Hey, everybody, Objectively Dan here.

Lots of people believe different things and that's why we're here every single Friday.

So if you believe in alternative facts, or conspiracies, or what other people would call pseudoscience, or even just your religious beliefs, we want to know why, So call into the show because the show is starting right now.

Hey, folks, Objectively Dan here and welcome back to another episode of Truth Wanted.

This is the live calling show that happens every single week Fridays at seven pm Central Time.

But we talk to people about what they believe and why.

So if you'd like to call us, you can do that right now.

The lines are open.

It is five one two nine nine one ninety two four to two to call in, or you can call it through your computer at timy dot cc slash call tw And as always, Truth Wanted is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five oh one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government.

And every single week I always have a special guest with me.

This week is no different.

It's justin Freshet fra chet freshet I pronounced.

It was really nice.

The very first time you did it.

That was perfect.

I tried.

I try my best here, Justin.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you, Dan, you are objectively the best day.

And I know, wow, there you go.

Yes, I did it.

That's the goal.

That was always the goal.

Oh, Justin, thanks so much for being with me here today.

Justin.

You have a YouTube channel, and I would love for you to talk about that.

So my YouTube channel is called this Justin and uh, you know, it's a fun little play on words.

And of course you know I'm over there fighting the same fight that you know.

You guys are fighting right separation of government and religion, and you know, battling religion.

I guess you could say you're supporting atheist ideals.

And my most recent video that I put out was a program or a series is I'm calling reading from Right to Left.

So I fill a panel up with a bunch of my left wing friends.

For example, on the last video, I had John the Godless Engineer on there, Trevor from Believe It or Not, I had Hail Heidi and Mark read from Marcurd Atheism on there, and I read a right wing up aganda children's book to that panel, and they react to, well, the really shocking information that comes out of what's supposed to be a kid's book.

So yeah, go over to this justin and check out that video.

It was really entertaining.

And then I've got more coming.

Yeah.

I mean, I think a lot of right wing books can be considered children's books, but it's good that you have to find the specific ones for that, right.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, we're on the same page there in terms of you know, folks, if you're tuning in for the first time and I'm wondering, what do you mean, why are we going on the offensive here?

Look, we like to talk to you about their beliefs because I think we both agree there's there's definitely some harm to that that can come with believing the wrong things.

There's certainly a lot of misinformation out there in the world right now, and we're not necessarily going to be the ones to correct the record on that, but we're going to be the ones that are going to say, hey, let's stop and think about this.

And I try not to privilege any particular belief including ones that I think are correct too.

I'm happy to have folks call in to talk to us and challenge us on what we think is true.

I've certainly had my convictions changed on things, as some of you know.

You know, I'm now a vegan.

I've been vegan for a few years, and that was very much in part due to people challenging me on this show and my release on that.

So happy to talk to people about it.

I'm glad you feel the same way, justin that these kinds of issues are pretty important.

Yeah, I'll fight to the end for everyone's right to believe anything they want to.

But you know, there's a place and a space for those things, and then there's you know, some spaces where those kind of things don't belong.

And yeah, you know part of it too, Like you know, if we talk about, for instance, this you know, like the ten in minstent schools, Right, we can go there, Right, we can do that.

We can tell with that respect, definitely, Like it's.

Not even the argument.

There isn't even the idea of putting these ten commitments on the wall, even though half of them are completely useless and the other half are like well duh, right, The problem with it really is, well, what about those who don't necessarily believe in that particular doctrine or that part of the Bible.

What if they're Muslim or some other they're now being separated or segregated right their ideas and beliefs are no longer being shared.

So it's either, in my opinion, it's what's goose good for the goose is good for the gander, or let's just keep things secular and it doesn't need to go in there at all.

Yeah, I agree with you on that.

We can explore that more.

But we actually had a great topic that we were talking about before the show, and it was this idea about Jesus that I want to talk about, like because you told me you had this thought recently about Jesus feeding the poor.

Because right now in the Year of Our Lord November seventh, twenty twenty five, snap it.

If it's in the US, are cut off from people, there's people, there's plans about talking to reinstate some of it and stuff, but you know, that's what's happening right now.

And I guess in light of that, you were kind of thinking, well, if Jesus was around and doing stuff, or at least if he is a thing, it's curious how that's not kind of happening now the whole you know, multiplying food and feeding it to people.

Think it's kind of weird that he did it once not.

I mean he did a couple of times while he was live.

But it's like, how come that stopped?

Right?

Like, why didn't that keep going?

That seemed like a good thing.

It really seemed like a trivial thing for Jesus, right, Like for Jesus it was as simple as for us to prepare a sandwich.

Jesus would just multiply food, but he only did it in specific circumstances at certain times.

It's like, why didn't he just enter every town he visited and just was like throwing loads of breads from his pockets, Like you.

Know why justin he didn't want to disrupt the market, you know, because that would have would have busted you know, the farmers, right, you know that they wouldn't have been able to have their place in the marketplace.

So you know, he was really focused in the economy.

He was a capitalist.

Yeah, that's my favorite take of Jesus.

I remember back when I was still on this hell site of Twitter that's now x the most like One of the most asinine things I think I've ever read was a whole twit long thread on why Jesus was a capitalist and not like in a like ironic sense, like a guy who works at a church somewhere really made doubt this argument.

It's like, if you at the boab Land think that Jesus was really into this, then maybe we are kind of screwed.

Maybe this whole idea of we can come to a consensus on reality like just can't work, because that's just I don't know, the pure propaganda on some level, right, And.

You know, if we really wanted to, like I don't reduce this complexity a little bit more.

Yeah, you know, if we go all the way to a point of creation and we need food to survive, but yet food is so hard to get, why are why are we just why don't we just you know, why weren't we created with photosynthesis?

For example, you.

Could just get all the new treans we need from the sun.

As long as we go and touch grass once a day, we're good.

Well, we were meant to toil, you know, because we got kicked out from the garden at least our great great grandparents did or whatever.

I think that's the read.

I don't know, it kind of doesn't make sense, I mean, but.

Yeah, that there lies the reason for shows like this and why you and I get together and any of us get together to have these conversations is because and that book can just cover its own ass all over the place, can't it.

Like, yeah, it's true.

We were talking about this on Talkithan the other day.

But like, on this character of Jesus, at least you know, a lot of people say, well, the Bible may say this or that or whatever, but at least you know Jesus was a good guy or whatever.

And like that always irks me because Jesus is so inconsistent in his character based on which gospels you read.

There's always this kind of it, and you know, secular liberal people will always still say, well, at least the book has some good things, or at least Jesus had some good things.

It's like, I don't even go that far.

I don't even think you have to make that concession honestly to have any sense of decency.

Yeah, it's it's an interesting and there was another thing that I looked at too, is the structure of the book and the stories themselves.

They're not even like structurally good stories.

Yeah, you know, like at least English hearing audience.

Yeah, Like the character is just too perfect, so it makes it extra hard to believe.

But you know, if I was a divine being or even semi divine and I could go around and do the things that you know Jesus apparently did, I would just go around and be doing them all the time.

I wouldn't just like, Oh, you guys need some wine.

You got any barrels of water around here?

Is there a wedding happening here?

We'll make some wine.

I guess you know, they didn't even know the guy.

It wasn't like, oh, this is my best friend.

It was just like some guy in the story.

Man, why I even bother with the wine and food?

Why not just go you're all not hungry anymore or you're all drunk.

Now that's true.

See, that'd be real creative.

But I don't think they were thinking that far with that.

I don't know.

Well, we'll put a pin in this real quick, because right now I think we need to talk about our question of the week.

Justin every single week we're asking folks at home a question, uh at prompt whatever that we want people to respond to, and we're gonna bring Kelly on stage here to hello, Kelly, what's up?

Hi?

How you guys doing really good?

To see you again, justin.

We're doing good until you got here, Kelly.

That was a total opposite line I was going to say.

I was gonna say, we're better now that you're here, Kelly.

So I hear a neutral time now between the two.

Represent like the angels and right now.

Okay, So last week we asked if you were invisible in church, what would you do?

And here's our three favorite answers.

From number three from Dwayne Johnson.

I don't think d Dwayne Johnson, but from Dwayne Johnson, it's been visible.

What's that?

He spelled differently?

So I think the one we know has a W.

Yeah, yeah, you know what.

I didn't even think about that, but you're absolutely correct.

If invisible, he says, I would cover myself in flower next to the priest or pastor and point to him and say, in a scary voice, you speak for Satan liar.

That would be that would make the news, right, somebody would something make the news.

Yeah, somebody would try to record that for sure, and number two from our from our good buddy Chuck Katos, if I was invisible in church, when the pastor is about to read a Bible verse, I turned the page to something spicier.

Okay, all right, okay, so what are your options there?

I guess song of songs, some of songs.

