 So you were a believer? Yes. You were a Christian and evangelical for like 10 years, you said, or for all your entire life? I was Christian before and then I would get really serious about 10 years. You like writing college? You went like Super Saiyan around? Yeah, I got that. Alright, Clayton, I'm about to do a quick little talk. Hey, what's up? So you said, um, so, that fresh, fresh play? Yeah. You've been an interlocutor before? Yes. Is that the person who does the interviewing? That's her. In a street epistemology kind of conversation? Right, yeah. Alright, do you mind telling me about that a little bit? Well, I first learned the process from the book, the manual for creating atheists. Okay, I always thought the manual for creating atheists was the Bible. As much of a Bible as we can have. Okay. So, yeah, then when I was coming out of religion, I was still attached to a lot of the people that I knew from my time there. I said, you've been political for about 10 years. Okay. So, after that, they really wanted me to stay. You know, they were my good friends. So we went through a couple books for God and just trying to preach at me and trying to reconvert me and, you know, rescue me or whatever you want to say. Can I ask a question about that? So, you were a believer? Yes. You were a Christian and evangelical for like 10 years, you said? Or for all your entire life? I was a Christian before and then I was getting really serious about 10 years. You like writing college? You went like Super Saiyan around? Yeah, I got recruited by a group, I don't know if that was a group, but, you know, really evangelical, really intense. Okay, and then it stopped? Yeah, I left. How did that happen? I really wanted to get to know like the foundations of the Bible, like the historical foundations and the more I dug on that, the more I compared it with secular archeology, secular history. It just didn't drive, you know, these places that they talked about in the Bible didn't exist, you know, or they didn't exist in the time of the archeology. And that made you less willing to believe in the document that you currently have? But what made you like say, okay, well I'm an atheist? Yeah, well, then I read a book, you know, I wanted to sort of test myself, you know, I wanted to understand why people left, you know, people, you know. I don't remember exactly what tipped me off, but I read this book by a guy who was very similar to me who said he worked in IT and programming. He worked for a group called Wycliffe, which does Bible translations. They do a lot of technical people. And so he was in Africa and he gave up his faith while he was over there. And he was on a path very similar to mine, so it really hit me, you know, this guy saying these things. You know, it's like look at the Bible, look at its foundations, you know, within a matter of days I was deconverted. Do you think you have a more reasonable position right now with your non-belief in the Christian guy? I think it is more reasonable, at least it dodges the reality. You know, if you can line up all the gods and all the beliefs that there are, you know, all of them have to be grounded in reality or history. If you hold them lightly, I'd say, if you're a apostatarian, you know, that's about it, as far as I can go. Okay, okay, okay. Sure. I do know a guy who takes that religion very seriously, only for the driver's license picture aspects. And you can take it seriously. Sure, sure, sure. I do wonder, there are people who be converted from one religion and just discover that another religion is correct. You haven't had the chance to look at other religions. When I was an evangelical, I had the chance to look at all these different religions. There's a lot of comparative religion just to prove that our point was correct, right? You know, you can't be correct unless you have an answer, right? You have an answer for the hope that you've had with Jesus and so, you know, a lot of good work, you know, on being an atheist plus one god, right? Yes, right, right. So you said you did most of the legwork of discounting other religions while you're an evangelical, so all that was left is just discounting the evangelical position. Right, so once you've done that, then that's very, you know, you don't have a belief in a god left. You know, I always felt that I was a pretty scientific mind. You know, I didn't really believe in a lot of woo and getting, you know, even some of the more supernatural parts, you know, you're like, well, people just take it at face value. There's got to be some kind of scientific process. Let me throw something. You said you're an atheist. How do you define that for you? Someone who believes in no gods. Someone who lacks belief in any god. Do you believe that there's no god? I'm as close as you can be with the, you know, with the basis, you know, the philosophical basis of being able to disbelieve or disprove god. You can't disprove god. It's not falsifiable. Yeah, it's just one of those things. It's not something that, you know, it's like disproving unifies. But your confidence is extremely low, but not absolute. I would die, you know, if someone, you know, if I had to believe in a god, I think I'd die for the belief not to human. I mean, there are, okay, so I'm in the same position too. I also have the position