Former Mormon | Ethan - Ohio | Atheist Experience 22.09

Well, confession, I don't know if it's in the notes. I was a casual LDS Mormon return missionary, so I grew up that way, very rarely has it been a long, drawn out process to undo, so the normal Mormons are the extreme Mormons. I was born and raised in Utah and served an LDS mission in Guatemala but you weren't FLDS, yeah, no, I wasn't FLDS, no, now I wasn't that crazy, but yeah, yeah, you're too nice, yeah, just a Mormon normal, of course, although your photo in the Atheist Experience where they are all grouped together, that looks like a Mormon image, yes, so what they have to do is, although we talked, I talked before, before, but I actually want to make a claim , then let's think about this. employer is waiting and to be brief, I would actually like to receive the affirmation that there is actually no God and there really is not.

I have evidence of this and have been using it recently from my own

experience

s with missionaries and from my recent discussions. So I'm doing my own kind of internal journey of my own and I've recently been losing my faith, if that makes sense, but the evidence I have essentially for that is similar to how evolution works that changes over time due to external pressures. , not as far as I have studied and this covers only the main ones so far. I haven't visited all the religions because I don't think it's possible, but I actually think it doesn't exist.

God, because if the evolution of the churches is specifically with the LDS Church and its changes since the 1970s, from giving the priesthood to black people and then before that, the elimination of polygamy and these other changes, in fact , churches that claim to have revelation are actually one way. so that they can evolve and that these changes, including those in the Bible above, not only show that the changes are external pressures from their environment, whether political social or whatever, that these changes really evolve the church and that those evolutions yes they change. the church, but those evolutions can be traced and from the pressures, I agree with all that, but how does it prove that there is no God?

Well, in the same way as a test in the same way when we test when we look at evolution. with creatures, we know, I would say that it proves that there is no God so far, would be the correct term. I guess you'd say this wouldn't be Allah Phi, no major religion today and any religion they come to say you know well, my goodness, it doesn't fall into any of those restrictions that are so neutralized from any real practice that it would fade away over time. anyway. I agree that what you are saying is essentially very similar to my own position when I defend strong atheism, the belief that there is no God, however, even if you know if I am of all religions, first of all, what We talked beforehand is why I won't say that I know there is no God for certain and his answer is because I don't think you can have absolute certainty about anything, but even to the extent that I agree with you, this perhaps nullifies religions, It does not prove that there is no God somewhere or in some way, but it supports the idea that not only is there no good reason to believe that there is, but there may also be good reasons to believe that there is not.

However, I would caution against using evolution as an analogy because, first of all, science does not make claims about truth or certainty it simply creates a model that is the best current explanation of the facts and all positions are probabilistic and tentative, which means that they are subject to changes and revisions, we obtain new information and the model of the theory of evolution by natural selection does not say that there was no intervention of a supernatural being, it says that there is no reason to think that there is no reason to think that there is a place for that but you can't prove that it didn't happen well that and if you're talking about Systems that evolve over time are basically anything that spreads and adapts, so political ideologies and, for example, ideas Of democracy and nation-state also evolve and adapt over time, so I agree with you that evolution as a metaphor is probably not the best idea, but Be clear, we are talking about a God who is not quite Omni, like an Abrahamic God, you said any major religion, but Hinduism and Buddhism are also major religions, just to clarify, yes I agree, but even in those cases, because I saw it recently.

I had to endure the entire debate. FSI never mind it was, oh yeah, that was horrible, but the problem I have hearing that is giving that kind of statement saying that there is actually no God, I could even force it, I would force the issue. essentially for them to do it because all we are asking for is essentially correct evidence, it is a mistake and again it is a mistake to do that because the burden of proof is on the people who claim that there is a God and if my position is please do your in case you can't make your case please make a case, you can't make your case if I then say there is no God, now I have adopted a burden of proof that I probably can't meet and I certainly can't meet at all the conditions, so what?

What it does is it shifts the burden of proof from where it should be. It's like walking into a courtroom and saying, I have no obligation to prove that I'm innocent, but I'm going to prove that I'm innocent, and if you adopt that and you don't follow through, all you've done is give ammunition to the opposing side and it's a problem. strategic and it's really kind of an intellectual problem because it may be impossible to prove that you're innocent. and in most cases, when we talk about gods, we talk about things that are ultimately unfalsifiable and there is no way to prove that they are false, which is a separate question from whether or not it is possible to prove that they are true. and for most people who believe in a God, the God they believe in must be easily proven to be real, and the fact that they keep failing is not just a reason not to believe them, but a reason to believe that they are probably wrong.

