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Stefan Molyneux
  • yesterday
Twitter Space 17 July 2025

In this episode, I examine the relationship between Christian ethics and atheist rationality, questioning why atheists choose honesty. I challenge them to reflect on their moral consistency and free speech, while discussing the implications of their left-leaning political stance. We explore whether objective moral standards exist in atheism and contrast abstract knowledge with its tangible outcomes. The conversation also addresses the societal impact of beliefs, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. My goal is to encourage atheists to articulate their ethical foundations and engage constructively with differing perspectives.

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Transcript
00:00:00Hey, hey, hey, good evening, everybody, if I'm all new, from FreedomAid, FreedomAid.com,
00:00:07FreedomAid.com slash on it, if you'd like to help out the show, would be most gratefully
00:00:11and humbly appreciated to help spread philosophy in this benighted world of ours.
00:00:16And I suppose I like to think of myself as an ambassador, an ambassador, not to Burma,
00:00:24but between Christian ethics and atheist rationality.
00:00:30That is my latest ambassadorship, my latest ambassador role.
00:00:36And I'm going to sort of reveal what the purpose was of my fairly infamous tweet from two or
00:00:42three days ago, asking atheists why they don't lie.
00:00:46Why they don't lie?
00:00:47Well, what are their reasons?
00:00:48Not why they don't.
00:00:48What are their reasons for not lying?
00:00:51I'm sort of going to reveal the whole sort of experiment thing.
00:00:53I'll do that tomorrow night.
00:00:54We're going to do a live stream at 7 p.m.
00:00:57Eastern.
00:00:58Mit de video.
00:01:00So you get the bald ostrich egg of wisdom across your screen.
00:01:05But there's a reason behind what it is that I'm doing.
00:01:09And atheists have been on the offensive against Christianity.
00:01:12And, you know, again, it's all fair play.
00:01:15It's all fair play.
00:01:16But I don't think atheists have really been held to account for their rabid leftist totalitarian
00:01:21viewpoint.
00:01:22Like 85% or so of atheists in America skew hard left.
00:01:28They are pro-Democrat parties.
00:01:30The Democrat Party is hard left, particularly these days.
00:01:33They had close to twice the rates of compliance with the jab.
00:01:38And as you know, of course, the Democrats in America, massively supported by atheists, you know, half of them wanted people who didn't take the jab locked in their homes.
00:01:48A third of them wanted children taken away from parents.
00:01:51A third of them wanted the government to find or imprison people who even questioned the efficacy of the vaccine.
00:01:56And these are all supported by the atheists.
00:02:00Atheists are the most likely group to want to shout down and destroy the opportunity of people to speak on, say, college campuses.
00:02:08Atheists and Christians are the most likely to be pro-free speech and atheists are the least likely to be pro-free speech.
00:02:18Now, free speech is a pretty important thing for me, as it is for any rational thinking person.
00:02:24And the fact that atheists are rabidly hostile compared to other groups to actual implemented free speech means that they're totalitarian, a-holes, grimer, worm-tongued bootlickers of the existing power structures.
00:02:43And the other thing that's hard to sort of miss is that atheists never get canceled for being atheists.
00:02:46In other words, they're not posing any particular threat to the powers that be.
00:02:50But let's get to you, you guys.
00:02:54Let's get to your conversation.
00:02:57Let's get to what's on your mind.
00:03:00Jacob, I'm happy to take your thoughts.
00:03:03What's in your mind?
00:03:05You are not audible to me.
00:03:08So if you're speaking, you're not doing any good.
00:03:11Go on once, go on twice.
00:03:14John, what's on your mind?
00:03:15Don't forget to unmute.
00:03:17John, I can't hear you if you're talking.
00:03:19Hello.
00:03:20Yes, go ahead.
00:03:21Yeah, go ahead.
00:03:22Yeah, nice to meet you.
00:03:24I've heard a lot about you.
00:03:25But I never actually investigated you myself.
00:03:28I see your spaces a lot.
00:03:30I often host spaces on X.
00:03:33I'm a Christian.
00:03:34Sorry, I know you want to talk to atheists.
00:03:36But I've spent a lot of time the past, well, about half a year now debating atheists.
00:03:42And most of them are philosophically ignorant.
00:03:45You know, a lot of them are naive empiricists.
00:03:49And I do agree that there's definitely a political bias and swing to the left.
00:03:54I actually think that's because a lot of leftists promoted atheism.
00:03:58You know, you look at the heads of atheism, maybe like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, you know, Matt Dillahunty, at least in modernity.
00:04:09And they definitely have a left-wing bias.
00:04:13I don't think it should be that way.
00:04:14I don't know if I was an atheist.
00:04:16When I was an atheist, I certainly wasn't liberal or leftist.
00:04:20But anyways, I digress.
00:04:22What is it that you mean by naive?
00:04:26Was it naive?
00:04:27Empiricist?
00:04:27I can't remember the phrase you used.
00:04:29Yeah.
00:04:30Naive.
00:04:30Yeah.
00:04:30And what does that mean?
00:04:31That sort of comes out of the Enlightenment.
00:04:34But when I use it, I'm specifically referring to people who presuppose naturalism, but haven't actually investigated the arguments for naturalism and, you know, counter-arguments against naturalism, hence naivety.
00:04:49Right?
00:04:50So, for example, they'll say, you know, like, transcendental concepts are really just, you know, in the brain.
00:04:57It's like, well, now, have you heard the counter-arguments for that?
00:05:00No.
00:05:01Like, okay, what's your argument for that?
00:05:03You're like, well, I just think so.
00:05:05You know, have you spoken to neuroscientists?
00:05:07No.
00:05:08So, you see where I'm kind of getting at?
00:05:11I'm not quite sure if I follow.
00:05:12So, they say that concepts exist in the mind and not in the world, so to speak.
00:05:20Is that right?
00:05:21Specifically, the physical brain, I should have clarified.
00:05:23That's the empiricism sort of, you know, we can only know a thing, know things, a posteriori.
00:05:31Can you break that down?
00:05:32I just have to remind everyone that we're talking to a general audience.
00:05:36So, don't use tech.
00:05:38Don't use lingo.
00:05:39Yeah.
00:05:39Don't use jargon.
00:05:40I won't use the philosophical tradesman terms.
00:05:44You know, sort of that, like, you know, things, concepts, you know, whether it be, like, ethics, or whether it be, like, logic, or, you know, any sort of concept that you can abstract is really just purely a product of the brain.
00:05:59You know, there is no immaterial component to us.
00:06:02You know, we don't have souls.
00:06:03We don't have minds.
00:06:04And, you know, even if you're not necessarily...
00:06:06Well, hang on, hang on, hang on, sorry.
00:06:07Don't have souls and don't have minds, that's not the same category, right?
00:06:12A soul would be an eternal, immaterial essence of personality or the self.
00:06:19A mind would be something quite different, because a soul would be immortal, but a mind would be mortal.
00:06:26Sir, I'm not trying to, like, equivocate there.
00:06:28I'm just...
00:06:29All I'm saying here is that I've spent a lot of time debating atheists that presuppose naturalism.
00:06:37That's, like, presuppose that there is no immaterial ontology to things.
00:06:41No...
00:06:42Nothing exists besides physicality, atoms, etc.
00:06:46But they can't really give explanatory power to that.
00:06:49They haven't really, you know, considered what philosophy is saying.
00:06:54Okay, and I'm certainly happy to hear the case.
00:06:57And what would your case be for things existing outside of, let's say, matter and energy?
00:07:03Sir, I mean, one approach would be an epistemological approach, or, you know, how we know things, epistemology, the study of knowledge.
00:07:10And that's, like, okay, if we're going to make the claim that we can only know things through, you know, experience, through study of the empirical world, of the physical world,
00:07:22I think in order to even get to that starting point, you have to presuppose things which are not, you know, told to us.
00:07:31You know, you don't look out at nature, and then nature tells you, look, you can only know things through nature, right?
00:07:37That is something you bring to the table prior to the empirical conversation.
00:07:42So, I think, you know, we do have to start in order to, like, justify...
00:07:46I'm sorry, I don't understand the argument.
00:07:48If you could rephrase it or take another run at it.
00:07:51My apologies if I'm missing something, so...
00:07:53But, yeah, just be patient.
00:07:54I'm trying to sort of follow what you're saying.
00:07:55Yeah, yeah.
00:07:56I try to elucidate even more simply.
00:07:58You know, I'm making a counter-argument against physicalists, right?
00:08:04Materialists.
00:08:05No, I know what you're doing.
00:08:06I understand what you're doing.
00:08:08I just didn't follow the argument.
00:08:10And in order to make the claim that the reality is just material, right?
00:08:19You're assuming things that are immaterial, you know, i.e., you know, logic, reasoning, and other transcendental categories.
00:08:28Okay, so, by transcendental, do you mean they exist in a higher or different plane than material reality?
00:08:35They exist in some way that isn't physical, yes.
00:08:39Okay, so, logic exists in a way that is not physical, or concepts exist in a way that is not physical?
00:08:46Exactly, yes.
00:08:46Okay, and concepts exist within the brain, though we have particular configurations of concepts within the brain, right?
00:08:55So, if I think of a crowd of people, each individual person exists in reality, but the crowd is a concept in my brain, which exists as a particular sequence or connection of neurons.
00:09:07Now, each individual person out there exists, the concept of the crowd exists within my mind, but it is not arbitrary, right?
00:09:15I can't call a pile of carpets a crowd, right?
00:09:19A crowd means a group of people.
00:09:23So, the concepts do not exist in the world.
00:09:27They exist in the mind, but they are not arbitrary.
00:09:32That would be how I would work with it, but how does that accord with what you're saying?
00:09:37We lost you there for a second.
00:09:39You still there?
00:09:40Yes, can you hear me?
00:09:42Yeah, you're back now.
00:09:44Okay, so, I will reiterate.
00:09:46So, if I think of a crowd of people, each individual person in that crowd, let's say it's a thousand people, right?
00:09:52So, each one of those individuals within the crowd exists.
00:09:55And the concept crowd exists within my mind, but it's not arbitrary.
00:10:00I can't call a pile of carpets a crowd, so to speak.
00:10:04So, the concept doesn't exist in the world.
00:10:07It exists as a particular pattern of thought within my mind, but it's not arbitrary.
00:10:11It's not subjective.
00:10:13Yeah, I would say these categories, these abstract categories, such as a crowd, certainly aren't arbitrary, right?
00:10:21But to say, like, they're stored in neurons and our brain can recognize them, it still doesn't get to the fact of what the them is, what the abstract is.
00:10:33I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by what the abstract is.
00:10:36You know, depending on the concept, I mean, a crowd, I mean, sure, you could probably break it down into some logical positive answer that, like, they're in physicality.
00:10:44You can point to a crowd that is actually made out of atoms, you know, human beings, etc.
00:10:50But there's other concepts that you can't do that with.
00:10:54Okay, and happy to hear.
00:10:55So, we agree on physical descriptors like crowd, and what are the concepts that that doesn't work in?
00:11:01Oh, he's gone.
00:11:01But, okay, James, summer in the dark ages, somewhere in summertime, I'm all ears, my friend.
00:11:10What's on your mind?
00:11:12How's the point?
00:11:13Is my mic okay?
00:11:14What do you think?
00:11:15It's not great.
00:11:16Just in general, people, if you want to talk on the show, have a headset, have a decent mic, and, you know, you can just literally, you can go to your app, you can do a recording, you can play it back to just make sure you don't sound like some beach radio on a U-boat in 1944.
00:11:32So, it just saves everyone a little bit of time and saves me some editing afterwards.
00:11:36So, it's just a little bit of consideration, I suppose, empathy.
00:11:41John, are you with us?
00:11:43Sorry, James.
00:11:43My apologies.
00:11:44James?
