Interview: Keagan, an Agnostic Atheist (part 2)

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Interview: Keagan, an Agnostic Atheist (part 2)

June 30, 2021

Today, on the For The King podcast, I am joined with one of my good friends. Keagan and I met at college during our undergraduate careers and we soon became good friends doing lots of random things together. Today Keagan and I continue on our discussion of our worldviews. This episode is more of a debate/dialogue than the first part of this interview. Tune in and hear Keagan espouse his beliefs and I mine. We both take time to defend our views and press each other on some of the points that we disagree with the other. Thank you for listening! Please check out Keagan's podcast!

Keagan's podcast : https://anchor.fm/keagan-bouwers

Resources:

* https://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/tough-questions-christians-face-2010-national/what-is-evil-where-did-it-come-from/

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw83wkfHjW4 -> Good analysis of evil

* https://www.britannica.com/topic/atheism -> Generally atheism is a denial of God or of the gods, and if religion is defined in terms of belief in spiritual beings, then atheism is the rejection of all religious belief.

* https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion -> To determine if Atheism is a religion we need to define religion. The answer is based upon how you define religion. I would say that humans always worship something and always have a set of metaphysical values they adhere to. Of this list I would say religion is best defined the 4th way.

* https://www.thebanner.org/columns/2019/01/is-atheism-a-religion

Website: forthekingpodcast.com

Inquiries: forthekingpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Hello, For The King listeners. I am joined again with Keagan. He was on last week.

We're actually recording the same week of the first release, but I'm going to release this a week later on Wednesday. I release these kind of episodes on Wednesdays, so this will be the following Wednesday. It might still be June, almost maybe it might be early July at that point.

No, it'll be the last day of June this will be released. So thanks for joining us and listening again to what Keagan and I have to say. The last episode was more get to know Keagan, hear some of his points of views and where he's at now.

This is going to be more getting into the nitty gritty of the differences in our worldview. We were talking before this, we were just hanging out for a little bit. We both, him as an atheist, me as a Christian, want to uphold the good and redeemable things of civil discourse.

It's best when having these discussions to do it in civility, in kindness, gentleness, not out of rage or making a bad name for either of you because we both think that we're correct. So we, you know, I know Keagan wouldn't want to make a bad name for atheism and I wouldn't want to make a bad name for my Lord and Savior Jesus, the King. I would not want to represent him poorly.

And neither would Keagan want to represent his view poorly. So we're going to, you know, we're good friends, so we're not going to get angry on the podcast or whatever, but hopefully we can show the importance of just like you can still be friends with people that disagree with you and you can still have good discussions surrounding really important issues that like actually decide the fate of a nation. You know, nations are built totally different ways based on a lot of these ideas.

They, a lot of different things will come from them. We're talking about foundational principles really today. These are foundational principles of reality.

So is that fair Keagan? Anything you want to add? Yeah, totally fair. No, I just think it's incredibly important to like show to people that you can learn from anybody, you know, like I'm definitely going to be learning things from Rocky is definitely going to be learning things from me and we're going to enjoy our time just, you know, batting the ball around a little bit for lack of a better term, I guess. That's a good metaphor.

That makes sense. Yeah. You just taught me a metaphor.

I can use that now. Batting the ball around. Yeah.

Talking about having a good discussion. I like that. Okay.

Well, good. So yeah, thanks again for tuning in and listening. Really appreciate the support for all of you that all of you guys that do listen to the for the King podcast.

So let's get into it. I don't think, I think that's all the housekeeping stuff that I want to do. So if you've listened to the last episode, Keegan talked, ran us through some of the things that were leading him down a path of atheism, what caused him to be skeptical of the faith and eventually cost him to just abandon it altogether.

So we're going to hit some of those things that he talked about last podcast, if you tuned in and we're also, we'll probably get even further into the discussion. So a big, big hot topic in this discussion is evolution. So that was kind of the first thing you brought up in the podcast last week.

So we can dive into that a little bit. So you can tell me, you know, I would appreciate maybe an expansion of what you think evolution is like. We were talking about anthropology before we even started recording.

Is that your conception of humans that in terms of anthropology, the study of what the human is, are we just animals or is there anything metaphysical to our reality? We can let's banter about that for a little bit. So you go first, you give me your positive view on that. Okay.

So yeah, I guess for me, my own personal view, I think there's going to be, there's always going to be things that are unexplained. I think there is sort of like, there's a lot of mystery and phenomenon in the world that we just don't know. Like we don't know why things work the way they work.

The thing that comes to my mind though is I think that one day those things will be explained by science. Like I think eventually science will get to that point where we can explain those things. But I also think there's like this respect I have, there's a respect I have for the unknown.

Like, and that was one of the things that I, the freedom of it, because I found myself as a Christian trying to explain every little thing because I felt like I had to, like I had to explain the reason why everything was the way it was because I was a Christian. And I was like, I had to defend, I have to defend this, like I have to find out the reason why, because the answer always had to come back to God being the creator of the universe. So when I became an atheist, I found myself being feeling a lot more free.

Just like to say, I don't know, you know, like that's the biggest thing that I have now is like, I can say, I don't know, but maybe one day we'll find out, you know, and so as far as anthropology, as far as us like being animals. Yes, I do think we're part of the natural world. I do think that we are animals.

I think that our ability to speak with one another is a very special thing. I think that us being sentient, as far as what we understand, as far as sentience is concerned, is a very special thing. I think humans are special.

But that's also because I am a human, you know? Sure. I think, yeah, like, whales are very interesting to me. Because I think that honestly, there's, it's probably one of the weirder things I believe.

But I think whales probably could be protected as a sentient species. They, I mean, orcas are technically dolphins, but they have their own languages for their each pod has their own languages that other pods of orcas, you know, can't understand. They play games with one another, they love one another.

They mourn for their dead. Like, if an orcas mother dies, they've found orcas going back to the same place where that where their mom died, like every year, like they go back to the same place, like she's showing this like, it's kind of like a grieving process type of thing. And I just think it's very possible, especially with evolution, it's not one species or one type of animal over another, it's not like one values more, it's actually just one took a different path than we did, and survived just like we did.

And ended up and ended up being something else. And I just, I'm not sure if that answers your question thoroughly, but I'm just, I would say, yeah, I would say yes, we are, we are primates, we are just animals on this planet. But what makes us special is we've got a higher capacity for a higher capacity for language, a higher capacity for intelligence than, than other animals on the planet.

Okay, so question that answered that question. That's, that's so first your point about it seems to me like you're creating a spectrum of value, based on sentience or self awareness, emotional capacity, things like that, that certain things are more valuable. You know, you first said with humans, we're more valuable because of our higher ordered communication and thought processes, things like that.

But you said, oh, it's just because I'm a human. But then you went on to, you know, you told me about your view about orcas and sustations, dolphins, whales, things like that. Why would they have more value than any of the other animals just based on emotional, emotional capacity, higher order thought, things like that.

