if it's a he. Well, no, that's an intro. Yeah, exactly. I'm very much a fan of not using the key pronoun whenever possible. But I do wonder, and I think I also benefit from sort of interfaith. I belong to an interfaith group. And I really appreciate, like, hey, we as multi-faiths can get together to do good works. We all agree that we can help out people and volunteer. The volunteering is good. So I really appreciate the aspects of faith that are kind of more universal across the majority of faiths to say, hey, maybe this is aspects of God or reality that we can agree on that maybe this is... Those are the areas that maybe have something to say about reality and at least inform me about how I view reality and God. I'm not sure if I followed on that answer. So if there's a lot of different people in different churches, even on the same block, and they all have very different ideas of what God is like, but are all saying, well, we believe because of faith and personal feelings. And the next group says, well, we believe in a completely different other God that we're sure is true because of our personal feelings and the faith that we have in them. And then another block on the other corner. You come to Tennessee, it's literally every corner of the block. Yeah, it is. Right. And it's like, hey, our personal feelings and our faith have pointed us to this complete other nature of God. And they're not compatible with each other. In fact, I think there are people that could have personal feelings and faith that there is no God. It's interesting, right? Certainly, like when dogma doesn't agree, you know, those schisms, it's really kind of where like the, you know, well, certainly we experienced it in the Episcopal Church, right, around Gene Robinson when the gay bishop was elected. And I think it was the early 2000s. There was definitely a lot of tension between the group that thought, hey, we should be accepting of gay bishops. And, you know, they're allowed to elect a gay bishop if they want to. And the other side saying, you know, homosexuality to sin, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And that's very much like where I think, you know, when you get into those like little nuance things, that's where a lot of animosity builds up. But I think that at the same time, religions in general do have some common elements around ritual, around, you know, loving each other, trying to be, you know, compassionate. Well, it depends on which testament they come down on, I guess. I'm not familiar with the Episcopal, but I assume they still use the Bible. Yes. And the Bible does not change. And the people who are saying that gay men and women are okay and should be treated equally as regular citizens and all that do not have a lot of biblical support where the people are against it do. I mean, you can quote all kinds of things about treat your, you know, love your neighbor, treat your neighbor as yourself. But when it comes right down to homosexuality, there are lines in the Bible that prohibit it. Yeah, the clobber verses, sure. How can you get around that in the church? Well, I'll tell you how I get around it. And that is to say that, you know, I personally view the Bible as man's search for God and not, you know, God's, you know, literal word. And so just like I eat shellfish, you know, I wear mixed fabrics, right? All those sorts of things. I also think that, you know, there were, you know, maybe reasons in the Old Testament where, you know, they thought that, I mean, hey, we also thought that, you know, imaginary play for children was wrong, you know, not so long ago, right? And that's to get back to Mr. Rogers. Right, and left handed people, right? And it's not that long ago that scientifically, and we had, you know, psychologists and whatever an early child psychologist saying, imagine that play is bad, you know, you should only have reality and you're crippling them by, you know, letting them pretend. And that turned out to not be the case. So I think, anyway, that's how I personally view it. Can I throw something out? If the Bible just represents the search for God, why use the Bible at all? If the God that you believe in seems to be compatible with potentially being chaos or non-biblical at all. Right, your own. Yeah. Why do you need the Bible at all? Well, I think that there's definitely a traditional aspect. You specifically. But me specifically, I think that I've accepted that human beings relate to things narratively. So I'm just going to catch you here again. I'm not talking about human beings in general. I'm talking specifically about you. Why do you use the Bible? Sure, but for me, I still, like, I'm a human being, I think narrative is very powerful. And I think that, you know, Jesus's parables are powerful. I think that, you know, as an example, the Adam and Eve story, as Wombat we were discussing before, I think gets to a fundamental problem that we, as humans face, that we, you know, are biologically evolved to live in hunter-gatherer groups, right, in the Pleistocene era. And, you know, millions of years ago or hundreds of thousands of years ago, when biologically we're identical, right, to those humans that were living in the Serengeti. Yeah. And that's not what we're living like right now. That's kind of where, you know, we can't go back to the Garden of Eden because, you know, I don't think we can choose to go back to those hunter-gatherer groups. Baby seal. Or I don't think people are willing to. Just to get back to the crux of the question, it sounds like you have the Bible because you appreciate the narratives that are in that story. But how many other religious texts have you gone through because there may be ones that appeal to you even more so than the Bible? No, definitely. And why not use those as an abandon the Bible that you have? Because