How Are We Like The Open Mind We Wish To Encounter? - Street Epistemology

are we both limited to the same  method of knowing the number i think the same way we can get into the  philosophy of the efficacy of mathematics but i would say yes if someone else thinks that  astrology is true if we're like hey we're not we're not confident and they are confident  must one of us be mistaken about that yes i think absolutely if reincarnation was true  hypothetically hypothetically if it was true let's just say it is for a second would you want  to know if it's true what what d

oes this mean if you were to ask them a question about  reincarnation are you open to what they're saying i'm open to hearing why they believe  it i'm not open to receiving it no i would tell them i'm not interested in  in embracing the doctor i am interested and open to receiving what you say  about christian well that's good so yeah in the chat is just like how  we filled out this survey last time and here here and so like okay i'm not here  to attack your views as a matter of fact i don't eve

n i'm what i was hoping to do was and  we don't need to do it today we don't need to do it ever if you don't want to i was just wanting  to go through and say how do you view number one and then i was just going to listen  to what it is that you had to say and then i was going to ask you questions to  better get to know you about it and then i was going to do that for every single one of these and  i was going to be open to you asking me questions about it too that's what i have in mind well we 

could do that if you want whatever you want to do it's fine so whatever you want to do okay do  you have the the link do you want to open it just so you can look at it too oh i like it uh  i can't look at your screen and that link at the same time because i'm on my ipad oh god i got you  okay if i go to one screen i lose this screen all together so i can't see you if i go to the surface  i'll just you can just screen share it inspire me all right okay well i'll just go ahead  and get going on i

t then and share this um so i figured let's start with all the ones in  which we do view them the same uh or at least it seems like we view them the same um it's funny  uh number 19 is one that you commented on in our workshop which was good that was fun um yeah  let's why not let's start with number 19 and let's just talk about the ones okay agree i  often investigate beliefs that do not match my own that's what i do for a living right and i don't  really like i have a patreon i guess but i don

't really do it for a living i mostly do it because  i think it's fascinating and fun that is my job oh yeah yeah so uh if someone were to disagree  to 19 what question would you ask them to get to know them better well i i think i  would just you know the questions are unique but i think for that i'd be depends on what  we're talking about but i'm not sure that that there are people that i mean maybe there  are are there people that don't actually engage in some way with beliefs that are  contr

ary to their own i think everybody is whether it's consciously or unconsciously i mean  if you're just out in the workplace you encounter that all the time right um so i i i'm not sure  that that would be something that i would really raise an eyebrow to i mean i talked  to a lot of christians who are you know brady and i the co-host that i  did with my podcast that i worked with we went to a small baptist church to give  a presentation a couple of summers ago and and we had this a sweet wonderf

ul little baptist  church and uh you know we had it was an elderly congregation a lady came up to me in the hall  afterwards it was such a nice presentation i didn't talk brady did and she's like you know  i talked to an atheist once and it's like you atheists were aliens or something it's like and  you talked to atheists i talked to an atheist once and so you know but she's super sweet she  had anything bad to say she just thought that atheists were just well you don't talk to those  people and

not everybody's cut out to do that so i don't i think 19 is i think everybody does it to  some degree and i don't think it's if they don't want to they don't want to do it yeah i don't  know i don't i don't see that as a big big deal necessarily i mean probably when you're 19 or 22  you just graduated college you think you know what the world's all about you know there are probably  a lot of collegiates that i know there's a lot of middle schoolers that don't do that life life only  consists of

what they believe but in a lot of ways we maintain our middle school mentality to some  degree but obviously i agree with it's good to do that and if you don't do it you probably should  but yeah right yeah and no big deal okay no if do you have any questions for me on 19 no  okay all right let's go to the next one uh number 24 it is possible that some of my  beliefs are not true it's a good old socrates that's what i think of when i think of that one  can you imagine somebody disagreeing to th

at jesus would jesus would disagree yeah he's the  only one that knows me i probably and he would ask questions and this  perplexed me for a long time as a young believer how can jesus not know who  touched him how could he ask questions how could he say he was ignorant of anything and  then i started to understand the doctrine of god being fully of jesus being fully  godly man as a fully human being just like you and me his knowledge was limited  his his space and place was limited he was fully