Yeah, and that's that.

You can keep going backus twenty one.

Yeah, or here's here's a better idea.

Why don't you just slip in a little page from fifty Shades of Gray.

I was just thinking, you can go to the part where lots of daughters get them drunk and rape them too.

That would be a good spicy one.

Well, you know, Kelly, you say that, and spice is not the word I would use for that, But that's an editorial choice on your part.

I suppose, well there are bitter spices.

O god, Okay, we are definitely moving on from that.

I don't know I feel comfortable with that assessment.

But and number one, our number one answered you know from Anastasia, if I was invisible in church, I would take control of the collection played after it's full, floated over.

To the preacher and dump it down his pants.

I want to make sure that the part it says partisipers, but I'm assuming it's parishioners know where their donations are growing.

Okay, write down the priest pants.

That would that.

That's kind of scary as well, because there is sort of a haunting sort of element to that one too, almost like you're basically like cast for the ghost at that point, just kind of mess with people.

So okay, all right, Well those are some decent answers.

Thank you to everybody that gave your answers last week.

And now, Kelly, I believe we have a question for this week.

We do have a question for this For.

Your answer, Kelly, I still don't like that.

I'm not happy you said that about the spice.

I'm sorry.

If you could rewrite the Bible, what would it say?

If you could rewrite the Bible?

What would it say?

And that's like any part of the Bible, right, so, like you know, just like a particular story or whatever, what would you do, Kelly?

You know what I would I'm assuming that they want an answer that's like in general, what would you do?

What would you change?

And I think I'd probably be it be a lot nicer and make people.

I would probably say something like you shouldn't know other people, and you really really should.

No matter what you do, keep searching, keep wanting the truth.

I would make uh, maybe the Good Samaritan about a gay guy instead, so that way people would treat gay people better.

Maybe because like, yeah, nobody's like, oh man, those Samaritans.

We don't trust them, Like that's not a thing anymore, right, Like we do not really care about that, you know.

I always say if Jesus was alive today, that would that story would be the Good Mexican.

Yeah, that could for American audiences, that would play well, I think, yeah, yeah, I don't know.

That's my answer.

What do you think?

Justin?

I wouldn't change the thing, but I would add a page to the very front of the book that said the contents within or for entertainment purposes only.

Oh nice, Okay, yeah, I think that's a good one.

I like that one.

I like that answer the best actually, So, folks, if you think you can top that, leave a comment below.

I'll be surprised, because that's pretty good.

I know you can do at least better than me and Kelly.

But leave your answer.

We will read our top three answers for next week.

Otherwise, I want to say thanks Kelly for being on stage for this.

Well, thanks for having me up here.

Dan.

Yeah, absolutely, and all things going good.

We'll see at the end of the show, but for now, I am going back with Justin.

Justin and I were talking about video games for like thirty minutes before the show, and I enjoyed that because you know, it's game kind of baby, It's been a good year for video games.

Not really related to this show or its content, but well, you know.

I couldn't.

We could totally spend a video game topic.

Excuse me, let me have a drink of water here real quick.

You were telling me about the Jesus Christ video game.

There was a demo that came out for a game called I Am Jesus Christ.

Yeah, I played it over on my channel.

I played the whole demo and it was it was so strange and very to play a game.

First of all, that's so incredibly well put together.

It's developed by a company that isn't necessarily like they're not like a religious gaming company.

They're just a real game company, so they're literally just trying to cash in on Christianity.

Interesting, so it's really well put together.

It's in first person of view.

Jesus has all these magical abilities, and one of the first missions actually is to show up to the wedding, but to make the wine right, so they turn the barrels of water into wine right.

What was interesting is is they did a little bit of like they have to take a little creative control in this narrative of the story of the game right to make it interesting and more fun.

And when you arrive into town, it was so strange because your mom is there, right, so Mary Jesus mom is there all right, and she's like, Oh, I'm so glad you're here.

I was just telling everybody about how awesome you are and how you could save this wedding because they yeah, Like it was such a real mom's son moment to be like I'm glad you came.

They've ran out of wine or the wine didn't get delivered or so I forget the exact like, but it was really, really, really funny.

And then there's this whole mini game where you create the wine.

It was really good in this game because I remember there was a trailer for this game like a year or two ago, and I just thought it was like fake.

I didn't think it would actually turn to like a real game.

How how long is this game?

The demo took about an hour to finish.

Really, but is the game out now?

It's still okay.

I'm only because I'm thinking, like, what's that?

Like?

Is it eight hours to do the whole freaking Gospels?

Like what do you do with that?

I don't know, There's only so much.

I mean, if we want to speak about it a little bit critically, there was a moment where I then had to go wander the desert for forty days and forty nights.

Where I was actually a bit is that in the game?

Yeah, in the.

Game, you're about to leave on your journey to go wander the desert, and I was excited.

I was like, Oh, this is gonna be like some resident Evil Silent Hill stuff going on.

This is going to be one demons and stuff.

That'd be cool.

Yeah, But no, they just cut to forty days later and you walk out of the desert.

I'm like, Oh, what an opportunity.

Should have had?

A survival Well, I guess so, like you know, in a traditional survival game is like oh, you need to find resources and drink water and stuff.

But like the whole point of that story is like he didn't eat anything for like forty days, so I guess it's like.

It could have still done like some kind of temptation mechanic, where like, you know, maybe Satan is tempting you as Jesus with different things and whether or not you choose to take them or not, and maybe you have to like allow yourself to be taken in by certain temptations in order to survive the forty days.

But then you know you can pray to get some of that temptation back.

I don't, okay, see see your your game design philosophy is way more interesting than the source material is based off of.

I'm pretty sure most versions would be like, no, he can't be tempted at all.

So it's like, okay, there's no game play right there.

Right.

What the story is originally was he went into the desert and he didn't eat anything for forty days.

But it's after the forty days when Heyton shows up and it's like, hey, don't you want you can turn that rock into bread, and Jesus like no, And then there's like one other thing and then he made He's like, hey, you can jump off this building if you want and he's like, nah, so I guess you just I guess.

It's just a dialogue box and it's just yes or no every time.

By the way, the game is fully voice acted, like the level of oh yeah, it's it's fantastic to be completely honest, like the level he's going this.

They gave Jesus like a spell wheel, the same way the Witcher does, and witchards like he's got a spell wheel and he can do all kinds of.

Different miracles and stuff.

Miracles and stuff.

Yeah, and you've got to unlock the miracles as you travel through the story.

So the demo ends with you being on the pier where you're like meeting Peter and Paul or whatever for the first time, and you're gathering your apostles and you're doing so by performing miracles and like making it easier for them to catch fish in the water.

So you've got to like stare at the water and like duplicate the fish in the water.

And then now the apostles like, look at all the fish we can catch, and then they start following you around and the demo ends.

Oh my god, it's so really really well put together.

Oh man, if you die in the game, do you go to Hell before you get.

To I haven't identified a lost condition.

I'm not sure you can.

Okay, all right, okay, Wow, I have so many questions about the game.

I kind of want to play it now because you seem very enthrilled demos.

The demo is one hundred percent free on Steam, so like you can totally just go and grab it and play it.

Wow, we're doing free ads for this game right now.

That's crazy.

I mean, need to check that out, because it's like, I when I think of the Gospels, I don't know how you gamify that without being sacrilegious, you know, me to be more interesting, but who knows.

It could be the dawn of a whole new interpretation of the Gospels.

Yeah, there was a game that came out a few years ago about Muhammad, and I remember that one specifically.

Yeah, because so there's all kinds of well, there's a lot of controversis about how you can depict Muhammad, right, so they don't actually show him in the games because it's all first person and every time like it's implied that he's speaking, there's like a wind chime noise or whatever.

Because they didn't want to have a voice for him and stuff.

So I remember that being a thing, but I guess you could do a little bit more with Jesus.

I don't know that's Is this an American studio that made this or is this like a different country.

You forget the name of the actual studio, but they've made a I can't remember now.

They did make a game that like I would win.

You're like that half of us have all played.

I just can't remember the game that they've made.

But well, it was the first thing that I checked on was the studio because usually these kind of games are made by religious organizations and stuff, but this is.

Not, Yeah, a religious first.

That's what I want to know, either if a Christian organization made it or some place in Taiwan that doesn't know anything about Christianity.

Like I'm managing a Neon Genesis Evangelian situation where it's like, oh, we just put the Christian stuff in here because we thought it was cool, you know.

But anyway, I could talk about that all day, But I know, folks, you're you guys are here because we're a calling show and you probably want to talk to hear us talk to callers.

So I think we should do that.

Now, what do you think?

Justin Let's pick up the phone and see who's there.

All right, let's see who wants to talk to us.

Before we get to calls, let's thank our patrons.

Thank you so much everybody that donates to the patreon.

I wanted to give a shout out to the patron of the week.