clearly there's more contemporary texts where you can get more philosophical texts. If you like hunter-gatherers, there's plenty of actual books that have literacy and articulate points about how hunter-gatherers became about. And you don't need the Bible to explain that. If you like Jesus' parables, there's many much more updated decrees for how laws are developed, how morality should work, how we should treat each other as a functional society that are far more detailed and actually demonstrably successful than anything Jesus had said. Why do you need the Bible? Well, I think that those things should inform it, right? And certainly, me reading books like Ishmael or I read a long time ago so don't try to quote me on it. You know, it's sapiens, right? And I think that's kind of where those things can inform those narratives for me, but I think that it's still a beneficial narrative. I still get something from those stories even if it's informed, you know, by science and by those other readings. And so I guess the reason that I don't abandon them is because I haven't come across, well, number one, you know, that's part of the community. I mean, I don't know if me being able to discuss ideas with people to have that kind of shared narrative that we can then talk about and say, hey, maybe, you know, yeah, this parable is really meaningful, but what if we, you know, updated it or something? What if our understanding can slightly change? What if those parables have already been updated and we already have better texts to go by? Why still use the old outdated parables? You can still read them, you can still inform yourself with it, but it sounds like if I were to go to the Episcopal Church, the main book that would be there is the Bible, and the Wayne thing that you would be taught from is the Bible, when we seem to be in agreement that we have better stories that we can get even more information from. I'm not sure that I completely agree with the better stories. I mean, what better stories do you know about that is a better story than let's just stick with Adam and Eve as a narrative? What if we knew for a fact that a parable in the Bible that we love very much is outdated and we say, hey, I actually have a better way to explain why we have hunter-gatherer societies. I have a better way of understanding how we came about to learn how knowledge works and how we learned what, you know, how to treat each other as people and how we learned if snakes can actually talk or not and stuff like that. Hey, why don't we just use that text instead? Yeah, well, not only that, but I mean, there are Eastern religious texts, you know, Buddhism, Confucianism, that have better philosophical arguments. Oh, yeah, you go to the Egyptian texts, you'll have the Ten Commandants in the Lord. The secular books teach better morals like all the works of Shakespeare and Ulysses and things like that. I mean, why does it have to be a religious text of the Jewish history to teach you the things that you deem are important? Yeah, I'll be honest with you. I'm metifying all the episodes of the Twilight Zone right now. Every episode has a great moral behind it and it's acted so well. I love the Twilight Zone. Oh, listen, I can tell you, I probably learned more from the Twilight Zone than I have from any chapter in the Bible recently. I've read through that thing many, many times, but I'll tell you what, there are options far more so. Like if you were to consider the concept of just one book, decreeing how we should treat each other versus every other book, are we really that confident that the Bible is the best one that we should base everything off of? Well, you know, I think I'm definitely not the best defender of the Bible that you could have on. But you do use it, so I'm asking specifically for you, why rely on it so much? Well, for me, I don't rely on it. I would say I don't rely on it that much. I do think that they are still some beautiful stories there that help me, you know, approach and understand as we develop better thoughts and things like, you know, Twilight Zone, it's not mutually exclusive. And I think that the benefit for me personally and the reason why I still find it meaningful is to be able to have conversations with people in my community and sort of have that shared narrative that we can then go off into other ideas. You know, like I'm sure a lot of them are definitely a better starting place to have that kind of conversation. My stoic ideas. I'm sorry, I can't see you. So it's always this uncomfortable thing of interjecting. But what if it was a better book to use as a starting basis to have that conversation rather than the book that was written, you know, like roughly 2000 years ago? And the thing about it gets me, or I have a problem with is when you share those stories and narratives as it were in your community, it's not simply the idea that you're exchanging and testing their worth. It comes with a whole load of authoritarianism with it. I mean, the societies that put forward those stories are basically telling you that these are true and you have to believe them and obey them. And the different people that you talk to in your community using those shared narratives are going to support the authoritarian part of it to different degrees. And you never know how much they're going to be supporting it. It sounds like you have a good mindset about this, but there are people who will take that far more literally than you and see you using it as a sign for them to be more confident in the authoritarian parts that they are already being used for truth. And I think the issue there is authoritarianism and that certainly isn't limited to religious groups. I think that's Stalin, for instance, wasn't religious. Well, I think this train is a religious person. He was trained as a... Sure, sure. The