The Atheist Experience 29.21 with Secular Rarity and Scott Dickie 2025-05-25

The Atheist Experience

The Atheist Community of Austin

Religion & Spirituality, Non-profit, Business

4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 122 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

(00:00:00) The Atheist Experience 29.21 with Secular Rarity and Scott Dickie 2025-05-25
(00:10:43) Hannah - MS | Materialism And Physicalism
(00:43:43) Watcher 215 - PA | Love Is The Fruit Of The Holy Spirit
(01:03:18) Paul - AZ | Foundherentism And Munchhausen’s Trilemma
(01:25:50) James - (CA) | Proof Of Evolution?
(01:45:04) Ulrich - (MX) | Church Is Evidence For God

Hannah calls in from Mississippi to talk about materialism and physicalism. The hosts say that they mostly subscribe to methodological and practical materialism. Hannah argues that the hard problem of consciousness undermines materialism. She says that materialism denies the existence of consciousness as a nonmaterial thing. The hosts point out that it’s only a problem if you presuppose that consciousness is immaterial. Hannah believes that consciousness is immaterial because you can’t observe consciousness. She shifts the burden of proof by saying that she would need to see a falsifiable experiment that shows the material nature of consciousness. It isn’t our responsibility to prove a counterexample to a claim without evidence.
Watcher 215 from Pennsylvania calls in to talk about his relationship with the holy spirit as evidence for god. The hosts explain that believers in other religions use the same evidence as proof of their gods, so it isn’t convincing. Watcher says that if other people got the same benefits as him from other religions, he would have to seriously investigate those religions. What if people also get the same experience from leaving religion? If you want people to believe in a specific god, you need to narrow down the evidence to show that religion/god is the correct one. Watcher uses circular reasoning and says that he knows that love is the fruit of the holy spirit, and he knows that by believing the word of the bible.
Paul from Arizona calls to talk about the hosts’ ground for knowledge. What is the ontology behind the hosts epistemology for the grounding of knowledge about their atheist worldview? Paul and the hosts discuss Foundherentism (a blending of coherentism and foundationalism), Munchhausen’s trilemma, and theories about infinite regress. The hosts say that there can’t be an infinite future without the possibility of an infinite past as well. Paul thinks that there needs to be a start to something, so there can’t be an infinite past because it would eventually run into a starting point. But why does there need to be a start?
James in Canada starts with the premise that all we know is that we are here and we don’t know how we got here. The hosts can agree that they are here and it’s not 100% known how we got here. James says that there is no proof, but the hosts can’t totally agree to that. There is solid proof about evolution and the genetic code, etc. James points out that evolution is a theory and describes a theory as an idea that may be true but isn’t proven. However, in scientific communities, it has a different meaning. A scientific theory is pretty much a fact. When asked, James says that you can’t have evidence of god, but he also believes that we shouldn’t believe evolution if there was no evidence for it. If we’re held to that standard, why isn’t religion as well?
Ulrich from Mexico claims that the existence of churches proves that God is real. The bible says that there will be churches for God, so the fact that there are churches means the bible is true. He says that no other holy books have fulfilled prophecies. When asked for an example of a fulfilled biblical prophecy, he brings up a prophecy of Jews returning to Jerusalem before the end of days. Does he think the end times are happening right now? He says maybe. When arguing his case, Ulrich couldn’t engage in an honest conversation, so he got hung up on.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I literally randomly opened this Bible right here, right before I hopped on behind the scenes to start this show.
0:07.5	And this is the page that I landed on.
0:10.4	It's Ezekiel chapter 18, starting at verse 5.
0:15.1	If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right. If he does not eat upon the mountains
0:21.3	or lift up his eyes to the idols of the House of Israel,
0:24.9	does not defile his neighbor's wife
0:26.9	or approach a woman during her menstrual period,
0:30.4	does not oppress anyone,
0:32.7	but restores to the debtor his pledge,
0:36.5	commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry,
0:39.7	and covers the naked with a garment, does not take advance or accrued interest, withholds his
0:46.2	hand from iniquity, executes true justice between contending parties, follows my statutes,
0:54.1	and is careful to observe my ordinances acting
0:58.3	faithfully. Such a one is righteous. Now, there's a lot there that we could talk about, right?
1:07.8	I mean, the not approaching a woman during her menstrual period, right? The no accrued
1:12.6	interest or for some reason not eating on mountains. But what I want to focus on right now is this.
1:19.8	The biggest aspect of that list of how a righteous man acts is according, large part to how he treats others around him,
1:32.3	not oppressing people, paying his debts, not robbing those in his community, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked,
1:43.3	a general sense of lifting up one's community, not for fame or riches, but goodness for goodness sake.
1:52.9	So let me ask the Christians out there real quick.
1:56.6	Do you think your behaviors and actions line up with this?
2:01.1	What about those with big platforms who claim the name of Jesus?
	...

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