This week's patron of the week is going to be Lauren Z.

Thank you so much, Lauren Z.

And thank you to everybody that donates on the patreon.

You guys are amazing.

If you'd like to donate, link to that is in the YouTube description, or if you're listening on podcasts, it's you know, in the description of where you're at you're not cc slash patreon t w Thank you everybody, And with that out of the way, let's take our first caller.

Here we have Michelle, who wants to talk to us from New York.

Michelle, you're live, untruth wanted what's going on?

Yeah, I was wondering you would you too like to answer?

Maybe it can not have maybe two questions or connect.

Answer two questions.

Probably we could probably do two questions.

I think I think that's fine.

Yeah, I've got a I've got a basket full of answers.

I just hope to go with the question.

There you go, Yeah, let's hear it.

Okay, okay, uh do you guys think like what is the what?

Why would it said that religion is the opium of the mask?

I wish you couldn't say that, like mouths of Toll or someone that's.

That's Karl Marx that said that.

Original Mark Smarts, Marks, I always forget, always found the politics.

That's why interesting why Karl Marx said that.

Well, what I'm asking is is, yeah, why did he say it?

Did it mean something?

I mean, obviously it meant something, And I know he had a reason for saying, Well, like has that reason changed over time?

Are there new and modern reasons that why it could be said that religion is the opium for the mask?

Yeah?

I mean I am I'm not a you know, scholar on Marx.

Okay, so you know, I I'd have to tell you to go look at people who have more intensely studied the guy.

I know he was really into Hegel, and I know that there's a lot of different contexts that happened there.

You know, Marks's whole thing is about class analysis, right, So he's introducing these ideas of saying, hey, here's his proletariat, and here's this sort of business class, and this is what separates people and I, and from my understanding, his common terry about religion being is that religion is another way to sort of quell working class people from uprising it away.

In that sense, he's not too different from Nietzsche's interpretation of Christianity, which is which is that Christianity is sort of a slave religion, this idea that Jesus is sort of asking us to be sheep, literally to sort of follow rather than lead.

So that's my understanding, but there's probably a greater context that could be said by people who are more knowledgeable about I don't know, justin do you have any insight?

I'm not super up on the question or the topic.

This is the first time I've ever heard that, even said.

The first thing that jumps out to me though, is the idea of if it's an opiate, then it's highly addictive.

And so if I try to interpret this question just on its surface, being the first time hearing it, it kind of makes sense from that point.

I mean, some I notice, especially with and Dan, you'll probably agree with this.

Some of the more hardcore religious people, the more deep into it they are, the harder it is to get them to like understand reason and skepticism and like, you know, put it aside for a second and try to think about things logically, because you know, they're so addicted to it they just can't abandon it or move up, move beyond it.

Yeah, and I'm looking at things right now.

I'm like googling stuff as we're talking about this.

But like, one thing, one interpretation I'm seeing that's interesting is that some people say that they misinterpret this idea because it's it's supposed to be sort of a way to talk about addiction in some sort of way, because opia was known for its addictive qualities.

So it's it's it's a way for you know, religion is sort of this way to sort of quell some of these a sort of quell from taking action, right, to quell people from going away from what's comfortable for them.

So, you know, I guess there's a couple of different ways to look at that, Michelle, So I don't know, what do you think.

I think the both of you make good points, are right I agree.

And now the second part of the question, Okay, what would do you say about believe believing something?

A lot like can we believe things rational with rationality and things that are logical even though they may be unfalsifiable?

Can we believe things rationally even if they may be unfalsifiable?

Yeah, can you give you an example.

Believing in God, believing in deities, angels, believing in uh.

Yeah, that kind of thing, and that kind of age.

Okay, Yeah, So it's interesting.

Uh, it's an interesting question philosophically because there's there's kind of so like rationalism is like an entire school of thought within philosophy, okay, And and and rationalism has this idea of, well, we can understand true things based on reason alone.

And and that's a very particular idea because that doesn't mean necessarily like using science or using empiricism.

Right, that's actually different because it's taking outside observations and coming to conclusions via you know, synthesis.

Right.

Can't we know things just by reason alone?

Is kind of an open question as far as I am concerned in in terms of philosophy, because there's a lot of people that don't have a consensus on that, for example, one plus one equals two, right, like a very basic obvious truth.

Do we know that because we see one apple and we see another apple and we see that they make two?

Or do we know that because we can compute that outside of our observations and our own reality.

Is that is that a material fact that something has a oneness or a tuneness about it?

Or is this just sort of a system that we've concocted that sort of makes sense to us internally.

So based on your answer to that, you would be able to know about what you could say about God in some way or another, which is you know inconclusive?

I guess I would say, sorry, this is kind of a long answer, but it opens up a lot of can of worms.

What were you going to say, Michelle, dh, I.

Got something great for you.

You want to hear it.

I'll give you some mathematical sauce.

Are you ready for this?

Well?

Maybe wait?

I want to hear Justin's response first, because, like I was talking for there, go ahead, go ahead.

I was going to say that if the idea here is that if a rational person can believe in something that's unfussiled, unfalsifiable, then I would also expect that person to have enough self awareness to realize that the thing that they're choosing to believe in is unfascible unfalsifiable.

So, for example, if I want to believe in aliens, cool, I can't falsify that right now, but I'm just going to live my life as though there's aliens out there.

Now.

If I get to the point where I start wearing tinfoil hats, I'm no longer very rational or logical, So then the question kind of falls apart there, right, So, yeah, you can you can believe in things that are unfossil unfalsifiable if you are going to be logical and reasonable, though you're going to put limitations on how much of that belief is going to control your life.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say rationality is sort of culturally conditioned in some ways, though I think I would make that argument, but that I don't know if that's something you'd want to explore with me, Michelle, because that's kind of a whole separate idea.

But you had some sauce you were gonna give, Yeah.

But I was gonna say mathematical sauce.

I'm the laces of mathematical sauce down on you, right, okay, and justin Okay.

So when it comes to one on one making two, well, one whole two halves of one whole apple can feed two hungry bellies, so go figure.

I might have missed part I think you're talent a joke there, and I might have missed the bunchline because I'm not a smart man.

Michelle Show.

I know you are a smart man.

Dan, don't ever put yourself down or apologize to yourself.

Always be proud you.

You put me in quite the the You've hit me in the in the in the thinker quite a many times on your show, so appreciate it.

In the thinker.

I love that.

I love that he's hit you in the thinker.

So, yeah, that's a good one.

I'll have to remember that one.

Yeah, my joke was one whole two halves of one whole apple can feed two hungry children.

One half of one whole apple can feed has two.

Halves halves of one whole apple and.

Children.

Okay, Yeah, maybe it could be a snack.

The whole apple could feed four hungry children.

Yeah, I guess so, I'm not sure what the joke was.

I might have missed that, Michelle, But you know it doesn't mean too much.

Let me let me give you something else for your thinker here.

Okay, Well we're talking about rationality.

It's easy to put other people in in this place of well, they're not smart enough, they're not thinking about stuff rashly, they're not doing what's best for them.

But like, again, I think rationality can be a bit a subjective thing and can matter culturally.

If you're a medieval peasant who isn't educated, right, Like, maybe you can't read, maybe you've never left your hometown, and all you know from what people have told you is there is a God and all these things happen, and there's all these decrees, and you want to live your life in a way so that you can avoid the hall and torment that would come if you don't live otherwise.

I mean, that would make sense to you in some sort of way, right, Like, there is a way that people are able to rationalize religion in a way to avoid consequences, right And I think when it comes down to brass tacks, for a lot of people, you know, fear is a motivating factor.

So in some ways that is a very rational way to view a belief as sort of utilitarian in a sense.

Right.

I'm not saying it's right.

I'm not saying it's what you should do.

But you know, rationality is a tricky thing because it depends on people's aims, on what people really mean by being rational in this sense.

So it's it's not a word I like to use too much because I think you can make different kinds of justifications for people's sense of rationality.

Does that make sense, Yeah, definitely.

Well, gentlemen, I think we've sussed out this conversation as far as we could sus it out.

I think volumes could be written on it.

But I won't trouble or take any more of your time, and I will.

Say thank you very much for the phone call, and thank you for being convivial with me.

All right, Michelle, appreciate thanks for your time.

I hope you have a great rest of your weekend.

Man, that was like.

The most casual, just like it almost felt like we weren't doing a show.

We were just on the on a phone.

But yeah, I got a question real quick.

Yeah I got two for and also, yeah, that was interesting.

We went We talked about Carl Marx, talked about rationality, and we talked about apples son and hitting people in the thinker and hitting people in the thinker.

Yeah, that's it.

You're right.

I'm glad you called that out.

That's a good line.

This is a good one.

I'm keeping that, keeping that in the back of.

My T shirt.