And how are you certain that you're not just projecting that you have emotions and things like that? So when you see an animal doing it, you're like, oh, that must be morning, that must be sadness. How do you know you're not just putting your humanity onto it rather than it just doing an arbitrary thing that it thinks is arbitrary and not even mournful or full of emotion. So you kind of see my two different little points there.

And what would be the question? Yeah, yeah. So as far as like the value thing, I do value humans more than other animals. But that is because I am a human.

Like that is why I value humans is because there are my own species and I've got an evolution and anthropological and cultural and genetic connection to other humans. So I'm always going to value humans more than others. But that doesn't mean that we are inherently more valuable just because I value humans more than an ant doesn't mean that we are more valuable because we evolved a different way.

You know, that doesn't mean I'm not going to treat humans higher than an ant, you know, if that makes sense, because I value them. Okay, so it's also would you would you agree with? Yes, yeah. Yeah.

But as far I don't think I mean, yes and no, yes and no. But we can get into that in a second. But as far as like the whale question, I forget the name of it.

Sure, maybe you know, but it's like where people with like dogs and other animals where they see them do a behavior and they're like, Oh, he looks happy. Like a gorilla smiling, you know, like, yeah, like, Oh, look, the gorilla is smiling. He's happy.

He's happy. But he's actually, he's actually showing you aggressive behavior. Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, so I know what you're talking about. But the if I understood the science of that correctly, which I think I did, I didn't do a ton of research into it. So take it with a grain of salt.

But the scientists were showing that they were saying this looks like this could be grieving behavior, you know, they were saying we don't know for certain we don't know. We know. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. But we know that they've got their own unique languages that they've got. They play games with another one another.

I mean, they have sex for the enjoyment of it. Like they just it's it's interesting because they've got brain that's way bigger than ours. It just it.

To me, I think it's an interesting thought that they could be another sentient species, but we just don't understand, you know, I think I think that's a possibility. So I was more alluding to that than saying that, you know, just like, this is this is an interesting possibility, you know, that we could understand in the future whether or not they actually are like us or not, like they understand about themselves, you know, like humans can think about themselves. And that's what we know about us.

We don't know about if other animals have that ability or not. Sure. Okay.

That makes sense. That's what that's sort of what I was if that. Yeah, yeah.

So let me push the point a little further and see what you would say to this if a human is an environmentalist and sees thinks that humans are destroying the earth. And they think humans are actually more like a parasite. I think we should actually lower the population.

I think humans are actually of less worth than most of the environment and animals and creatures there in. I actually don't think humans are that valuable. I would like them.

I would actually like to depopulate. And I think we'd be much better on a planet with less humans. So they have their own subjective.

And what if they say Keegan eats meat or uses this gasoline powered car or whatever, and they're like, well, he's using a lot of co2 and we would like him to die. Would you contest that? Or would you would you just say, hey, that's what you think? What you think is true? What I think I think humans actually are valuable from what I think, you know, how would you push back against that kind of subjective nature to the value of humans? Can I see the thought experiment a little bit? Oh, yeah, sure. Sure.

The thing I would say to that is we've got so much evidence, like to the contrary. And I mean, the big, the big, big thing is that if it was, if there are only two people on the planet, and it was me and this other person, I think, philosophically, I think, like scientifically that I could prove the value of life. But the end of the day, if it was just me, and it was just this other person, it would be kind of a subjective thing, wouldn't it? Because it would be, well, his word against mine, or her word against mine.

But the issue is that we don't live in that vacuum, you know, we don't live where it's just one person versus another. And that's the end of the day, we live in a society of people, because that's how we evolved, we evolved to be in a community. That's one of the biggest reasons why humans have been so successful is that we evolved in tribes, and we evolved in communities, and we are in a society.

And at the end of the day, what the society says sort of sets that norm. So if that person was saying, we should just kill everybody who isn't on board with, you know, keeping the climate clean, there would be an uprising against that like it wouldn't just matter if if I say, hey, that's, that's more of Lee objectable. It wouldn't matter if I said that, because there would be 10s of 1000s of people who would agree with me, because they would, we live in a society of people, whether whether you like that or not, like, some people don't like that.

But at the end of the day, that's sort of where we're at. Okay, so have you ever heard of the phrase might makes right? You ever heard that before? Yeah, I've also heard of the yeah, like the rule of the majority. Yeah, like, kind of see where you're going.

Yeah. So, well, I just want to I want to I want to go into your view of what you're saying about value. And about it's not just one, one person's view, it's about the collective view.

But when you have sort of Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and the collective can deter against bad behavior, because nobody in their right mind would want to just murder everybody because of the environment thing, if I was understanding you correctly, and actually talking to your view. So I'm just I want to I want to come into that, and internally see if that will hold up in all situations, because if we're talking about worldview, if we're talking about how we ought to live, we want it to make sense of the most situations.

That makes sense. You want to be able to do what is correct for the most amount of situations with the worldview, you don't want to just get it right. In one situation, you want a worldview that can sustain all sorts of, you know, the world's a changing place.

So there's a lot of different moving factors you'd want to worldview that can support a lot of things. So if I go into that view, and I think about, you know, things like might makes right and subjectivity based on the collective or society as a whole, there have been a lot of societies that have done, there's been consensus in the society about what's right, or what's wrong, and maybe they've had those completely flipped. Maybe what's wrong is right, what's right is wrong.

And this seems to be, I would say the great downfall of this kind of evolutionary thought, subjectivism. And I think what kind of atheism can lead to, is that loud right now? Can you hear that? Sorry, there was just a loud noise in the background. Um, you know, I think that can be one of the, that would be one of my big points I want to press on is how do you get away from not just making it at the end of the day, it's not just me, but let's just say the society gets on board with my ideas, and I'm a leader in the society, and there's consensus.

You know, how do you actually find out what's truly right and truly wrong? And this is what I wanted to end up getting to with evolution too, because you talk a lot about evidence and facts, there is no evidence of religion. And, you know, I'm curious. Yeah, what how you would respond to what do you see what I'm saying about truth and facts and I know, I know.

Yeah, I get where you imagine you've heard. Yeah, but for the sake of the audience and just rego. Yeah, what would you? What do you think is better about your world than my worldview? Because I'm saying there's one way to do it.

It's the way to go. And it's always right based on the Bible. That would be what I would respond.

What how do you think your worldview is better at creating society and human flourishing than my worldview? That's a really, I mean, that's a really good question. I know just yeah. So the issue there is that religion, I think has a lot of good things in it, because I believe that it was made by people to make society's cohesive, you know, if that makes sense.

Back when we back when people just didn't understand a lot of things, but like they didn't understand what bacteria was. But they also need bacteria. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And they also just didn't have a very good law structure, you know, that we do now.

And religion was sort of needed to have a cohesive society. And a lot of that, a lot of what's in religions through across the world has a lot of good wisdom in it, like for people to follow. The issue is with me, with my worldview is at the end of the day, that was created by people.

So we could take the wisdom from that, minus the religion, because religion does have good things with it. But it also does a lot of terrible things. A lot of really, really bad things have been done in the name of religion.

