carl in oklahoma
hello carl hi hi you got matt and dawn
here how are you
hi matt hi great how are you doing oh
not too bad
what do you got for us today i'm well
actually i'm open to any questions you
have for me
i'm a non-denominational uh
christian okay
well that's that's kind of interesting
because this is a call-in show and the
the question we ask is what do you
believe
and why do you believe it i believe in
god
obviously okay why and and you probably
have to define god
because there's you know thousands of
different versions of christianity that
disagree on everything but
wow so give us a rough description of
the god you believe in
and then you can explain why okay
well god is the one who created the
whole universe who created you and me
and uh he is the only god that i know
that has a son
you know besides greek mythology but
anyways
uh so so we're already into really weird
territory
because you say that god is the only god
you know of that has a son
how many gods do you know of i don't
believe in any other gods but there's
other gods that are considered gods but
they're actually false gods okay
how did you determine that yours is the
true god and that the other gods are
false gods
because they're not real they're
actually seriously
they're not real that's how you
determined it how did you determine
yours was real see
the question had two parts of why do you
not believe these other gods and why do
you believe this
yeah and if your reason for believing
this is because the other ones are wrong
that's a fallacy yes
okay you're right so well what's the way
i explain it yes
so why do you believe well
number one it starts with faith and two
why would you
why would you believe anything we're
done at number one
we're done at number one why would you
believe anything that's a good way to be
wrong
is there any is there is there any
position that
that i couldn't take based on faith
is there any position that you could
that you could not take based on faith
right if you begin with faith couldn't i
believe all those gods you just
dismissed or couldn't pick one of those
gods you dismissed and believe it based
on faith as
a primary foundation you could yeah sure
so doesn't that mean that faith is not a
good foundation for determining what's
true or not true
not so that does not what it means so
faith
faith can be used to both believe a true
thing and a not true thing
and you think that this doesn't
demonstrate that faith
is an unreliable path to truth
well the bible says that faith pleases
god and
jesus said to thomas i i asked a
different question
i asked i don't know why you're going to
the bible at all we're talking about the
foundations of epistemology here about
how we determine
what is likely to be real and if your
method your primary method
of faith can lead you both to something
that is true and something that's not
true
then doesn't that mean that faith is an
unreliable path to truth
uh no i i don't understand
if if if i can flip a coin to make a
decision and it can lead me to the
correct decision and an incorrect
decision doesn't that mean that flipping
a coin is an unreliable path to the
correct decision
okay so that was a yes or no question
if you turn your phone that was a yes or
no question
okay well it's a question again if i can
flip a coin
and based on its outcome it can lead me
to a correct decision and an incorrect
decision
doesn't that mean that flipping a coin
is an unreliable
method to reach the correct decision
true okay so to substitute the word
faith for coin
and answer the same questions you've
already acknowledged that faith can lead
you
to yahweh and can lead me to zeus
or any of a hundred other gods if faith
can lead to those in
to any of those conclusions then how is
it a reliable
pathway to truth if it can lead me by
the way let's say there's a thousand
different proposed gods
and only one of them's real and we can
use faith to get to
any of them then you've got a one in a
thousand
shot which is way worse than a coin
tossed of getting the correct position
based on faith right but there's tens of
thousands of gods
so oh yeah now does that demonstrate
that faith is not a reliable path to
truth
well there's also proof you have proof
also hang on
just just just let's finish this point
and then we can move on to the next one
i'll let you go i'm not just going to
hang up as soon as you acknowledge that
faith is a crappy path to truth i just
would like you to acknowledge that the
argument's been made
and that you agree with it okay so is
faith a reliable pathway to truth
uh to some no but to others yes
why are we hedging here no we're done i
i well i
promised i would let you go on but all
right so
faith can sometimes lead you to truth
correct and faith can sometimes lead you
to something that's not true
yes which means that faith is not a
reliable path to truth right
you can't just real faith out like that
though the [ __ ] you can't
okay i'm sorry that i'm sorry that
i'm sorry that logic demolishes your
position
but that's not our problem the problem
i'm having now is that
when you've been exposed to a syllogism
to a illogical position that shows that
your foundation is flawed
instead of acknowledging it you want to
come up with an ad hoc
just oh well you can't get rid of faith
that way it's dishonest
it's incredibly dishonest to have your
position
demonstrably shown to not be reliable
and you acknowledge this and then want
to
try to rehabilitate it now you're
welcome
to make an argument for faith is rely of
why faith is reliable in your case
but if you aren't willing to acknowledge
that faith isn't reliable generally
then i don't know how we continue any
one-sided argument sounds good
if it's one-sided i haven't got to speak