00:11:45Me?
00:11:47Yeah.
00:11:48How's my mic now?
00:11:49I guess it's a little better.
00:11:50So, what's on your mind?
00:11:51Yeah, it was just, I think the discussion between yourself and John is basically, it's Platonism versus Aristotle, isn't it?
00:11:58I think that's fair, yeah.
00:11:59So, just for those of you who don't know, Plato felt that concepts existed in a higher realm, like they physically, in a sense, existed in a higher realm.
00:12:08How do we know what a chair is?
00:12:09Well, before we were born, we saw a perfect chair in Plato's world of forms, and we see the faint echoes of that perfect chair in every chair we see in the world, and this is true of every concept.
00:12:18Whereas Aristotle said that we develop concepts from repeated exposure to objects with similar construction identity or purposes.
00:12:28So, a chair is with four legs and a back is used for sitting down.
00:12:31We see people do that a lot.
00:12:32We understand what a chair is, and we build up our concepts from empiricism, from what we see.
00:12:37Is that close to what you're talking about?
00:12:40I never, that probably is what Plato said.
00:12:43I never heard that, you know, that we had these concepts born or that they were innate in us, that we were born with them.
00:12:50That sounds a bit, it does sound a bit out there.
00:12:52I've heard you say, criticized Plato before, that it sounds pretty out there.
00:12:55That does sound out there, but like, what about atoms, you know, like, you know, helium with a set amount of, you know, whatever, what is it, neurons or, or not neurons.
00:13:08Electrons.
00:13:09Electrons, yeah, exactly.
00:13:11The periodic table, you know, with the set amount of oxygen molecules, what is it?
00:13:16I'm not sure what you're talking about.
00:13:17Basically, like, that it's, it's not just, you know, like with, it's, it's, it's a set amount of, it's exact number of atoms.
00:13:27Like, I can see what you're saying about a chair, but I don't know, like, like, like two plus two equals four, right?
00:13:32That's true, right?
00:13:33That is true.
00:13:34And it will always be true.
00:13:36It will always be true.
00:13:37Is it true that the, it's a, it's a moon orbits Earth?
00:13:41Yes, that's true.
00:13:42Now, now that's kind of problematic in a way, because now I know it doesn't seem problematic, but it is because, you know, you know, that, whatever that object is, we call it the moon.
00:13:52That's a moon to us because of our subjective human view, but to other life forms, it wouldn't be a moon.
00:13:59Well, they'd use a different word for it, right?
00:14:01Or, yeah, or like, you know, a chair, like to a dog, you know, a chair or something to maybe, or, you know, you know.
00:14:09No, but this is, sorry, this is a rose by, this is sort of famous out of Shakespeare, and Gertrude Stein actually rebelled against this in a way.
00:14:16But Shakespeare, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, which means that the physical structure of the chair remains the same, even if somebody has a different language.
00:14:27It's the same for the dog as it is for a person.
00:14:30The dog may use it for a different purpose or something like that, but it's still a chair.
00:14:35Like, you know, in Easter egg hunts, you'll take some Easter eggs and you'll hide them.
00:14:39In the back of a chair or something like that.
00:14:42But you're just using the chair for another purpose.
00:14:44It doesn't change its nature.
00:14:45It doesn't change its atoms, and it doesn't change its central purpose.
00:14:49I can see what you're saying, but what about, like, to see, what about, like, to see the chair as being inherently separate from everything else when it's possibly interdependent?
00:15:03Like, it's just, I think it's an inferior truth to 2 plus 2 plus 4.
00:15:07That's it.
00:15:07The moon revolves around the Earth.
00:15:10Sorry, sorry.
00:15:11Your thoughts are very scattered.
00:15:13So you've got to make a case, right?
00:15:16You've got to identify an argument.
00:15:18You've got to make some consequences.
00:15:20So I just, you know, start again.
00:15:24So the moon orbits the Earth.
00:15:26So you've got 2 and 2 is 4.
00:15:28The moon orbits the Earth.
00:15:29You say that's inferior to 2 and 2 make 4.
00:15:31Is that right?
00:15:32I would say that for a particular, for different reasons.
00:15:36The fact that we see it as a moon is subjective to us.
00:15:38That's problematic.
00:15:39The fact that we see it as a moon is...
00:15:40Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
00:15:42What do you mean by problematic?
00:15:44Well, it's just that, you know, a chair is...
00:15:47That object that satisfies our concept of chair is not a chair to an ant.
00:15:53So?
00:15:55So that's subjective.
00:15:57No, no, no, no, no.
00:15:58No, it's not subjective.
00:15:59No.
00:16:00The atoms don't change.
00:16:01An ant could be crawling up a chair leg.
00:16:04And, of course, an ant doesn't have language or any capacity to form concepts or anything like that.
00:16:10But the atoms and the physical structure of the chair don't change depending on what name it's called or whether you're short or tall.
00:16:18The chair remains stable in its physical properties.
00:16:23That's true.
00:16:23Okay.
00:16:23So, okay, that is true.
00:16:25So, basically, like, it's true right now that the moon orbits the Earth.
00:16:29That is true right now.
00:16:30It's true that 2 plus 2 equals 4 is true right now.
00:16:32In a billion, billion years' time, it might not be true that the moon orbits the Earth.
00:16:37But even then…
00:16:38Sorry, but why would that matter?
00:16:41I mean, in a billion, billion years, the chair will have disintegrated.
00:16:44So what?
00:16:45Because 2 plus 2 equals 4 will be still as true then as it is now.
00:16:50So it's more reliable.
00:16:51And because it's more reliable, it's superior.
00:16:55Well, I don't agree with that at all.
00:16:57And I'm not saying you're wrong.
00:16:58I'm just saying I don't agree with you.
00:17:00You could be entirely right.
00:17:01I could be talking about it out of my armpit.
00:17:03But it's not so much whether the moon orbits the Earth.
00:17:07Everything, you know, has entropy and decays and changes over time.
00:17:10But it would be a question of physics, right?
00:17:15So matter has the property called gravity in that mass attracts mass.
00:17:19Now, that will be the same in a billion, billion years as it is now.
00:17:23And so there'll just be some other moon orbiting some other planet, whatever it is, right?
00:17:28So, I mean, the particular physical manifestations of something aren't the Eternals.
00:17:34The Eternals are, you know, the physics and the atomic structure of things and the relationship
00:17:38of things, the relationship between matter and energy equals MC squared.
00:17:42All of that stuff is permanent and constant.
00:17:44So I would not say that 2 and 2 makes 4 is superior.
00:17:48And also, I would say it's inferior because 2 and 2 makes 4 as an equation only exists
00:17:53in the mind.
00:17:54And I know that there's people, I had a debate with someone the other day where he said that
00:17:59mathematics and abstract physics were the only real truth.
00:18:06And I'm like, no, no, because that which exists in the world is superior to that which
00:18:10exists only within the mind.
00:18:12So if I say I'm going to give you a million dollars, you'd rather me hand over a million
00:18:17dollars, right?
00:18:18Whereas if I just say I'm going to give you a million dollars and I transfer the thought
00:18:22of a million dollars, like let's say I have a physical million dollar bills, right?
00:18:26I give you a crate of million dollar bills, you'd be much happier if I said, oh, I'm going
00:18:31to give you a million dollars.
00:18:32You'd be much happier if I gave you a big crate full of a million dollar bills or whatever
00:18:37it is, rather than if I said, no, I'm just going to give you the idea of a million dollars.
00:18:41I'm giving you the concept of a million dollars.
00:18:43The concepts are less valuable than the things.
00:18:46The concept of food is less valuable than food because you can't eat the concept of
00:18:51food.
00:18:52The concept of water is more valuable, is less valuable than actual water because you can't
00:18:56drink it, you can't water your lawn, but the concept of water.
00:18:59So the idea, this is sort of Platonism again, the idea that the concept is superior to the
00:19:06matter and the manifestation is false.
00:19:09First of all, we only have concepts because of the stable properties of matter and energy.
00:19:15And so saying that the concepts that are derived from things in the world, that the concept
00:19:21somehow becomes superior, it's like saying that the shadow cast by a beautiful statue is
00:19:28superior to the statue.
00:19:30No, the shadow is just an effect.
00:19:31It doesn't actually really have any material form.
00:19:33It's just, you know, the absence of light caused by the shadow blocking whatever light
00:19:37source it is.
00:19:39So the concepts of the shadows cast by things in the world and saying that the concepts
00:19:43are superior to the things in the world, it doesn't make much sense to me.
00:19:48Well, yeah, that's kind of interesting and ironic because, you know, like, do you think
00:19:53a physical cube exists?
00:19:54Do you think a cube exists in the physical world?
00:19:58Sure.
00:19:58I mean, occasionally I'll have some in my tea.
00:20:02A sugar cube.
00:20:02But a cube, by definition, has all perfect right angles.
00:20:07Right.
00:20:07Which means it's not particularly valuable because it doesn't exist.
00:20:10And so it's an interesting descriptor and it's a fine thing to have in your mind.
00:20:16But the thing that really matters is the cube in the world.
00:20:18It's the dice.
00:20:19It's the sugar cube.
00:20:21It's the box.
00:20:22Those are the things that matter.
00:20:23So the fact that there's a, quote, abstract perfection in the concepts doesn't make them
00:20:29superior.
00:20:30It makes them inferior because everything in the world that exists is imperfect relative
00:20:35to these sort of abstract ideals.
00:20:37But they're actually perfect in that you can use them.
00:20:40Right.
00:20:41So, again, if you were hungry and I said, I'm going to hand you the concept of food, you'd
00:20:45be like, well, that sucks, man.
00:20:46I'm going to starve to death.
00:20:47I'm hungry.
00:20:48Give me some food, bro.
00:20:49I say, no, no, no.
00:20:50I'm giving you the concept of food.
00:20:52That's way better.
00:20:54I'm giving you the concept of a million dollars.
00:20:56That's way better than actually getting a million dollars.
00:20:58You'd say, well, no.
00:21:00I'd say, listen, man, if I give you a million actual dollars, they're going to be slightly
00:21:06printed differently.
00:21:08They're going to have different numbers on them.
00:21:09They're going to be slightly different sizes.
00:21:11The edges are going to be ragged.
00:21:12You don't want those million dollars, man.
00:21:14You want the concept of a million dollars.
00:21:16God, that's perfect.
00:21:18You'd be like, no, it's not perfect because I can't spend it.
00:21:22You can't spend your idea of a million dollars.
00:21:24So the things in the world are infinitely superior to the concepts.
00:21:29The fact that the concepts are, quote, perfect means that they're useless.
00:21:34I mean, in terms of utilizing things in the real world.
00:21:37So if I give you four bananas, you can say, well, but four bananas as a mental category
00:21:43is for perfect, ideal, platonic bananas.
00:21:45But you give me these four bananas, there's slightly different colors, there's slightly
00:21:48different shapes, there's slightly different ripeness, and so on.
00:21:51It's like, well, yeah, but you can eat them.
00:21:55So they're infinitely superior to the concepts, if that makes sense.
00:21:59True.
00:21:59I can't help but think of the, is it an idiom?
00:22:03You teach it.
00:22:04If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
00:22:06But if you teach the concept of fishing, no, what about that?
00:22:11Well, yeah, but the concept of fishing is only valuable insofar as it helps you actually
00:22:15catch fish to eat.
00:22:16Therefore, the concept, if I said I'm going to give you the concept of fishing, but you
00:22:20can't ever fish for anything, you'd say, well, that's pretty useless.
00:22:23The concept on its own is useless as tits on a bull.
00:22:27But if you can use the concept to actually get fish, the purpose of the concept is to serve
00:22:31the material, so.
00:22:34But can you imagine if we were, you know, just purely physical with no mind?