human but then as god he knew everything do  you think you would have questions for jesus oh yeah i got questions for jesus yeah right if  a human he hasn't he hasn't told me everything can you imagine a human being other than jesus uh  saying that they disagree to 24 that some other yeah that's a good way to point yeah yes i can  yeah so like i have sat down i've talked to people i've talked to people like that have  you ever taught middle school nathan middle school i actually taught a class

on how  to portrait drawing in a middle school once okay well it was just one day yeah well kids  love to draw so you had their attention i'm sure yeah um but anyway you know that's possible we  know it's possible there are people out there like that i was probably like that one time you  know i can't like possibly be wrong about anything so you might argue my younger my younger brothers  one of my brothers feels that way about politics he can't possibly be wrong about politics  right so yeah an

yway moving on moving on how are you feeling by the way do you so so we  just did three uh and i'm fine with stopping there if you want and we can just talk about other  things though i happen to it's up to you if you do so if you do a video if you do a review video  of this which is fine with me other people see it i don't want to look like i'm telling you what  to do if there is a review video for this i would probably abstain in the hopes that you and  i maintain good rapport and a good relat

ionship so that you know they're fun do what you i  mean i i part of the problem with this is i'm in the back of my mind i'm going other  people are going to see this so the perception i don't want to give to your audience is that  i'm trying to steer you into some direction i feel the same way so that's why i just offered  uh like i keep trying to bring consent back into this because like i have watched one of  your interviews before where you felt like you described it and correct me if  i mis

s if i'm misquoting you though you described sometimes essie as like feeling  like you're a cattle and you can't turn around yeah you feel you i did qualify that by saying  that some people do make you feel that way not every i'm not i always try to preface my  statements by saying not i i grant that not all people who practice sc do this but especially  on twitter i should have probably rephrased that especially in social media i feel like i'm being  dragged down a cattle shoot in one direction

yeah that's not yeah that's exactly something i  want to avoid yes if that ever comes up please let me know and your yeah we're just turned  off oh it did yeah so hand angled ipad there we go see i lose the screen if i'm in the  anyway so i'm um i feel like um for because i'm a critic of street epistemology um that the same  kind of goes for me i don't want to feel like i don't want to feel like i've told you i've told  you how to talk to yourself right i i s okay yeah like you don't want to te

ll me not to why oh i  said the nation i had a zombie you only asked me these questions questions and don't ask me  these questions right right yeah it's weird you and i are trying to do this balancing act and i'm  just trying to make you feel comfortable and i'm and i i feel like that well i i if i didn't i  wouldn't even be here you know i'm not going to go back yeah right chat with with tom jump because  i i know tom but i don't feel comfortable going back to that format because i don't yeah

i don't  function well in that you know i i went back and watched some of that third one and i thought oh my  gosh i i could see in my face and my voice where i completely lost interesting conversation because  every time i said something tom's like no no no no and you know after a while i'm like i don't i'm  not interested in this conversation because it's not a conversation and i was disappointed  it's about 40 minutes into it i'm like and i didn't want to hang up the phone no one just  click

off and i didn't want to make him look bad so i just i was like okay i'm going to hang  in here hopefully maybe i can say something redeeming but i lost all interest in my  notes that i had i lost all interest in everything in that so i was not comfortable and  it wasn't because he was i could have if he wasn't really conference because that's because that's  a different thing and i only have so much time well okay i'm sorry that was that was tangential  it's all good nothing against tom i'm jus

t more sensitive about your time and i know that i  don't want you to feel like you have to talk to me all all night because i will oh i won't i  won't if you let me talk i'm going to bed i like um just to wrap up this section on when we should  change our minds the parts in which we agree was about investigating beliefs that don't match  ours finding it beneficial to find out when we're wrong and entertaining the possibility that  some of our beliefs are maybe not true um i here's a thought exp

eriment imagine i have a box of  truth and this box is kind of like pandora's box uh you could ask it any question you want and when  you open the box you look inside and it gives you everything that you need to see to believe that it  is or isn't the case is there any question at all you would not ask the box oh you've just  described the bible pretty well okay so imagine that's imagine the truth of the  bible's also in the box like if if you open it up and if the truth was that it wasn't  the