And all the way from the beginning of when religion was around to now, there have been just horrible atrocities done in the name of religion. And it's going on now too. I mean, even with Christianity, and with with Islam with Hinduism, Buddhism, well, Buddhism is a little unique, but still, it's just you have people doing terrible things.

And I think if we took that away and made it equal society, there, there could be some hope that it would work in a better fashion. But for me, my personal view is I think people should, people can do what they like, as long as they don't harm others. And for me, it works better because I know I'm following what I believe is true, you know.

So it's not about me being better than someone else. It's not about me saying, well, my view is better than yours. It's me saying, well, I believe this is true.

So I'm going to live this way. You know, I'm not huge into trying to proselytize someone. If especially, unless it was like unless it was like really hurting them, you know, if that makes sense.

If a Christian comes up to me, if a Christian comes up to me and says, you know, I'm really happy, I'm very fulfilled and content with my life. And Christianity is the reason for that, you know. Even though I believe that no real God exists, I'm not going to try to rob them of their contentment simply because I believe that I'm right.

You know, because I don't think that would be kind. I don't think that would be a kind thing to do. Now, if it was like they're living in a cult or they're living in with a religion that is causing them severe pain or doing terrible things in the name of that religion, I would try to get them out of it.

That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. That was a real, real winding river.

That's why I pulled away from the original question. I was still on point. I mean, that is what I asked.

I mean, again, we're doing this off the cuff. So it's not like we can perfectly streamline our thoughts. I don't know.

Just one thing kind of bouncing off that. I mean, just more challenge to that whole notion. Sure.

So first of all, you were talking about how there have been, and I agree with the statement, there have been many evils done in the name of religion. And I am not opposed to calling out evil where I see evil, even if it's done by religious people, people that claim to be Christians, just like I'm a Christian. If a Christian person does something evil, I would name it and defame it 100%.

But I would like to flip that back onto you and just say your worldview, the atheistic evolutionary materialism has also had people do evil things. I don't think you're out doing, you're not hurting people, you're not harming people, you're living under that code that you just portrayed to us. But there has also been evil people that have done things under the name of your worldview.

So can we at least say we're, that's a moot point that we're both, we both got one up on each other there. We're not that really didn't. That's not a reason not to believe in religion.

And it's not a reason to believe in evolution or atheism. And it's not a reason not to believe in either of them. That's just kind of like, all right, we both are just realizing on both sides that there's evil people all around us.

Or do you think that there's more to be said there? I mean, that that's where I would end up on that one. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you I would say no, I don't think it's, I don't yeah, I don't think it's a moot point.

Because here's the thing. atheism isn't a collection of beliefs. Like there's no holy book that atheists follow.

So I would I would disagree with that. Like, there's the saying, a good person does good things. A bad person does bad things.

Yeah. But in order for a good person to do bad things, they need to be religious. Like they need to follow religion.

And the the the thing I would really disagree with that disagree with you with what you just said is atheism, all it is saying I don't believe that there's a God or I don't believe that there's evidence for a God. Like that's all that atheism it is. It's not a collection of beliefs.

And this was one of the big things for me when I was a Christian. And when I was sort of making this transition, it was like, kind of sifting through and wading through the lies about atheism, which was like, oh, if you're an atheist, you don't have moral values, you don't have virtue, like virtues, like you don't really care, like you just, you just want to do this so you can just do whatever you want, type of thing. And it was from the Christian view, there is a mindset that atheism is its own religion.

And it's got a collection of values. But none of those things are true. Well, when you say when you say there's at least one value, one virtue, which is the lack of Yeah, right, right.

There's one, there has to be one unifier. Yes, which I would say that is, but but I read that is that one, that's one, it's played out in other ways. But I would still come back to that point, there is some unity there.

And there is some, there's bad people. There's the there's the unity. Yeah, there's bad people that don't believe in God.

There's also good people that people that that aren't necessarily doing evil things that are very heinous, evil things that do believe in God, sorry, don't believe in God as well. And that's kind of maybe the point I was getting at. But if that still isn't, yes, I mean, I it doesn't, I don't think it I don't think it makes sense logically, because, okay, maybe if it was like, humanism, I could almost get on board with it, you know, but even then, that doesn't really make sense.

Because with atheism, we don't have Scripture that says to stone women, you know, we don't have Scripture that says, Hey, here, here's how you sell your slaves. Yeah. That's not just Christianity, though.

Christianity does have verses on that. It's a lot of different Abraham, Abrahamic religions say those. Yeah.

Because it was a cultural thing. But I'd say yes, there are there are atheists who end up doing bad things because they're bad people, but they don't do it in the name of atheism. If that makes sense, because there is no name of atheism.

It's just saying I don't believe in God. But there are people who do terrible things every single day who believe they're doing something good. And the name of Islam and the name of Christianity every day who do horrible things.

So that's, and they're getting it not just, they're not just making it up, they're reading it from the Scripture, because it's in the Scripture. So it's sort of that with like a gun debate, I view the religion similar to this, they're like, well, they're just using the gun wrong, they're just using religion, the Scripture wrong, they're interpreting it wrong, is what I've heard a lot. But at the end of the day, a gun is still made to do a certain thing, you know, and religion was still made to do a certain thing.

So they're not using it incorrectly, they're using it for its intended purpose. And that's something that I would say that's why I would disagree with you is like, atheism is is, isn't a group of beliefs, it's a saying, I don't believe this. So people like again, people don't do the something bad and the name of atheism, I'm actually certain that there have been people who have, because there's 7 billion people on the planet.

But we don't have Scripture. There's not the Scripture there that says, hey, go stone a woman. She's not a virgin, on your on your wedding night.

So that's why I would I would disagree with you on that. And I mean, that's sort of the advantage disadvantage, I would say, of Christianity and atheism, is that as a Christian, I had a really hard time with that question, because I was like, well, all these terrible things have been done. But you know, I, I didn't do terrible things.

So it was, I don't know, it was tough. But I hope that answered the quit the my side of it. I hope I explained that well.

Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate the view. We can move on just because I think that's just gonna be a point of disagreement. So we can maybe end there.

But I would just say, to me, in my mind, it's similar to, you know, in Christianity, you have Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, whatever. You have non denominational churches, but a non denomination is a denomination. It's the denomination of not having.

Yeah, yeah, I would just that's, that's to me, I still, I see you're trying to splice it all up. And they're never doing it in the name of atheism. But yeah, I would say that's one of the base beliefs of a human is either they believe in God or they don't.

So if somebody does something, them either believing in God or not believing in God had some, some causal effect on the way they're living their life, which is why me and you are talking about this, you know, that's why we are having this conversation. But if right, that that would be my last point on it, if you had something you want to say real quick, but we should move on to something else. Yeah, sure.

Sure. I just think it's really dangerous to I mean, if you if we go out and out and out, you know, well, this thing did this thing, well, this thing, you know, looking at like a butterfly effect type of deal. That's, I don't think that is fair outside of like, we can only really take in direct influences on what people do.