where I'm not absolute about my knowledge of whether or not there is or is not a god. But I don't have any conviction of believing in one until I'm presented with enough reasonable evidence. But if I had to pick a god, like if I had my choice, there are some good, there are some cool gods. You got four. I'm always really big MCU style. I'm just like, that guy's actually trying to save people's lives. Well, you don't like Marvel? Well, I just think it's kind of this fantasy. And you know, it's like, I didn't grow up with it. Okay, all right. Star Trek is my- Star Trek is your deal. We got a guy turned his head as soon as you said Star Trek back. Right. Okay, okay. So how did you learn about Street Pistomology? I'm reading the book of Manipura Creating Atheists. By Peter Pugosian? Right. And what made you actually start doing it? Like what was the circumstances that actually made you say, okay, I'm going to try this out myself now? Yeah, it was being confronted with these rational beliefs of my friends. You know, in my own way. I kind of tried to use it on myself a little. Uh-huh. To understand like, well, am I really, you know, I was fairly certain, but I was, you know, you have that nagging, what if, you know, what if I'm really crazy or, you know, that's a mental health thing. Uncertain. You know, trying to, you know, just come to some convincing or relief for myself, you know, that what I would now believe was correct. So, you know, so I kind of asked myself, well, why, what was the support you have for this, you know, new belief that you have, you know, being able to go through, you know, a comparative religion, looking at the historical basis of Christianity. You know, and then I used a lot of those things I was learning, but my conversation is probably not as formally Street Pistomology teaches, but you know, I was able to use it to ask the right sorts of questions about their, you know, the foundations of their beliefs. How does someone, I'm always interested in this because I'm still learning how to do the process myself. Yeah. What do you say are some important things that someone should keep in mind when asking questions in an SE style format? I think the, it's been a while, but you know, if somebody comes up with something that's patently false, you know, in your minds, you know. Okay. You kind of have to be dispassionate. You know, it's very easy to go back and say, well, you know, why would you believe that? You get that major reaction. Right. You have to be smarter than that. You have to say, well, how did you come to that belief? And how did you, you know, what might you be, what belief might you be holding that, you know, you're emotionally attached to, you know, rather than factually? Sure. Maybe not that directly, but more of, you know, it's a process of arriving where you can ask that question. I found it's like a balance between empathy and not getting so emotionally invested in the question that I've started to pick a side at the same time, too. Because they might be right, even if I think they're wrong, but like finding that, that, that really sensitive middle ground where it's like, I'm still human being, I'm still trying to figure this out. I'm really skeptical, but I want to ask a fair question each step of the way. That's, that seems to be like a really hard point. Yeah. Being fairly skeptical, you know. Fairly skeptical. Like, fairly, you know, where we can, we can call ourselves skeptics, but still have our blind spots. Exactly. You know, less skeptical about, you know, I got less skeptical about the scientific method because it's, well, it's simple, but, you know, it has its faults. Yes, it does. And we have to be honest and, you know, forthright about that, where, you know, the kinds of knowledge that it can produce, the ways that it corrects itself. Yes. You know, it's important to communicate. And when it comes to talking about the processes of religion, I think it, we have to be, yeah, we have to be especially sensitive to the emotional and personal content. Yeah, because people are ready to, you know, give up every, I mean, I was ready to give up everything to be missionary, right? Wow. I've been in college for, you know, four years and just ready to, you know, go after me, go to seminary and, you know, do all these things, you know, and maybe believe. Yeah. What kind of belief is that? You know, is it your foreign narrative, you know, really? Yeah. Do you feel, when I started street epistemology, I felt like there was a wall between me and my friends or any of my colleagues, workmates, anyone who had a really deeply held belief. But I didn't feel like I could talk about that or express how I felt about that. Do you still feel like that's there? Or do you understand what I'm talking about? Like that social barrier between, oh, that person's Christian. Right, just in your immediate circle. That's an obstacle we're going to have to either deal with if you want to get a close relationship. Right, you're close friends, this is what we're talking about. So, yeah, I mean, I had that, I felt that immediate distance, sure, with these people who, you know, had been my friends and we had been really in sync with each other. And then, boom, you know, I'm the one who's, you know, trying to, you know, challenge them and, you know, challenging