00:22:39Like, imagine that life as a human being with no mind, like, we're basically…
00:22:43Sorry, why, sorry, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
00:22:45I apologize for that.
00:22:46Why, why would we have no mind if we're purely physical?
00:22:51Well, like, the mind is abstract, isn't it?
00:22:54I'm not sure what you mean by the mind.
00:22:56The mind is an effect of the brain, right?
00:22:58Consciousness is an effect of the brain.
00:23:00So, we have all of these physical neurons and cells and atoms and space and energy and
00:23:07all of that in the sort of three pounds of wetware in our skulls.
00:23:11So, we have all of that, and there's no such thing as consciousness without all of that.
00:23:17So, it's like saying, gravity is an effect of matter.
00:23:22Okay, yeah.
00:23:23The shadow is an effect of blocking the light.
00:23:25And consciousness, or the mind, is an effect of the physical brain.
00:23:28But I'm not sure.
00:23:30It wouldn't be immaterial, would it?
00:23:32I don't know.
00:23:33Like, the physical world, you know, with no concepts.
00:23:37Like, us being humans, we have the concept of chair and fish and all these things and
00:23:41how rich that makes our lives.
00:23:43Like, without a mind, without those concepts, we should be…
00:23:46Sorry, sorry.
00:23:47Again, you keep saying without a mind.
00:23:49I just made an argument that the mind is an effect of the brain.
00:23:53The mind is our subjective experience, and hopefully with some objective definitions in
00:23:58there, but the mind is our experience of the operations of our brain.
00:24:03And the brain, without a doubt, is material.
00:24:06So, why would mind be immaterial?
00:24:08Well, the concepts that are retained within the mind…
00:24:13Okay, so, obviously, if we have the concepts in the mind, they exist in some configuration
00:24:21of neurons, right?
00:24:24Yeah, and you've got the perfect parallel with the hardware and the software of the computer,
00:24:29right?
00:24:30And you've got a big background for that.
00:24:32You've got the transistors, the individual transistors, the zeros and the ones, and you've
00:24:36got the transistors in an off state or an on state, and that's where the two worlds meet.
00:24:42It's at that binary level, the transistors and the zeros and ones, right?
00:24:47So, yeah.
00:24:48So, if we have a concept of a chair, and the concept of the chair exists in a particular
00:24:54pattern of neurons within our minds, is that fair to say?
00:24:58Beg your pardon to say that again?
00:24:59The concept of a chair exists as a particular pattern of neurons within our mind.
00:25:04Yeah, or we could go back to, we could go down to, as though as, instead of a chair,
00:25:09the concept of one or zero, and the transistors have been in an off state.
00:25:15Everyone's familiar with the chair.
00:25:17We don't have to get into binary and computers and math.
00:25:19I'm trying to keep this as sort of user-friendly as possible, right?
00:25:23I'm trying to do Windows, not DOS here.
00:25:24I'm trying to do touchscreens, not Unix.
00:25:26So, the concept of a chair exists within our mind.
00:25:30It's a particular pattern of neurons, right?
00:25:32Probably, I don't know, but probably, it seems reasonable.
00:25:36I don't know, but probably, it seems reasonable.
00:25:38Okay, you have the concept of a chair in your mind, and we know that because you're able
00:25:42to recognize a chair, and you don't go and sit your ass down on a cactus or your neighbor,
00:25:46right?
00:25:48So, you're able to recognize a chair and use it for its intended purpose, right?
00:25:53Because of the concept.
00:25:55I'm sorry?
00:25:56Because of the concept that, oh, that object there satisfies my concept of chair.
00:26:01Yeah, and you're right.
00:26:03You don't go and sit on a bush and say, this chair is broken, right?
00:26:07So, you're able to reliably establish what a chair is.
00:26:12You're able to know what a chair is, and therefore, that knowledge has to exist within
00:26:16your mind somewhere, right?
00:26:17And we store knowledge in the mind in a series of neurons or a pattern of neurons, right?
00:26:22I mean, obviously, to oversimplify it, I'm no neuroscientist, but let's just use this
00:26:26a sort of colloquial sense.
00:26:27So, the idea of a chair is stored in a pattern of neurons within our mind, right?
00:26:35I don't know, but it seems possible.
00:26:37It seems possible, and it seems reasonable.
00:26:39Okay.
00:26:40So, I'm certainly happy to hear counter-evidence.
00:26:43If knowledge is a pattern of neurons within the mind, and knowing what a chair is as a
00:26:49form of knowledge, how could it not be that?
00:26:51Are you saying that there's things that we know and understand that have zero physical
00:26:55basis and zero physical manifestation in our mind?
00:26:58Yeah, so we could reduce it down to the transistors again, the zero, the one, but...
00:27:07No, no, just don't...
00:27:08I don't know why you keep dragging it back to computers, because that's not what I'm
00:27:11talking about, talking about neurons.
00:27:13So, is it your theory...
00:27:14But what's...
00:27:15How does it differ in principle?
00:27:17Like, it surely is the same, and it's simpler.
00:27:19No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I've been a computer programmer
00:27:23for many years, and it is not the same...
00:27:26A computer is not the same as a human brain.
00:27:30So, this is why I'm not going to go with you to the computer.
00:27:33So, because we're talking about the human brain, so let's stop dragging computers in.
00:27:37And then, if we're talking about computer programming, I'll stop pretending that the
00:27:40computer is a human brain.
00:27:41I will not do that.
00:27:42So, just stick with the brain.
00:27:44Is it your contention that you have a knowledge in the brain that is non-physical?
00:27:51In other words, you don't need a particular pattern of neurons to have that knowledge.
00:27:57I think what it comes down to is, like, just say, if we could imagine a hypothetical where
00:28:01there was no intelligent life in the universe to retain the concept of...
00:28:05Oh, my God, bro, bro, bro.
00:28:08I'm just asking you about your brain.
00:28:11Why on earth would we...
00:28:11We can't possibly theorize a complete absence of intelligent life within the universe, because
00:28:16then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
00:28:18Let's just stay with what's practical.
00:28:19Are you saying that there's knowledge in your mind that is not based in any particular
00:28:25pattern of neurons, but has a non-physical, non-corporeal, non-energy source?
00:28:32There could be truth out there that we haven't discovered yet.
00:28:34No, no, not out there.
00:28:35No, no.
00:28:36Oh, my God.
00:28:38Listen, bro, you don't have to answer the question.
00:28:40But you do have to either tell...
00:28:42You have to either try to answer the question, or tell me you're not going to answer the question.
00:28:46It's kind of rude to just go off on these tangents, right?
00:28:48But you see, like, you know, like, when people say, you know, like, back in the day with
00:28:54Jordan Peterson and Catherine Ewing, people say, oh, so you're saying...
00:28:58People have to basically say what...
00:29:02And then Peter Hitchens said, what was it?
00:29:04No, no, I'm saying what I'm saying.
00:29:05But the other person has to say what you say in their own words, and then for you to agree
00:29:10on it, because that, you know, so we have to...
00:29:15I have to say what you're saying in my own words, and then for you to agree is that, yes,
00:29:20you understand.
00:29:21Because if I repeat exactly what you've said...
00:29:24No, no, you don't have to repeat it back.
00:29:26I said that the knowledge of what a chair is must be the result of a particular pattern
00:29:35of neurons in the mind, and you said, maybe, right?
00:29:39So then I'm trying to understand that if you are saying maybe, you're saying that you
00:29:45also believe that there's knowledge in your mind that is not physical, that is not part
00:29:51of a particular pattern of neurons.
00:29:52I'm just asking you to say yes or no to that's what you believe.
00:29:57Say that again.
00:29:58Beg your pardon.
00:29:59Say it again.
00:29:59Okay, I'm just going to try it once more, because I'm not getting anywhere in the conversation,
00:30:04and it's been like 10 minutes of just round and round.
00:30:06I'm all briefers, so I'll give it one more try.
00:30:08All right.
00:30:09So I said the knowledge of a chair must exist as a physical structure or relationship of
00:30:15neurons in the brain.
00:30:17So I don't speak Japanese, so my neurons do not have Japanese, the language, as part of
00:30:25my knowledge base.
00:30:26Now, if I were to study Japanese, I'd be wiring up my neurons to understand Japanese.
00:30:30So the knowledge of the chair must exist as a physical relationship between neurons in
00:30:35your brain.
00:30:36And so you said maybe.
00:30:38And I'm like, okay, so that means that you believe that it's possible or probable or real
00:30:44that we have knowledge in our brains that has no physical representation in the relationship
00:30:49of the neurons, that I can have an idea of what a chair is with no corresponding neural
00:30:56connections that would identify what a chair is.
00:31:01You see, I can see, like, there is, like, honestly, there's the perfect parallel there
00:31:06between the transistors, which is the neurons, and then the concept of a chair, like the
00:31:11concept of one and zero.
00:31:12And then you go, okay, fine.
00:31:13If you're obsessed with the computer, we'll do the computer.
00:31:15Is it possible that there's knowledge, or sorry, is it possible that there's data stored
00:31:19in a computer that is not stored in any physical part of the computer?
00:31:24No.
00:31:25We don't really have to.
00:31:25Okay, fantastic.
00:31:26Okay, so you can't have data stored in a computer without it being reflected in the physical
00:31:33memory or hard drive of the computer, right?
00:31:37The transistors would have to be in a certain sequence or something.
00:31:41Fantastic.
00:31:42So that's all I'm saying with the neurons.
00:31:45Well, we don't know how intelligence works or neurons.
00:31:49Like, we don't know.
00:31:49Like, in human consciousness, it's a big mystery.
00:31:52It's a big frontier.
00:31:53It could be the final frontier.
00:31:54No, but it's not ghosts.
00:31:55It's like, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we know, we don't know, we don't
00:31:59know, we don't know exactly, let's say, what's on the very interior of a neutron star.
00:32:06I mean, just making something up.
00:32:07Like, that's something that we don't know.
00:32:09But we know it's not Keebler elves and ghosts, right?
00:32:13We don't know everything that's in the universe, but we know there's no such thing as a square
00:32:17circle in the universe because that's a self-contradictory entity.
00:32:20So, of course, we don't know everything about how consciousness works.
00:32:23We probably don't even know more than a couple of percentage points.
00:32:26But we also know that the knowledge that we have is not coming from ghosts or non-material
00:32:34things.
00:32:35I don't know what is on the far side of, I don't know, some asteroid that's out there
00:32:42that's turning.
00:32:43I only see one side, like the moon.
00:32:45I don't know what's on the other side, but I know it's not ghosts.
00:32:50I know it's not square circles.
00:32:51I know it's not unicorns that don't need oxygen but are mammals, right?
00:32:55So, we can eliminate a whole bunch of things.
00:32:57So, the idea that we have knowledge in the mind that has no physical substructure is false
00:33:03because all knowledge that we have must be based upon the physical because we're not
00:33:08inhabited by ghosts.
00:33:10No, no.
00:33:11And it's interesting that you went for the example of the squared circle because there
00:33:18are two abstract concepts.
00:33:20There are two mathematical concepts.
00:33:22And once again, they become the foundation of epistemology.
00:33:26That you have what you can know and what you can't know.
00:33:28You cannot have a squared circle.
00:33:29We both agree on that and that they're both concepts.
00:33:32They're both mathematical concepts.
00:33:35And, you know, again, you know, there's no such thing as a physical cube.
00:33:40There's no such thing as a physical square.
00:33:42Sorry, there's no such thing as a physical cube?
00:33:45100%.
00:33:45Have you never rolled a dice?
00:33:47That's not a cube.
00:33:49That's an object that has a cube-like quality to one degree or the other.
00:33:53But that is categorically not a cube because a cube, by definition, is all perfect right
00:33:58angles.
00:33:58And you look at those angles on that dice, that it's far from the cube.
00:34:01100%.