That's a T shirt somewhere.

I agree.

Let's move on to another caller here.

We have uh make Kel, who is calling from the Netherlands.

Uh make Kel.

You are live, untruth wanted.

What's going on?

Hello?

You can just call me Michael, like Michael.

Okay, it sounds great.

I love doing things the American way.

Thank you, Thank you for that, Michael.

Go ahead, You're welcome.

Yeah.

I saw the poll, and I might have another mite something else to discuss about.

But I saw that.

The poll said, is Jesus good or yeah?

My answer to that is yes.

Okay, yeah, tell me about that.

Why is your answer yes?

Because there's a lot of scriptures that basically point out the fact.

That he is without sin, like, okay, plainly.

Yeah, And I'm assuming you're a theist as well.

In fact, I think you marked to our caller the theist.

Okay, that would make sense, you know, if I was a theist as well, I would also say that Jesus is good, right, I think I think most theis would.

I think it'd be hard to be a theist and say Jesus is bad, right, because I don't know what you're doing there with that, right, So yeah, I think that stuff makes sense there.

Yeah, so basically because of scripture and what Jesus has done in scripture that would make him good.

That's kind of your your case then, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, I'll pass it to you justin what do you think?

Yeah, So, like you said, it'd be hard pressed to be a theist who didn't think Jesus was good.

And actually, you know what, I think that's what makes the question kind of interesting is was Jesus a good person?

Is even though we may not believe in a lot of the scriptures or we find a lot of contradictions or problems.

For the most part, I think even a non theist, if we wanted to just treat Jesus like a character in a story, could still make an argument that his intentions were well meaning, right, Like you know, we were talking at the top of the show about him creating food for the masses, I can't find a single problem with that at all, Like that's inherently that was a slick, good move.

Where the question gets more interesting is why didn't he just do that all the time?

Why didn't he just fill everyone's baskets up with bread and wine everywhere he went all the time.

And you know, like you pointed out like maybe he was watching out for the markets or something.

I guess, but yeah, he didn't want to crash the bread markets.

Yeah, yea market is I think that's why the question in the poll.

First of all, as soon inspire people to call in, so thanks for calling in.

But it also is an interesting question because I think we could probably even find, you know, atheists in our community.

I would be like, no, on the surface, Jesus.

Was good, Yeah, if you subscribe to the idea.

So here's what you're just saying, as an atheist, why I have to assume that Jesus is kind of bad, right, Because if you subscribe to the idea, which most atheists do, that Jesus was a real person, right, and that the gospel accounts are based on this real person that did exist, you also kind of have to assume if you're an atheist that these accounts are either exact rations or fabrications of events, right, And that could either be because his followers made up these events, or that Jesus himself didn't you know, didn't wasn't truthful about who he was and what he claimed to be, either, which would make him a liar, right, which would make him a verson that is of ill repute.

You could say bad, right, but you know, not necessarily good right in that respect, In the same way that there are religious leaders today that say, hey, I'm the son of God or people should worship me, et cetera, et cetera.

You know, that's basically what Jesus was doing back in those times as well.

And so I wouldn't hold Jesus to be any better than I would any televangelist or any modern day prophet or modern day apostle.

Right, It's it's kind of doing the same thing.

So he doesn't get any moral credit for me.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does.

If you've removed God out of the equation and it's just all that's realistic, I wouldn't believe, and then Jesus would just be just like any other man.

It would have flaws.

But I don't stand on that ground, so it's it makes it a little different, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's also another position you could take too, is that if if Jesus, if if you're one of the theists who believe that Jesus was also God and they're the benchmark for all of morality, Jesus also didn't come in and start going, yo, we got it all wrong in the Old Testament, and like you know, slavery is actually bad, so like let's not do that anymore.

There is no from what I understand or from what I know read letter text of Jesus saying that's not a thing we're going to do anymore.

Like he doesn't disavow that.

So if they are the benchmark for morality, they didn't walk back any of the things that we would say are a moral today, which could also kind of underline him not necessarily being a good person.

Yeah, and that can also go into like ideas of like objective versus objective like morality, because like you could say that Jesus was maybe a good person for the time in which he lived in right, and I think like maybe you could go that far in some respect, but also like at the same time, like you said, he didn't really denounce the institution of slavery.

He never said, hey, all men, any women should be treated equally at all times.

Also everybody should be able to vote.

Like, he wasn't super into democracy or anything.

Maybe he would have been for it, but I can't imagine he would be, you know.

So, like, there's definitely weaknesses to the idea that Jesus is sort of a universal good right, but I don't know that's kind of us talking here.

What do you think, Michael, Well, that Jesus is not the is not the universal standards.

Then what is Okay?

Well, what are you what are you gonna what are.

You gonna replace it with?

Because I don't think atheism does it for me because I used to be one.

So yeah, so different atheists might have different answers to this.

I'm curious what Justin's answer to this, But my position would be I don't think there is a universal standard.

I don't think there is a one, and I don't think any human being has perfect knowledge of morality or what that even looks like.

I think it's in part informed by our social norms, but also in part informed by some things we can objectively measure but are ultimately held by subjective values.

For example, I don't want people to suffer needlessly, right, and suffering is a value that I attribute negatively to.

What's the objective basis of that?

There is no objective basis of that.

It's just because I'm a human being and I inherently don't like that, right, So it is based on sort of human feelings at the end of the day.

But you can build systems around that.

You just have to have people agree on those sense of values, which of course people don't, and that's why we have all the trouble that we have and ethics in philosophy.

Right, But as far as Jesus being a great standard for that, I don't think so.

I think every progressive reform we've had since the age of Enlightenment has been almost in spite of what Jesus is necessarily advocated for or have wanted.

You know, we mentioned the institution of slavery, you talked about democracy, things like that, but justin yet, what's your take?

I mean, I'll start from the beginning with the most obvious and the most common answer that we give to this is that atheism doesn't say anything about morality to start with.

Yeah, it's just saying one thing, and we're not convinced of any gods in the world, right, And I could also just take it one step further and say, Michael that you're just as atheist as we are, except we also just don't believe in your god.

Yeah, but for the sake of argument, let's just.

Play with them.

No, that's not entirely true.

Right, So there we go.

So I'm going to go ahead and we're just going to live.

I just wanted to finish the sentence, Michael and just add that for the sake of the argument and the discussion, we're going to go ahead and insert a whole bunch of like underlying beliefs to our atheism.

Then okay, And I would argue and say that my morality is mine.

It is it's circums stancial, it's it's what's going to get me to the next to the next stage of my life the best.

And if I think murdering is bad, then I'm going to align myself with other people who would also agree that unliving people is not a good idea.

And then we're going to create a community where we don't allow that kind of behavior.

And if you decide to come into our community and unlive people, then we're going to punish you for that behavior.

And things just go down and down and down to where we then have government and lease and people who keep those laws and morals in place for us.

Right, yeah, go ahead, Michael.

Well, first of all, I had to refute that little statement that you said that you know that you went God one god further in your own belief.

I don't think the gods like from all the pagan religions and stuff.

I think those are real deities.

I mean, if you if I look at from a biblical standpoint, the one third of the angels that's all from heaven, you know, masquerading as God's sure, you know, but would I would I follow that?

No, you know, but a sort of moral thing.

Well, you know, then when it really comes down to it, then that you basically believe Jesus is a liar when he said he is the truth of the way in the life, right, I mean, if you really just deny him flat out and say, oh, we know it better, we can do it better.

You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw one extra one in here for you.

I don't believe Jesus existed, so I'm not sure he was around to say those things at all.

Yeah.

Yeah, so there is the myth isis position on this as well.

Right, But yeah, I mean, if if you take the position that majority of atheists do believe that Jesus existed, right, and I would say, yeah, I do think Jesus lied on that.

I don't think he was the way the truth in the light.

He definitely wasn't the first person in history to speak on ethics, and certainly wasn't the last.

And I don't think his way is necessarily superior than to other people who have proposed, you know, ethical ways of living.

All right, Well, I'm not sure about the history and stuff, and I've never really been digging into the history when it comes to the existence of Jesus.

But based on his teachings that you know, and the things that I learned in my life, and when you when you apply the words and you better food so it, then I can only infer the man existed.

You know.

They couldn't just make all this stuff up.

That's yeah.

No, I'll be honest.

You know, that's a whole other can of worms, and we canna go there if we want.

But I'd like to keep going on the track of what you called in about, right, which is was Jesus good?

Because I think that's an interesting question too.

So I think Justin's willing to say, for the sake of argument, let's say Jesus was real?

Right, was he good?

You know?

Like I again, there are some things you can point to about Jesus not being great, Like he cursed the fig tree for not producing fruit one time.

You know, that's kind of weird.

He didn't have great things to say about other groups of people Pharisees, right, and maybe he was making some cultural commentary, but you know, you could argue that's not nice.