yet
oh you're wrong any one-sided argument
doesn't sound good
you presented a one-sided argument and
we demolished it now you can go on to
present another one-sided argument
because you said we begin with faith and
faith is not a reliable pathway to truth
you presented an argument and i answered
questions there's a there no i
presented a response to your argument
and you dodged the answer
over and over until i held your feet to
the fire you wanted to go to the bible
you wanted to go to any other thing
other than answering the question
about epistemology which is completely
independent of any religion
how do we reliably find a pathway to
truth
is faith a reliable path to truth
that was a question for you
is faith they're reliable that's the
truth i didn't say thee i said a but
i'll go with either one
okay uh not always well okay do you know
do you understand what not always means
sometimes and sometimes it does so
therefore it's not reliable right so
then
it's not reliable right yeah
yeah thank you sometimes we gotta parse
the sentences here jesus hey
listen to me though listen to me though
if if you turn on your phone
my phone's on it turns on okay but
why do you think the phone will turn on
though why because it did the last 10
million times you turned it on
yeah um so how do you know for sure you
don't know for sure you don't know
anything for sure when i push the button
what do you have carl when i push the
button on my phone i'm not
in any way saying i know for sure this
phone will turn on
because you know what sometimes it
doesn't what i'm saying when i push the
button into my phone is i have a
reasonable expectation of how
likely my phone is to turn on based on
how many times in the past it has turned
on and how many times it hasn't
and that the world continues to be
roughly consistent but i'm not
expressing absolute certainty
at all i am apportioning my confidence
level
in something to the evidence that
supports us this is what hume taught us
about epistemology
the wise man proportions his belief to
the evidence
so you want to use this example of how
do you know your phone's going to turn
on well
i'm not i'm not saying that i know my
phone's going to turn on if you require
absolute certainty
what i'm saying is based on all the
information i have there's a
very strong likelihood that my phone
will turn on and you know what when it
doesn't turn on
i don't go it's a miracle
god must have done it i go damn there's
batteries
there must be something wrong there's
also an equivocation going on here you
know
when we're talking faith we're talking
uh belief in something without
sufficient evidence if you've got
evidence
present that you know if you've got a
solid reason faith
faith is faith is uh the reason people
give when they don't have good evidence
yeah there's no
faith involved here as a matter of fact
we can take my phone and we can put it
in a laboratory setting
and we can turn it off and we can turn
it on and we can do this over and over
again and we can determine
how reliable this phone is plus or minus
some error percentage
and that is how confident we should be
in the reliability of turning the phone
on phones exist
here's a question how many times
have we demonstrated that a god actually
exists
we haven't demonstrated yet so
i can demonstrate that my phone turns on
at least once i can demonstrate that it
turns on repeatedly
i can put together a probabilistic
assessment of my phone can we do any
such thing for god
you you're comparing natural things with
supernatural things no
i asked a question can i do any such
thing for god
what was the question again i'm focused
on what i have to say so
your answer your answer is no which is
why you objected by saying i'm comparing
natural things to supernatural things
but here's the dirty little secret carl
i didn't bring up the phone
you did you're the one that is trying to
falsely
compare supernatural things to natural
things
as if there's no distinction as if the
faith in the god belief is the same as
the faith that i'm turning my phone on
and that is a false equivalency that's
why i ask the question
plea have we ever demonstrated that god
existed
we have not yet correct and if we
haven't demonstrated this yet
what possible reason could one have to
believe that a god does exist
yeah i understand okay that was actually
a question yeah i understand
uh doesn't really answer that question
what possible reason could we have to
believe that something is true when we
have no demonstration of it
well you have you don't know until it's
demonstrated right yeah
all right but i didn't ask whether or
not you knew i asked what possible
reason could we have for believing it
until it's been demonstrated well if you
rule out faith you don't have a reason
correct and here's the thing
you called us and you believe
and you begin with a belief based on
faith and you acknowledge that faith
isn't a path to truth and you
acknowledge that we haven't demonstrated
that god believed
and when asked what reason you have for
believing it you go back to faith
do you not see the problem there
uh i see the problem with you
understanding
okay what's the problem with my
understanding then since you see that
okay so if i
pray to a god you know through my faith
if i pray to god and my prayer
that get answered should i be
discouraged or if your phone doesn't
turn on should you be
discouraged that your phone doesn't turn
on how is that well you know
you have how is this an explanation of
what i don't understand carl
do what how is this an explanation you
said you you see
my failure and understanding and i asked
you what that was
and you begin with if i pray and i don't
get an answer
should i be discouraged how is that in