Like, of course, you know, my father's father's father was a Christian, you know, so the idea would be that, well, because of those values, because of what's been taught, you know, even genetic down to a genetic component, I should be doing Christian things and following Christian values and all these kinds of things, but I'm not so it's about direct influences about what people believe. And a lack of belief isn't a isn't a value. And that's the big thing that I see Christians get wrong all of the time is and it's because it's big in the apologetics is saying, you're atheist, and that's a religion, and that's a belief, when it's actually not.

It's not a religion. It's not like it doesn't take faith to be an atheist. It's it's saying, I don't believe in this thing.

So that I mean, that's all that it is. Yeah, but isn't the so the base claim that you don't think it's right to believe in a God you think it's right. You're still you're I know you understand your your sorry, I understand that you would claim you don't know you're an agnostic atheist.

But as of right now, if somebody asked you, you would say, Yeah, as of right now, I don't believe in God as in you think that's right. It's the best you can do right now. So I think my whole point is, doesn't that seem to be a value claim? You're making a value judgment on if it's right or wrong to believe in God, you would say, because people believe in God and have done evil things in the name of God, that's a non virtuous thing, you'd think it's your worst off as a human, and you're more apt to do a bad thing if you believe in God.

So if you're allowed to accuse us of doing non virtuous things in relation to our belief in God, then does it that's why the apologists would usually go the other way and say, well, if you think it's bad for me to believe in God, I think it's bad for you to not believe in God, I think it's a bad thing, I'm gonna make a hundred percent gonna make it a virtue judgment. Because so many things flow from it. Well, not right, right.

Again, I see that point a little bit. I can understand it. But the issue is that I'm not saying that I think that bad I think that people do bad things with religion, because religion has bad things in it.

Okay. That doesn't mean I think it's bad to be religious, you know? Okay, that makes sense. That's what I believe.

Like, I've met many Christians in my life, many religious people, but a lot of Christians. And a lot of them are really good people. And they do good things.

Because of their religion and because they're good people. But what I'm saying is that there are bad things in religion. And people use those all of the time.

As the as justification. And that that's more of what I'm getting at. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, one way or the other.

I'm saying this is just sort of what's going on. Okay. Okay.

Did you know, I don't think it's a fair thing to to make a huh? Did you have something you're gonna read from that book you just snagged? Yeah, in a second. Once I find it. Okay.

So. Do you have a general idea? Are you gonna go ahead? Go look for it. I I I got I have to find it.

So I can talk while I'm doing this though. Okay. It's the next question.

There's a really good. Okay, go ahead. I hear this objection a lot.

No, you're good. You're good. Sorry.

The delay from zoom. Okay, good. Dude, there was a bug that just climbed into my computer.

I thought he was going to die in there. It was really annoying me and he just climbed out and I was very happy. One of the vents the air vents.

Have you seen the what? Have you seen the the cleaning videos where people like clean consoles like ps4s and PCs and stuff. And they're like, full of bugs. Like nasty stuff.

It's just like, I, I can't. Yeah. Yeah, for real.

So let's just move on to the next I want to circle back to science a little more. There's a ton to talk about there. But let's move on to one of the other big objections you had.

Why did Jesus come when he did? There was no photography video, good recording methods. You said he could have came to the height of Rome and it by sorry of the Roman Empire in Rome, he could have went to Constantinople, he could have went to much larger cities than coming to Galilee and Nazareth Nazareth and Jerusalem, you know, why would he end up in a place where there's it's not the height of the greatest nation during the time. And, you know, in terms of people seeing him, there wasn't the maximum number of people.

Is that is that embodying your view? Is that what you anything you want to add? That's kind of the gist of what you said from what I know. No, yeah, that's pretty much the gist. Yeah, I think so.

Okay, so again, you said you're kind of past these these things now, but I just want to give my objection because maybe you heard it. Maybe you haven't. Unless you found that thing in the book.

Yeah, yeah. Did you find it? Oh, actually, yeah. So this is a it's a book called Do You Think What You Think You Think? So it's it's a yeah, it's it's a logic book that pretty much it was put together by a couple I think professors, and they could be absolutely wrong in that.

But pretty much what it does is it goes through you take this quiz at the beginning. And it goes over what they call tensions in your in your thinking, where there's logical inconsistency. And I took this when I was a Christian.

But it was sort of while I was Christian agnostic on the road to becoming atheist. So the tension is called what is faith. And this is where the logical inconsistency comes in.

But it says, this tension arises when someone disagrees that it is quite reasonable to believe in the existence of a thing, without even the possibility of evidence for its existence, but agrees that atheism is a faith just like any other, because it is not possible to prove the non existence of God. And it pretty much is going over like, when people say that atheism is a faith, like it takes faith to be atheist. So let me let me it explains it really well, a lot better than I can.

So I'm going to read it. This tension was found in around a quarter of respondents. People seem very reluctant to admit that this is a real tension.

But we think our logic is sound and disagreeing with the first statement, a person is acting consistently with the general principle that states that in the absence of good grounds for believing something, it is not rational to believe it. Example, it is not possible to disprove the possibility that there are that there are invisible pink fairies at this moment circling the planet Pluto or not. It's not planted anymore.

But we don't. Yeah, but we don't count it as a real possibility, because there is no evidence for their existence. This is not to be thought of as a matter of faith, but of sound reasoning.

But asserting that atheism is a faith, just like any other, because it is not possible to prove the non existence of God contradicts this principle. It replaces the principle in the absence of good grounds for believing something, it is not rational to believe it with the principle, and the absence of good grounds for believing something, it requires faith not to believe it. For this reason, atheism is not a matter of faith in the same way as belief in God.

In short, belief without evidence of form of faith is not the same as non belief due to lack of evidence rational refusal to assent. Yeah, so I would just say they're making a category. Yeah, I see what they're saying.

They're making a category error that faith is something that has taken a hold of without evidence. And you can't charge an atheist with that because they're saying there's a lack of evidence. Therefore, they don't believe.

But faith is actually the confident assurance of things not yet seen. So I actually have a ton of evidence for the existence of God. That's not the point of this podcast right now.

Maybe I can actually give you all the evidence. And hopefully you'll change your mind. I'm just saying God, but I believe that atheism, atheism isn't a faith.

It's it doesn't take faith to be an atheist at all. And that's one big thing that Christian apologetics constantly pushes, but it's not true. Okay, like it's just unequivocally not.

I know, I've heard that a lot. I know a lot of people want to twist it into being true, but it's not. Okay.

Yeah, we've labored that point enough. I just want to say my official view, we're not gonna have to argue this anymore. But my official view on that is it is a faith.

Because of X, Y, and Z, maybe we can do, maybe we can talk about this more next if we can do another follow up episode on more stuff. But right, right, right. Let's move on.

Let's move on for sure. Yeah, my view is just that it is there's some element of faith there. Okay, so the whole why did you just come when he did my objection that I was thinking of when we were talking and afterwards, you know, what about deep fakes that have you heard about deep fakes? Have you heard that term? Yeah, I've heard about you fakes.

