 For most of my life, I've teetered between being an atheist and agnostic. Like many other skeptics, I fancy myself a rational person who believes in science. But eight years ago when I got sober, I was basically given an ultimatum, either believe in a higher power or die from your addiction. As a rational atheist, I put the pieces together and just realized that I had to understand that believing in something other than myself was one of the keys to sobriety. So I saw 12 step meetings, my support group, and my sponsor as what some would call a higher power. My beautiful girlfriend Tristan is also an atheist, and we have some interesting conversations. Although atheists were firm believers that if people are religious and aren't hurting anyone, more power to them. Sometimes we watch atheists on YouTube and see how they depict themselves. Oftentimes, atheists talk down to believers from a pedestal of science and pure rationality. But for this video on supernatural psychology, we're going to ask the question if atheists would sell their soul. I've been wanting to make this video for a long time because through my own research, I found that many atheists won't sell their soul, and it seems quite irrational. In episode 74 of the Freakonomics podcast, Steven Dubner discussed a comment from Skeptic Magazine, which read, What is it about the idea of a soul that even people who confess to not have one are hesitant to sell it? I have been trying for the better part of 10 years to buy a soul. I've offered a dollar amount between $10 and $50 for someone to sign a sheet of paper that says that I own their soul. Despite multiple debates with confessed atheists, no one has signed the contract. I've been able to buy several people's sense of humor and one guy's dignity, but no souls. Additionally, will any Freakonomics reader take me up on this? I'm willing to spend $50 on souls. So in this video, we're going to dive deep into some psychological studies, but I'm curious to hear from all of you because this is really interesting. Leave a comment down below and let me know if you'd sell your soul and for how much. I'm even more curious what your logic is if you're an atheist. And at the end of this video, I'll let you know whether or not I would personally sell my soul for $2. But before we dive into some of these studies, if you're new to the Rewired Soul, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. On this channel, we apply critical thinking to various scenarios to improve our own emotional intelligence and overall well-being. The internet is an interesting place, and it's made it so many people can buy and sell just about whatever they want. During the current pandemic, people have been turning to online storefronts such as Etsy to make some extra money. Then there are people like myself who have the ability to self-publish my own books. But then there are also more absurd items that people can sell online. In one season of Orange is the New Black, Piper creates a business where female inmates can sell their used underwear. And this is something that there's a real market for. In a previous video on essentialism, we discussed how Belle Delfine was able to sell her bathwater. Although eBay has been the biggest platform for buyers and sellers for over two decades, one thing that you can't buy or sell on eBay is souls. For believers, this makes sense. And if you were to ask a believer, they'd most likely be offended by you even asking to buy their soul. We atheists love to chuckle at this because we think we're so much more rational than others. But when put to the test, we're even more ridiculous. The first study I heard about was from the moral psychologist Jonathan Hyde and his assistant Scott Murphy. Much like the man who left a comment on Skeptic Magazine, they wanted to see who would sell their soul. But they were offering a lot less. For a person's soul, they were offering the low price of two dollars. Why were they doing this study, you ask? This was actually part of a psychological study on political moral foundations. And by the way, if you didn't watch my video on Shane Dawson through the lens of moral politics, make sure you watch that next. So in this study from Jonathan Hyde, they tested moral foundations such as harm, fairness, authority, and purity. As part of the purity study, Scott Murphy went to random college students at the University of Virginia and tried to see how many of them would sell their soul to him. The piece of paper read as follows. I blank hereby sell my soul after my death to Scott Murphy for the sum of two dollars. Below that, they would sign. And there was also a disclaimer on this piece of paper that said this form is part of a psychology experiment. It is not a legal or binding contract in any way. Not only did he put the disclaimer on that piece of paper, but he told the participants that they could rip up the paper immediately after they signed it, and he'd still give them the two dollars. So before I tell you the results, do me a favor and leave a comment down below of what percentage of people you think agreed to sign this piece of paper. One would think that 100% of atheists would sign this paper. You don't have to be an economics major at the University of Virginia to realize that this is a good deal. As an atheist, you're exchanging something with a value of nothing for monetary gain. So it's all upside. And as you learn from the comment from Skeptic Magazine, the man couldn't even get people to sell their soul for $50. Well, when Jonathan Hyde and Scott Murphy did this study, they found that only 23% of people would sign the paper agreeing to sell their soul. Think about that for a second. Almost 80% of people wouldn't sign the paper for $2. In the study, they didn't say the exact percentage of people who were atheists, but we do know that there are more atheists today than ever in history. In fact, the irrationality of atheists even goes further than that. In the Hyde and Murphy study, they asked people to explain their rationality to better understand their choice, and they found that many people couldn't think of any logical reason, especially the atheist. One debate that's quite frequent between atheists and believers is that of morality. For example, believers argue that atheists don't have morals because religion is what provides moral foundations. But this isn't true at all. There are plenty of moral atheists. But what's weird is how you can make atheists even more moral by discussing aspects of religion. Dan Ariely is the best-selling author of predictably irrational, and he has conducted numerous studies on irrationality of human behavior. And he has conducted numerous studies on the irrationality of human behavior. In his book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, they