any way an explanation of what i don't
understand
yeah that's what i thought thanks carl
if you tell me that you understand what
i don't understand
and the next words out of your mouth
demonstrate that you're not actually
going to address what it is that i don't
understand but you're going to go on to
make it one more to attempt to
rehabilitate oh it's faith well
it's not always faith it's reason well
if you don't have reason it's faith well
why should i be discouraged just because
my prayer wasn't answered
the question here is not whether or not
you should be discouraged because a
prayer wasn't answered but whether or
not you have
any reason to believe that your prayer
was likely to be answered in the first
place
and if you tell somebody that you
understand why you see the thing that
they don't understand
and you don't present that when offered
you're no longer arguing honestly and
it's transparent to everybody who the
watch the com i don't pay that much
attention watch the comments of this on
youtube
watch people who to actually analyze
this discussion
you called us because you were prepared
to defend
the hard questions about christianity
and you couldn't even
defend the simplest questions which is
why do you have any reason to believe
other than to acknowledge you really
didn't but you're not one to get
discouraged when prayers aren't answered
we've been arguing about these things
forever
there are apologists who spend their
entire life training and these people
some of them actually have a good
understanding of epistemology
there are others who are deleting and
then there are people like you
who are convinced that they have a good
reason for belief
because they've never actually spent
time thinking about or discussing how we
go about to get to reasonable
beliefs which is why you can begin with
oh will you start with faith
what good is faith if there's no
demonstrable pathway to truth
hey white people are better than black
people i'm just going to take that on
faith
gay people are an abomination i'm just
going to take that on faith
hey we should vote this way i'm just
going to take it on faith
my phone's going to turn on i just take
it on faith echo chamber of your own
mind and your own beliefs and your own
your own biases and your own things that
you want to
want to believe wishful thinking the
question that we ask
has two prongs what do you believe why
do you believe it
i put it to you that through that entire
call
there was not one demonstration of a
sincere attempt to answer the second
part
instead the first part was just reformed
and rephrased over and
over again here's what i believe why
well you take it on faith that's just an
assertion that what you believe
is believable or that you believe what
you believe it's not
it's not an answer to why well i
shouldn't get discouraged if prayers
aren't answered
okay what caused you to get encouraged
in the first place was there a prayer
answered do you have some
and if that was the case then why didn't
you present that at the beginning why
didn't you say
i believe because the god of the
universe is self-evident when people
call you and say look at the trees what
they're talking about
is the obvious elements of nature that
scream
to the truth that a god exists and
here's how we can present
evidence for this and here's how we can
present an argument that shows that the
world was intelligent
you're not even a delete what you are
is somebody who sincerely believes and
you're so cocksure
in your belief that you're willing to
call up a show and say come on ask me
the tough questions when you haven't
even spent time thinking about the easy
ones
so do that think about the easy ones
find answers then think about the tough
ones
find answers and then call back and
really explain
why it is that i'm wrong what it is that
i don't understand that would be helpful
for both of us
but calling in to say well you got to
start with faith i mean if it weren't
for the fact
that we can actually have conversations
and make points
about the unreliability of appeals to
faith
i would just hang up on everybody when
they called in and made an appeal to
faith
i would hey why do you believe in a god
oh i just have faith goodbye i'd
actually like to get on to
an actual discussion faith is useless
faith doesn't a virtue but this is where
a lot of people are they
they they put a lot of faith in faith
for lack of a better word but uh yeah so
they want to believe they want to think
that their prayers are going to be
answered they want to
you know they want to say that this
investment they've put in their
religious belief
has not been in vain um but you know
it's a lot of us
have released our shackled and and
and learned that that that that's not a
not a way to the truth it's not the way
to figure out what's going on in the
world and
we you know are better off for it we're
happier as atheists
yeah but i like the call i like to call
because it allows us to get to those
points
there's a lot of people who are in that
position um and i'd like to think that
there are people watching at home
who thought that perhaps that was a good
answer until it was exposed not to the
one thing we know is that
once you've made a public profession of
what you believe you are less likely to
change your mind you are more likely to
double down and
in the face of expositions of fallacies
and poor thinking
you are going to find some try to find
some way to rehabilitate what you think
we know that happens and i don't
begrudge him one bit
um for being in that position on the
other hand
if you're just going to talk in in a
circle and if you're not going to
actually give a reason
then we need to move on to potentially
other people who will