Okay, but in this context in this in this in this in the strategy behind this anyway, isn't my thinking essentially behind when I was washing a was? Isn't the audience more the arbiter of the outcome? Who really won the debate or who? listening right now you are the final arbiters of the truth, I mean, in your own head, in your own mind, you are listening well, but I don't care, I'm not going to debate to win, I'm going to a debate to have an honest discussion and let people make a decision and present the best case and do it in the best way to be potentially convincing to people, but if I go out, 99 percent of the audience thinks I win or I lose first. of all the people who were there live aren't even the entire audience, I mean when I'm debating psy psy isn't my audience and most of the people in that room probably aren't either, they're the people who are openly considering things that may agree with him and sit there watching him get beat up and then say, wait, maybe I better reevaluate my position and the audience may not be the best judge of debate techniques, so maybe you have You have to measure your own ability well. more maybe is more I am always under the opinion that just like changing, actually the effectiveness of changing people's mindset determines whether you are successful or not, no, whether the debate is actually a structured format, but when you're changing.

Keep in mind that there is more power behind it, eventually we will get it, we will reach the ultimate goal where we are. You know this isn't a problem anymore, right? The more minds we change, the faster we can have that resolution. It's essential what I'm looking for, so let's say you're still a Mormon and someone comes up to you and says, how can you believe all this about there being no God? and you ask them to prove that there is no God. you believe that what you have offered in defense of what really was what you defended there is no reason to believe that this is true is not the same as defending there is reason to believe that this is not true which is also different from this is demonstrably false and so for people who already believe, basically saying there is no God is saying I can prove them wrong and if they don't, I can convince them further, we know that since people made a public profession of what they They believe they are less likely to change their minds, and what I rely on in conversations is something like mirror neurons.

There is someone sitting at home right now listening to this who absolutely agrees with you about what we should do and what we are going to do. Be effective and if I come to you directly and point out where I disagree, you may never change your mind. Get that person on the phone who isn't live and isn't likely to get defensive, she can go, you know what I think, maybe that's right. about strategy and in the same way the opposite could happen, it could probably be the other side, specifically with my own religion, that's why I addressed mine first and that's why I go down that path when, when confronted, I can address each one of the greatest. tenants of the revelation of two religions, especially with the LDS Church.

I mean, not all faiths believe in revelation in the same way, but in but, and this is where you would have to go case by case with each of the tenants of each religion, but you often talk about yourself. I know that we don't have beliefs, but degrees of trust, or you know, we have degrees of belief or degrees of trust. True, I'm pretty sure that one way or another, ultimately, there is no God. True, ultimately, there isn't, so my confidence essentially is that I would provoke that bear long enough because the hope is that he would have an honest conversation that would convert them or that he would actually express, like with my missionaries, that through this is poking the bear, for example. that God would eventually reveal himself and really show himself how do you know it's not going to happen tomorrow?

That's not going to happen now. I'm completely sure that's not going to happen. How can you be sure it's not going to happen tomorrow? Well, because here it is. What if happens then there is a change in the world. I agree, but if you're making the prediction that it's not going to happen and you can't know it, how would you defend that if you were told what you were doing? that prediction, how do you know it won't happen tomorrow? What is the process to determine that? Because they will examine your process for coming to a conclusion rather than questioning their own, so as a point, it's part of the prediction part.

From this prediction model that I have essentially is that I actually think that in the next 20 years, probably, the LDS Church will accept that homosexuals will have women as members of the priesthood, well guys, I did, that doesn't seem to address the question at all. absolute yes You are predicting it, sorry, I mean it's an interesting prediction, fingers crossed maybe it will happen tomorrow. Hopefully, I think you'll say it won't exist, which would be interesting, but how does that answer the question when you say oh no, it won? It won't be a God revealed tomorrow to a person you're trying to persuade to doubt his faith and they ask you how you know.

Well, maybe I can do this. Maybe it's part of taking away the magic. Basically, it starts when you reveal a magic. trick someone else, there is a kind of moment when you become disappointed just when you realize this, you look for the secret behind it and then you stop believing in magic and more, it's just that you know sleight of hand or you know in general. illusion certain excess no no that's true good right wait what you mean but that's not the case I'm a magician among other things and I've done tricks for people where they thought I was possessed by spirits they were using dark energy and at that time I was a fundamentalist Christian.