Why? Well, the reason I bring that up is because you have an idea of what would be the best evidence when Jesus could have come, namely, he could have came in 90s to early 2000s, when we didn't have deep fakes yet, when there was the perfect cinematography video, where there was no doubt without a shed of doubt that this was Jesus truly raising people from the dead, we would have had video evidence of it, because it was it would have been before deep fakes. But now that we have deep fakes, you can basically make anything look real, because our digital technology is so amazing. So that that's like the thing I was thinking of, it's just kind of it seems arbitrary, you're just picking like what you think would be best and what would make you believe if you had a video of Jesus, like, I don't I personally don't think you would believe even if you had a video or even if you if God did write in the sky, I am here believe in me if he wrote it in the clouds and just said that, I still don't think you'd believe.

And I don't think anybody that doesn't believe would believe that anyways, because people will always chalk up things to just, this is a random occurrence, they were hallucinating, they were whatever. And also my one more thought on top, do you want to address that first? And then I want to talk about one more thing about that. Oh, yeah, I would say I would I, I do disagree with that.

Just because yes, deep fakes exist today. That is, I mean, that's just a fact. But people exist today, too.

And if you see a video of Barack Obama, is there a possibility that it could be a deep fake? Yes. But odds are it's not odds are if you if you're seeing constant footage of a person, that person not only exists, but you can touch them and see them. And that's where I would, I would say, yeah, I disagree with that.

But also even in that time period, even if it was that's like a special time period, the Middle East was a terrible place to go, because he could have gone to Rome, or he could have gone to China, where people knew not only how to read, but they had historians who were very rigorous in their practice. And the interesting thing about Jesus and is that no, there was no his no historian, no historians said anything about Jesus for like, I think it was the first 100 200 years after he was supposed to exist. Yeah.

Just isn't interesting. It's, it's interesting. About 100 later, Josephus bites some about name, but Josephus, it's like, it is a pretty much a fact at this point, like, it's pretty well accepted that Josephus his writings were doctored and changed by the church.

And messed with and rewritten. Like, that's a, that's fact about Josephus. His, his writings were changed by the church to fit a Christian narrative.

So I think that's an interesting, I mean, I think that's that doesn't mean that Jesus didn't exist. You know, I just think that that's a very interesting point that no one's no one ever wrote about Jesus or mentioned Jesus for a very long time until Josephus and his writings were doctored by the church. Yeah.

Okay. So I think that's really interesting. Sure.

Yeah. So the other thing about the whole, why did Jesus come when he did maybe another just, again, I think, you know, in Galatians, it says in the fullness of time he came also in Ephesians in the fullness of time. So I think it was the perfect time.

And that's what the scriptures say. I know the scriptures are true. So I believe that.

But just for your sake, what about something like the population explosion after, after when Jesus, Jesus's life and ministry, those, these next 2000 years are just extraordinary, extraordinary growth, industrial revolution come in the medieval ages cycle. That's when we really start to figure things out and the population start to start to explode. Yeah.

So in terms of if he would have waited until 2050, I don't know. Maybe he misses out on seven, eight, 10 billion people that could have known and trusted in him or I don't know. He came at the perfect time.

I mean, I think in all circumstances, let alone population and things like that. But that'd be my other thing. That's just, you know, there's a ton of factors that could have played into that.

Yeah. My response, my response for that is, yeah, but many Christians believe actually, I mean, it's in the Bible, it says that he went down to hell after he after he died, and he preached there and brought people back to heaven who didn't, who didn't get the chance. Right.

So that would solve that issue. But then everyone born after that 2050 mark, would unequivocally know that he wasn't, he was not only real, but what he was doing was also real as well. So there would be absolutely like just no doubt in anyone's mind at that point.

So there would be that there would be no need for the for doubting or faith at that point, because you would just know it's true or not. And then people wouldn't have that outside influence to make that decision of to follow Jesus or not. Yeah.

Also, I mean, as far as population is concerned, and a bigger idea is that the current estimate for how many humans have lived throughout time is 108 billion. So really, if, if we're following the line that line of logic, we should be saying, well, he should have come way earlier than because of how many people have existed before that time. So I, I just think that's it's something that I haven't been able to really, there was no mass communication back then.

Most of those people were illiterate back then. It was pretty just a bad time to come. And I mean, at this point in my life, I've come to the conclusion that it was just because that was when a lot of different religions were birthing right then.

And there was a religion there was a Roman religion called Mithria. That is very similar to Christianity that was died out around the same time that Christianity was just starting. So I think that really, yeah, I would say it's logically doesn't make sense and my arms about to fall off.

That's a good point. I think that was a bad point that I just made. So I mean, I agree with all the things you said.

I, I, that was just me quick job just to see what you would say. And yeah, you, you destroyed that. I mean, I, I agree.

I don't think that's a good point. That was just kind of my first thought. I would argue, right, right.

Yeah, I would again, you're appealing to your human reason, what you think would be best. I will appeal not to my human reason, which is faulty. I will appeal to the word of God, which says the fullness of time Jesus came.

And that's a perfectly logical argument. But atheists always charge Christians for circular argumentation, but actually I would charge you also with circular argument, argumentation, because you're appealing to your own reason, which is you yourself employing your own reason, which could very well be wrong. Everything you just said might actually have been the worst time for him to come based on things you've learned later on in your life.

So who knows? That's kind of my, I mean, there might be other things that are working and at play there. I guess, I mean, when I'm what I would say is I don't just, I'm not just appealing to my own human reason, but the reasoning of very educated scientists from around the world. So it's more like millions of other humans reasoning versus my just my own.

And I would even go further to say it's my educated human reasoning versus the human reasoning of people from 2000 years ago who didn't know what electricity was or how bacteria works. Do you think so? That's what I would say. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think if you would have lived back then you would have saw straight through all the lies and not believed in God? Absolutely not. You would believe I think that if I lived back, if I lived back then I probably would have wouldn't have been, I mean, when Jesus was around, I probably wouldn't have been a Jesus follower.

I mean, um, the, my, because of my ancestry, I'm, I mean, I'm Dutch. So I would have been probably up in Northern France-ish area. Yeah.

I mean, like, no, I mean, you're a middle Eastern person. Yeah. Yeah.

If I was, if I was, even if I was born, let's say, even if I was born 60 years ago, you know, or, um, or a hundred years ago, I'd probably be Christian right now because that's what was culturally accepted and people have and still are punished for not believing in a God. So it's like, I'm not naive enough to say that I wouldn't be something like I would, like my mind would stay the same because there's so much now that, that we know. Yeah.

That's different. Like we know so many things now versus back then. So I can't say, you know, but I want to do get into a question, a question for you.

Oh, cool. What are we at? What are we at for time? It actually doesn't tell me the, there's gotta be a way to, we might be at an hour. No, it's fine.

I'm, I'm fine. I think opinion, unless you gotta go. I'm free.

Oh, no, I'm fine. Okay. So the question I was going to ask you is this, we were getting into it a little bit before we started recording, but it's the, what is like, where did sin come from? Oh, like, and this, yes.