00:34:01Okay, so are you saying that a cube in the world, like, I don't know if you've ever played
00:34:06Dungeons and Dragons or something like that.
00:34:08So in Dungeons and Dragons, there's a four-sided dice, which looks like a little pyramid.
00:34:12And then there's a six-sided dice, which is a standard Las Vegas cube.
00:34:16So when I say, pass me the cube dice, would you look at the triangle or the little pyramid
00:34:22and you'd look at the six-sided dice and you'd say, oh, fuck, I got no idea.
00:34:27I can't tell you that because I don't have it mathematically perfect.
00:34:31You'd know exactly what to choose.
00:34:34I know in colloquial terms, it satisfies, relatively satisfies the concept of cube, but it is categorically
00:34:42100% not a cube.
00:34:44No, that's bullshit, man.
00:34:46Come on.
00:34:46Come on.
00:34:47No, 100%.
00:34:48Don't be lazy.
00:34:49Don't be lazy.
00:34:50No, don't be lazy.
00:34:51Listen, a cloud is categorically 100% not a cube, but something that's real close to
00:34:55a cube is not 100% not a cube.
00:34:58No, it's kind of a cube by definition has a perfect right angle all over.
00:35:03Okay.
00:35:04Hang on.
00:35:04Hang on.
00:35:05Hang on.
00:35:06So let's say that you can make a cube that is like a physical cube that satisfies the perfect
00:35:13mathematical cube at 99%.
00:35:15It's 99% as close to a perfect cube as you can get, right?
00:35:21And it's still categorically not a cube.
00:35:24I don't know what you mean by categorically.
00:35:25Are you saying that a cube that is 99% the perfect cube is still 100% not a cube?
00:35:33It would seem so.
00:35:34And I can't think of another example, but I reckon I could think...
00:35:37It's 99% a cube.
00:35:40It's not 100% not a cube.
00:35:42Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to tell our ass from a hole in the ground.
00:35:46It's just categorically not a cube.
00:35:48Okay.
00:35:48You keep saying categorically.
00:35:50I don't know what that means.
00:35:50It is in the category...
00:35:52It's a six-sided dice in the category of cube.
00:35:57Categorically, it's like one or the other.
00:35:59Is it in the category of a cube?
00:36:01Yes or no?
00:36:03No.
00:36:03It's in the category of a physical object that has a cube-like quality from one degree
00:36:09or the other.
00:36:09Oh, come on, man.
00:36:11You know this is not working, right?
00:36:13You know this is not working.
00:36:14It's true.
00:36:15So, you said it's cube-like, right?
00:36:18It has to create...
00:36:19Hang on, hang on, hang on.
00:36:21Hang on.
00:36:21Did you say that it's cube-like?
00:36:24Yeah.
00:36:25Okay.
00:36:25So, cube-like is in the category of a cube.
00:36:29But it's categorically not...
00:36:32It's 100% not a cube, though, because a cube has 100% right angle, and that...
00:36:37Okay.
00:36:38Now, that's...
00:36:38This is somebody who's a bit of a clinger, right?
00:36:41He's just clinging to a definition.
00:36:42So, just so you're aware, the mathematics and the abstracts and the perfect circle that's
00:36:48different from the circle you can draw even with a compass or whatever it is, a perfect
00:36:52circle is inferior to an actual circle.
00:36:56The concept is imperfectly derived from the instance, and the concept is less valuable
00:37:02than the instance.
00:37:04And there's this weird platonic thing, and I guess this guy was kind of hung up on this
00:37:07as well, that somehow, cube-ness, the abstract definition of a cube, is somehow perfect.
00:37:15And the actual perfectly made or almost perfectly made laser six-sided dice or whatever it is,
00:37:22is somehow imperfect.
00:37:24Nothing could be further from the truth.
00:37:26Because everything in the world that we see, hear, taste, and touch, and smell, because
00:37:32everything in the world has ragged edges and imperfect boundaries and so on, that that's
00:37:40the actual thing, right?
00:37:41So, the six-sided dice is the cube.
00:37:44Now, what is represented in our mind is imperfect.
00:37:47Why?
00:37:48Because it's an abstraction that does not exist in its perfect form in the real world.
00:37:54So, the concept is inferior to the thing itself.
00:37:58Whereas he's saying, well, the concept is perfect and the thing itself is imperfect.
00:38:02Nope.
00:38:03And we know that.
00:38:04We know that for a fact.
00:38:05Honestly.
00:38:06If you were to go to a kid and say, hey, man, I've got a bag of candy for you.
00:38:12Sorry, I don't mean to sound, I don't mean to make that sound so sinister.
00:38:16Hey, kid, free candy.
00:38:18Remember, strangers have the best candy.
00:38:20So, you go to a kid, your kid, your kid, right?
00:38:23Let's make it not creepy, right?
00:38:24You go to your kid and you say, hey, I got some, I got a bag of candy for you.
00:38:26And they open the bag of candy and there's just a whole bunch of pieces of paper with
00:38:33the word candy written on them.
00:38:35And they say, there's no candy in here.
00:38:36I said, no, no, no.
00:38:37This is the best candy because it's the concept of candy.
00:38:39I wouldn't want to give you any of that imperfect candy.
00:38:42Like, you know, those M&Ms are all slightly different sizes and they're never exactly the
00:38:46same color.
00:38:47And, you know, they're the ragged edges.
00:38:49They're not perfect spheres and so on, right?
00:38:52The Toblerones, they're not perfect triangles.
00:38:54So, you don't want any of that real candy because that real candy sucks.
00:38:58This is the concept of candy, which is perfect.
00:39:01Your kid would burst into tears and say, where's my candy?
00:39:05So, no, you don't want those imperfect things.
00:39:07I want to give you the concept, which is perfect.
00:39:09And they'd say, no, I want the candy.
00:39:11So, but the candy is imperfect.
00:39:12He's like, but I can't eat the concept.
00:39:13You can't live in the idea of a house, which means the idea of a house sucks relative to
00:39:20a house.
00:39:21That's really important stuff.
00:39:24Hake, hike, hike.
00:39:27I am all ears if you want to bring the fiery illumination of your frontal lobes to bear on
00:39:32philosophy what's on your mind.
00:39:35Hello, hello.
00:39:36Yes or no?
00:39:38Well, I mean, it's funny because I know the audience is intelligent.
00:39:40I don't know.
00:39:41Is there a lot of difficulty?
00:39:44With microphones for people?
00:39:45I mean, I get phone calls from people all the time and they seem to have no problem
00:39:48speaking into their phone.
00:39:50So bizarre to me.
00:39:52All right.
00:39:52Mr. Singularity, what's on your mind?
00:39:55Hello?
00:39:55Yes, sir.
00:39:57Hey.
00:39:58I mean, we can pick up wherever you want to.
00:40:00I don't really know what to talk about, to be honest.
00:40:02I just requested because I thought it was really interesting to talk about.
00:40:06All right.
00:40:06Drillgan, what's on your mind?
00:40:08And just in general, if you have a question, that's great, but don't ask me what I want
00:40:12to talk about.
00:40:13This is a call-in show.
00:40:15Drillgan, Stephen.
00:40:18Hey, how's it going?
00:40:19Good.
00:40:19How you doing, man?
00:40:20Good.
00:40:22So, are you kind of saying that Kant's wrong about the categorical imperative?
00:40:29Are you the kind of idea that we can't really get to objective truth, but, you know, you're
00:40:35seeing something and it's really light rays coming into your eyes, and so there's this
00:40:39kind of separate concept.
00:40:41So, I guess I'm trying to figure it out.
00:40:45What do you say to that?
00:40:47I'm not sure what you're asking me, because the categorical imperative is Kant's attempt
00:40:50to create universal morality.
00:40:52If you're talking about light rays entering the mind, I mean, that might be more Lockean,
00:40:57that might be more empirical, but I'm still not sure what you're asking me.
00:41:00I'm sorry if I'm missing something.
00:41:02No, my apologies.
00:41:03I'm getting my Kant mixed up.
00:41:05I'm trying to think what the term is now.
00:41:07But the idea that we can't have access to physical truth.
00:41:11Oh, no, we can absolutely have access to physical truth.
00:41:13Yeah, for sure.
00:41:14I mean, our conversation couldn't work if we didn't have access to physical truth, because
00:41:18we're not in the same room, and the medium of conversation between us requires a whole
00:41:23bunch of physical truths to all work in sequence in order for you and I to send bits and groups
00:41:27of data back and forth to even have the conversation.
00:41:30So, our ears have to work, our mouths have to work, our voice boxes have to work, the microphone
00:41:34has to work, the phone has to work, the internet, the data lines.
00:41:39So, yes, absolutely.
00:41:41You can't have a conversation without assuming that we have the capacity to process objective
00:41:48material truths.
00:41:49But sorry, go ahead.
00:41:50Well, I guess we would have to kind of subscribe to the fact that we have a conventional reality.
00:41:56I don't know what you mean by conventional reality.
00:41:59What's an unconventional reality?
00:42:00Conventional reality compared to what?
00:42:02Well, it comes up once in a while when maybe something that we were really sure of, we
00:42:08then find out wasn't the case.
00:42:12So, this kind of happens.
00:42:13I mean, if you're talking about something like 2 plus 2 is 4, that's a pretty solid thing.
00:42:18I mean, didn't you write a book on Hume or something?
00:42:21Okay, are you scattershotting thoughts here, or do you have actual questions?
00:42:25I mean, I feel like I'm following some acid jazz while on acid.
00:42:29So, if you can boil it down, I'd appreciate it.
00:42:32Well, the topic I had kind of prepared, if I ever got on, was I was going to kind of strike
00:42:38at the very base of your whole project.
00:42:41You ready for that instead?
00:42:43I'm sorry, but why aren't you doing that, if that's what you want to talk about?
00:42:46Well, because I was kind of jumping into this.
00:42:48I'm kind of confused about, you know, if we just go to the idea of Hume where he said
00:42:54you couldn't be certain of something as sure as a cue ball hitting a ball, that there was
00:42:59a cause and effect there, because you can never reach that.
00:43:03And I thought Hume was something you were...
00:43:04I'm still getting familiar with.
00:43:07No, I'm familiar with Hume, so make your case.
00:43:10So, you want to go that route, or you want to talk about...
00:43:13Bro, whatever is the most interesting to you is great, because so far we've just been
00:43:18wasting time.
00:43:18So, whatever you're prepared with, whatever's the most interesting and compelling for you,
00:43:22I'm happy to talk about.
00:43:23Okay, well, I guess the dream would be to talk to a philosopher about the topic of...
00:43:31Because I think this is the million-dollar question, to switch the notes here.
00:43:35Do we have too many people on the Earth or not?
00:43:37Seems like your whole project is based on the idea that we don't have enough people.
00:43:42I mean, you're...
00:43:42What?
00:43:43What are you talking about?
00:43:44My whole project is based on the fact that we don't have enough people?
00:43:47What is my whole project?
00:43:48I don't know what you're talking about.
00:43:49This is like the fifth new topic.
00:43:50Are you stoned or something?
00:43:52Like, what's going on?
00:43:53No, I'm not stoned.
00:43:55What do you mean my whole project?
00:43:56What is my whole project?
00:43:58Well, like the kind of idea to help men on their way to having a relationship, which would
00:44:03be like it would need to children.
00:44:06So, my whole project is dating advice?
00:44:10Well, it does seem like you're trying to help populate the Earth.
00:44:14Is that not the case?
00:44:15What do you mean by seems like?
00:44:17I don't know what you're talking about.
00:44:18I mean, I've talked about a million topics in the 40 plus years that I've been into philosophy.
00:44:24So, I'm not sure what you mean by my main project.
00:44:27Well, I guess what interests me about this is you have people who think we have too many people on the planet, right?