I didn't want to think it was up to Satan, so I would lay out the trick and show them how I did it. Do you think his response was to say oh man, okay, now I get it? No, his answer. in many cases it was saying that's not what you did before and the fact that I can show you how to do a trick, even if I'm honest, still doesn't prove that there isn't real magic just because this specific example probably was. Not particularly if they are used to giving ad hoc explanations and not connecting any of the questions I asked.

Yes, I could, I can fry your mind with this rubber band in the blink of an eye and you will do it. There are people who say, "Oh my God, it was supernatural or whatever" and then if I show them how it's done, does that mean there's no magic or does that mean that in this case I've convinced them that this case wasn't like that? Magic, these are the foundations as sources held in this part of the tour, so my point is, I mean, we have that there are two parts, essentially, there is an end goal and then there are the small steps to achieve it correctly and so therefore, the ultimate goal. my head is the most, you know, the elimination of supernatural beliefs, right, we are the only beliefs that we really have that are natural law and if God is discovered one day, suppose that happens, let's see what would be included within that . that hope, if it really exists, but I have a fairly certain confidence that it does not exist and then I cannot obtainthat confidence of the ability to probably replicate the revelation in this example correctly and I understand that this is a replication of that revelation, sorry, just a general cross when you say replicate the revelation, what do you mean because I can have things revealed in this moment?

Zero precision, so, for example, there were writings essentially from people who were predicting that the Lord would reveal to the Church of Elijah that polygamy would be dissolved and then before the blacks received the priesthood, there were some members within the community of the church discussing how blacks would soon reveal that they would receive the priesthood and then he did the right thing. and these writings of individual people and

experience

s were articulating external pressures, but then the church comes in and creates a false dichotomy saying, hey, the Prophet revealed that you know that black people can really receive the priesthood when we and they create this elaborate scheme in this lab retrac on why this has been a revelation, right, I don't know, I don't know, beep, so I don't know how it's a false dichotomy because I use the word incorrectly, I'm sure it's fast, just, oh, here's the something someone makes a prediction it doesn't come true does that prove that proves they can't make accurate predictions means there's no one to give them information means there's no super announcer the concept of whether a proposition is falsifiable or not is key, is there a way to prove that this is simply false? and they serve popular religions and most of their ideas survived to this day because they weren't falsifiable, the ones that were falsifiable, you know, hey.

Zeus is the source of lightning or whatever and then when we come up with this natural explanation, it could have been the cases where they said yes, but Zeus uses, you know, electricity in the atmosphere to do it, you can go on. that way. The question is if the goal is to get rid of all this, is it better to hold on to try to defend a position that you may not be able to defend or is it better to point out that they have no good reason to believe what they believe? In my experience, this is recent.

I have been having more offensive conversations about spanking. I actually made that statement and I've watched missionaries and state presidents and this is just within the LDS Church, within my, oh, this is my. My own type of social circle I completely understand, but I understand that there are other circles that will one day need to be taken. I won't get my hopes up. This will have to be a case by case basis. we go from church to church Church, you know, deal with these with these concepts, but I believe in the heart with enough conversation and when you do that, when you make that statement and you go on and on going deeper into each one of those, each one. of these through the doctrine every twenty churches, you will eventually get to the core that it's not true, okay, no, no, you may not be able to get to that, it's not true, it may be that the only thing you can get to is that there is no reason to think. which is true, which is different from, there is reason to think it is false, what happens if you convince these Mormon missionaries that the Mormon Church is corrupt and then they become Baptists?

Yeah, well, my goal, by the way, is not to get people to come to the conclusion that there is no God is to get people to recognize that they believe things that they have no good reason to believe and once you realize that They don't believe those things anymore, you can't believe something unless you're convinced there's a good reason why you not only want to change the answer to the equation, but you want to change the way they solve it right. I get it and I guess what I mean is that when you do that, when you make that statement, you put them in a brain state where they actually have to go over their own evidence, they start thinking about their own events, that's what What I do with missionaries recently, they started thinking about, you know, we sat down, they talked about me. each of their own personal experiences and we delve into ideas like where that thought originally came from, how do you know if you received the thought and I had a receipt, but it's not yet God's line. and they couldn't do it, they couldn't do it.