people that, you know, you really call your friends. Yeah. Unless you can't really be 100% dispassionate about it, like I said, it's very difficult to, that's why I had to end a lot of relationships, you know, that I had, because they were unwilling to discuss these things. Okay, so I left, you know. Can you remind me asking, like, what were some of the relationships that fell apart because of this? My closest friends, you know, I mean, in the Evangelical Church, you had these small groups. Sure. People that you, I mean, I've been a part of this church for seven years. So, you know, these are my closest friends, you know, that I've happened to tell, although I can't really, I can't really be with you because, you know, we shared a lot and we shared, you know, a lot of common ground on the basis for religion, that's gone. It's like, I don't really like you, you know, because you're so, you know, you're, you're obstinate or you're, you know... You had no idea how close-minded they were. Right. Well, I knew what they were. I knew what I was. Sure. And, you know, I knew what they were, their objective, you know, was to reconvert me and to reconvert everybody they could. Okay. You know, not all of them are very effective at anything. So, if we were to flip the tables, one of your close friends said, hey, I don't have a good reason to believe this anymore. Yeah. I don't think we can hang out if this is the main activity that we do 24-7. Right. Do you think there would have been anything, you as a believer, that you could have said or now that you're on this side, something that you wish someone had told you to get you back on board? Like, what are you, what would get you back? Like, if it all, if it, if there was that small chance that you're wrong, like, what is it that you need to just say, I just needed someone to tell me that. Now I get it. This makes sense. I don't know if there's, you know, anything, but, you know, you're saying that if there was something that they could have said to me that would have, you know, brought me back. Is there a case? I mean, at that point, if you're willing, you know, it took, you know, so I do convert it in my mind. And then it took a few weeks to figure out how to tell these people, you know, just how, how we were going to handle it. Yeah. So I don't know if past that point in my mind, if there's anything they could have said to, you know, really. Can I throw something out? Yeah. This may not necessarily be true. Let me know. Correct me. But when you say ID converted, it sounds like you took a step down in your mind when really what you did was increase your standard of evidence and just some things that it needed and some things did. Yeah, absolutely. And as a result, if they can make a case that just meets your standard of evidence that you have, you'd be more inclined to at least be like, oh, okay, at least now I'll check it out again. I'll go through the process again. Yeah. And that's kind of why I entertained them for, you know, this book, The Reason for God. It gives you a lot of, you know, scientific sounding off arguments for, you know, on the other fact, you know, one of the blogs I read went through a line by line dissection of it and, you know, about the same time we were reading it. Yeah. So, you know, that was a, you know, I was able to, you know, turn it back on them and say, you know, well, this is, you know, yeah, this would have convinced me a month ago, but now just listen to this, you know. Sure. There's everything that this brings up. It wasn't just like one step. Like you, you were building gradually your standard. It was increasing even, like, after the point where it was like, oh. Yeah, my confidence, you know, was growing, certainly. Is there anything that you feel like you believe very strongly right now to an absolute degree of certainty where you know you can't be wrong about? It doesn't even have to be about God. Yeah. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure a lot of philosophical things out. You know, there's, you know, even what you value, you know, I think there are values that are inviolable, you know, like freedom, tolerance, inclusion, knowledge. Knowledge for its own sake is a virtue. I don't know that those things I could really be persuaded not to believe in. 200% certainty as a core value. Right. Yeah. This is a little bit off topic. This is off topic. And I don't know if we have, yeah, we have some time. Yeah. How do you feel, and I rarely get a chance to bring this up. So I apologize if it's like still kind of crude, but how do you feel about selfishness as a core value? Yeah, I don't think selfishness works really well. Why not? Well, the world is much better than us, right? It is. And, you know, I've heard some arguments in favor of it, you know, some people who are atheists, especially, you know, want to value it as a, you know, any idea that we value ourselves, then we have the resource to value others, you know, to build a better society for everybody. And just so I wait until we're talking about the same thing. When I say selfish, I mean, doing things that are in my self-interest. Well, yeah, I don't know if that's, I mean, when I hear selfish, I'm thinking of, you know, more, you know, more concerned about myself. Yes. Yeah, at all costs. At all costs? At