00:44:36The globalists, the eugenicists, people who would say that, you know, people who maybe are trying to kill us, but they have a good reason to do it.
00:44:45And I always thought that would be a really good topic to argue.
00:44:49And since, to me, it seems like you are on the other side of that project, you're trying to help people have relationships, you're trying to help people have...
00:44:58Okay, what is your question?
00:45:00Do you think there's too many people or not enough people on the Earth?
00:45:04I don't have a particular opinion about whether there are too many or not enough people because I try to restrict what I focus on to things that I can actually do something about.
00:45:15Now, do I think that people who are smart and interested in philosophy and curious about these kinds of matters, who I assume are in the top 1% of intelligence, do I think that they sometimes overthink things and get paralyzed and should just go out and talk to girls or talk to boys, talk to men, talk to women?
00:45:33Yeah, I think courage is a good thing.
00:45:35Do I think that people who enjoy the gift of life should pay it forward?
00:45:38Well, sure.
00:45:39But as far as the number of people, I mean, there are people being born every day, there are people dying every day.
00:45:43The world is not exactly overpopulated with intelligent people, so I don't have a number on my wall and say, it's good, it's gone up this year, bad, it's gone down today.
00:45:54But I do think that people should fall in love.
00:45:58I think that they should get married.
00:46:00I think that they should have children because that's celebrating the gift of life by passing it forward.
00:46:07But it's creating deep meaning out of your life, you get to fall in love, which is the greatest thing in the world.
00:46:12So all of that is a positive.
00:46:13The purpose of philosophy is happiness, and it's statistically the most likely thing to make people happy.
00:46:19So, yeah.
00:46:20But I don't sort of sit there and say, I'm adding or subtracting to the number of people in the universe or something.
00:46:26So that's not really something active in your mind that you're on.
00:46:29We don't have enough people.
00:46:30We need to kind of step up on a kind of project.
00:46:34Not really.
00:46:36No, that's helpful.
00:46:38All right.
00:46:38Moving on to the Sigma and Cap.
00:46:40Sorry.
00:46:40It was like 15, 10, 10 minutes or so.
00:46:42No, no actual question.
00:46:43Sigma and Cap, what's in your mind?
00:46:46Yes, sir.
00:46:46Go ahead.
00:46:47I am an atheist, but, you know, I don't really like the association of atheism.
00:46:51You know, I'm more non-religious, but I still think that, I still believe that we want to be created in the universe.
00:46:58But my main question has to be about how do Christians come about?
00:47:03You know, are Christians made?
00:47:04Are they born?
00:47:05Because to me, the definition of a Christian is someone who has faith in God.
00:47:11No, that's not the definition of a Christian.
00:47:13Oh, what definition would you give?
00:47:15A person who accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, not just somebody who believes in a God.
00:47:19There's tons of religions that believe in gods that wouldn't be Christians, right?
00:47:23Yeah, yeah, sure.
00:47:25Well, sorry, that's a big change.
00:47:27What do you mean, yeah, sure?
00:47:28There's 10,000 gods.
00:47:29Christians believe in Jesus as the Son of God and that he died for their sins and was resurrected and can get them into heaven if they pursue New Testament ideals, not Old Testament ideals.
00:47:43So, there's a big difference from what you said, just anybody who believes in God.
00:47:46Everybody who believes in God is not a Christian.
00:47:48I'm sorry, did I say believe?
00:47:50I meant that they have faith in God?
00:47:52Okay, either way, either way.
00:47:54The God is not the issue.
00:47:55It's called Christianity for a reason, not Godianity, right?
00:47:58Christianity means focused on Jesus Christ.
00:48:01Okay, so it's someone who accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior, their Messiah?
00:48:07Yes.
00:48:08So, what do Christians usually mean by when they say they have faith in God?
00:48:11I'm sorry, are you asking me, like, what my opinion is of these things?
00:48:16Yes.
00:48:17Yeah, it means that I have a personal relationship with God and Jesus, and let's focus on Jesus, right?
00:48:23Because it's what would Jesus do, not what would God do, right?
00:48:25So, they say, I have a personal relationship with Jesus who guides me into making better
00:48:30decisions and whose edicts I follow because he is all good and all perfect and has given
00:48:34these commandments and these morals to mankind, and the purpose of mankind's experiment in
00:48:40the world is for people to be good and to achieve salvation.
00:48:43And so, I have a personal relationship.
00:48:46I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he came to earth 2,025 years ago and died for
00:48:53my sins.
00:48:55Okay, that's great.
00:48:56I want to point out that I really do love Christians.
00:48:58Some of the best people I know are Christians, and in many ways, I kind of wish I was one.
00:49:03But, you know, I just, I haven't, I guess, I haven't accepted Jesus or I don't really
00:49:08have the faith that, that faith in God or anything like that.
00:49:12So, my always big thing was, like, how does an atheist become a Christian?
00:49:17Just acceptance?
00:49:19Well, you would have to, I think, I don't want to speak for Christians, but I would say that
00:49:23you would probably have to have to go through the process of being born again and committing
00:49:27your life to Jesus and accepting Jesus into your heart and going to church and reading
00:49:31the Bible and following the edicts of Christianity.
00:49:35Okay, yeah, I've been slowly reading the Bible and still getting my way through it.
00:49:39You know.
00:49:40Now, do you have any sort of questions or comments, philosophically speaking?
00:49:44I mean, your personal spiritual journey, I'm sure, is important to you, but this is aiming
00:49:48to be a sort of general purpose philosophy show.
00:49:50So, yeah, I was just wondering how atheists become Christians, but I think you've laid
00:49:55that out.
00:49:56All right, thank you.
00:49:58Estival Salsetis, Estival Salsetis, I really could be able to pronounce these things, but
00:50:04what's on your mind?
00:50:06If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
00:50:09Oh, hello.
00:50:10Good evening, Stefan.
00:50:12Yeah, this might be a very short conversation.
00:50:15I was curious to know, I have a particular definition of.
00:50:20What an Atheist Is, and I'm curious to know what yours is.
00:50:24Sorry, what is, what do you mean a particular definition?
00:50:26I mean, there is a definition of what an Atheist is, right?
00:50:30No, because in the past, when I was younger and when I considered myself to be one, you
00:50:38go look and you find that dictionaries have various definitions, and I thought that quite
00:50:46a few of them were actually incorrect, because it's not really a belief.
00:50:51A lack of belief does not equate a belief.
00:50:54So if you lack a belief in deities or a God, that is what makes you an Atheist, but that
00:51:03is in itself not a belief.
00:51:06It's just a lack of a belief.
00:51:07And since you, which is kind of funny and sometimes a bit abrasive or annoying, you say, you know,
00:51:15all these Atheists this or that, and I'm like, yeah, but you're really talking about people
00:51:20who are socialists, Marxists, or whatever, and what motivates them to take on certain positions
00:51:30politically, philosophically, is not really their lack of belief in a deity, but whatever
00:51:37else shapes their thinking, their convictions.
00:51:45So are you saying that if you know that somebody is an atheist, you can't predict with
00:51:50any reliability, any of their other beliefs?
00:51:56Well, it's not a homogenic group of people.
00:52:02No, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't do that.
00:52:05What am I doing?
00:52:06Well, of course it's not a homogenic group of people, I get that, and not everybody's
00:52:10all the same, right?
00:52:12Obviously.
00:52:13Do you think it's possible, if I tell you Bob is an Atheist, do you think it's possible
00:52:20to deduce with a high degree of probability his position on a wide variety of social and
00:52:26political issues?
00:52:28No, not necessarily.
00:52:30Well, I don't know why, no, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.
00:52:33And I don't mean to be blunt, but you're just wrong.
00:52:35I mean, have you ever looked it up, or is it just, just pulling an opinion out of your
00:52:38armpit, or what?
00:52:40Well, I might ask the same thing of you.
00:52:42Okay, well, I have looked it up.
00:52:44So, 91% of atheists are pro-abortion, 90% of atheists took the COVID shot, as opposed
00:52:51to 15%, sorry, 57% of white evangelical Christians, atheists, 90% of atheists or so are fully accepting
00:53:02of catastrophic, anthropogenic, global warming climate change arguments.
00:53:09And about 85% in America, about 85% of atheists are pro-the Democrat Party, which is a hard-left
00:53:17political party.
00:53:19So, if you know that Bob is an Atheist, he's an NPC with regard to all of these other things.
00:53:26Now, it's not skepticism.
00:53:28You can't say, well, he's skeptical of the existence of God, and that's all of his other
00:53:33beliefs.
00:53:34No, because skepticism would also be skepticism of a pretty rushed gene therapy rollout.
00:53:40Skepticism would also be skepticism of the fact that Boughton paid for climate models that
00:53:46give political rulers access to trillions of dollars and massive amounts of political
00:53:50power, that you'd be skeptical of those, right?
00:53:52It would also be skepticism regarding, I mean, if you're an atheist and you're very, very
00:53:58skeptical, then you would accept that fetuses, developing fetuses are, you know, obviously
00:54:05at least potential human life, and there would be at least, you wouldn't just be immediately
00:54:10able to dismiss them as a clump of cells, because a clump of cells could be a tumor, a clump
00:54:14of cells could be a dead fish on a beach, right?
00:54:17But this is a specifically alive.
00:54:19So, it's not skepticism.
00:54:21Is it rationality?
00:54:22Nope.
00:54:23It's not rationality.
00:54:25You'd also be skeptical of hard-left policies, because hard-left policies, you know, socialism
00:54:29slash communism, cause the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions, depending on how you
00:54:35count it, of people in the course of the 20th century.
00:54:38So, it's not rationality.
00:54:39It's not objectivity.
00:54:41It's not science, because science is skepticism, and atheists were very much lining up behind
00:54:46this whole trust the science stuff that was going on under COVID.
00:54:49But atheists supported absolutely tyrannical COVID stuff as a whole.
00:54:54Again, there are, of course, exceptions.
00:54:56It's sort of pointless to point out that there are exceptions to general rules, but that kind
00:54:59of needs to be done.
00:55:01So, if you say, well, atheism is just the absence of belief, then why is it so correlated with
00:55:09other absolutely irrational perspectives?
00:55:12That's an interesting question, and frankly, I don't have some paper, some, you know, piece
00:55:21of research I can pull out of my armpit or whatever place to present to you and say, well, this and
00:55:29this and that, and that's why it's so, but having said that, yeah, atheism is not synonymous
00:55:37with being a skeptic.
00:55:38It's not synonymous with being rational.
00:55:41It's just a whole spectrum of things, one particular position, which means that you lack
00:55:49a belief in the existence of a deity or deities, plural.
00:55:54Well, and so, and then the challenge is, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
00:55:59And I do think that, because, you know, a long time ago, I was following these people when
00:56:05Christopher Hitchens was around and, you know, you had the, they called themselves the new
00:56:10atheists and the four horsemen and all that.
00:56:14I think gradually, and maybe it's gone quite rapidly at some point.
00:56:19A whole bunch of things shifted in society, politically, et cetera.
00:56:25And I don't think back, I'm talking, when is this, 2010, 2012, something like that, that
00:56:35you had all these social justice warrior types, you had all these, these woke nutters, these
00:56:42gender fluid, queer people, that was not part of it.
00:56:47It was just a philosophical or a religious question as in, you know, pertaining to, to
00:56:55that.
00:56:56And then atheists obviously say, well, you know, it all started with the big bang.
00:57:00And, you know, that's the topic in itself.
00:57:03I don't find it satisfactory to just, you know, there was no time, there was no space before
00:57:09the big bang.
00:57:09And voila, that's it.
00:57:12And you were alive and then you're dead and there is an eternity.
00:57:15Sorry, I do need to, I mean, you sort of telling me about your sort of inner thoughts
00:57:20and experiences are fine, but not for a philosophy show.