Everything you're describing, Ethan, is about getting them to recognize that they have no good reason to believe it. Nothing you're describing is about getting them to realize that they do have it. Good reason to think there is no God, yes. I see the difference, but I understand that it's more or less the same side of the same coin, because eventually, eventually, you have to do, at some point you have to do. the decision if there is no one or you know it you never know that is the point I can't be convinced that there is a god and not be convinced that there is no God throughout my life no one forces you to choose but well, this person has been accused of a crime do you think she's guilty don't you think she's innocent no do you ever have to make a decision no maybe maybe I'm not explaining myself too quickly I'm not talking about any kind of abstract God, right, me neither, I'm talking specifically, you know, Yahweh Allah, okay, check, check that, check the list, you don't have to, but you don't have to make up your Don't worry about it, as long as your position is I'm not convinced, so you're not a believer and you're not accepting something without evidence, so I see, I see, I just see, come on, but I feel like people like that. the guy discussed earlier and I, and even Jordan Peterson, because I know you're going to argue about him, we'll argue a little bit later, that he's going to filibuster for 15 minutes, so what does tap dancing bring to the table?

Click on it and I'll explain something to you. know why we can believe and he will describe that he is going to tap dance can't tap dance and point out the weaknesses in the way he has presented evidence for his claim, wouldn't it be better if he did? playing defense on a battlefield that they clearly can't defend and that's what I'm saying is accusing that they're on a battlefield that they can't, but they can't win right there in a battle because no, no, Ethan. By claiming that there is no God, you have put yourself on a battlefield and you cannot win.

I just do not know. I don't see where there is proof. You showed me that you have shown me that you are not. a thief, I mean, in certain cases, just being honest, in certain cases, I'm fine, show me you're not a mass murderer, okay, I'd give it good, so I can't, I can't show every second. I understand what you mean. Yes, there are blanks that no one can overcome. I get it, but being a mass murderer and claiming there is an author for the universe when we already have other explanations available, right, no, it doesn't matter if we have others. but it doesn't matter if we don't have any explanations, if we don't have other explanations, that doesn't mean there is any justification for believing in God.

Yeah, just because if I don't have other suspects, it doesn't mean I don't. I'm justified in thinking that you're more likely to be fine, so let me back up, maybe you'll know more so that my final calling is one that you've made right where anyone listening doesn't hear what we're saying to investigate on their own. mine, you know, I will promote a lot of science and literature for my own son so that he doesn't make the same mistakes that I made, and I definitely feel the intoxication of my previous faith, so you know, on Sunday, you know.

For my son when he grows up, we are going to be dedicated to schoolwork instead of going to church and then he can do whatever he wants and you know what I mean and I already see freedoms for him in the future. it's when we give when we don't when we when I don't make that accusation I give them too much room to hold on to them a hard hard III it seems to me that I've done this for years and I've been in this position that Having desperately found your way out, you want others people find their way out and you believe that the demons making this accusation is the best way and not only do I disagree but I think we have demonstrated well why you would do it. that if someone accuses you of being a mass murderer, the only viable response is to prove it unless you can say, "This murder was committed on this date at this time and here I am on video speaking to a thousand people and we can prove that That's how it went".

It's not pre-recorded that there is no manipulation, we can go through all the possible ad hoc things that come to mind, unless that's why we don't require people to prove their ignorance, that's why we have a presumption of ignorance until it's proven. prove guilt. and similarly, nothing exists until someone proves it and neither can you conclude that something does not exist until there has been a demonstration, yes, I got caught, I mean, that clever paper, this was, yes, I mean, in Ultimately, to what I want. What I want to be able to do is bring something right to friends and family who are still members, right? right, no, no, don't try to bring them a different conclusion, knock them down, knock them down, well, that comes from scientific skepticism, it's much better, well, right, and I think through those conversations we were saying, well, there's really no , that's what I came to know.

The basis here is what makes someone doubt and makes them question what they believe if they do so using a flawed basis and abandon their belief and then come to a better understanding of critical thinking and skepticism and understand what their basis was. that ultimately, by convincing them that they were flawed, you've done more harm than good because they can go back to that or something else if the basis is good, which is that I'm not going to believe anything until there's enough arguments and evidence that support it now, that's a basis you won't have to worry about if I convince my Southern friends, my

former

Southern Baptist friends, that the Southern Baptist Church is corrupt and that they don't have a good reason for what they're doing. believe, but I extend This means that it is as if people said that they abandoned their religion because they became angry with God.