He whipped a bunch of people out of temple that wasn't super great, and you know, you can make it a larger case, which I think just was kind of alluding to that, like, oh, he did feed certain people at certain periods of time, but he didn't like keep doing that.

And one might argue, well, if you failed to commit an action that you otherwise could do, you know that that's argued his negligence, right, And so is it negligence to ignore other hungry people when you could feed them and have the power to do, so one could make that case.

So you know, there there's there's there's different grounds by which we could look at this and say, hey, maybe he's not as good as he could be, or maybe not the way the truth in the life, right, But I don't know, what do you think, Michael?

Yeah, you bring up a lot of points, and it's hard for me to remember them all.

For example, like cursing the victory for example, did you also know why he did it?

For he did it because the tree bared no fruits.

And there's argument and of course that's it's a metaphor not really a literal fig tree that occurs, So if you go there, that's one thing.

I believe it was a literal victory, but it's it's also a topology of no fruits in Israel, you know, Yeah, because how many people rejected him.

Yeah, but the tree didn't do anything wrong.

The tree is just me in a tree.

Why it's got to be a curse, you know?

Yeah, I mean, can you really I heard the I think, yeah, I can't remember it very well, but I think that there was it was explained with if like how do you call it?

It's just the victory as Sorry, no, I think I should not be arguing about that.

But it's okay, it's just one minor point.

That it didn't bear any that this tree was really boring, you know that that was the whole point.

That I agree.

Yeah, tree for not producing fruit is not exciting.

Based on seasonal stuff.

Yeah, I should not argue on that.

I don't.

I don't know the answer to that.

So but what what what was the other argument?

Well, so again I'm picking, I'm I'm I'm cherry picking some particular examples, right, But.

Like one, and then you said.

Well, there was the temple.

You know, he whipped a bunch of people at the temple because they were they were, you know, selling stuff.

Now, if you if you believe in a rule of law, right, and these people were breaking the law, then the lawful thing would be for them to face penalties outlined in a law.

Right.

We don't if somebody is uh, you know, stealing from a bank, right, we don't expect the state to just whip somebody because they stole from a bank, right.

We'd want them to have trial, and we'd want them to you know, prove that these charges happened and then give them the punishment that's on the books.

That could be a fine, or that could be jail time, right, Instead, he chose violence as retribution there, which, as some people say, is not uh, you know, a good thing to do in summer cards.

So you know, that's just another example.

Well, I'm pretty close connected to the old generation, you know, with my family.

So if you were doing something silly, you were in a place where I'm not supposed to be and uh, and they got angry or whatever, you know, or even if you go into somebody ouse's goden for example, when they come out, you know, because Jesus said, what are you doing in my father's house, you know, making making it a market.

Let's say you go in place and you're not in somebody's place, and you end up doing something you're supposed to do, they have the right to kick you out.

You know, I don't see that's that.

I don't have any problems with it.

Kicking somebody out, I mean whipping somebody or different though.

You know, it kind of brings up another little mild, little interesting question really too, because we're talking about Jesus and his inherent goodness, right, is Jesus a good or a bad person.

Are we going to measure him from the point of view of like he is God?

Or are we comparing him to other humans?

Because I think a human or a person who would to have a moment of weakness and lose their temper and do something terrible like rob kick somebody out of their house, there may be a path for like forgiveness, for them to be like I lost my head, I wasn't in the right space, I had a bad day, lost my wallet earlier in the day, Like someone might be able to go like, Okay, dude, fine, I forgive you, don't do it again.

But you know, is Jesus on the same measuring stick as an average person?

And is he capable of losing his temper?

You know?

Yeah?

And is he forgiven for losing his temper or should he be measured as a better person?

Yeah?

Well, if he did lose his temper and you know, and he fell into sin, then all the other script is some mute.

Then he is not without sin.

So how is that going to work?

You know?

I don't think.

Well, he didn't lose his temper and he willingly, knowingly and clear minded whipped some people.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know how the situations were back then.

You know, people were a lot rougher than we people today.

I mean, man kind has gotten really soft if you ask me.

So, uh yeah, it might be harsh saying that, but I grew up in a in a different way, so I still know the things of the old ways a little bit.

No, and no, actually I didn't grow up religiously, so let's let that be let that be known.

Yeah.

No, So I think I think that that is more like, yeah, I can't say that there is an absolute uh measure stick of saying, ah, Jesus was sto hard, hearsh or no, maybe to today's society where people are a little bit you know, people are more more soft.

But when you look at other cultures, it happens there too, you know, like they get yeah, they get kicked away from places and you know, get lost, get.

Out, you know.

Like, well, I think that this kind of points to this idea that morality is culturally relative in some ways, right, Like if we are to bring any critiques about Jesus and his behavior, it is looking at it through a modern lens.

I can't deny that because I'm a modern human being.

But that does kind of bring the question whether some of the actions that Jesus did would be considered acceptable at any point in time.

For I'll give you one more example of this, Michael, because I was thinking about it.

There is the part where Jesus is there's a guy that says, I want to follow you, but I have to bury my father right because his father has just died, And he says I have to do this, and Jesus is saying, hey, you know, follow me, right, forget about your dad and just do it.

I you know, follow me and do that.

Like you know, if if if say, like you know, a modern religious cult leader said that, I think we would be very easy to rebuke that person and say, wow, that's a very cultish behavior to cut people off from your family and just tell them to follow me and do what I want.

Instead.

Well, we look at it from Jesus and we say, well, he is the greatest moral teacher on earth, so this is acceptable, right.

But you see how that might cause dissonance for some people because it doesn't seem to follow, you know, acceptable standards for morality.

Well, yeah, I don't know.

I wouldn't I wouldn't know.

I mean, if I if I look at things.

For example, you know, when I when I wasn't I believe, I looked at that very differently than I am today.

And it's kind of like when it's over, it's just over, right in that sense of Okay, he passed away, he moved on, or wherever you're you're gonna go, depending on what you believed them, you know, based on what the scripture says.

But I remember to Jesus like, but I remember Jesus saying, like, you know, let the bury and let the dead bury the dead, and but now go go and preach the Kingdom of God.

So yeah, I mean what eventually, what is what is more important?

In that sense?

You see that That's that's the whole jig of it.

It's like, you know, if you're from your standpoint, you would say, yeah, I'm gonna mourn my father and you know, but when you're you know, you know, kingdom minded, let's call it like that, then you're gonna say, okay, yes, Jesus, I'm gonna follow you.

We're gonna preach the Kingdom of God.

Again.

I have no objections against against that, you know, it is yeah, I mean and then and then yeah, you can ask the question, and what are the other people are going to think about you?

You know, Okay, well let them think that what they want to think, you know, I mean, if you really are I want to be a disciple or you want to follow Jesus and you're going to have to give it all up?

You know, that's that's how how serious does this in?

So yeah, yeah, it's kind of I.

Actually think that's a fair response.

I don't really have much to say to that.

I think, like, if you believe that Jesus really is that guy, and I guess if he's that good enough you want to be able to follow him, I guess to me, it kind of just goes back to, well, is he that guy?

Right?

Is he actually you know, the real one?

Because unfortunately he's not the first person to say he's that guy, and he won't be the last.

He isn't the last.

Surely there's been other people since then.

So do you have any examples for that of other people claiming to be the son of God?

Well, well, there's like a whole Wikipedia article for that.

You know, you don't need me telling you, you.

Know, no, I just I just don't know if you if you if you have any names or whatever, because I know the stories that Jesus was supposedly a regurgitation of the sun gods, and I'll plagiarise and all that stuff, but scripturally that doesn't really match up, because you know it does you know, the Bible speaks about the whole Babylonian system and the worship of the sun, moon and stars and on that we should not be doing that.

So that's where all that stuff came from.

So I think it's just a commifeate religion, you.

Know, yeah, look at it.

So you don't even have to look at pagan religions for that.

There are other people that claim to be a fulfillment of the Messiah, specifically in ancient Judea.

You know, a lot of it we don't have full records on because they didn't catch on as much, right, But in part, the way that the gospel narratives are laid out is to sort of counteract other criticisms that people have in Jesus not fulfilling that role.

Because of course, remember when not everybody immediately became a Christian, Judaism was still a thing, and it's still a thing for a very long time, and folks are not necessarily convinced about Jesus being the fulfillment of that role, and other other people have fulfilled that role or claim to fulfill the role of the son of Man or the Son of God in various capacities.

I wouldn't know which things you're talking about, to be honest, it's kinda new to me, to be honest.

David Koresh, who comes to mind, definitely said he was the son of God.

You know, obviously that's a modern example.

But again, like if you go to wikimedia, there's tons of other people, particularly Jewish people that have claimed to be, you know, the son of God after.

The personally look into that.

To be honest, yeah, that's fine, never heard it before.