case anything and this isn't just this is literally any and all things you can imagine  is there anything that you wouldn't want to want to know or is there anything that  you would wouldn't ask the box i yes because people think that that knowledge  that acquiring knowledge uh should be unlimited we should have this unlimited ability to acquire  knowledge that's what i'm saying that's what the thought experiment is about right i don't  i think there needs to be limits to i'm not saying that you

shouldn't ask questions or you  shouldn't seek truth there's a fine line here the idea is that i'm going to consume knowledge  to the point where i start to become somewhat more think i'd become somewhat omniscient that  more knowledge will solve my problems or um yes my problem with books right when we have  more books i can give better answers to people um but i think there comes a time where knowledge  the quest for knowledge is like the quest for money or power or pleasure or you know it's

it  there can be an excess just like everything else and and so i think that that no there's i can tell  you there are certain things i don't want to know i don't want to know how and when i'm going to die  i want that in jesus's hands i don't want to have god-like knowledge because i have i'll tell you  nathan as one as having been in this apologetics ministry now for a long time um i see the other  side of what it's like in vocational ministry that there's nothing seedy going on i  mean there

are scandals i mean we all know what happened around zechariah the  the work gently uh through other yeah the the kind of knowledge so christian  apologists the word apologist gets a bad rap i think in social media because they just think  we're idiots we don't know anything we're not scholars so we're just generalists um but there's  nothing wrong with being a generalist but but the idea of apologists is kind of a pejorative for  a lot of atheists because we're supposed to have the answers to b

iblical criticism to history  to philosophy to science we're supposed to have be able to say all of these things and  so in one sense on a personal level it's a tremendous burden it has been for me to try  to be to live up to the to the idea of apologist aka william craig you know bill craig who  does seem to possess a wide birth of knowledge or frank turek with whatever whatever you  think of him he knows quite a bit about a lot um that there's this burden that as an apologist  i need to have t

he answers for everything um and i i gave a talk at a high school a couple  years ago i'm kind of curious do you what do you think why do you think i asked the the  box of truth thought experiments i have i don't know okay okay but i i think no there are  certain questions personally asking me that i wouldn't want to know i wouldn't ask any certain  questions i wouldn't want to know my future i don't want to know my sure yeah sometimes  it's better to leave things a mystery absolutely or just i

i would be incredibly  burdened for example like you should well anybody how about this if you can only ask the  box things in which you are confident is true is there anything what do you mean so that  would be another another way to ask it so like if you if anything that you think is  true could be challenged by this box would you you would okay okay yeah i mean if in other words  would i be willing to see what i'm wrong about that's basically yeah yeah that would that  would be another way to

yeah but i don't i don't i would say yeah i see what you mean  i miss i misunderstood it first but yeah that's okay because i asked it two different ways  so you you were on the right track both times though if i was married i don't know  if i'd want to know that my spouse was faithful oh that's interesting i would be crushed  i think i wouldn't want to know especially if i really loved her of course i that just must  that breaks my heart that that happens to people and that's one reason why i'

m not  married because i would be like i would really have to trust somebody and really  you know in this day and age it's hard to do that and that's the kind of knowledge that would just  crush me i i don't know that'd be hard and that's when i think we as humans need to really be  sensitive to each other's well-being like i i can imagine feeling the same way um not  wanting to know that something really terrible has happened to somebody i love um or that  somebody i love has betrayed me in som

e way right uh yeah that that's hard you're  so that's like when you find out i'll tell you another piece of knowledge i  hate okay youtube comment youtube comment sections hundred channels where i've  been a guest on i don't want to know what goes on in the comments section but my gosh i open  that box and i get super depressed after i read it for sure like have you looked under have you  looked under tom and i's videos right that's like that's a living hell to read those  things right right an

d like what happened what's going on with cancel culture  out there on the internet it's like people like i do you think when people are canceling  each other that they're doing so this might be a really loaded question so you let me know please  uh though this is where my mind is going like if people are canceling each other out there are  they doing so because they can't like literally mentally handle like somebody else's belief like  they're they're hearing other people's beliefs that don't r