00:57:23So if you have any questions or comments that I can actually participate in rather than sit
00:57:27Okay, no, that's fine.
00:57:28I feel like a sack of potatoes while you talk about your things, but so, so the challenge
00:57:32is to figure out what is in common with atheism, communism, statism, slave to scientism, which
00:57:40is a new mystery religion of guys in lab coats hiding their data and telling you, you just
00:57:44have to obey them because, right?
00:57:46So you have to sort of figure out what is in common with all of these things.
00:57:48Now, I mean, I have my own theories.
00:57:50We don't have to get into right now because this is a call in show.
00:57:52So I want to get into other people's thoughts, but there's not just coincidence that atheists
00:57:58tend to be very pro-totalitarian, that atheists were absolutely shameful over COVID and have
00:58:05never admitted to any of the problems.
00:58:07The fact that I've presented atheists over the last couple of days with countless pieces
00:58:11of information about how totalitarian atheism is as a whole, and they don't care.
00:58:17They don't care.
00:58:17It doesn't matter to them.
00:58:18There's no rebuttal.
00:58:19There's no, oh my gosh, you know, that's new information.
00:58:22That's really disturbing.
00:58:23Gosh, I've got to really think about that.
00:58:24The fact that atheists in general are the most hateful of free speech of all the major
00:58:28belief or non-belief systems or whatever, none of this is a coincidence.
00:58:32The atheism is not just a lack of belief in God.
00:58:35It's associated with a whole bunch of other things.
00:58:37And the fact that all of these, the new atheists and so on, were all heavily pushed and promoted
00:58:43by the largely socialist or communist-led publishing houses is not an accident.
00:58:50Okay, I appreciate your comments.
00:58:51I'm sorry.
00:58:52I'm going to move on.
00:58:53I still want to ask you something because I just saw a video of you where you said that
00:58:59people who, that was during, you know, the COVID so-called pandemic.
00:59:04I mean, there was never a pandemic.
00:59:06It was a scandemic.
00:59:07I was one of those people who, you know, didn't conform.
00:59:10I never took the shot.
00:59:11I never wore a mask.
00:59:12I always went out to protest, face the riot police every Sunday until we got hosed off,
00:59:18you know, with water cannons and clubbed off by the police.
00:59:21Okay, can you please, please, bro, you gotta, you gotta, like, you gotta get to a question.
00:59:25Yeah, but I saw this video where you were like, you have to be ashamed.
00:59:29But back then, you were part of the people who said, well, believe the science, follow the science.
00:59:36And now you say, well, you know.
00:59:38I'm sorry.
00:59:39You have to be ashamed.
00:59:40It wasn't researched.
00:59:41Hang on, hang on, hang on.
00:59:42I said, what did I say specifically and when?
00:59:47Okay, this little video clip, which is posted underneath one of your comments, you said that
00:59:52people ought to be ashamed.
00:59:54Of what?
00:59:55For being selfish, for not, for not listening to the people who said, well, you have to take
01:00:00precautions and if other people do.
01:00:03And when, when did I say that?
01:00:04When did I say that?
01:00:05I, I don't know when it was recorded.
01:00:08Do you think that's important?
01:00:10Well, it was some years ago.
01:00:11It was obviously during this, you know, this fake pandemic.
01:00:15Okay.
01:00:16So, so you, so you, so you've done a hundred and a hundred and eight.
01:00:19Hang on, hang on, hang on.
01:00:22Here's the thing.
01:00:23If you want to be responsible, man, don't throw out these wild accusations without checking
01:00:26what's going on.
01:00:28Like just, it'd be fair.
01:00:29It'd be reasonable.
01:00:30You wouldn't like it if somebody took a little out of context thing.
01:00:33Okay, no, no, I'm talking now.
01:00:36So in general, atheists say, oh, I want to treat others as I want to be treated.
01:00:40So people don't want to take things out of context.
01:00:43So when I, when I was in Hong Kong in 2019, I was doing a documentary.
01:00:50I was marching with the Hong Kong protesters and so on.
01:00:52Uh, the anti-communist protesters, I did a whole documentary called Hong Kong fight for
01:00:56freedom.
01:00:56It's really good.
01:00:57You should check it out.
01:00:58It's free freedom main.com slash documentary.
01:01:00So my contacts in Hong Kong were telling me basically that the COVID-19, I was one of
01:01:06the first people to report on that because it showed up in Hong Kong early on.
01:01:10And they were saying to me basically that their, their belief was that it was a bioweapon
01:01:15that had come out of the Wuhan lab in China.
01:01:20Now there were a whole bunch of people saying it's nothing, it's not important.
01:01:24It's not real.
01:01:25And I was saying, you don't have that information.
01:01:28You don't have that information.
01:01:30I wasn't telling everyone it was going to kill them, but I sure as hell wasn't going to
01:01:34go out on a limb.
01:01:34If it did come out of a bioweapons lab, I wasn't going to go out on a limb and say it's
01:01:39nothing.
01:01:39And so, and, and the alpha strain of COVID was a son of a bitch of an illness.
01:01:49It was pretty nasty and it was taking a lot of people's breath away to put it mildly.
01:01:54So yeah, I was not happy with all the people I saw online saying, oh, don't, don't worry
01:01:59about anything.
01:02:00You don't even need to wash your hands.
01:02:01It's like, no, you don't.
01:02:02Listen, you don't have that information.
01:02:04That what I was getting from my contacts was that it was a bioweapon.
01:02:07At least that was the suspicion.
01:02:09And I did a whole video called the case against China.
01:02:12So I think it's highly irresponsible before you get the information to tell people not
01:02:17to worry.
01:02:18It's highly irresponsible.
01:02:21You cannot tell people before information, not to worry about a disease.
01:02:27So I absolutely stand by that.
01:02:30I would not have said anything different, even going back in time because people just
01:02:34breezily announcing that nobody had anything to worry about.
01:02:37We're wrong.
01:02:39There were things to worry about.
01:02:41And prior to finding out the facts about COVID, now, of course, people remember COVID
01:02:47like the Omicron, the later on stuff, which was obviously much milder and so on.
01:02:50I opposed all government mandated lockdowns.
01:02:54I absolutely very clearly said they were going to do way more harm than good and that they
01:02:58were immoral.
01:02:58Now, I was fine with two weeks, voluntarily, voluntarily, I was fine with two weeks to see
01:03:05what was going on.
01:03:07But everybody who was just out there with no knowledge and no facts saying that people
01:03:12should ignore COVID-19 in its first and virulent strain, that was irresponsible.
01:03:20I never took the vaccine myself.
01:03:22I never promoted that anyone take the vaccine.
01:03:25I strenuously opposed all the mandates.
01:03:28But I also opposed all of the people who were saying, it's nothing.
01:03:32It's not real.
01:03:33You've got nothing to worry about.
01:03:35That was highly irresponsible because that was prior to any information.
01:03:38But sorry, go ahead.
01:03:39Well, then, you know, we are more aligned than I, before I had this conversation, than I knew.
01:03:49So don't go around making public accusations of people being wrong and potentially immoral
01:03:54without looking into the facts, without looking into the facts.
01:04:00Treat people the way that you would like to be treated in this kind of instance.
01:04:03If somebody was posting out-of-context clips of you, I mean, you'll notice the people
01:04:08who post those clips, they don't have the date on them.
01:04:12So it's very early on.
01:04:13They don't also point out that I opposed the lockdowns.
01:04:16I opposed government mandates.
01:04:17I never took the vaccine.
01:04:19And, you know, in Canada, that was not the easiest thing in the world.
01:04:22So get your facts in line before, especially in public, before accusing people of significant
01:04:29wrongdoing.
01:04:30All right.
01:04:31That's, that's a good name, the prodigal heel.
01:04:34What's on your mind, my friend?
01:04:36Yes, sir.
01:04:37So I guess my question is, and I'll go ahead and listen to your thoughts on this.
01:04:42But, you know, you were talking about the candy and the piece of paper and giving a kid,
01:04:47you know, the candy and just saying, hey, this paper is good for you because it doesn't
01:04:51have all that sugar in it.
01:04:52So what's your take on something like, you know, the Bitcoin and the AI generated and
01:04:59the transhumanism, I guess, that's kind of taking place right now over society with these
01:05:04products?
01:05:05You're going to have to give me a more focused question.
01:05:07So like, you know, you take Bitcoin, right?
01:05:12And, you know, basically, you know, what's, what's, you know, they say that the dollar
01:05:16is a fiat currency.
01:05:18Okay.
01:05:19But what's Bitcoin backed by?
01:05:20It's backed by the same dollar that you just claim.
01:05:24Hang on, hang on.
01:05:24Hang on.
01:05:25What do you mean Bitcoin is backed by the dollar?
01:05:27No, you're not.
01:05:28You're paying cash for Bitcoin.
01:05:30It's backed by the dollar.
01:05:31Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
01:05:34What do you mean Bitcoin is backed?
01:05:36I don't understand what you mean Bitcoin.
01:05:37Bitcoin can be valued in dollars.
01:05:41But what do you mean by Bitcoin is backed by the dollar?
01:05:44Well, what else is it going to be valued in?
01:05:46What are you going to sell Bitcoin in?
01:05:49Sorry, I don't understand.
01:05:50Do you not know that you can exchange Bitcoin for houses, cars, goods and services of any kind
01:05:55directly without going through fiat currency?
01:05:58Well, you're, you're buying the houses and the cars and stuff like that based on the,
01:06:04the sheer fact that you're going to get a dollar for the Bitcoin or something that you
01:06:10can angibly trade.
01:06:11No, no, no, no.
01:06:13Can you, no, there are people who run, there are people who run their entire businesses of
01:06:17Bitcoin and most of their lives off Bitcoin without ever touching fiat.
01:06:21So, I mean, listen, all due respect, you're just wrong.
01:06:23I just don't see exactly how that's, that's possible, how you're going to survive off
01:06:29of kind of, to me.
01:06:30Sorry, but why, why would anything matter based upon what you do or don't understand?
01:06:35You know, that's like, we say, I don't understand quantum physics, man.
01:06:39So it's bullshit.
01:06:40It's like, that's a ridiculous perspective, right?
01:06:43At least you can learn quantum physics.
01:06:46But what I'm trying to say.
01:06:47Okay, have you learned about Bitcoin?
01:06:49The idea that Bitcoin is backed by a dollar is ridiculous.
01:06:51Bitcoin is a decentralized, autonomous network of the exchange of value.
01:06:58What makes it decentralized autonomous?
01:07:00How is it decentralized autonomous?
01:07:02Okay, so if somebody doesn't even have the first clue but comes in confidently stating
01:07:06stuff, I have no patience for that.
01:07:08Like, maybe it's because I'm going to be 59 in a couple of months, but I have no patience
01:07:11for people who come in confidently asserting things without having a freaking clue about
01:07:16what they're talking about.
01:07:17It's backed by the dollar.
01:07:19What do you mean it's autonomous?
01:07:20It's independent.
01:07:21What do you mean it's decentralized?
01:07:24All right, E, take us home, man.
01:07:26What's on your mind?
01:07:28You'll need to unmute.
01:07:29I can't hear you.
01:07:30Oh, are you talking to me?
01:07:32Is your username E?
01:07:34It is.
01:07:35Do you think that there are a lot of other E's out there?
01:07:38I saw a few.
01:07:39There's a popular E.
01:07:41I'm not here.
01:07:42Has he requested to talk on my show?
01:07:44No, he hasn't.
01:07:45Okay, then it would be you.
01:07:46I just tuned in and I heard about Bitcoin and I just hit the button, so I don't really
01:07:51have anything yet.
01:07:53Sorry, you requested to talk, but you don't have anything to say?
01:07:56Yes.
01:07:58I was going to talk about Bitcoin.