point to me is that I think, certainly I and I think a lot of people in my personal community would support the... Hey, maybe we shouldn't support the authoritarian abuse of religious texts. I was thinking something else. Interestingly, when you look at the history of the U.S., it was the Southern Baptists who were for separation of church and state because they were the minority religious group at the time. Would you be in favor if the Episcopal Church says, actually, we're going to throw out the Bibles and get the Koran in here? It's the more updated Judaic text. We're going to learn from the Koran here from now on and maybe even in the future, move over to the Bhagavad-Vita or something like that. Would you be... Or Mormonism. Yeah, or Mormonism, yeah. Jewel of great cause. And there's nothing wrong with Mormonism. There's great stories in that book. There's more stories in that book than there are in the New Testament. If you like stories and seeing how people get along with each other, there's more of that in that book. So, why not use that? No, that is an interesting point. But I think that... Why is that funny? It's a good point in the sense of there are obviously very strong families in the Mormon Church. The exact same stories you get from your New Testament, those books haven't moved, plus more stories of how people interact with each other and search for God. Why not use the Mormon text? I think that that gets to tradition. I don't think that that would necessarily happen, but I don't think that I would have that big of a problem with it if we were to change over the narrative. Why wouldn't you do a static? Now you have a book that has more stories, plus the stories you already like. Why isn't that even better? Why don't do it right now? Why is it funny? You gave me the standard. I'm just following the same standard. Well, I think that having read some of those, I don't think that they're that much better than... Why not? You already said you don't take it literally seriously. You say you just appreciate the stories and the constant that people are searching for God. You already said you had a separation between reality and what you participate as this imaginative play. Why not engage in Mormons or Jadism or Jobal Witnesses, Witness books? They have the same stories that are in the Bible that you're reading, plus more. Or bring them all in. Yeah. It seems that there could be potentially a double standard here. That's what I'd like to point out. And it's interesting why. I think that the reason that it doesn't happen is because those traditions like happened organically. And that's where I think, in some ways, we work with what has been handed down to us. And that's where the Episcopal Church certainly updates the prayer book, for instance. And I certainly wonder if, as a means to getting to a true conclusion, just working only with what was handed down to you is a reliable way to get to a true conclusion. Or could there be something better to get to a true or a better understanding of reality rather than just working what's given to you? It seems to be the case that everyone, at least from a religious perspective, largely relies on tradition to inform their impression of reality. And I can only see from the outside different people pointing at very different things with utmost confidence and using tradition to back that up. It makes me realize that perhaps tradition may not necessarily be the best way to reach that kind of conclusion. For something that should be the most important thing for me, whether or not this God exists, whether or not I'm actually getting true information, whether or not these feelings that I have actually are coming from this belief or if there's something I'm generating within myself. And that would be a great thing to unlock if I actually knew if that was true or not. And while I wouldn't discredit anything like I love the concept, I love the sense of community, I do wonder if the grand conclusions they're coming about with regard to a supernatural deity are justified and whether or not I'm justified in having them based on an idea of tradition. What do you think? That's 865-333-5937. And now, back to the show. What do you think? Well, I think that that's sort of the aspect that's unknowable from my standpoint and that's where I think... If it's unknowable, why be convinced that it's true? Well, I'm not convinced that it's true. I think that I like the idea of God. I like that it matches with my personal experience and feelings, but I'm very open to the fact that maybe it is chaos. I can't know that from the data that I have from a reason standpoint. But similar to the way that I accept the calculated distance from the earth to the sun but not doing the proof for myself, that's kind of where I think there's something meaningful for me in the ideas that other people have had in the past that we can approach but not take too far, right? In a dogmatic or ideological way. Larry, just an update. We're near the bottom of the show. We'll close out and we'll edit this appropriately but do you still want to do your sign off just so that we can get it in the same time frame? I've got a different sign off this time. Alright, do a quick sign off. Okay, one thing I wanted to say was that you're talking about believing the distance to the sun. Believing the distance to the sun doesn't cost you anything. Religious beliefs can definitely cost you something. Look at the 9-11 pilots who flew planes into the building. They cost them their lives. There's a lot of different things that come with religious belief and they should be examined to see what kind of cost you'd be playing. I absolutely agree with that and I think that for me that's where to make editing really easy for me. How about we'll continue this offline. I'll also record it. But