So well again, pre Jesus that.

I understand that.

Yeah, Like you know, pre Jesus, you don't find a lot because they don't they don't have scriptures for those kinds of heresies.

They kind of came and died.

But there there's a lot more you find posts Jesus than you do preach Jesus.

So all right, yeah, And there was another objection you had, what was about how Jesus treated the Pharisees.

Now, I know how you people think about religion, right, and the hypocrisy that is going on there.

Yeah, I tell you I don't like it any much as any much as you do.

And they deserve that he has treatment like like people preaching that you should give.

Well, in the meanwhile they're getting their money or you know, they they well, how the Bible said that they elevate their own ideas and and and traditions about the scriptures.

You know, they rules, and they put them on people, and yet they don't keep them themselves, you know.

That, Michael.

Yeah, it's interesting because Jesus kind of did the same thing in a way.

So for example, you know, when Jesus didn't rest on the sabbath and he did a miracle, he was like, oh, I don't have to follow that rule actually, because I am the son of God and the laws were made for man and I'm not him, right, you know, And he kind of does his own kind of interpretationtions of scriptures.

So in a way, he's kind of very similar in that regard.

No, he's the Lord of the Sabbath, see he is.

Alright, Well, Jesus said, my father is always working, so you expected the son to do the same thing.

He said.

He said, like it wasn't.

A paraphrasing, but he said something like God made man.

I don't know exactly how the phrase went, and it's like God made men for the Sabbath or or I don't know exactly, but I need to look that up very quickly.

I guess that's.

Okay, it's it's it's it's fine.

I mean, you know, I don't expect you to rattle off the verse from memory, but yeah, I mean, you know, I I agree with you in a sense.

It's hard to it's hard to criticize Jesus against his standards, the ones that he made, because like he's the guy that made his standards, right, So, like I I would be more critical from a secular perspective, and I the only way that I feel like I could convince you is if Jesus somehow broke his own stand right.

But like, I'm not necessarily arguing that Jesus' standards were good, right, That's the thing.

I'm arguing for a sort of different kind of standard by which to judge.

So it's kind of a catch twenty two, right.

I justin I want you to pipe in on this too.

I might my mind, my mind keeps coming back to the whole leading by example, right, it's just if you want me to follow you, believe in you and support you and encourage you and and tell people about you and stuff.

And you've got to be someone who I would strive to want to be like.

And I don't want to be like Jesus.

Yeah, i'd like to be.

I think that I can be and am and most people are better.

So interesting, Yeah, Michael, you said you had something you want to say.

Oh uh no, I was, I was listening.

That's that's quite the statement to think you're better than Jesus.

Man, He's just he was better than everybody else.

I don't know, you know, I mean, And then and.

Then it's question like, okay, by what standard your own standards?

But what does that make you God?

You know how know that what doesn't make me God?

And yes, by my own standards?

Okay, well think you self, right?

But what Jesus was too though?

Right?

I mean he literally judged people by his own standards.

But he's God supposedly, you know.

I mean, you know that's the thing.

If if we don't think Jesus God, he's just another person, right with another person in history who has ideas about what's right and wrong.

So maybe that's what it is.

Before we can even consider whether his standards are worth looking at or worth following, we have to prove that Jesus is God right.

And some people say maybe that we don't have to do that far, but you know that maybe that's where we'd have to start.

Sorry, say that again, Michael.

That's then you're gonna have to get to work to figure out out, you know.

I mean, Michael, I'll be honest, I've been getting to work.

I've been running this show for like half a decade, a little more than half a decade now, I've been putting in the work.

Literally of this is we're seeking it out.

We're looking for people like you to come in here with something to convince us.

Yeah.

Yeah, well well that's that's what I usually try to do.

You know.

It's like people also like prove me God exists.

Well, if you want to have the proof.

Life never worked that way where people just spoon feed you everything.

If you want to have something, you have to go get it.

If you want to want to know something, you have to learn, you have to read.

You gotta you know, you gotta put the work in because if there is a God, and he knows your heart, and he surely knows.

So it was it was in looking and reading and being raised Catholic that got me here.

Same same with me, Michael, because I was also a Christian before this, a studious one.

In fact, I did college ministry and you know, definitely dedicated at least part my life in Jesus.

Maybe my problem was it wasn't entirely in Jesus.

But you know, the more I looked into stuff, the more I started to have questions and couldn't figure stuff out.

And I definitely read books, Michael.

I definitely talk to people.

I talk to people every week, you know.

So I'm still having these conversations.

Yeah, I see, I mean it's possible.

I mean, like you know, I mean like looks.

For example, your buddy said he was a Catholic.

Now I have a very big objection against the followsom you know.

I'm sure you do he too.

Yeah.

Yeah, I wonder who has the more objections you are justin.

I mean, I still remember sitting in religious religion class in my Catholic high school and being assigned certain chapters to read, and the teachers being like, Okay, we're going to go read these chapters and read these chapters, and I'm like, wait a minute, why did we just skip an entire book or an entire bunch of chapters.

Where did those Why didn't we start from the beginning all the way through?

Well, cause if you go back and read those chapters, you're gonna find stories about, you know, daughters getting their dads drunk and having a night of sin with them, or like bears mauling forty children, or like, you're going to find some stories in that book that I found very interesting that the teachers were like cherry picking the ones they wanted us to read it, skipping over them more objectionable stuff.

So, yeah, anybody who stops reading what's a sign to them?

It actually decides to go dig a little deeper.

It's something that's been said lots of times, and I think it's fairly true.

The best path to atheism is reading that Bible.

Yeah, not for me.

It's actually the other way around.

I mean it's I guess it's also depends where you come from.

And if you already have bad experience with Catholicism, for example, I can't blame you.

You know, I you know, you know when it comes to all kind of corruption that's going on there Inland.

But Michael, I mean, and I don't mean to interrupt you, but I need to point this out because you've immediately framed Justin's point of view as well.

He's not a Catholic anymore because he's had bad experiences, And that's not Justin's perspective, right, Justin's.

It's it's more that he came to a more academic understanding of his faith and didn't didn't agree with it right.

Oftentimes, there's a perception within Christianity, in Christian culture that the reason why atheists are the way they are is because oh they had a bad church experience or oh they just didn't do the work right.

And if you talk to folks like us, we often give very different perspectives on that.

Sure, okay, I'll take those words back.

It does happen, Though it does happen.

I don't.

Yeah, of course, of course it happens.

But is it the majority of my school.

My teachers were some of the greatest people ever.

My school experience, in a nutshell, was fantastic.

It was just those religion classes and the moments of having to read through the Bible and the question marks coming up of like why are we reading Genesis one but not Exodus twenty one?

Right?

Like why are we skipping through some of these other chapters?

And you know, yeah, what Dan said is my experience was not a bad one.

Now, it's a little funny that my school had to change its name a couple of years after I graduated because the guy who was named after ended up being one of those more bad Catholic people, So you know, that was the thing.

But anyways, what a surprise?

What a surprise?

No, I mean, like I mean, sure, I mean there are some sensitive subjects in the Bible, and most of the time I hardly even read the Old Testim because it's hardly even relevant anymore, apart from, you know, seeing certain cross references between the old and the new.

So you know, I'm still learning myself and all in all that stuff.

But yeah, I have came across it with the with the bears tearing the boys about, and yeah, I mean, can I give it an answer to you right now?

No?

No, I don't so, But.

Isn't that interesting that even though you can't give an answer to it, you're still choosing to believe in it or otherwise justify it overall.

Well, I don't If I don't have an answer, I can't say I'm going to justify this.

So that there's a lot of stuff in the Bible I couldn't figure out until I don't know how many years later.

You know, it's it's not like it's not like you're going to a snack board.

You know, it's not fast.

Yeah, But isn't that interesting though?

Like I imagine if I was a huge believer in like dos Capital.

You know, we were talking about Karl Marx earlier and I was like, well, I can't tell you about this chapter here on economics, or I can't tell you about this chapter on class conscious But you know, I believe the whole book, right, Like you would kind of find that a bit absurd, right, Like, wouldn't you?

Why would I defend a book so wholeheartedly that I don't understand or can't fully critique.

Well, I mean, like you can critique it, like I, it's not why critique.

Who was it?

You know?

Some of the wickedness of King Solomon?

And you know, but I don't know how many wives and stuff, you know, because that's sin, you know all that stuff.

So I but I don't know.

I would have to look into it for myself, like for example, you know, now that you bring it up, you know it's not the second time.

I've heard it with the Bears, for example.

Then I then I have to make sure I have an answer ready the next time, you know.

That's how I do it.

But Michael, isn't that interesting?

And I know Justin wants to chime into But let's listen to that chain of logic again real quick.

I don't know the answer to this, so I need to seek out what the defense is for this?

Why not just well where where?

What is the truth of this?