01:08:00Amazing, man.
01:08:02I mean, have people lost the art of civilized discourse completely?
01:08:06Well, not everyone, right?
01:08:07All right, Atlas, what's on your mind, my friend?
01:08:12Hello?
01:08:13Yes, sir.
01:08:14Hey, Stefan.
01:08:15I would first want to apologize for some of the snarky comments that I made on your post
01:08:22earlier this week.
01:08:23What were they?
01:08:24What did you say?
01:08:25Oh, you, it was, I got upset earlier this week when you were encouraging young men to
01:08:32approach women.
01:08:34Okay, and why did that upset you?
01:08:35Well, I remember I was reading the post as Tonya shaming men, and I personally, I think
01:08:49that men do need to approach women anyway, but I'm just, the way I currently work in a
01:08:59I'm sorry to interrupt.
01:09:00What did you say that you regret?
01:09:01Oh, it was just, I can't remember what I, I made a couple snarky comments, and I, a couple
01:09:11days go by, and I sit there.
01:09:14Well, just in general, and I don't mean to nag you at all, right, but just in general,
01:09:17a sort of, a word to the wise from an older, older guy, maybe, if you're going to apologize
01:09:23for something, don't say, I don't remember what I did.
01:09:26Because apologies kind of need to be specific, right?
01:09:30If I said, I'm sorry for X, and I, and, and somebody says, well, what do you mean by X?
01:09:34I don't remember, but it was something negative.
01:09:36It's a little tough to take apologies seriously if you don't even really remember what you
01:09:40did.
01:09:40And again, I'm not trying to be Mr. Nagy.
01:09:42This is fine with us.
01:09:43I'm just saying that in general, in life, you want to be specific in your apologies.
01:09:47Otherwise, people are not going to be particularly sure what it is you're apologizing for.
01:09:52And also, if you don't remember what you did, it's kind of hard to say, I'm not going to
01:09:56do it again, right?
01:09:58Yes.
01:09:59Okay.
01:09:59So again, I'm not trying to be Mr. Nagy.
01:10:00I just, it doesn't matter with us.
01:10:02It's fine.
01:10:02I'm just giving you that sort of coaching for, you know, because we all have to apologize
01:10:07and we all do things that are suboptimal or wrong or bad or mean.
01:10:10Sometimes I certainly do myself.
01:10:12So just a little tip.
01:10:13But anyway, sorry, please go on with your question.
01:10:15Well, I wanted to get that out of the way, but, oh, and, and a comment about Bitcoin.
01:10:22I, I find there's an amazing analogy for Bitcoin itself is a belief system.
01:10:30The same, like, in the same way, I don't have to believe in Islam or Christianity or these
01:10:36other religious belief systems.
01:10:38It's whether or not I believe in that system, other people are participating in that belief
01:10:44system.
01:10:44And therefore, it, when I go in and participate with that belief system, it will work because
01:10:51in a, in a, in a way, it's similar to, uh, if I remember my Ludwig von Mises correctly,
01:10:58that value is a perception of the human mind and it's not intrinsically in things.
01:11:05And therefore, value is subjective.
01:11:07Yeah, for sure.
01:11:08So.
01:11:09No, I appreciate that.
01:11:10But sorry, go ahead.
01:11:10Oh, and I was also wanting to comment that, uh, I listened to a couple of these, your shows
01:11:18over the past couple, past couple of days.
01:11:20And it, it is, it is terrifying to listen to a lot of people who all, their only power
01:11:29is to deconstruct other religions or, you know, other belief systems.
01:11:33Meanwhile, they have nothing constructive to put into the world.
01:11:39Well, I mean, the, the, the, the terrible, terrible thing about modern atheism is it's
01:11:43complete lack of self-criticism.
01:11:45All that is focused on is, and in this, it seems particularly like pathologically, hysterically
01:11:52female is that, you know, like the nag, nag, nag, nag, and another thing, you know, just
01:11:56nag, nag, nag.
01:11:57And that there's lack of self-criticism is astounding.
01:12:00And of course, everyone's seen this, right?
01:12:02My daughter explained to me what ratio it was when she happened to see this tweet, right?
01:12:06Which is way more comments than, uh, likes, but it was continual.
01:12:11It was completely exhausting.
01:12:13And I'm not, I, you know, I'm pretty robust when it comes to sort of mental challenges and
01:12:17mental battles and so on.
01:12:18But it was like, part of me, it's just like, I mean, my God, like this is exhausting.
01:12:22But every single time you criticize anything about atheism or ask for the root of atheist
01:12:26morals, all the, all they can do is bitch about Christianity.
01:12:29But the church does this, and it's like, like complete, uh, lack of, lack of, this is like,
01:12:35you know, you're saying to some woman who's, who's, you know, a hundred pounds overweight
01:12:38saying, you know, you're, you need to lose some weight.
01:12:42Like, well, my, my sister's even fatter.
01:12:45And it's like, well, what does that have to do with, you know, you say to some kid, what's
01:12:49two and two, what does two and two make?
01:12:51Well, well, that guy got it wrong.
01:12:52It's like, I'm, I'm about asking you, like what, what I was simply asking atheists.
01:12:57Why don't you lie?
01:12:59Well, what's your reasons?
01:13:00I know I understand the reasons for Christianity and other religions.
01:13:03I may not agree with those reasons.
01:13:04I understand them.
01:13:05What are your reasons?
01:13:06Oh, but the crusades.
01:13:07And it's like, no, no, what's nothing to do with that?
01:13:10Can you focus?
01:13:11Can you answer a question that is directed at you and your belief system?
01:13:15Or can all you do is bitch about Christianity or me or others?
01:13:19And it's, it's wild, man.
01:13:21Anyway, sorry, you were going to say.
01:13:22Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's terrifying.
01:13:25And I'm, I am thankful that I've, I've listened to your book.
01:13:30You, I don't, I've listened to your book, UPB, and I've tried to incorporate it, but I'm,
01:13:36I fall short as my behavior.
01:13:38Oh, ask you why, if that's any consolation.
01:13:40Yeah.
01:13:40But, but I also, if, would it be okay to change the topic to a, a free will discussion?
01:13:49Yes, I have a call in, in a little bit, but I've got another little bit of time, so go
01:13:53for it.
01:13:54I was wondering, is, would we ascribe free, does everybody equally get free will?
01:14:03And I've wondered this.
01:14:05Sorry, what do you mean?
01:14:05Hang on.
01:14:06Sorry, by get, do you mean has the potential for or manifests, right?
01:14:10So if you don't work out, then you don't have the capacity to run 10 miles, right?
01:14:18Right.
01:14:18So does everybody have the capacity, again, assuming general levels of human health and
01:14:23youth, can everybody run 10 miles?
01:14:26No.
01:14:26Does everybody who's relatively healthy and young have the capacity to run 10 miles?
01:14:30Well, sure.
01:14:31So I'm not sure what you mean by has.
01:14:33Do you mean has the capacity or manifests equally?
01:14:35Well, I'm honestly, I'm wondering if free will could be an IQ related issue, you know,
01:14:42some kind of factor like that where, where the mass of people, the NPCs of society who
01:14:50like the, they don't question authority and they just float through life.
01:14:56Well, atheists, atheists are high IQ.
01:14:59How did they do?
01:15:00We can bless the free will.
01:15:02Like, I don't know if it is a free, it's some, is there some secondary factor that we
01:15:08have?
01:15:08Well, so, I mean, yeah.
01:15:10So to, to have free will, you have to have, sorry, sorry, the free, the free Q, not the
01:15:16IQ, but the free Q.
01:15:18No, I mean, it's a, it's a great question.
01:15:20Now, I can't budge IQ as a philosopher, I don't have that capacity and that's just being
01:15:27in the subset of humanity as a whole, doesn't really know how to budge IQ.
01:15:31Like, you know, we know how to hurt it maybe, but we don't know really how to budget much
01:15:35upwards, right?
01:15:36And putting stupid people through university doesn't make them smarter anymore.
01:15:40Well, yeah, they, they spent a hundred billion dollars.
01:15:43Yeah.
01:15:43The headstop program spent a hundred, yeah, they spent a hundred billion dollars trying to
01:15:46close the black, white IQ gap and were unable to do it.
01:15:49So we don't know how to budge that.
01:15:51On the plus side, philosophy is not fundamentally focused on IQ.
01:15:55Fundamentally, it is focused on wisdom.
01:15:57Now, can you be lower IQ and have more wisdom than somebody of higher IQ?
01:16:02Absolutely.
01:16:03And if I had the choice between IQ and wisdom, I would choose wisdom every time, every time.
01:16:08Calling Scott Adams, right?
01:16:12I'm sorry?
01:16:12Scott Adams famously took the, took the COVID shot.
01:16:17Well.
01:16:17Well, yeah, I, I, but he was married to this, what's this, he was married to this uber hottie
01:16:22and I think she wanted to go away for the honeymoon.
01:16:25I don't know, but whatever, for whatever reason, right?
01:16:27So I, I would take wisdom over IQ.
01:16:31Now I can't change IQ in people, but I sure as heck can spread wisdom.
01:16:36So wisdom is having a Aristotelian mean proportionate response to ideal standards, right?
01:16:44So you have an ideal standard called telling the truth.
01:16:47Well, you don't go around telling everyone the truth all the time because you're just going to get thrown in prison or beaten up or, you know, whatever it is.
01:16:53Do you get to be Ricky Gervais in your own TV, in your own movie?
01:16:57Well, Ricky Gervais is just an absolute coward with regards to what's happening in England and all of the problems that they're having in England.
01:17:06And he's, oh, my, my, my, my ex-wife died of cancer.
01:17:09And, and I'm going to regurgitate, you know, like Dawkins talking points from 20 years ago and consider it like edgy comedy.
01:17:16I mean, it's really, it's terrible.
01:17:17Absolutely, absolutely terrible.
01:17:19He, he did a movie though.
01:17:20It was called The Invention of Lying where, and it was a, it was a very funny show where he, the entire world is based on nobody in the world.
01:17:30Okay, I, I, I get that.
01:17:31I don't want to do a movie synopsis of Ricky Gervais because I just consider him to be terrible.
01:17:37I mean, get all the money, all the power, and he just won't tell the truth about what's going on in England.
01:17:41Anyway, neither here nor there.
01:17:43So you have to have, to have free will, it is our ability to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
01:17:50And so you have to have ideal standards.
01:17:52Now, Christians have ideal standards.
01:17:56Muslims have ideal standards, right?
01:17:58Other religions have some standards.
01:18:01I'm not particularly, I'm certainly not any expert on worldwide religions,
01:18:05but you have to have an ideal standard.
01:18:07And then when you have an ideal standard, you have the capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
01:18:14So for instance, what would Jesus do?
01:18:15That's your ideal standard.
01:18:17And you can compare what it is you want to do.
01:18:18I'm really angry at this guy.
01:18:20I really want to hit him.
01:18:21Well, Jesus wouldn't.
01:18:22Jesus would sit down and reason with him or, you know, try and try and work with him or pray for him or whatever it is.
01:18:26So you'd have, you grit your teeth and you don't do what you want to do.
01:18:29You force yourself to do something better than what you want to do, right?
01:18:33So just to sort of spoiler a bit about what I'm going to talk about tomorrow night,
01:18:36part of what I was doing was asking atheists, what is your ideal standard?
01:18:43I mean, you could call it morality or whatever.
01:18:45Ideal standard, right?
01:18:45What is your ideal standard?
01:18:47Now, if atheists don't have an ideal standard, they don't functionally have free will
01:18:51because they have nothing to compare proposed actions to.
01:18:54And hedonists just do whatever feels good.
01:18:57So they don't have any ideal standard to compare proposed actions to or against.
01:19:03And so the hedonists don't really have free will.
01:19:05They're just following their dopamine.