esonate with them and so they're  canceling do you think that's what's going on or or what do you think in part i think a lot  of it is speaking for myself um i'll give you a perfect example there's uh i don't forgot what her  name is there's a very popular atheist youtuber a female and i used to watch her when i got interested in apologetics i used  to watch a lot of atheist videos this section has been removed upon request  and we want to feel superior to people you know um and many times i've

fallen into  the trap of using my knowledge to what i've learned to to lord it over people especially  when i used to teach middle and high school i'm the teacher have you ever felt like you wanted  to cancel on someone oh yeah sure okay and i i i when you had that when you had that what was what  was your um strategy did you did you like did you try what did you try to do when you felt that way  that is that's the what they call the christian process of sanctification in other words jesus  sav

es you right so you're saved you're going to heaven that's taken care of your eternal  state he's taken care of at the cross but then you're still alive and you still have  living to do right you're not perfect like jesus and so from the time of your salvation until the  time you die is a process where god makes you more and more like christ that you're never gonna be  jesus but you're gonna be like if you're gonna be made with humility and grace intact and things  like that so the the truth of

the matter is for me it's recognizing that a that that is a sin and  b god could cancel me right so there's a parable there's a parable that is one of the gospels  where a man is forgiven of his debts a king forgives the debt that a servant owed him  right forgives him of a lot of money okay so the servant is like woohoo i've been forgiven and  goes out and finds a guy that owes him ten dollars and strangles him you know pay me what you owe  and what do you think the king is gonna say about that

little transaction it's not  going to be too happy i just forgave you of hundreds of thousands of dollars and you're out  there looking for your friend and you're holding him to making him pay you ten dollars let me tell  you what i'm gonna do to you now son i'm going to throw you in prison and you're going to stay there  until you pay off every penny that you owe me so that's the idea of of what god you know  if i've been forgiven of all my sin in christ then the last thing i should do is to g

o  out and look for specs in people's eye when i myself have this plank in my own and that's  part of what i said earlier about suffering so god doesn't just tell me these little lessons  in my mind he humbles me through humiliating experiences or difficulty or pain or sorrow or  loss or tribulation or you know so so literally through physical circumstances i'm humbled by god  so that i don't be the guy who has forgiven much of jesus and then goes out and and says you stole  my pork and you owe

me a fork and a spoon and a knife you know and i'm just very legalistic  and unforgiving toward other people so that's what constantly keeps me in check i mean to be  honest that's that's the mechanism that i use i feel that way all right let me uh take a look  here again so that was pretty much things that we agreed on about how we should change our minds  and let's go to the top and talk about the things we agree about here uh a statement is true and it  corresponds to reality and you and i uh

both agree what do you think that means and or or you  can ask me any question you want about it too um either way we're in the reality together  looking at looking at the at this statement together is there is is there such a concept  of reality are you like lawrence krauss and peter atkins i think the universe  is an illusion is there a reality are you a boltzmann brain are you a  simulation theory are you a matrix guy deep into epistemology and i will go there  if that's where you really wan

t to go well not too deep until you're talking top  of the head top of the head thought the top of my head thought is um a statement is true  when the our understanding for the meaning of the words that we're we're using is actually  in line with reality that's how i'm seeing it kind of like so like you've so you're familiar  with street epistemology so like the tic tacs um do you think this is a fine analogy  for for what truth is uh i have a box of tic tacs in my hand here would you agree  tha

t if i were to say that they're odd the number is odd in within the box  and you were to say that they were even that um before we count them one of us  is correct and the other is mistaken sure okay and then if we pour them  out we find out that they're even and uh then we would say the entire time before  and after we counted them uh you were correct the whole time and i was the one that was mistaken  about the number right yeah the only issue i have with the tic-tac analogy okay is that it sm

uggles  in an empiricist epistemology so in other words we can count tick text and agree upon the  amount of tick tax you see what i'm saying so i could also disagree about the amount right we  can disagree about the amount but if we're going to submit ourselves to finding out who's right  wrong we are going to do this empirically by a methodology of counting would you 38  your ability to know the actual true number is in the same way would you agree that  how about this uh let me make it a ques

tion are we both limited to the same  method of knowing the number i think the same way we can get into the  philosophy of the efficacy of mathematics but i would say yes we if you're if you've  presupposed that and i've i've accepted that i think and science confirms it but my my  issue is with tic tacs and street epistemology is this and it's very subtle where when  we get to we start off a conversation with objective truth we can we can solve  that odd even problem by counting right when we g