at least for now, we'll see you guys next time. Thank you very much for joining us on the Digital Freakout Radio. This is 103.9 FM. Wozo, we'll see you next week. Alright. Bye. See you. Okay, keep going. I'm sorry. No, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to screw up the sign off. Sorry. No, no. Great, great. That's why I'm trying to get everyone on the same page. Alright, go for it. Great. So, okay, where was the thought? Oh, yeah. I definitely think that that's an aspect of, again, understanding our the ideas of God that I have beneficial to me and my community as opposed to creating a situation. And that's where ultimately the homosexuality causes breakdown for me because my experience with my homosexual friends is that they don't have a choice that they're loving. But, you know, there's nothing like that that's happening here. We need to accept them as people and as members of our church and as full members of the church. Sure. And that's really where, yeah. Can I throw something in? Just throwing my hat in here. Like if someone told me, like, if I told someone, hey, or someone told me, hey, I have a cat and I'm like, oh, cool. And they show me a picture of the cat. I believe that they have a cat because that's a pretty mundane thing to believe. People have cats and that's good enough evidence for me to believe that they have a cat. If they told me they had an actual tiger, like an actual Bengal tiger, I'm like, I'm going to have to see a picture or something to like, I won't take your word for it. And they show me a picture of them with the tiger. I'll be like, oh man, I don't know about this. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, sure. I guess I believe, but not really. I have to see like a bunch of pictures and maybe a Facebook account, maybe like some sort of like scar on their body for them training it. If they told me they had like a purple dragon that came from Jupiter in a time machine and they had a picture of them standing next to like a DeLorean and there's like a purple dragon behind them. I'm like, I don't care if you have a picture of it. I don't believe you. That thing is too extraordinary for me to believe what the amount of evidence that you're providing. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and I can't imagine anything more extraordinary than a supernatural deity that made the entire universe. As a result, if people say, hey, you know, you believe it because a hundred people said it or you believe it because scientists said, you know, the sun exists and like takes time to travel to there. I was like, okay, these are mundane things that we can test and examine but in a supernatural deity, that's an incredibly extraordinary thing. I'm going to need more than just a book saying that it's true. Especially one that monitors every thought you have and really cares where you put your penis. Larry, just finishing the thought. Just finishing the thought. Finishing the thought. I won't believe it just because a book says so. I won't believe it because everybody on the planet says so. I'm going to need more evidence to believe this extraordinary thing. The standards of evidence are different based on how incredible the thing that I'm being told is. It seems to be that case. Do you agree that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? I do agree with that. I think that, again, a good skeptic or a good postmodernist could say can tear down anything. Any kind of rational argument that you have. As long as you don't accept prepositions you can deal with it all. Ultimately, it all gets down to and even science gets down to feelings. Why does it get down to feelings? And as feelings, a reliable way to get to a true conclusion. I tell you, I've been at work. I've worked the night shift once. I walked to my car and I thought there was a dog rolling around the corner. I saw the dog. I literally saw the dog and he was rolling toward me. And I'm freaking out. I have every hormone in my body firing because I'm like, I don't want to fight dogs, dude. I'm a big black guy. I'm not bulletproof. I'm not dogproof. I can get bitten and I'm bleed too. And it turned out just to be a plastic bag. It rolled right past me and I'm like, oh my gosh. I had every feeling in the world that this was a real dog coming after me was wrong. That's a real story. Our personal feelings are facts. Yeah. Our personal feelings are a reliable way to get to a true conclusion. If I could be wrong about a dog and a plastic bag, why am I relying on feelings to get me on that God claim? Why was that even useful? And how do you interpret those feelings? Can you be sure that your interpretation is correct? Yeah. How do you know your feelings are the same as anyone else's? Why is that a reliable way to get to a true conclusion? I will get to conclusions. But why true ones? To me, the reliable piece of it is what are the aspects of God that a majority of religion and the majority of people agree with? God is good, right? God is potentially inside the universe is imminent. Possibly outside. That's where I don't know. Yeah. Not to frustrate you, but this is only the current understanding of what the popular idea of God is. You go back a thousand years, it's completely different. You go back another thousand, it's completely different. A thousand years from now, we might believe in a completely different God than we are now. If that changes based on the majority, why are we relying on the majority to determine whether or not the aspects of the God that we believe to be true are true. If that can change based on whoever is around or whoever has the most babies. There is a great, I had a sociology professor who started his college career as a religion major and his first sociology class said, okay, you can predict what kind of religion a society has based