Right?

Because Justin and I might say that the truth of this is this is a culmination of stories that people have come up with at a given culture and a given point in time that may not reflect reality, right, But like, as a Christian, you kind of can't say that, right, You kind of have to have some sort of defense for lack of a better word.

Right, Well, I mean it depends it's gonna you know.

I mean, I'm just being honest.

I don't have an answer for that at the moment.

I appreciate that thoughts of the Bible, I just I don't know very well.

And that's one of them.

You know.

It's probably if I if I'm going to sit down for a day and just going to read and compare everything together, and it's like, oh okay, it can be that easy, you know, And sometimes you know, it takes time, prayer, reading, researching, maybe looking into other commentaries or you know, I don't like to lean on too many is a rather come.

To the.

But I think the point Dan's trying to make here is, though, is Michael, is that you've read the headline and you went, all right, I understand the whole article, right, Like that's kind of the point we're trying to to demonstrate here is.

I love the attitude.

You're perfect.

You're just like, you know what I need to clearly go look at this, and I hope you do.

But you've decided to believe it all without researching it first, right, You're just like, you know what, this headline sounds good to me.

This this this is great.

You've got my attention, you've got my support, you've got my belief, but you haven't taken those next steps.

Hopefully Dan and I have maybe encouraged you to go.

You know what, maybe I need to look a little deeper because, as you said, you need to have the answers to the questions that we're putting forward, the scenarios that we're dropping down here, right, we're hitting your thinker.

That's right.

I hope that's right, hitting the thinker.

Yeah, of course, I mean yeah, yeah, I mean, I myself like.

Love a good challenge.

You know, it's seriously the other way around, you know.

I even said in a commented before, you know, with a lot of stuff, I'm probably gonna you know, how did I say it and what it wasn't in another live stream and the chat I said, normally you walk circles around people.

So it's yeah, I like a good challenge.

So okay, so far, Yeah, well I would have to I have to.

I would have to look into the whole bear thing, you know, because these kids call them bullhead or go up?

Why don't you go up to?

You know, I don't know what the implication of that is and what it means what they said with that, you see that you get these little things matter, So but can I give you an answer on that note?

So I would have.

Okay, let me ask you.

I want to ask you a question then, Michael, and we've been talking for a while, so you know, if you want to go and everything, that's fine.

First of all, you're obviously deeply respectful and deeply thoughtful, and I appreciate your time in talking to us today.

I want to know you like challenges.

So here's my challenge.

What would it take for something in the Bible to not be true?

Right?

What conditions would have to be met for something in the Bible to not be true?

If you don't have an answer that for me today, that's fine, but that's like my that's my parting question for you there.

I would extend on that just a little bit.

Hold on, I want to.

I want to.

I want to put a sub challenge to that one.

So what would it take for one thing in the Bible to not be true?

I would then add to that, how many things in the Bible to not be true before we can discount the entire Bible?

Yeah?

It does it only take one thing?

Does it take ten things?

Yeah?

That's a good question.

You would first it would first, you know, you will first have to reject the existence of God to to actually make the claim put the claim away by saying, Okay, this is not the word of God, and then you might you know, then you might get into possible no standpoint, I'm just gonna given my standpoint, I would just say nothing.

Nothing would convince me.

Okay, I am very biased, you know, I'm very biased.

You know, if if nothing could convince you, and if the Bible wasn't true, how could you know that?

Because I lived on the other side, I have been an atheist, I have seen the fruits of the world.

Well, hold on, hold on before you do that.

Does personal experience validate the claims of the Bible?

Right?

Because the Bible has a lot of claims, some of them moral, yes, but some of them about historical events, right, about what people have said or haven't said.

Right?

Do those things correlate with your personal experience?

I don't.

I don't really get the question, because I think I wasn't pointing at that more like the opposite side, because you say, like, okay, how do you like?

What was the question?

Well, so yeah, let me simplify this, right, So, like I could read a book about George Washington, right, and you can ask me, why do I think this book about George Washington is true, And if I said, well it's because of my personal experience, that doesn't really follow, right, because the claims about George Washington that really doesn't have anything to do with me or the things I've experien and sort of live, right, because because there's things that are way outside of my context of living.

Right.

So I would argue that the Bible is kind of in a similar place, right, because it has claims, yes, some about God for sure, some about morality for sure, but it also has claims about other things, like you said, historical events or other things that people have said, or things that have happened, right, So you know, those things they don't necessarily correlate, right, your personal experience and what the Bible has to say.

Well, it's it's kind of funny in a way because the way I came into the faith was not because of the Bible.

It's the things that I researched and I came to, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like, hey, it's written in the Bible.

Also, hey that's interesting, you know, and then not the research other stuff, and every time every little data point you came came to the to the Bible, and it's like, okay, so I have probably have to take this book a lot more seriously because this is true.

That is true history.

This is historically true.

Like when you when you research like ancient civilizations and how the you know, how the Pagans systems were pretty much you know, they had all kinds of similarities all over the world, and then you read the story of the Tower of Babbel where the languages were scattered, and then you see like, hey, wait a minute, you know, like could.

This be true?

You know, you know I was open minded, let's say it like that, you know, eventually, and yeah, even I love the.

Tower of Babbel story.

It's a fascinating one.

You come across, you come across, you come across certain things like teachings of Jesus, and you're like, yeah, yeah, this is what I've been looking for my entire life.

You know.

It's not like, oh, this the Bible says so and it's true.

No, there's gotta be a little bit of life experience to go with it, because otherwise you just believe it for the sake of believing it.

And I don't do that.

I don't like that at all.

You know, I want to have some substance, to have to be able to say, yes, this is true because this and this and this is and this.

You know, you have to be able to you have to be grounded in it.

You know what I mean.

So many other rabbit holes i'd love to go down, but yeah, I mean, Michael, you've been a great collar honestly, and you've been fairly honest, which is very very rare I find on this kind of program.

So I want to thank you for that, and I hope you'll call again sometime.

I would love to talk to you again, Michael.

I don't know what time it is in the Netherlands, but I appreciate you calling regardless.

Oh man, it's because yeah, that I have a day off tomorrow, because it's three twenty in the morning, so it's like three three twenty am.

It's absurd.

It's absurd spending your time talking to us.

Well, that's that's that is something.

Thank you for that.

Listen.

Again, I got challenge in the chats by other people.

I don't know if it's still around.

But you followed through with that shout out to you.

That's why we give you our full respects, Michael.

Listen, we can keep talking forever, but we want to let you go because we've been talking for a little bit here, But I do sincerely it would love to chat with you again if you have another day off or something, if you can make it.

If not, I totally understand.

I hope this conversation was fruitful for you.

We'll go ahead and let you go for now.

But thank you again for calling, and.

Keep researching, looking into it, and don't stop.

Yeah absolutely, you know, I never will.

I never will.

I'm axooth tsaka, So why should I stop?

Well, yeah too, hence the title of the show.

Yeah absolutely, Michael, thanks so much.

I'm gonna let you go now.

Thank you again, have a great rest of your day.

Night.

I don't know, three twenty in the morning.

It's kind of hard to say, but wow, what a call.

Justin what call?

We we talked abo call for a long time.

That's that's that's that's that's awesome.

I mean, it's easy to get lost in a phone call like that and go for a long time when the ideas are flowing back and forth, and I feel like he was genuinely picking up what we were putting down, you know.

I mean, some people they just want to argue and preach and read their their scriptures and stuff.

You know, I think Michael might be putting a little bit of card before the horse in some aspects.

But it sounds like it sounds like your chat went, dude, if you've got ideas, you need to call in, and he went, okay, you called in.

I hope the experience was a positive one.

I hope he'll call again.

Yes, And and I enjoyed the call very much.

And I don't try to keep I try to don't let calls go on for that long.

But that was such a good conversation.

I didn't want it to end.

I always wanted to jump on that, like the Tower of Babel and stuff.

And I was like, you know what, there might be other people on the line who want to get through that.

I don't.

Yeah, we do have it, and I want to get to like at least one other caller here, because like, we spent so much time with Michael.

But you know what I mean, he was calling from the Netherlands and stuff.

Who knows when he'll call again.

I think it's worth it, genuinely.

I haven't had a Christian argue for his position.

I can't remember the last time a Christian argued for his position as well as he did.

Now.

Obviously for some parts, I think for the Jesus morality part, I was actually pretty impressed.

I think he gave pretty good responses by Christian standards.

And that sounds like a put down.

I'm not trying to make it as a put down, but I'm saying it was more thoughtful and more qualitative than what I've used to So that was great.

I appreciate that.

Obviously disagree, but.

It was a fist caller who actually used the words I don't know.

Yeah, and that too.

That's so important, so important.

Because a lot of times when I'm watching you know, Truth Wanted or other programs on the ACA, you don't get that.