et to the metaphysical question of god's  existence this is not an empirical question i mean it's not like we can't solve it like counting tic  tacs this is my issue with our quantifying our confidence the other day i can't count percentage  points in my neurons in relation to my confidence i can count tic tacs i can't count confidence and  and so i think underlying some people's street epistemology i don't i don't i wouldn't  say it across the board about everybody but the idea that the only wa

y or maybe the best  way or the only way that we can really solve the cognitive dissonance between  the atheists and theist position is through some sort of empirical methodology  that seems to be a passive assumption so like just to share a bit from where  i am at every single question i ask i hope to most of the time only ask questions  that i also am comfortable with answering yeah that's good and and then unless it doesn't apply  to my belief like if if i'm asking a question about your belie

f and i don't hold it then it's a  little unfair because i don't if i don't hold it then it doesn't apply to me so i'm trying to make  out things that do apply to both of us no that's that's that's a noble thing that's good  absolutely good and then the other thing is every single question i ask the motive behind my  question is a sincere one i hope i'm not i'm not doubting that i don't think that you are which i'm  just it bears repeating because each question is trying to draw me to your under

standing so i'm  not trying i'm trying to move myself to your understanding and if i struggle to do that then  then i need to get better at asking my questions so that i can understand what you're understanding  and so that's how what i see this is is really kind of about from over here yeah and and here's  the thing if you were to do that to me i would be willing to answer is so long as i felt that you  were sincere in the same way in the same respect i would be happy with you sending me a list

of  beliefs just like i did with you the other week and i would and i would be happy to be answering  your questions provided it was flipped on me yeah okay i wish i had more time to do it  right me too well that's the thing like just you know in a month or three from now whenever  whenever you got the impulse to make a review video before you have that impulse give me a ring  like i'll i'm probably uh probably hanging up not hanging up but i'm probably i mean we have so many  other things we h

ave right right right that's why i'm saying months and months and months maybe  even a year just whenever you would love to i don't want to shut the dialogue off yeah but right  that's all i'm saying yeah yeah just like whatever i've got to get ready for like i've got some  mormons i'm going to be talking to a couple of tomorrow i'm recording a podcast for mormonism so  i'm going to shift gears here and but anyway i've got so much other stuff going on do you have to go  now no no no i will have

to go a little bit but um yeah about a half hour maybe  okay so okay um but anyway um i'm sorry what did i cut you off oh um really i was just going down the list and only  talking about the places in which we agree and if we only have a half hour  left there's no way we're going to get to the parts in which we don't agree  though unless you want to just do those now well mean i'd like to do the whole survey today  though we don't need to and i know you only have like a half hour left so let's j

ust move on to  that i mean i could go i could go a little longer i'll try not to dab too much okay let's yeah let's  keep our responses shorter then and then we'll we'll do that we all share the same reality and  only interpret it differently that's number two what do you think that means to  you oh god created the world yeah and and this god exists for me as it does for  you okay that's how i'm seeing number two also um and that list of beliefs that i  sent i'll put it in the chat again in whi

ch you are confident not confident in  so like if you were to be interviewing someone here there it is it's in the chat that's  that's what i received from you last time um so i live in portland portland oregon right  and uh probably more than most other beliefs it's not about religion it's usually about  the nature of truth itself or it's about um something political going on and oftentimes  what comes up more than anything else is astrology and you wrote not confident i also am  not confident

in astrology i'm wondering if someone else thinks that astrology is true  um is that person mistaken do you think or or is one of us mistaken if if we're like hey we're  not we're not confident and they are confident must one of us be mistaken about that yes i think  absolutely you have a standard of truth you stand by it if you have a tape measure and somebody  cuts it some four six six feet and you'd say well i need it six and three quarters you better  be using the same standard of measuremen

t and if you think you have the same the the correct  standard of measurement use it and you know be kind you know my mom believes in astrology and  i i have i'm i understand very well what astrology is where it comes from why it's attractive to  people and so i'm empathetic but uh yeah no in the end i think it's using a standard of truth i don't  i don't think i don't think it's legit i could i could talk about this for hours with you like i'm  so curious like if somebody if if you were to do w