01:19:06They're just following their nerve endings and their pleasure and whatever it is, right?
01:19:10They might as well be monkeys in the zoo, you know, just stroking themselves.
01:19:15So my question to atheists was, do you have free will?
01:19:19Now, if atheists don't have ideal standards, and again, there was a wide variety of responses,
01:19:28but a lot of them centered around the carrot and the stick, which is, well, I gain social
01:19:32benefits from telling the truth and I feel bad if I lie.
01:19:35But that's not an ideal standard.
01:19:38Because being bribed to be good, and then they say, well, how, you know, Omar, if you need
01:19:42bribes to be good and you need threats to be bad, it's like, this is exactly what you're
01:19:45talking about.
01:19:45The atheists, exactly what they're talking about.
01:19:47They get a benefit called social reward, and then if they lie, they get a punishment,
01:19:52either called social rejection or feeling bad or whatever it is, right?
01:19:55It's still heaven and hell.
01:19:56It's just not in the abstract.
01:19:58So my basic question was, do atheists have free will?
01:20:02Well, if you don't have ideal standards, UPB is an ideal standard, right?
01:20:05So if you don't have ideal standards, you have nothing to compare proposed actions to,
01:20:09and you are fundamentally an NPC, right?
01:20:12Now, my theory was, atheists don't have ideal standards, therefore, they're going to react
01:20:20in a fully NPC fashion.
01:20:25It's like, they're going to react in a fully NPC fashion.
01:20:29And I will say, and I can't honestly think of exceptions.
01:20:33I really can't think of exceptions.
01:20:35They reacted in a fully NPC fashion.
01:20:38It didn't matter what data I posted.
01:20:39It didn't matter what facts I posted.
01:20:40It didn't matter what rebuttal I posted.
01:20:42People just did the same thing over and over again.
01:20:45Because the most honest answer, and I say to atheists, why don't you not lie, would be,
01:20:53you know, I'm not sure.
01:20:56I mean, I feel like it's just, I don't want to, but that's not really a good reason,
01:21:00because there are obviously people out there who want to lie, and are good at it, right?
01:21:05Somebody might do it back to me.
01:21:07Well, somebody might do it back to me, but it didn't matter.
01:21:12Because the atheists put our Lord and Savior, Anthony Fauci, first and foremost, on their
01:21:18altar of subjugation, and found out that they'd been lied to by a whole bunch of people over
01:21:23COVID.
01:21:23It didn't matter.
01:21:24It didn't matter to them.
01:21:25They didn't say, oh my God, you know, I trusted all these people, and it didn't really work
01:21:28out, and it really had me reevaluate my whole position.
01:21:31They didn't care.
01:21:32They didn't care.
01:21:33So, the form of the question, atheists, why don't you lie, or what compels you to tell
01:21:40the truth, the form of the question, they lied in almost every response.
01:21:46And facts didn't matter.
01:21:48Reason didn't matter.
01:21:49Rebuttals didn't matter.
01:21:50They just would insult Christians, insult me, claim vague esoterical benefits, which,
01:21:57and then they would refuse to answer, say, well, you know, you flourish when you tell the
01:22:01truth.
01:22:01You do better when you tell the truth.
01:22:02I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?
01:22:05Look at history.
01:22:05Look at the last five years, for God's sakes.
01:22:07Look at the media.
01:22:08Look at politicians.
01:22:10Look at educators, quote, educators.
01:22:12Like, look at the pharmaceutical companies or other giant corporations.
01:22:15Look at USAID, for God's sakes.
01:22:17They lied about everything.
01:22:19Look at foreign aid.
01:22:20Like, people get trillions of dollars from bullshitting their way through life.
01:22:23Massive amounts.
01:22:24What are you talking about?
01:22:26Isn't Al Gore a billionaire for lying his ass?
01:22:28Well, he's made a lot of money off those carbon tax credits, right?
01:22:31So, so, and, you know, I mean, how many times has this noble lie or whatever it is, the
01:22:37inconvenient truth, sorry, updating my plate, the inconvenient truth, how many times has
01:22:42that been debunked?
01:22:42And, you know, people still repeating the wage gap to get women all surly and testy.
01:22:47And like, like how many times?
01:22:49It doesn't, doesn't, it doesn't matter.
01:22:50They had to take down the, at Glacier National Park, the, take down the science.
01:22:56It's still there.
01:22:58Yeah.
01:22:58How many, how many times do the scientific predictions of we're five years away from
01:23:02climate catastrophe, which has been the case since the seventies, how many times does it
01:23:07matter?
01:23:07How many times they blow past that?
01:23:09Atheists still believe.
01:23:11They still believe in the science that isn't even science.
01:23:14It's just computer models, which you can make up anything with bullshit computer models.
01:23:17I mean, I was in the business world and I can't tell you how many proposals came across
01:23:21my desk that were business plans that were just complete nonsense.
01:23:25I just, you know, there was no foundation.
01:23:27You can type whatever you want into, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like downloading
01:23:31your bank account, putting it into a spreadsheet program, typing in a new sum and saying, I'm
01:23:35rich.
01:23:36Just make up whatever you want, right?
01:23:37Well, there's, so it doesn't matter.
01:23:39Sorry, go ahead.
01:23:39Oh, they had, they have the same amount of integrity as those people in 2006 pointing
01:23:44like the financial projections going, Oh yeah, it's going to be, the economy is going
01:23:49to be great.
01:23:50Yeah.
01:23:51Right, right, right, right, right, right.
01:23:54Or Peter Schiff with Bitcoin, but that's a whole other time.
01:23:56So, so yeah, yeah.
01:23:58So my, my sort of prediction, I'll go into this in more detail, the sort of giant social
01:24:02experiment was it's not going to matter what I say.
01:24:05They're going to have completely pre-programmed responses because as atheists, they don't have
01:24:09an ideal standard to compare proposed actions to, and therefore they have no functional free
01:24:14will.
01:24:15And boy, did they ever completely conform to that.
01:24:20And even when I pointed it out, even when I pointed it out, saying I've posted about
01:24:25how terrible atheists behaved over COVID, they don't care.
01:24:29They don't care.
01:24:29It doesn't matter because it doesn't compute.
01:24:31They don't have an ideal standard.
01:24:33It doesn't matter.
01:24:34And so yeah, for free will, you, you, you don't have functional free will without an ideal
01:24:39standard to compare your proposed actions to.
01:24:41And so of course the whole point for me has been to promulgate and put out all of these
01:24:46ideal standards so that people can actually have some functional free will.
01:24:52And right now without ideal standards, the atheists are barely bots.
01:24:56The scary part is we, the metaphor of we, we haven't ever, we never made it out of the
01:25:07dark ages.
01:25:08We are still living in a world that's controlled by wizards.
01:25:11Oh no, worse than the dark ages.
01:25:12No, no, the dark age, no.
01:25:14The dark ages had ideal standards.
01:25:16We're still controlled by wizards.
01:25:18You know, this whole, like every time the propaganda machine gets whirled up, it's analogous
01:25:23to like some, some wizard casts a terrible spell over all the, all of the villages.
01:25:29Yeah.
01:25:29We're in the land of, we're in the land of witch doctors.
01:25:31Yeah.
01:25:32Yeah.
01:25:32Yeah.
01:25:33Yeah.
01:25:33So all of the rationality and objectivity of atheists, all the skepticism, right?
01:25:39Where was all the atheist skepticism when it came to, do I have ideal standards or morals?
01:25:46Oh, that's an interesting question, you know?
01:25:48And of course the atheists revere and worship people like Galileo.
01:25:51They revere and worship people like Socrates and so on, right?
01:25:54And Socrates said, I know nothing.
01:25:56And the atheists, even though they worship Socrates, are full of absolute vanity about
01:26:04everything they know and everything that they understand.
01:26:07And they just make statements that it doesn't matter whether they'll be, oh, you know, you
01:26:11don't flourish if you lie.
01:26:12It's like, oh, like you're literally criticizing religion, which you consider a lie, which is
01:26:17way more powerful than atheism.
01:26:18And you're saying that there's no flourishing if you lie and let you continue to criticize
01:26:22Christianity, which is flourishing a whole lot more than atheism.
01:26:25If you look at number of adherents and wealth and structural power within society and so
01:26:30on.
01:26:30So they literally will say religion is a lie.
01:26:34Religion is way more successful than atheism.
01:26:36And yet people who lie never succeed.
01:26:39Like it literally is that level of cognitive dissonance.
01:26:41They don't even notice what they're saying and how much it contradicts their entire position.
01:26:45It's absolutely wild.
01:26:47It is.
01:26:47All right.
01:26:48So anything that you wanted to mention at the end?
01:26:50And I really do appreciate everyone dropping by tonight, but I certainly give you the last
01:26:53word.
01:26:53No, it's been a pleasure getting to actually talk with an intelligent person in real life.
01:27:02And I apologize for not having specific things about earlier this week that I, it all just
01:27:10kind of got fogged together.
01:27:11And so, but that I wanted to apologize about, but that's, again, I appreciate that.
01:27:16And if it's any consolation or any comfort, your apology is perfectly and totally and happily
01:27:22accepted.
01:27:23And it's, it's as if it never happened for me.
01:27:25And you're certainly welcome to join the conversation anytime.
01:27:28Thank you, sir.
01:27:30All right.
01:27:30Thanks everyone.
01:27:31Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
01:27:34Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
01:27:37Lots of love from up here.
01:27:38I will talk to you tomorrow at 7 p.m.
01:27:40Eastern Standard.
01:27:41And thank you for your time today.
01:27:42And thanks to everyone who called in.
01:27:44All the best.
01:27:44Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:45Bye.
01:27:47Bye.
01:27:49Bye.
01:27:49Bye.
01:27:49Bye.
01:27:49Bye.
01:27:51Bye.
01:27:53Bye.
01:27:53Bye.

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How to STOP Defending Evil! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
6/23/2025
1:29:47
The True Power of Virtue!
Stefan Molyneux
12/29/2024
1:08:44
Fighting Back Against Lies!
Stefan Molyneux
4/5/2025
1:43:02
First Twitter Space!
Stefan Molyneux
6/17/2025
1:20:11
Virtue vs Politics! Stefan Molyneux Interviewed!
Stefan Molyneux
10/11/2024
15:47
Dealing with Irrational People!
Stefan Molyneux
9/1/2024
5:13
Good is Evil
Stefan Molyneux
11/18/2024
51:34
My Life After Deplatforming!
Stefan Molyneux
12/23/2024
50:20
Jesus Brings a SWORD?!? Bible Verses
Stefan Molyneux
2/19/2025
1:40:01
How to Handle a Breakup!
Stefan Molyneux
10/3/2024
2:21:02
ETHICS UNPACKED! Freedomain Community Conversation!
Stefan Molyneux
6/23/2024
36:45
The Truth About Your Conscience
Stefan Molyneux
10/23/2024
2:06:05
Chatting with JustPearlyThings! X/Twitter Space 4
Stefan Molyneux
6/22/2025
1:18:38
Jordan Peterson Debate Analysis Part 2
Stefan Molyneux
6/5/2025
1:38:03
Jordan Peterson Debate Analysis!
Stefan Molyneux
6/1/2025
2:03:59
UPB CROSS-EXAMINED! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux
3/31/2025
55:28
Hell is Not Enough!
Stefan Molyneux
2/7/2025
1:40:23
Everything I Have Achieved!
Stefan Molyneux
5/25/2025
43:12
Does Virtue Survive? Bible Verses
Stefan Molyneux
1/24/2025
13:10
Stefan Molyneux - The Story of Your Enslavement
Life'Fx
2/11/2021
2:59
Bondage - Gage
Rakeem Alexander
8/8/2017
2:03:39
Men Trying to Protect Women! Twitter/X Space
Stefan Molyneux
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