on these factors, whatever how developed and what stage of development they're in in terms of animistic religion versus possibly polytheistic versus monotheistic and so on. That's why he changed his major from religion to sociology. I definitely think that that's part of it, but that's where for me, living in the society that we live in, and I have, by the way, gone to mosques out gone to Buddhist temples. I'm not challenging you, I'm just asking why are you relying on feelings to reach a true conclusion? That's the focus of this question. If we can agree that personal feelings aren't reliable, that I can have very strong personal feelings about certain things that aren't true. About people without genres of music or people with certain colored skins or whether or not someone has a penis or not, if I could have feelings about those strong things and they dictate how I act, are those a reliable way to know if that's a true conclusion or not? I can't tell you how many women I've seen drive Jeep Wranglers in the city. It makes me think, oh, jeeps are just chick cars. They're things that daddy's buy for their good daughters so that they never get in car accidents that they don't have to worry about. Women like big cars, so they're always going to be whenever I see a Jeep, it's always going to be a woman. I've seen that time and time again. Therefore, in my mind from the personal feelings that I've reached and the evidence that I've had and the experiences I've had, every Jeep Wrangler is driven by a woman. Like, that's a conclusion I can reach with the evidence that I've had. Is that a reliable way to get to that conclusion? Well, I think that interestingly, I mean, this is where what is the crisis right now striking kind of social sciences of being able to reproduce published results in papers that's actually kind of disturbing. What is that? The replication crisis? Have you heard about this? No, I haven't. So this is a pretty recent thing where a lot of published psychology papers... Does this go towards answering the question that I asked? Because I had a question hanging out there I genuinely wanted an answer to. Okay, okay. Well, you said, yeah, your feelings can be mistaken for sure. I would say that feelings that you have over time can be more reliable. I mean, I don't question am I mistaken about drinking my tap water? No doubt. You have a reasonable expectation based on a grand majority of mundane experiences with your tap water that it's not dangerous. I don't know if you have as many with a supernatural being. And I'm wondering why use a standard for mundane tap water for an incredibly extraordinary supernatural being. Why are these two things being used for the same kind of conclusion? It seems like they're a completely different standard of testing. But that's where I feel like I'm not... This is my feeling, right? But my feeling is that I'm not making an extraordinary claim to say that reality outside myself exists, that I don't know all the aspects of reality outside of myself and part of the idea that helps me to capture the wonder that you were describing that I'm very much find like Carl Sagan Carl Sagan's view Spinoza's writings on God Before we get to more names, do you believe that God exists? Again, I think that it's a meaningful concept to me But do you actually believe that God exists? No I believe that God exists That's what we're talking about here That's just what we're talking about I want to know, do you have a good reason for that belief? I think that I think that it's in a lot of ways separate from the knowable universe and in that sense it's outside the ways of proving and that's why I don't I try to keep myself and those beliefs as small as possible and as humble as possible in terms of like the God belief is dependent on at least as far as you presented that you exist in a knowable universe that there's a universe beyond that that we don't know anything about it and that God lives there No I wouldn't say that I think that it's possible that God is the universe like a pantheistic view it's possible that it's a deist view I don't know What I do know is that I guess the aspects of God that I feel most comfortable with is that you know there's a very rational aspect of God that the world is ordered that it has all a certain loss How do we know that's related to a God like I can definitely flip a coin and it can land heads and I can say my cat's black but I can't make the argument of saying well because I flipped this coin and it landed heads I have a black cat like how am I connecting the fact that I have a rational universe that seems orderly and a God existing how are you connecting those two things well because I'm connecting God to reality and that's like a way of tell me the reasonable tell me the reasonable way that you're doing that in like a reliable method but I can believe it too if it's true because I want to know a few things like how are you doing that I because again that that relationship with reality like I could say the same thing about like Shiba or I can say the same thing my camera on my desk right now this kind of desk exists therefore there's rationality in the universe and math exists yes my cat my camera does exist and math does exist but how am I connecting those two it seems so desperate like how am I really what's the methodology that I'm using that you can tell me that connects hey we seem to believe living in an orderly world and a God exists that's responsible for that like what's that connection that's there and is that connection reliable like do you have that you don't have to have it right now we can talk about this in the future but do you have that do you have a reliable way that connects the reality that we seem to be sharing and a supernatural deity that is likely responsible for it and if you do I want