do you at least acknowledge that all
of the scientific evidence points to an
earth that is
vastly older than six to ten thousand
years old
yeah i'm aware of that okay so how do
you recognize
that there's no god you're right you're
right did i say it did i'm not saying
that that proves there's no god
what i'm saying is here's something
we've learned about the universe
and it doesn't match with your literal
view of the bible
now there's a conflict there and we need
to resolve that
and some people resolve it in favor of
the bible saying the bible is absolutely
right
and ignore whatever actual evidence is
presented there
um i find that to be patently absurd
because
it it turns christianity into a
self-contradictory proposition
which is and so by the way does the
entire idea of a revelation in the new
testament
because your posit your position to the
extent that i understand it because i
haven't got a kind of a straight answer
yet is
one where there is a god who has an
important message
for mankind and somehow he only reveals
it
to certain individuals who then write
this down
and thousands of years after this
initial revelation we have to rely on
copies of copies of translations of
copies by anonymous authors with no
originals
and the a textual testimony
to a miracle for example the loaves and
fishes there's no amount of reports
anecdotal testimonial reports that could
be sufficient to justify believing that
this event
actually happened as reported no amount
and anything that would qualify as a god
would clearly understand this and
if it wanted to convey this information
to people in a way that was believable
would not be relying on text to do so
and this for me is the nail in the
coffin for christianity
the god that the god that christians
believe in
is amazingly stupid
if it wants to actually achieve its goal
of
spreading this information to humanity
by relying on
text by relying on languages that die
off by relying on anecdotal testimony
that's not a pathway to truth and
anything that would qualify for a god
should know this
which means either that god doesn't
exist or it doesn't care enough about
those people who understand the nature
of evidence to actually present it
now which of those possibilities do you
think is is accurate
i think you you do need faith to believe
it
sure and why would you believe anything
on faith
faith isn't a pathway to truth
everybody's go
every religion has some sort of faith
people take things on
you know if faith is your pathway you
can't distinguish between
christianity hinduism judaism any of
these others how
how is it that you use reason as a path
to truth
in every endeavor of your life and then
when it comes to the ultimate truth the
most important truth
you're saying that faith is required and
how does that reflect on a god
who supposedly exists and wants you to
have this information what kind of god
requires faith instead of evidence
well i think you probably have faith
about a lot of things too
like what i have i don't i have
reasonable expectations based on
evidence
i have trust that has been earned i will
grant trust
tentatively i don't have faith faith is
the excuse people give for believing
something when they don't have evidence
i mean if you can come up with something
that i believe that i don't have
evidence for
guess what i'll do i'll stop believing
it
that's the nature of a rational mind
that is the that is the goal my only
goal
was to be the best christian i could be
and represent this
to people who didn't believe and what i
found because i actually cared about
whether or not my beliefs were true
rather than whether they felt good was
that my beliefs weren't justified
try as i might and pray as hard as i
could
no answer comes no evidence is
forthcoming
and when i talk to people about this the
only answer they ever offer is the one
you did
which is well you just got to have faith
well sorry
i don't and not only do i'm not sorry
that i don't i'm sorry
for others that they think that that i
should have because
faith is not a virtue
faith is gullibility
it's evidence that determines whether or
not your perception of reality
is reasonable and in conjunction with
the world as it is
well i think uh church gives a lot of
people
uh some community and some values
sure so what that has no tie to
the the truth of the supernatural claims
church religions and churches
have tons and tons of benefits for the
in-group and some of them even have
benefits for some of the out groups with
you know feeding the homeless although
i really wish as many of the atheists do
we have the atheist helping the homeless
group in austin
where we will actually help the homeless
without making them sit through a sermon
first
um you know we're not holding their
sandwich ransom
in the name of jesus that you can do
there's no good thing that a church or
religion does
that cannot be achieved by purely
secular means and there's no
benefit positive benefit of churches and
religions that necessarily demonstrates
the truth of their supernatural claims
but there but there is this is my
personal hobby horse today there is a
cost
to deciding that you're going to take uh
um
in particular christianity on faith and
that is that when you run into
folks like us who don't believe it you
are compelled because you have decided
to believe
christianity you are compelled to think
all kinds of horrific things about us
and and and and tell us that
uh or come at us with these threats
of eternal torment um
which just draws a you know an
insurmountable line between us
we cannot be we cannot be friends
because of what you
have decided to take on faith that's the
cost
yeah and i'll tell you that that
divisive cost
um plays out not only in the previous
caller who had to give up his job
because
of good intention christians but
i have a fiance sitting in the room um
who
is essentially estranged from a good
portion of her family
who consider me to be the devil now
i may not be a perfect person far from
it
but i'm generally a good person and a
caring person and i do whatever i can to
live the best life i can
i certainly am not uh well i guess if i
was the devil this is exactly what he
would say
so who knows but the absurdity
of the divisive nature of christianity
in particular and by the way i'm an
atheist with regard to all gods
uh but since you're kind of representing
christianity
it just i mean it breaks my heart people
who actually understand
what love is people who actually
understand
what morality is people who actually
understand
reality it it is
almost unbearable to watch the people
that you love
be so absolutely duped
into a divisive hateful religion
that they think is not divisive they
think it's inclusive
and they think it's positive it it kills
me
and it's one of the reasons that i do
this because
i for 25 plus years believed this stuff
i am so happy so happy that i no longer
think that my
former roommate is destined for hell i
am so happy that despite the fact that
my relationship with my parents the
nature of it has changed
i don't have to worry about them
the division is entirely one-sided
i didn't end relationships when i became
an atheist
christians ended those relationships and
it was because
their particular religion cannot
tolerate my i was i had letters from
people who said we can no longer
associate with you
you are of the devil now
it's possible that they're right it's
possible
i don't know i don't know under what
circumstances but the only way you could
demonstrate that
is with reason and evidence not faith
and
i don't know how we can fix a world
where
people have been so convinced that they
are doing the right thing
out of compassion and love and trying to
help people
when it is absolute poison when it is
absolutely destructive
i i wish everybody could go through what
i went through
so they could have a proper
understanding
of wow how the heck could i have
believed
those things that i believed and how
much better life is
when you want to deal with reality on
reality's terms i mean i know that we
didn't
give you a huge opportunity to to
express your views but every time i
asked i got kind of a dance
and i'm i'm happy to have you call back
in but if your whole position
is that the foundation of your belief is
necessarily dependent on faith
then we have nothing to talk about
because i don't think that that's a good
thing
and until you demonstrate that faith is
a good thing how could you possibly
convince somebody and by the way
how do you go about demonstrating that
faith is a good thing without evidence
it all comes back to reason and evidence
i think he's gone again all right i was
going to give him the last word