The Atheist Experience 28.45 with Forrest Valkai and The Cross Examiner

The Atheist Experience

The Atheist Community of Austin

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4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2024

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Forrest Valkai and The Cross Examiner, walk Jackie through some thought processes of his own before encountering questions of existence with some New Age sprinkles.

Jackie in MS was not able to answer Forrest’s question of whether he has any of his own thoughts. It goes absolutely nowhere when this happens. Jackie agrees not to mention the names of philosophers and to answer the hosts’ questions. He argues that the existence of metaphysical things associated with religion are the reason for religion being a positive thing. What is an example of a good point you have made regarding these things? Why do you think people listening to this conversation will become convinced to believe in a god? Why do you believe a god exists? What created god that is more complicated than god? Why does the universe need a god to do what it does? Not knowing how something could have happened is not a basis to make a conclusion in the version that you like. Not only is there a magical explanation, but you know the dude that did it, and believe we must hate trans people! This could be a product from your environment, and Jackie, you deserve better than this.

George in Bulgaria claims that god is pure existence and we are eternal beings. What does pure existence mean? If we agree that things exist, how do you get from there to a god or to eternal beings? What would happen to existence, if a person was born that never reacted with anyone or anything else? What does your god want you to do? If god is asleep, why should we care? What is the evidence for our consciousness producing reality? Why is this better than just saying reality exists? How can your belief be falsified? A god that does not interact with the universe is indistinguishable from a god that does not exist. What can be gained knowledge wise by testing this?

Ibrahim in the USA, converted to Islam, and wants to know the strongest arguments against god. Would you say that the burden should be on us to prove things like Santa Clause are not real? When you get into the business of arguing about god, you get into different versions of god. If this god does exist, what kind of god is it? If half of the things that the Abrahamic god is said to have done are true, he is a monster. The amount of evil and suffering this god has allowed is atrocious. This is not a religion of morality, but a religion of threats. Why would somebody believe something that is not true when there is harm associated with it? If someone could convince you to believe in absurdities, they can also make you commit atrocities. The real danger sets in when you think you know what that god wants; this is when we start seeing cults, the Crusades, and the Dark Ages. Why does god not fix the suffering in the world and why did he not choose to create a universe where this did not need to happen?

The hosts are joined by Ben Clodfelter to close out the show. Thank you for tuning in this week! Question of the week is: What is an underquoted scripture at a funeral?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Do you care whether your beliefs are actually true? If you don't or more commonly, you ask,
0:06.3	what does it matter if my beliefs are true? If they make me happy, then we need to talk.
0:10.3	It is definitionally true that your beliefs create the foundation of your perceived reality.
0:16.8	That foundation influences how you act, how you make choices, and ultimately your well-being
0:21.6	and the well-being of those you love. In short, not caring whether your beliefs are justified
0:27.2	is harmful. Of course, it makes you vulnerable to making all kinds of mistakes and being swindled,
0:33.3	but more importantly, it trains your brain to accept claims based on things other than reliable evidence.
0:40.5	You end up accepting all sorts of claims based on emotions or because a friend sent you a meme or because an authority figure dictated alternative facts to you.
0:49.8	I'm a lawyer and my legal practice was FDA regulatory law, so I will use that as a real-world
0:55.4	example. RFK Jr. is an untrained conspiracy theorist whom Trump has said would be put in
1:01.5	charge of the FDA. Last week, RFK Jr. said that fluoride is dangerous and that we should
1:08.3	stop adding it to the drinking water, despite decades of evidence
1:11.9	to the contrary. We have as much confidence in the health benefits and safety of fluoridation
1:16.9	as we do in the existence of gravity. Removing fluoride will increase the number of cavities and
1:23.0	other serious dental ailments your family suffers from, and it will create a massive amount of
1:28.8	dental bills you will have to pay. That's just one small example. We saw record levels of
1:34.1	misinformation during the recent election about everything, ranging from immigrants, eating people's
1:39.6	pets, to election rigging, even to claims that one of the candidates was literally a messenger of God to save us.
1:47.0	It has been announced that the authors of Project 2025 will be a part of the new administration.
1:52.8	Project 2025 is a guidebook for dismantling the government based on massive amounts of misinformation about our history and the Constitution.
2:02.1	It was produced by the Heritage Foundation, a Christian nationalist think tank that is based on the foundation of lies,
2:07.9	but many people appear not to care. This means now, more than ever, we must be keenly aware
	...

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