So this would be more of an acceptance of like, not does God exist or does he exist to bone more? So saying, let's start with the assumption that God exists. Okay. Sure.

Would you say that he's an all loving being? 100%. And all powerful being? 100%. Okay.

Does he know everything? Yes. Does he know everything? Yeah, he's all knowing 100%. Okay.

Okay. So I'm going to ask you, in your opinion, where does sin come from? Okay. That yeah, so this is, this is a, this is a very tough question.

I don't think it's internally inconsistent to have a view of sin that is more parasitic than it is a real thing. So the historical this came out a lot in medieval philosophy of religion and medieval theology. And this is what a lot of really notable theologians have held that evil is actually a privation of good.

So when they use that language, what they actually meant is just that evil is a distortion of some real thing that's actually good. That's an actual thing in and of itself. So I don't think evil is really a thing.

I think it's a marring of something that is good. It's a distortion of something that is good. It's not a thing in and of itself.

Just like light is photons. The lack of light is nothing at all. There's just no photons.

It's not a thing. Darkness isn't a thing. Darkness is the lack of photons.

So that would be my polemic and argument against somebody trying to attribute evil as coming from God. Now I do think that God ordains whatsoever should come to pass. So the fact that evil entered the world was not outside of the mind of God.

He knew when he created the world that there would be evil in the world. And I think you do have to think that to be if all things come from God and if God controls all things, he was not caught off guard that sent into the world. So for him to be all knowing, all powerful and all good, he has to know whatever will come to pass and he has to ordain and plan all these things.

But when he creates humans, he never says nor promises that they will never fall. And when he created the angels, he never that we have no revelation of him ever saying, I will perfectly sustain and uphold this thing that I created to never fall or be evil in that sense. So when you know, Satan falls and the humans fall, I mean, we have a source of evil for humans.

The source of evil comes from the implantation of an evil thought, a distortion of good by Satan. Now the you know, you can keep going back and eventually the very source of evil is Satan. Dude, what are you doing? I am I'm watching Keegan as I explain the his question is very tough question.

He is fiddling with his mic and all sorts of ways and dissembling it and doing crazy things. But he's still there and he's listening. I know he is.

So when we get to Satan, like I said, humans, the temptation of Satan is where the evil, the fresh evil in humans hearts come from. Now, how does that happen with Satan? He does not create anything else. God is the only perfect thing.

God is the only holy perfect thing. So when he creates something else, it is able to change, you know, God is immutable, which means that he can't change. When he creates something else that is based on there's another bug on there.

When he creates, are you good now? It was it fell. Oh, it fell. I thought now it's time for me to change this one.

Yeah, I had to stop. It was falling off the shelf. So I had to fix it.

Yeah. So yeah, and then it kind of all comes back to evil being a privation of good. So where did where did Satan's evil evil come from? Well, in Ezekiel 28, it talks about there was pride in his heart.

There was an internal looking he was he was caring more about his glory and his fame than God's fame. And he never creates anything perfectly, perfectly perfect. Because if it was absolutely perfect, it would be incorruptible, it'd be unable to change.

But because angels change, humans change, the the environment changes, there's entropy, thermodynamics, all those kind of things, because there's change, we have a possibility of falling as humans. And as angels, because angels are created beings, too. So I imagine Satan, God had in his perfect wisdom, he stopped upholding Satan from falling from being incorruptible during that time.

And he basically just allowed Satan to maybe like internally look inward in his pride. And hence, sin is not a thing. It's a distortion of you know, Satan in and of himself is don't hear me wrong on this.

In his being, he's good. The fact that he's a thing is good. It's not bad to be a thing.

When I say bad, I don't mean moral evil or moral badness. I'm talking about is it is it virtuous to just be a thing? You know, God created things, he must think things are good, because he created things. Now in terms of moral evil, that came from internally in the heart of Satan.

He he was the source of evil, not God. He God did not, we know in James that God cannot tempt anybody James chapter one, God cannot tempt anybody with evil, God does no evil things, God is not evil. But we know that uncorruptible, Satan's corruptible.

So if he so chooses, he can kind of let us go off the deep end, I guess. And the only reason we wouldn't go off the deep end is if God ensures that we don't. So when he creates creation, he knows that we would eventually fall if he would stop keeping us from distorting ourselves.

So hopefully that all makes sense. Is there anything that didn't make sense? Or you want me to clarify? I'm just gonna ask you some more questions. And it would be this.

So God, does God not have control over everything? No, he does. He doesn't. Is he not all powerful? So so is he so he is all powerful? Yeah.

100%. So he does have control over sin. He does.

So he created sin. I don't I don't think that has to follow. I don't think he created sin.

Again, creating something as you're creating a thing, since not a thing. It's a distortion of what good things are things. So he didn't create it.

He created all the good things that had the possibility of being corrupted. And but I don't think my point is my point is that I yeah, I see. So he did it.

So he didn't create it as well as my point. I would like to try and maintain that. And if I don't, then God is the author.

Okay. So that is that is my position. You cut out.

Oh, sorry. I just said that God is not the author of evil. That is my position.

God cannot be the author of evil. That would be my account. God didn't create.

He cannot he cannot go God, impossible for him to create evil. Okay, so he didn't create everything then. Well, again, I mean, I would just say creation, he did create all things.

But again, I come back to sin as a distortion of good things. It's not a thing. Again, it's just like darkness is not a thing.

It's the lack of photons. It's the lack of light. Right.

So but the lack of good. My question is, so he didn't create that then, which means he didn't create everything. Which means there are things outside of his purview is what I'm understanding.

Well, because if he created everything, if he created everything, and he's all powerful and all loving, that means he would have had to create the rules that state that this distortion will happen if this XYZ that means that he would have had to create that. But if you're saying that he didn't create that, he definitely created, if you're saying that he didn't create that, then sorry, sorry, what restate that last point? What I'm saying is, if he created it, then that's okay. But that means that he's not all loving.

But if you're saying that he didn't create it, you know, he didn't author that. That means that he's not all powerful. And there are things outside of their rules that he has to adhere himself to.

And that means that there are things that he didn't create. That's 100% true. He is bound by his own character.

He cannot do evil. It's impossible for God to do evil. But I would say that is not all powerful.

No, I actually was literally just texting my a bunch of Christian buddies. Yeah, Spencer, Spencer, soul and Gabe Turner, you know, those dudes, we were they were text. Yeah, literally, I'm not today asking about that question today.

And yeah, God cannot. But but to me, that's asking an absurd question. That's not again, I was here, atheists say, Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it? That's a logical contradiction to say, can an all good God do something evil? That's a logical contradiction.

So so I know it's a logical contradiction. That's the point of the question. Yeah, I know.

Yeah. The point is to show a contradiction. I don't think there is one.

I don't think okay. Where do you think the question wait for the contradiction? Where do you think it lies in that I'm saying that he's all powerful? Uh huh. Is he all powerful or not? Yeah, yeah, yes.

All the three questions. Yes. That's the end of the day.

If he's all powerful, that means that and he created everything that means that he not only created the system of sin, he created us with the ability to do that. And not only that all of the consequences were created by him as well. So like, it was hell created by him, that kind of stuff.