You get callers at call in and like they think they know everything.

They are ready to make all the excuses under the planet or under the Unbrella, and at no point are they going to be like, you know, what you've just said a thing that has the only answer I can give you is I don't know, and I have to go look at it.

And that's how you can judge an honest conversation from someone who just wants to hear their sound of their own voice.

I agree, I agree, that was great.

That was great.

Let's start to fit a we would one more call?

I think everybody one more here?

Justin, you got, I got?

I got so much room for so many calls Dan.

I think crews okay with that.

I think we'll try to get one more and then, because like you know, we'll just try to shift things around.

This show is not done by just Dan, right, Like, there's there's an army behind Dan running all these things.

So yeah, we got to watch that.

I'm glad you brought that up because we should take a moment to thank the wonderful, amazing crew that helped make the show happened.

Maybe we can get the crew cam up here and show all the folks that help make things happen.

Look at this awesome, awesome crew.

Thanks so much, crew for putting up with me and you know, making the show happen.

So let's let's start it again.

What more easily the best call In show I've been on today?

Hell yeah, that's great, that's great.

Maybe only one I've been on today?

But how about your week?

Can we do week the best Collin show I've been on all week?

There we go.

I like that.

All right, We're gonna take John from Canada real quick, John from Canada.

We're at the tail end of the show.

Okay, so I can't give you all the time in the world, but I wanted to do at least one more person.

So I'm picking you today.

John, What do you got for us?

Okay, I'll to the case.

Can we agree and.

We agree that Jesus was a socialist.

Socialism was not a thing when Jesus was around.

So I think a better question would be, would Jesus be a socialist?

Yeah, okay, and I think he would.

I think he would agree with a lot of progressive ideas.

But I don't think Jesus was in interested in like class consciousness in the same way that other John is.

That year you have like a beeping going on on your line, Johnny, there.

He mute us.

Something happened?

Mute?

I don't know.

I'm going to return him to the queue so that our call screeners can maybe helps us out what's going on there.

Okay, right off the bat, Jesus a socialist.

I know, we argue that like and say, oh, yeah, he's a socialist.

But if I'm asked point blank, I'm kind of not realizing.

Yeah, actually, I don't think I can say that because socialism has developed at a very particular time and place.

Again, it looks at history to develop its position.

But I don't know if Jesus would care about those kinds of things.

I think he's more interested in the kingdom.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of nuance.

Yeah, they're like, if we take the hard, black and white rule of what a socialist would be, would Jesus be that.

No, I don't think he would be a pure hardline socialist.

But you know, if we take his into some of his individual actions such as again, we come right back to what we've been talking about since the top of the programity to you know, feed the masses or turn water into wine.

Uh.

If a socialist had those abilities, that's that's that's what they would do every weekend.

Their weekend is filled up with sorry, guys, I can't hang with you.

I gotta go over here and produce bread out of nothing.

Yeah.

If anything, Jesus is I mean a Christian nationalist right, Like, he's all about living glory to God aka and him.

So I don't think he really cares about.

He wouldn't have given bread to someone who didn't believe in him.

Yeah, I don't think he does in the like in the gospels.

Right, he would use that power as as as a way to persuade, right.

Yeah, he he does make a big point about you have to believe in me in order to like receive what's going on here, Like all the miracles seem to be Oh, well I did this because this person asked me, right and and did it of me.

So there is something So that's that.

I wouldn't be a socialist at all.

Yeah, that's sort of a theocratic sort of fascist almost sort of like I'm the I mean he's the leader.

Right, there's democracy in that he doesn't care what other people think.

So a socialists would would want to raise up like would look behind them and try to lift up the people who are worse off than themselves, to try to get everybody up to the highest point they could possibility.

Would always be like I'm always going to be above you, but if you believe in me, I'll turn your water to wine.

Now, he does raise the material conditions of all those involved in the afterlife, right, because you know, streets are gold and get the crowns and stuff, so there is a case to be made there.

I don't know, this is a very funny analysis.

He would still be living in the bigger house with the bigger.

Street of gold, right right, But there is sort of a class system still because there's everybody in hell as well.

Maybe for burning I don't know.

They probably they're probably the ones that produced the gold bricks for the roads.

Right, the one the roads that were paved with good intentions, I think.

Yeah.

Anyway, so I haven't seen I haven't seen John callback So we're I think we're gonna have to sort of get things going from there because we're kind of at the end of the show.

So I want to thank you again justin for being on today's episode of Truth I wanted.

I love today's episode.

Thanks so much for joining me.

I mean, as soon as we're done here, I'm going to go talk to all my friends and totally fangirl about how I did a show with objectively Dan.

You know, like I've been watching you for years.

This is a milestone in my YouTube journey and my call in show journey, and you know, this is just one more step and.

I go forward with it.

Listen to this guy glad handing over here.

Well, I appreciate Justin.

Thanks so much for being on.

We'd love to have you on again sometime.

If people want to watch more of your stuff, where should they go?

They should go to this just in.

I'm sure if you just search it on the YouTube's you'll find a lot of different this justin channels.

It's not a very unique name by any means, but you know you can find this logo that I got here behind me that you guys have seen a couple of times there and you'll recognize me.

So go to this Justin check it out.

I've got another video.

There's the logo there, there we go.

I've got another video coming out later this month where I do another episode of Reading from Right to Left with a whole new panel of people reading another children's book with some just weird ideas inside that book.

Awesome, awesome, Yes, thanks for those plugs.

And I also want to give a thank you to Kelly who's been our backup host today.

So hey there he is, Kelly, Hey.

Great show man.

That was an awesome call with Mikail.

That was great.

I really enjoyed and listening to that and Justin, you said something, and you said it so calmly.

It was awesome when you said, I just want to finish this sentence?

Was that just the right way when you said that, that was.

That's probably the calmest anyone has ever said that.

Yeah, crazy thank you on this show.

Might have been the Canadian in me.

I don't know.

Yeah, definitely, it.

Was something I'm going to try to emulate in the future, that's for sure.

Oh.

I appreciate it both of you so much.

And now I've done a show with both of you, and I'll have to do some more.

Absolutely, I gotta say, justin I I know how you feel about doing your first show with Dan.

I felt the same way too.

You guys need to shut up.

It was like four years ago, and I was like, because, because you know Dan, I've been watching you ever since you were on Anthony Back to Bosco show, right, and and when I got to be on this show the first time as a guest, I was like, in heaven, man, it was awesome.

So I'm gonna mute both of you.

Okay, if you guys keep this up, I'm not letting either of you back.

Okay, none of this, none of this.

I'm not I'm I'm not gonna respond.

That's very nice, thank you.

We're just trying to say that you're you're great.

And then you got to take it from our point of view.

Right a couple of years ago, you were just you were just a voice in my ear while I was outside doing yard work and I'm just listening and to the points that you say and I'm not and I'm like, you know what, this guy knows what he's talking about.

And the reason I'm even on this stage here now with you guys is because I take the points and arguments that I've learned from you and all of the other members of the ACA, and I'm now here besides you going through the journey too.

Well, okay, for real andcerely, thank you.

That's very very kind.

On a less serious note, I'm going to go.

And you finish the questions by the way, Okay, Well, I need Kelly to read the prompt this week so that we can move on from me receiving compliments from both of you, because this is just too much at this point.

Her question of the week for next week is if you could rewrite the Bible, what would it say?

And I think we're looking for like the general message of the Bible.

Maybe not you can.

I'm open for me too, So yeah.

An open ended topic like that for someone to interpret and give an answer works.

Sounds good to me.

It sounds good to me too.

And just one thing real quick about that fig tree.

Jesus did have the whole day to come up with that story with the allegory of the fig tree being the state of Israel, right, he had the whole day to figure that story out.

Just want to point that out.

That's that is true that I guess he did have some time with that, and really all of eternity as well, if you think about it, Like from the very beginning, we got some super chats at the end here, thank you Crispin Slit for the one found and I think justin did you just donate what the hell.

Is with Like a couple hours where the show was starting, there was a bunch of people in the chat and one guy was like, I got the number one spot, crown, another I got the number two spot, and I'm just like, well, I know how to steal the number one spot.

There was some money in there, so yes, I threw a three dollar sticker in there to get the number one spot and of course to support the channel.

Well, thank you.

It's often I get to say thank you to super chats to the person who I'm talking to on the air.

Happened to me, Yeah, that's true, that's happened with Kelly.

But listen.

Sincerely, thank you guys, but justin thanks for being on and of course Kelly, thank you to me.

I always enjoyed talking with you.

Man.

Let's let's wrap this baby up.

Huh.

Let's let's let's get this done for tonight, folks.

Uh.

This has been another fantastic episode of Truth Wanted.

I've been your host today objectively.

Dan, remember to always keep wanting the truth and you We'll see you next time.

A good night, but.

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