took 450 participants, divided them into two groups, and they asked half of the participants to try and recall the 10 commandments. After that, they put the participants in a scenario where they'd have the opportunity to cheat on a test or fight the temptation. The second group was asked to recall five books that they read in high school. Of the two groups, cheating rates were typical amongst those to ask to recall books, but those asked to recall the 10 commandments didn't cheat at all. What's fascinating about this study was that most of the participants couldn't even remember all of the 10 commandments, so just the act of trying to recall them made these people more moral. Many of the participants were also self-proclaimed atheists, so Dan Ariely and his team tried another experiment. In this one, they took the self-proclaimed atheists and asked them all to swear on a Bible that they wouldn't cheat. And although these people don't believe in God, cheating was virtually nonexistent compared to the other variations of the study. Now, in this final section, we'll discuss what this all means and whether or not I'd personally sell my soul for $2. On YouTube, there are quite a few YouTubers in the atheist community. I must admit that for a while I loved watching them. I enjoyed watching my fellow skeptics dunk on creationists by using good old science and critical thinking, but eventually I had a change of heart. While I would never judge you or anyone else for watching these channels about atheism, personally, it just started to feel really toxic to me. This happened around the same time I started reading books from famous atheists like Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, and Peter Bedossian. Although I enjoy listening to how these people form their arguments and use critical thinking, it just seemed like a strange obsession to me to constantly try to prove believers wrong. I started thinking of the people who write entire books dedicated to disproving those who believe in God or make this the core of their content on their YouTube channel. I also learned that there are entire conferences for atheists. And I started to ask myself, Chris, why do you enjoy this type of content? When I got honest with myself, it's because it made me feel better than. Once I reached this self-realization, I felt ashamed that I got any type of pleasure from this. And I know that many people consuming this content are doing it for the same reason. Now, don't get me wrong, after consuming a lot of this content, I realized that not everyone is like this. Those who experience the shot in Florida of seeing believers proven wrong may even be the minority. Some of this content is actually quite helpful. Jimmy Snow aka Mr. Atheist is a YouTuber who left the Mormon religion and is passionate about the content he makes. He often tries to help people who are on the fence about leaving their own religion. There are also creators like Rachel Oates who have made videos on toxic parenting books from religious people or about girl defined in their anti-LGBTQ videos. So yes, there is quite a bit of atheist content out there that is trying to help people or defend certain populations. But I wanted to make this video for those who are like me and got their jollies from seeing atheists own believers. Although many of us atheists present ourselves as the more intellectual, rational and logical side of the argument, you now know that's not always the case. Many of us atheists wouldn't sell our soul for $2 and for some reason, thinking of the 10 commandments or swearing on a Bible makes us act more moral. At the end of the day, we're all irrational beings just trying to do our best in the world. Alright everybody, I hope you enjoyed this newest addition to the supernatural psychology series. So would I personally sell my soul for $2? I probably would just because I'm curious and I like doing experiments with myself and seeing how I would react. Like when I was discussing this with my beautiful girlfriend Tristan, it reminded me of this book. Amazing book. And by the way, again, I link all the books that I talk about down in the description below, get them, their affiliate links. So when you use my link a little bit comes back and supports the channel. But anyways, this book was called Suggestable You and it was like this previously super religious guy. And now he's an atheist, but he wanted to learn more about like the power of the unconscious mind and the placebo effect. But anyways, in that book, he paid a witch doctor to put a curse on him, right? And he's like, here, just do it. And in seven days, you can take it off and the witch doctor is like, Oh my God, I don't even know if I want to do this. Right. But anyways, after that, like his wife, she was pregnant with one of their children. And like she had these stomach pains and she had to go to a hospital and his mind immediately thought about that curse. He's like, Oh, I'm so stupid. I can't believe I did that. Right. And it's kind of like this placebo effect. So where even those of us who are completely rational, scientific, whatever, like, we still have this like tendency to believe in the supernatural. So I'd be interested if I sign that paper, like if I would just, my mind would start picking up on these different things, right? Tristan, I've been talking a lot about this stuff. And, you know, a lot of you mentioned in one of my videos, I think it was the murderhouse one about the energy, right? And that's a really interesting subject that I might dive into. But anyways, again, like the moral of these videos, when I dive into supernatural psychology, like, although we're all sitting here trying to be critical thinkers and everything like that, like I said, like, I think it's important to realize no matter how smart or flawless we think our thinking is, we need to remember that we have the same biases and irrational thinking, right? Like we think we're so just rational. But when you sit back and you really start to do these little thought experiments, you're like, huh, I would do some pretty weird stuff. And I can't wait to check out the comments down below and see how many of you said that you would or wouldn't sell your soul and why or why not. It's really interesting. Interesting stuff. Anyways, I got a million more videos coming out. So if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up if you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody out there supporting the channel over on Patreon or by my books over at the rewiredstall.com or getting merch from the merch store or using my affiliate links for all the books that I recommend. All that stuff helps support the channel and all the work that I do here. All right. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.