Yes, all those things aren't are created by him. If he is the one and true and only, that means everything has to lead back to him. Everything has to including Satan, which means that he created Satan as well.

Uh huh. To do those to do evil things. Yeah, like Judas Iscariot was only question to do evil.

Yes, that would be that would be the thing I'm saying is that so at the end of the day, he created those systems, which means he's not all loving. What do you mean those systems? I need I need like, what do you mean by systems like the lead the people sending? No, not lead sin. Sin itself is a system.

Like it's a system. Like, you do this, you rewarded you do this, that's your sinning and you're going to go to hell. Sure.

Yeah, because of that. Because you're because you're broken, not to mention that the the law just simply from a legal standpoint, it is ethically and morally abhorrent that people would have to atone for the sins of the Father, which is a pretty big thing in Christianity. Um, that yeah, I mean, not only are there multiple examples, but the the utmost example is Adam sinned, therefore you have sinned.

That is like the big thing in Christianity. And that is ethically, legally, morally abhorrent. Like, could you imagine if the legal system said, Hey, your grandfather committed this atrocity, you're going to jail for life for it.

Like, could you imagine if some if that happened, there would be an outcry if that happened. My point, my point is this. Either God is an all powerful.

Or he isn't off because he can't be both if he created the system of sin. Uh huh. So either he didn't create the system of sin.

And if if a Christian says at the end of the day, if they say, Okay, he didn't, he's not all powerful, but I still believe in him. I'm like, Okay, that's fine. You know what, that's logically consistent.

You can believe that that's fine. But if a person is saying, No, he's all loving. But he also enforces and created sin.

Guess what he's not he's not loving, because he's the one who at the end of the day, created the system itself. So the reason a sin is a sin is because he created the created it that way. Like the end is what you're saying.

He creates the standard of the standard or the same sin. No, I will. Yes, that's also I think that plays a part.

I just mean sin in general. Like for instance, sex before marriage. So let's go sex before marriage or masturbation are two great examples.

So if he created everything, and he created it to be a sin to do those actions, okay, that is just wrong. Because he also created you with the desires that you have. So the desire to have sex, the desire to masturbate, both of those things were also put in you by him, because he created you.

They also created the system that says, hey, I'm gonna make you desire this I'm gonna make your body want this thing. Well, he doesn't, but he doesn't create. I'm also gonna say it's a sin to do that.

Well, he doesn't create every desire in a human. He doesn't create fresh evil. That's not so he.

Yes, my point is he that's my that you're actually hitting directly on what I'm saying. It's that he isn't all powerful then. And how does that follow because he can't stop it.

He can't stop the evil from happening. No, it's because what can restate your question and why that makes sense for me. You're saying that because I don't follow your question, because there's humans have an innate sin in them.

You're saying some from where which came from Adam and Eve, which then came from Satan, which then came from Satan's himself his heart, God did not make him do evil. God never makes anybody do evil, but he knew so it would happen. He had that knowledge.

So he's not all powerful is my point. Because he's the one who created that system. What if my point is that he could have created as what? No, you I was just gonna say my point is that you in your reasoning are saying it's better for there not to ever been evil.

Apparently, it must have been better for there to have been evil or else God wouldn't have allowed the capability there to be evil. It must be better. No, my what I'm saying is this is where the logic of Christianity falls apart.

In my worldview, good and evil exists because people are just trying to figure out what is going on. And they evolved these evolved this way. But in Christianity, it doesn't make sense because you have a God who created everything.

And if he created everything, that means that he also created sin. Like there's no way out of that. Either he's not all powerful and he didn't or didn't create everything.

Like that's that's the that's the issue there is like he didn't either he didn't create everything or he created sin. Because you can't create something. You can't create every little bit of something.

And then something random pop in it without you knowing about it. Especially if you're all knowledge, like you have all knowledge as well. If I mean, if I if I bake bread, right? And not only am I baking this bread, but I milled the flour, I planted the wheat, I also created the plant from from the very scratch everything in it.

And I created to be the best thing ever. And then I need the dough, I add in everything and then I bake it. And I bring it out.

I know every little thing that's going to be in it. raisins aren't going to pop in my and my loaf of bread randomly, unless I put raisins in it because I'm the one in control of the entire process. If raisins popped in it at any single point in time, that means that wasn't in control of it.

Okay, now can I run with that? That's more. This is this is my position. I think run run with it.

I really want you to understand what I'm trying to say here because I'm not saying raisins pop in if we're saying raisins are sin. I'm not saying raisins just pop into Satan. I'm saying that when you create that cookie, or whatever, you know that the flower the base who use has the capacity to spoil.

Nothing new was created all that happened was the the eventually the cookie will spoil if it has the capacity to spoil. Now if you if you store it properly, you keep it in a cold enough environment, it will never never spoil and that cold enough environment is God upholding his creatures to never sin. Now, if you don't do the right thing with the cookie, you don't call you're not making you are indirectly through secondary causes.

It is spoiling by you allowing it to spoil, but you're not making it spoil. Right? That's what I'm saying. Here's my question though.

Okay. I understand what you're saying. Okay.

But there's still the logical fallacy there, which is this. If I'm God in control of everything, and just it has the capacity to spoil. It's not that means that you're taking away responsibility.

And if he's all good, and he created everything, that means that he put the capacity to spoil. In that 100%. He knows the materials.

So he created said he created said is my point. So there is something outside of his control. This is going to keep on going in a circle because at the end of the day, the logic, the logic doesn't fit.

The logic doesn't fit. Okay. Now, like at the end of the day, the logic doesn't fit.

Now, here's here's here to the two thing two answers that make sense. Okay. Okay, here are the two here are the two answers that make sense to this because otherwise, the logic will never make sense.

And you'll, and it doesn't matter who you are, you'll keep on trying to be like, okay, well, how about this explanation? Well, the triangles part no matter what? Yeah, because logically, it's inconsistent. That's just kind of a fact is that it's logically inconsistent. There are two answers that I'll accept one.

He's not all power. He's not all powerful, you know, or he's not one of those three, which is okay. And like, that's okay.

Or your God is illogical, which is also okay. Which honestly, as a critic, as a former Christian, that's how I made it make sense. The God I came to the conclusion of, well, God, my God is illogical.

Because I mean, eventually, that didn't work for me anymore. But for a very long time, it worked because it was me saying, you know, he's so powerful that there are things that just don't make sense to logic. Okay, that's, that's what I came to.

Okay. But those are the only two answers that I've come to and I've thought about this a lot and talked to a lot of people about it. Those are the only two answers that will make sense.

Logically, that will make sense. So either, I mean, that's the real only real way that I made it fit. I mean, in reality, for me, the reason it doesn't make sense is because it was written by people.

And they were written by people who were not educated. Like that's why it doesn't. That's why it doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah. What if I had a PhD in philosophy? And I said the logic is perfectly fine. What if I had 100 other PhDs that said it was perfectly fine? And then maybe you had other 100 other PhDs that said the logic doesn't fit? How would we figure it out? Because there's Christian philosophers that say that perfectly fits.