to know about it because that seems incredible but I'm hearing things that are like personal experiences you know when you when you say like supernatural God and that I guess my my belief in God is doesn't say that it necessarily has to be supernatural and maybe there is no if your God's natural can we test it no it's not it's not that it's again I think it's something that is do we have an idea where your God exists it seems like it the definition of the God that we're talking about shifts as we get close to it it seems like when I say hey can we test God to God it could be chaos it could be ethereal outside of this reality it's like okay well it's supernatural then no no no it exists in this world and potentially interacts with things like so it does do things that we know about no no no there's no way to know if it exists or not we need to know what we're talking about here because this isn't the first time that we've ran into this loop I am seeing it only I'm only telling you this from an outside perspective I don't have a horse in the race I don't I'm telling you I don't believe that there's no God I don't believe that there is a God I'm not convinced either way so I'm probably the best Larry and I are probably the best unbiased parties to tell you that we're not convinced that you have a very good understanding of this God that you're talking about I know I don't well I don't I don't have very strong beliefs on you know what what what God is I have ideas yet you are willing to defend on multiple hours at a time that this God actually does exist and that your belief is founded by God is real and justified why bother well because I enjoy thinking about it I know I do you know it feels great I think it's but why but how did you be examined and it should be you know something that I but I think about why do you know from the perspective of hey this thing makes me feel good therefore it's real and now we can have fun thinking about it versus why do I believe this thing is real do I have a good reason to believe it I'm going to withhold Until I have a good reason to believe in it and then you could be like anybody else in a much more rational perspective of like saying Hey, I don't know if this is true or not I know actually actually believe it but I do like learning more about the history of how it came to be that way I can see from an unbiased perspective because I can tell you I played Assassin's Creed Odyssey It's all about Greek and you're like running around in like a simulation of Reese. I love all the gods I love interacting with like, you know vendors and and pirates and like figures from ancient Greece and from the Peloponnese or It's amazing and I can appreciate it despite the fact that I don't have any belief in those gods Or I'm convinced that any of them were true You don't have to have that belief that you that you're willing to defend at this point to appreciate the benefits of the belief or Even experience the same things that you're already experiencing and I'm wondering what is more important to you The fact that you can have these good comfortable beliefs that you can appreciate looking into or the rationality of understanding Hey, I'm willing to have a high standard for what I believe is true And if in fact this aren't if this isn't true or is true I will I'll say I don't know for now But I can still examine it and still have these really great conversations But not from the perspective of I already am on team this guy exists like there's no there's no reason to send out your Your your colors already like you can if you don't have a good reason to believe it I don't know is one of the best answers that you could have and it goes yeah And it's in the intellectual actually honest position and there's nothing wrong with saying hey I don't know if this guy exists. I don't believe in this guy. I'm not convinced that it's true But I can still appreciate the community that I'm part of I can still contribute and have those meetings or whatever in the interfaith groups I think you're in the perfect place for it But if you don't have a good reason for it, I wouldn't even I wouldn't waste a single second saying well Maybe I do what about personal feelings? What about if a hundred people said that the God was true? What if it was just from tradition? What if I had like these really really interesting feelings that I don't know where they came from or if it makes me feel Bad about relics like no you would immediately recognize these are bad Unreliable ways to get to a true conclusions and I care about what's true and what's not true So why not just why and I'm not forcing to do anything But I'm wondering like why isn't that as obvious to you as it is from us who are on the outside saying hey What are you doing right now? You have a great mind? Why are you convincing yourself that something's true when you have no good reason to believe it? I've got a great video. I like to recommend to people if you're interested sure go to YouTube If you're at a computer, I assume you are I'm at it. Yes Look up evidence 3 EV ID 3 and C3 Do you see he's got a series of videos called why I'm no longer a Christian? I'm sorry. What was the name? It's it's evidence But spelled the second and third E with a three I've got it Also check out Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It's really good Now he's got a series of videos, I think the first 10 of them really are the series Each one's about 10 minutes long where he a very painstakingly documents his his journey from Christian fundamentalist to Atheist and it takes him through college and he has a mentor that he emails back and forth and he talks about every aspect of Belief and he's very eloquent and his production values are great. Yeah It's it's a it's a very Good series of videos and you can break them up into 