the highest level, it's myself that I want. I'm fine with that as well as a definition. Yeah. So would you say like, in my opinion, just like flesh this out, I could steal that cup if I like that cup. It says Vanderbilt. I'm a George Tech yellow jacket, but you can keep that. Good stuff. I wanted it. I can keep it because if I needed to drink something, I can just take that. But it wouldn't be in my long-term self-interest to take something from you because it makes everyone else seeming in that way. And then my stuff to be stolen to, and like, I don't want to have to deal with that. So selfishness-wise, it's my best interest not to steal your stuff. Okay. Do you see what I'm saying? I kind of said, yeah. My self-interest long-term to pay my taxes, to be a good person in society, drive the speed limit, go to work, be a good member of society, contribute. All these things are beneficial to me, better than being harmful to society, being more sick than healthy. But my self-preservation, if I hold that to a higher standard and everyone else does the same thing too, we generally move towards what I consider a more ideal society compared to someone who doesn't care about their self-interest. What do you think about that? Yeah, it's like, I mean, if you're unconcerned whether you make a contribution to society or if you are a lot of good values to society, then sure. Yeah. Like, it benefits me to be in the society where I'm exhibiting good behaviors traits where other people are mimicking. Versus like an ascetic or a hormone. Yeah. Like, that doesn't benefit me at all. Right. You're a net taker, I guess. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, if you don't participate in society, you don't have a say. Yeah, like you had mentioned that freedom, like knowledge, it benefits me to have freedom. It's my core foundation of selfishness on that. Like, the reason why I want freedom is because I want freedom and I want everyone else to have it because I want it too. I want knowledge, that benefits me. I would say selfishness, from the list that you gave me, it seems like selfishness is a bit more foundational. What do you think? Yeah, I'll be wrong, let me know. I wonder where the space in that for, you know, sacrifice and, you know, I don't know if sacrifice is the right word, but, you know, delaying the self for the benefit of the whole. Could you give me an example where sacrifice is done in a completely altruistic manner? Right, about parenting, I would say, you know, it's a form of sacrifice where we, you know, delay our self-gravitation, our self-acquisition for the benefit of others, you know, even if they're... Could you give me an example? Right, I was thinking, like, the parenting relationship, you know, if you're... In, like, what kind of dimension? I'm not a parent, so, you know... You don't mind? Let's say... I'm a cat dad. I got an awesome cat. You know, just a... You're sacrificing some of your interests, your hobbies, your, you know, for a potential education. You know, I think about my mother, she, you know, sacrificed a lot, you know, to raise us, you know, or, you know, having to work more, having to, you know, less time, less time to be selfish, you know, in a way. Less time to be selfish? Yeah, less time to look after for something. Can I throw something out? Yeah. This might be twisting what you had said, so let me know if it's fair. But if I choose to be a parent, going very well, that there are laws if I don't take care of my kid well, that they can have repercussions on me, it's in my self-interest to, if I choose to have a child, take care of that kid. Also, long-term, a loving relationship with a child is better than a distant, you know, disastrous, one-fooled dysfunction. So, even though I'm, even though I'm taking away some time to invest in my child, it's for the betterment of, like, a long-term relationship with this kid that will have many grieving for me personally, emotionally, maybe even financially. Support-wise, security-wise. Yeah. These are, like, really good, like, I might be putting a dollar from my wallet into someone else, but it's building capital and dividends long-term. And that's ultimately a benefit to me. It comes back. If there was no benefit to me whatsoever, if literally having a kid was just, hey, you're losing all this time, you're losing all this money, I may not even be a parent. And if I was, I may not even be a good parent. Couldn't we say then that there's some idea? I wouldn't say it's entirely altruistic, being a parent. If you're a good parent. Yeah. Yeah. You could say positive parenting, you know. You know, let's maybe twist it that way, you know, there's no immediate reward or even long-term loss of life. Oh, that's good. I like this. We'll think about that. Yeah, you're not completely in control of the situation. Take turns to write. I mean, they took care of this baby for, you know, 18 months and then it went back to her mother. Oh, that's good. So, you know, was it worth it to do all that? We'd have to ask the foster parents about that, but I'd love to get that information. Tell them I don't know. Hey, that's, that is a great point. That's a great point. Okay, I won't take up more of your time. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thanks for helping me set this up. Yeah, sure.