And then there's, there's atheist philosophers that say it doesn't fit. How do we figure it out? Right, right. I think the issue with a lot of, I think this exposes a bigger issue forming with apologetics or Christianity in general, is that with science and I mean philosophy and I mean things like that is like, they look at the evidence and then say, okay, what's an answer to this evidence? Christianity and religion in general say, I have the answer.

Now, how do I make the evidence fit? And that's just a bad way of going about. I mean, that's just a bad way to do things because that's just not how things work. It's not just say, oh, I have the answer already.

No, that's not as scientific about that works. You know that the hypothesis is an educated guess. And then you go and look for evidence and then it's all or it's verified.

You don't start, you don't start with a hypothesis in the scientific method. You start with observation. Like you start with observation, then you gather data, then you hypothesize, then you test.

The, they Christianity starts with not a hypothesis, but with the answer and then gathers evidence or actually takes evidence and tries to make it fit. And it's kind of like similar with people who think that global warming doesn't exist. Like it's interesting to me because they'll take the evidence that the scientists who are experts in the, in the area have gathered and then say, well, I'm not an expert in this, but I'm going to gather my own conclusions from it.

How are the scientists? Because the high, the scientific method is the answer. It's a method by which you retrieve more answers. I'm just, I'm just saying that there's, there's a presupposition you can't prove.

You just assume that the scientific method, a method, a method, a method isn't an answer. A method is a way of doing things. A way of finding answers.

Yes. But you're saying like a solution to finding it, finding answers, the answer to finding answers, what cannot be tested, which is the scientific method. Do you see what I'm getting at the conundrum there? Sort of, but I don't think it holds up.

I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense what you're saying because you're saying a method, it's just the scientific method. If I asked the question, how am I to figure out things about the natural world? The answer would be the scientific method, but you can't run the scientific method through the scientific method. You can't do it.

So I'm just saying you presuppose that that's trustworthy. You can run through, you can't, but they, I mean, they've done that. They've done it before.

They, I mean, they've definitely tested. If, is this the best way of doing things? This is the way they found that it's, and it's just a generalized way of doing things. They say, okay, we, we observe what's going on.

We gather data, we hypothesize on the data, and then we test that hypothesis. And then we start over and it's a rigorous cycle that that has been tested. It's like, it's a battle tested thing.

Starting with an answer is never, ever, ever going to work out for anybody. If you go in relationships in the world, if you walk in to a relationship with your significant other with an answer in your head already, odds are it's not going to end up well, like ever. Yeah.

You have to go in, you have to observe, you have to be open-minded. You have to talk with that person. Starting with the answer that's the biggest thing.

One of the bigger issues is that I realized I was so close-minded as a Christian because I was so focused on making my answer fit. And then, I mean, I guess that's one of the things, but, you know, I mean, but there are things that we agree on, you know, I think that there are Christian values. There are Christian values that I find to be very good, very good things.

Sure. You know? And I think we should deal with that next time we talk. I think that'd be a good starting place about more talking more about values and how you are getting them.

I just want one thing. Because it's been like an hour and a half. Yeah.

We can start wrapping this up because I'm getting a little hungry. I should because yeah, I got to pee. But we also have been talking for, we've been talking for a while.

I'm not sure if people really want to listen very much longer to, you know, 100%. Yeah. No, this was really good.

I want to, one last thing, just about this last question you asked me about evil. I want to challenge, when we come to talk next time, we're going to talk about values. I want you to describe to me how you're allowed to have that question because I think I'm allowed to question where evil came from.

I don't think you are. I don't think you have a question to stand. I don't think you can't tell me because when you say how did evil enter the world, that's just based on what you think is evil at the time.

That's just based on your subjective view of what evil is, what's right and what's wrong. So I, and if it's really a subjective and it's not objective, then my question is how are you allowed to even ask me that question if you can't even tell me really where evil or good comes from? Or maybe you can. So I'd like to hear how you would actually tell me about that.

That was me. That was just a thought. It was a thought experiment of, you know, me assuming that a God exists who is triomial.

Yeah. You're looking for asking where does this come from? Yes. Yeah.

But for me, for me, yeah, it's going to be different. I'd be down to, yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

Yeah. I think we should talk about values next time, which we talked a lot about science and evolution and that kind of thing. I think it would be good.

Yep. Yeah. And I- We're talking about each other's jobs and stuff too.

Just, you know, let people know a little bit more about jobs and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And we didn't get to, I know before, before we started this, you were like, tell me how, why you think Christianity is the one true religion out of all the 2000 other on earth or whatever. So we can, we can talk about values and talk about that next time.

Probably dive into some of the stuff. Okay. Yeah.

Let's just wrap up there. So thanks for listening for the King listeners. Again, if you have any inquiries, just hit me up at for the King podcast@gmail.com or anything Keegan said, or I said that you want to interact with.

And if you have a question for Keegan, I will forward your question to him and maybe that can be a top- Oh, that's good. Yeah. You could do that too.

Or the next thing. Is that cool? I didn't even ask. I just assumed you'd be fine with that.

Oh yeah. No, no, that's no, that's I'm totally fine with that. I think that'd be fine if people sent in questions.

I think that'd be fine. Yeah. So yes.

Send in a question for me or for Keegan and we can make sure to hit those next time we talk. Yeah. Check out the website for the king podcast.com. Thank you so much Keegan for coming on again and hour and a half conversation.

That was a little bit longer. A little bit longer. It was lengthy, man.

It was like 25 minutes. Yeah. And I really appreciate you asking you coming at me.

Right. Because I was at first, I had all the questions kind of gone, but that was, I'm glad you had some in mind. So I appreciate you preparing a little bit to have something in mind to ask me.

Absolutely. Thanks for your thoughts, man. And for being truthful and telling us really what you think and not sugarcoating anything.

And yeah, yeah. Yeah. I thought it was very simple.

I wasn't angry. Were you angry? Were you angry with me? No, no, no. Be honest.

Did you get angry with me? No, I'm fine. Okay, cool. I thought it was fun.

It's good to have someone who would challenge you on what you think. It's a good exercise. And on both sides, it actually should entrench you deeper in your view because you either come out being skeptical of your own view and convert, or it should strengthen you where you're at.

It's kind of like working out your mind in that sense of like your ideas. You're working out your ideas. I've noticed that you're doing the exercise wrong or you're actually building muscle for analogy.

Also, I like to say the cookie analogy was really good. I like that part of the conversation. For me, it's about gathering new ideas, you know, and I'll probably process them over the next couple of days, just be, you know, thinking about what all, you know, what all it is.

Yeah, likewise. I mean, having an open mind in a conversation is really is a good, it's a good thing. So yeah, I'll be doing some thinking too, man, before we reconvene and do it again.

I think that's it. Thanks for listening, guys. As always, we do it through the king, for the king, by the king, to the king, for the king, Jesus.

Thanks for listening, guys. For the king, for the king, for king Jesus.