10 minutes segments if you want to also if you like videos I'd recommend check out other street epistemologists. There's Anthony man Bosco Curious cordial curiosity you will see mold when it doesn't it may not be as clear right now But like the more you see people use the same reasons that you're using to believe completely right or different things makes you realize Oh, okay Maybe I should get better reasons because you should always be in towards the pursuit of getting better reasons for what you believe All right, and when you realize oh Here's the standard and all these people believe completely different other gods or complete like you have fills at ducking them Or that crystals can talk to them or that their grandparents are reincarnated birds and cardinals and parks And they believe right exact same reasons why I believe in my god I need to have a higher standard for what I believe and it's like we said at the beginning of the show You can't choose what you believe you either convince or you're not convinced and you'll either find that you Convince with the current standard you have or that you're not convinced of the standard you have But either way you can keep looking and I feel like I don't want you to ever be in a point where you're like so Comfortable with your what the feeling that you have that you stop looking so I know I absolutely agree with that. I definitely You know what one one experience that I had that was Very cool like early on in stoicism is thinking through like free will and determinism and And yeah, I came to some really I don't know interesting insights there that that were very challenging and no I appreciate, you know the conversation. I guess my question for both of you is what what Would you like Say that your philosophy of life is in terms of you know the why of life and how how you you both Kind of got there. You know where did life come from type of thing? No, no, no like more more personal of like, you know What was the purpose of life? Yeah, what's what's your I guess per purpose of life or what what your goal is Purpose is one yourself give it you develop them there It's very important some of the most important thing you can do in your life is develop your purpose And you don't just have one you have many and they change throughout your entire life. Yeah So I mean, it's it's not a simple question. It's not saying well, this is my purpose because You know they're evolving so I'd say one of the truest things about a secular perspective It's that I'm not given purpose by a greater being to me I get the responsibility to use those for myself and I can change them if I need to and I can involve them as I evolve and grow up Myself and I think that's a wonderful responsibility such that my purpose is now Finding purpose and giving myself purposes and learning from the purposes that I have. Yeah. Yeah, and if you're interested in Some of my writings you can go to digital free thought calm and click on the blog But I've taken those articles and put them in a book and it's not available on Amazon Called atheism what's it all about? But anybody can go to my website and read those articles and more And our shows are archived there too as well. No awesome. Yeah, no So as an example tie like I think you know from our earlier conversation I mean, would you would you position yourself as kind of like an enlightened heatheness? Do you know kind of like the individual and I don't know is kind of the highest good in other words No, I don't so is that like a utilitarian perspective? Are you familiar with that term? Yes? I'm familiar with that but utilitarian. I mean you typically they're more like Whatever Looking at the human human Humanity is like whatever Unit of measure, okay, so I've not I'm not up to date with like the details of these Understandings I would say like I don't know what he's in his new guy. There is either I would I think my my philosophy for ladies how I conduct myself is fairly straightforward I'm willing to say I don't know when I don't know things and I'm open-minded to learning new things and I'll have the I'm trying to have the highest stamp. I How do I put it? I want to believe as many true things as possible But I also don't want to believe the fewest false things as possible So I need to have a very good standard so that I know where the falsehoods are and where the truth Truths are and I'm willing to say I don't know if I don't know that way I can at least put myself in a perspective where I'm at least intellectually honest beyond that it's easy enough to do things that maintain my well-being and That just requires me understanding long-term benefits versus like short-term gains like hey I steal that money from that bank today, but I might get arrested and put in a box for the rest of my life afterwards I'm not gonna do that. So hey, I'm gonna do things that are towards my well-being. I'm gonna pay my taxes I'm gonna contribute to society. I'll be a good moral model for people who can look up to me Maybe you even follow my path or set a good example for the neighborhood that I'm in and these have been demonstrably beneficial to me and I like having things that are beneficial for me So like I call that selfishness, but there's nothing really wrong with looking out towards for my own self-preservation and self-interest I've got a fellow man and my fellow man because that benefits me because now my fellow man looking out for me as well So it all right towards. Hey, what's beneficial and this all benefits me It's called human humanism Definitely and that's you know, again, that's a drop whatever Stoke terms or whatever, but that's very much the you you dymonia like good flow of life beneficial sort of thing sort of you and There's just some very interesting Arguments between like the Stoics and the Epicureans right