Being angry at God has nothing to do with whether or not there is a correct God and when someone points out that flaw, where do they go from there? We need to give people the tools to think skeptically and critically and make sure that we are not building them on the sand foundation that religion makes, because if they abandon their religion because you convinced them with faulty reasoning that there is no God. and then they discover the faulty reasoning, now that the conclusions are gone and you haven't given them the tools to figure out what they should or shouldn't believe or what they shouldn't have to make a decision, well, maybe one last one, maybe one more. so maybe this could be because I think I thought about this in a different way when it comes to cases like Roswell, for example, like or or like a notable sighting or, you know, the lights, a big one in Utah was that essentially there were lights. flying over Utah that there were, do you know these UFOs or were they in a specific V, well just a few years later was the b2, the b2 actually revealed itself and showed itself and everything and then everyone just stopped, oh that's what I saw , yeah, how do you know what they saw was good?

So my point is that people lost interest when they realized that was it, so no, we can't go back and we can't verify that that's specifically what it was. Yes, exactly, so here it is. What you have to have are roots, so yes, there was a pattern and then there was a b2 and then you can have a kind of oh, maybe that was the case, but is there no room for a reasonable doubt that that is the case? Strong enough is that the evidence is strong enough to convict the B-2 bomber of murder. Yes, because I don't agree, sir, and let me let the ships play defense lawyer so that people see lights in Roswell.

People see lights in the sky. People see satellites in several of them. them and think it's a UFO hovering thirty meters above their house all the time, new types of aircraft are designed and tested all the time, is it possible that there was a different design other than the b2 it was tested on? that night or they saw what for some reason didn't work and then there's the b2, is it possible that it was a different type of plane that was designed by the Navy or whoever? So no, I mean, it's there. Reasonable doubt, yes, in a broader sense, yes, but what I'm talking about specifically is the sightings at Michaels Air Force Base, when we're not talking about the general sense, we're talking about yesterday's award.

Ethan Ethan the problem Are you making an AB abductive argument? An argument about what is the best explanation that is not something you can make with certainty and is not necessarily the best because even if you convinced people that what they saw was a b-2 bomber something like that early or whatever, would How does that prove that there are no aliens and that they are not visiting Earth? That's not what I'm talking about, although well, that's what I'm talking about, yeah and and when you when you go for the last thing, there's no God, that's what you're talking about, you're just avoiding it in the analogies, so here's the thing, even what I would say is that yeah, I don't think you're making an irrational argument that's completely off base.

Oh, I saw lights there, four planets are exploding or whatever, but the level of certainty you are applying to your conclusion is not justified by the evidence, you cancome to the conclusion, yes, it was the b-2 bomber or yes, it was probably the b-2 bomber or something like that and I'm fine with that, but right now what you're saying is Yes, and now that we know it's the bomber B-2, you don't know that well, is powerful enough to make those crowds disperse and stop looking at the lights coming from the B-2s, right? And that's what I mean.

It's just that well, no, it doesn't stop people from going out and looking in other places and another aspect, it doesn't even solve the case that you're talking about, yeah, Ethan, that's the point, it doesn't even solve. In the case you're talking about, on March 2, a group of people saw these lights and on May 2, we discovered that the B2 was flying over there, does that prove that's what they saw? Proves that without a shadow, right? Well, you were the one originally talking about certainty, but you do. you were the one originally talking about certainty, but do you even prove that's the case just because it's a probable and even likely explanation?

Can you say with certainty in any strong confidence that what this person witnessed is in fact this other thing yes, I mean, no, you can't, well, if we looked at the lights, if we saw, if we could, if they took a camera video and then say we could compare that to a b2 right, there are so many different things you can force yourself to do, you can make a strong case for yes and yet there are still people who are making pilgrimages to Roswell and there are still people who believe in alien abductions and what has been resolved because I'll tell you this once some people have an idea, even if they can absolutely refute part X of it, that won't change their mind at all, reason why which we get emails from people who think the Earth is flat. that's why there are countless denominations even within Christianity because when something was exposed instead of saying wow I have no good reason to believe this they just said no the church is the problem yeah they didn't change the operating procedure , it just changed the conclusion, you have to give them the tools, yes, to determine that they don't have a good reason for an idea and in that sense, we have five more calls to Layton and now we are going around in circles. thank you yes thank you