hat i do which is just be at a park and just  listen to anything anyone will bring up with you anything at all and somebody somebody sits down  and then they tell you that astrology is true what would you do or how would you investigate  that oh like i said in a couple of videos i think there's there's overlap and asking  good questions with street visibility just general good conversation you know there's not  it's not like street epistemology is this novel ice cream flavor that nobody's ever h

eard of  it has it borrows from a classical tradition i don't agree with its atheist i think atheism is  driving its train still but i i can still affirm that that's so funny because i think of myself  first as a street epistemologist and like all the other labels are attributed second third and  fourth maybe even further down the road yeah and it's it's interesting to see from the inside  how people perceive that and i know that's the criticism that my criticism gets that i focus on  this athei

sm a bit but i think it's atheism that gives its life blood it's the atheist community it  keeps it going it's the it's community that gives it its interest in its platform and and so i still  think for a majority of people who practice it you know for everyone nathan ferguson they're a  bunch of little guys that go out there with their gopro microphones like i'm an atheist so i'm going  to go get chris you know i want to share with you something that and i want to agree with you for a  second i

really think and this is my opinion that street epistemology needs to be about other things  like other than religious subjects i would like to i would like to see the number of interviews  go off into other things like politics and um you know any all there's so much to investigate  there's there's so much to know uh and i do feel like it's limiting us to only be considering  like uh either religious or spiritual views and so it's a long intersect i agree with you  that it needs to be yeah you

know in in in all of these different areas well so long as there are  there's no constraints on this there's no pope there's no pope of street epistemology you  know anthony wouldn't accept that title even if it was offered to him um but so long as you  have the 20 something out there with his gopro trying to play gotcha with theists that's the  stigma that that sc's gonna have to overcome um unless you reel in these people with their  excitement for trying to trap christians in difficult quest

ions uh as long as that  persists in social media facebook or whatever and as long as there are those people that want to  play with those gotcha channels then that's going to persist and as long as you know the banner  is hey street epistemology and american atheist street epistemology and black non-believers speed  epistemology and the atheist community of austin as long as that persists it's going to be  perceived by people that know nothing about it as just atheists trying to catch christian

s that's  the general public i think the persona outside the bubble so i can't emphasize this enough if you for  any reason at all feel that i am doing that with you then i need to tell me so i cannot do it  anymore or not really because i would rather do this with you and not put it online than  put it online and lose rapport with you forever i don't know i i would say this so  other people can hear this i mean if if there are good good that's part of it yeah i'm  more interested in the i'm mor

e interested in the relationship than i am in making content does  that make sense yeah i i have no i have no sense i mean i don't know you really but i don't have  any reason to just distrust you i'm i'm willing to trust you there are people that i've talked to  who are straight epistemologists that i absolutely think have ulterior motives right it doesn't make  them doesn't make them i agree with that too well it's like hard like are we going to remove  our biases completely like how do we do

that like i'll try i try so normally i only stick  to questions and this i'm making many many many statements and doing yeah making all these  statements is really confusing me like i don't know am i doing essie or you interviewing me or  like what's going on well i don't i don't think it needs to be something that you i think you take  what is good this is this is what christianity does i could look at uh ancient greek mythology  i got an author what's his name coming up yeah here we go i got a

christian apologist i'm  interviewing in june who takes greek mythology and pulls out of greek mythology what he thinks is  redeemable truth for for christians to utilize and the reason this fascinates me is because  i hear atheists all the time tell me that christianity is just an offshoot of grief hold up  your book again well we'll both hold up our books yeah i just got that one you did you did right  yeah i'm interviewing louis uh in june but but i want to dispel the notion that and look if

god  is true god is real yeah mythology makes sense like like a bunch of counterfeit hundred  dollar bills don't disprove currency they actually point toward currency right there  wouldn't be counterfeits if there wasn't a real thing and so so anyway my point is that  you can find truth in anything because as i admit the cheek phrase is all truth is god's  truth from a theistic christian perspective and so there's truth in greek mythology there's  truth in babylonian number systems there's trut