historically of like The Epicureans were just all about pleasure and like you just isolate yourself and a garden a nice peaceful garden somewhere And that's that's that's that's good And that's the most beneficial thing whereas the Stoics would say no the best thing is for you to like live a life of service and That not only benefits society, but also ultimately you and That's sort of like, you know, I'd like a mr. Rogers would be a great example of Sort of that a life well lived If that's it then I would disagree with that point of view because I would say I shouldn't be obligated to have to Provide service. I would say it's not it's not an obligation though, but I think it's a way of Maybe recognizing that and benefiting others. You're you're benefiting yourself Yeah, my true true benefiting others My idea is whatever you do that causes the least amount of needless harm is the best thing then if there's a guy who's like I just want to have a Beach where I'm sitting and not hurting anybody towards my life I'm like, okay, right? That's not a problem And if there's a guy is like I want to join the military and help and I want to do community service I'm like they're both doing what they want to do with their own lives. Sure neither more causing needless harm I'm fine with it. I'm not gonna force one to do the other or the other to do the Alternative I think they're both rocking it, but if there's some guy who's just kicking puppies Stop either be like this guy or this other guy, but we're gonna stop you if you do needless harm Otherwise do what you do what you want my main my three rules are like just don't be a jerk You know work work hard like you know enjoy the life that you have and then try to keep your I'm gonna bail you guys keep talking if you want to Ryan I wanted to say thank you very much for being on the show Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I'm happy to have you and Hi, thanks again. All right, as usual appreciate you See you guys later Can I do a quick survey with you right Ryan before you head out or sure? All right, so you had done that interview with me I never get the idea or the perspective of someone after the talk that we've had you said you had given it a lot of thought Yeah, was there anything that? You would prefer to Express during the call or was there anything that you thought I could improve on with regard to have a conversation with Etc. Um That's a really good question. I hmm, I Think the main thing that bothered me is you know, just like cell phones have that delay, right? Oh, I didn't know Okay So and I don't know you you kind of experience it on on the Facebook thing as well like I don't know if you've ever had the experience of like being on a Conference call and then you walk into the room and they like say something and you hear it like two seconds later Oh, that's that year before you hang up. Yeah But you know that like that's very like whatever a technical aspect, but I think um Yeah, I would say if you like doing the future Like you know, I don't I have an Android phone So I don't know how it works, but like FaceTime or Skype or something where yeah, you can see like facial expressions Yeah, also always like a good a good thing and I think that that's where you know it's very helpful to Have like deep conversations like this face-to-face and that's kind of why I also So it's not outside of the ordinary though. I wonder what would happen to it if I did an hour-long face You would probably be throttled yeah, I think so I think I'd be throttled like why are you so grainy is everything? But yeah, you know, but in terms of everything else. No, I thought it went really well It's it's definitely You know give me a lot to think about is there any Answer you would give differently now Yeah, that's a good question But I think I'm You know what what what you said there towards the end was was very compelling Around Yeah Saying hey, these are these are meaningful, but you know The I don't know is maybe the right the right answer and I don't I don't I don't have I'm sort of surprised by my reticence to You know leap there and so I think that's where I'd you know I just have to do a little bit more work around All right. Yeah, is there something else There or or can I you know get to that point and feel feel better about this? Can I did you do you already know about the coin clip example did I already show that with you? Yeah, and I guess so so just to go Down that road as well as the example that you used about You know a car and putting water versus versus gas in the tank. Yeah So that's where I kind of feel like I You know Feel like I've I've been testing that out in the sense of Does belief in God like actually get my car to where I wanted to go in terms of helping me be a better person, right? right and so I Kind of feel like that's the case I don't think you necessarily have to have a belief in God for you know to get the gas in the tank or Theoretically can be another another source theoretically right in this example But that's what that's what's worked for me So what but this is entirely hypothetical if you stop your belief in God right now I'm not saying do it, but like if you did sure what would change tomorrow about your personal not that much to be honest Hmm. I mean that's that's kind of where you would go around start murdering people or would you start wearing clothes? No, exactly purple and like shoving shellfish down your face and being like I'm gonna lust after every one of my neighbors Whatever exactly yeah, do you think anything like that would happen? No, no, I and that's where I think You know as we kind of ended the previous conversation. I don't think it's that I Don't know Yeah, does it does it doesn't really change anything and so in that sense is it really the gas in the tank? Yeah Digital Thank you