h and there there can be truth in astrology and  and we'd have to have that conversation i don't mean that astrology is true right but there are  certainly like some there could be maybe like a subtle influence of like jupiter on my brain  somehow and i can tell you we could go into the medieval the idea of what a medieval influence  was in the stars and stuff and you know my whole master's thesis on this um anyway that's a side  issue but um so so there's truth in everything there's and like je

sus used the example of uh  he told the uh the pharisees and sadducees the religious leaders about the parable of the good  samaritan you know and samaritans were hated so imagine jesus coming to us today and saying the  parable of the homosexual of the good homosexual that that's the kind of level of offense that  jesus leveled at the pharisees and sadducees and here is a samaritan you hate samaritans this  guy is doing what you need to go do go and do likewise go and do like this guy is doing

and so  jesus uses i don't mean to put down gay people but that would be just a cultural the cultural smack  that jesus laid on the pharisees who looked down their noses that people like that i don't do that  with gay people i don't mean that i i mean i have anyway that's another issue too but um um one of  them what am i saying all truth is so so there's if there's good in street fist technology i'll  find it you know if there's good things to say that's why we do the atheist well i hope that 

you find it with me and if i'm ever out of line i would like to know and just whenever that happens  just holler at me uh number seven let's go there uh this one we both disagree to this strongly  some beliefs should never be questioned and uh well there's irony in that answer i have  so much to say about it but i'd rather just interview you so what do you think about this one  there's irony in this statement that you could say well the question is something you should never  question never ques

tioning right so really really there's a sort of a infinite regression wait  a minute should i never question that question well this is why i invite your criticism though  i would like if you're going to criticize any of the videos that i do that you uh talk to  me about it at least of the ones that i do maybe like other content creators go for it though  if you're gonna those takes those take so long to do i can only imagine the production value in  your videos is actually pretty good those th

ose so those all those uh graphics are individual  powerpoint slides turned into jpegs and used to stop motion animation well that's what it looked  like i was like how is that it looks like it looks like illness the science guy uh uh transitions  sort of like it's actually pretty well done like i don't know if i'll be able it was hard it takes it  takes two days two or three days to build all the powerpoints lines and then i put the powerpoint  slides as jpeg images in my video editor and i jus

t line them up and so you just have stop motion  yeah so i have those take for so long to do well i am really happy that you're making this content uh  because i also strongly disagree with number seven and i like being questioned yeah gives me a  chance to respond to some responses or something and also just just check on myself  so all right let's go to the next one can be certain something is true yet still be  mistaken yeah okay what do you think that means pretty much what it means okay  i'

m taking it say really um okay can someone have a personal experience that  something is true yet still be mistaken based on that personal experience i don't see how you can  experience the world without personal experience that's primarily how we experience the world okay  so i think it is absolutely a functional aspect of how we know we what are we going to have without  personal experience so skeptics will tell me that my person tom did this your personal experience  doesn't count ray it's no

t evidence it doesn't count like well okay so the problem is you're  using your personal experience to tell it to try to invalidate my so i i don't invalidate the  personal experience of a muslim or a hindu or a jew we talk about the validity of a personal  experience we can talk about the personal experiences given the supernatural realm i would  anticipate that lots of people have personal experiences with supernatural in whatever form  right but to deny that personal experience doesn't is is

not evidence of something  i think is going too far because that's the only thing certainty i think  that's what number eight like okay i don't see i don't see the survey sure sure let me  throw it up again it's someone can be certain someone can be certain something is true yet still  okay yeah so if i okay all right i got sidetracked sorry i'm right so go on you're on the right track  i think that you're on the right track if that's fine i don't i understand right if i'm certain  that the numb

er in here adds up to like 32 um would you also be certain that i'm correct if  you don't if you have no access to counting them i know there's between 38  and 42 tic tacs in the box somewhere around there you know that's a pretty  good guess no reason for me to question your yeah if you're that specific maybe you're david  blaine in doing a magic trick or something no reason to question my certainty i mean if you're  would you allow yourself to also be certain like absolutely without question 

about my claim about the tic tacs i would have really no vested interest in your  certainty okay you know i mean state text i don't i wouldn't be that interested in if you're certain  there's 32 in there okay i'm not gonna drill you about that sure you know if somebody if somebody  says astrology because there's like reincarnation uh astrology flat earth vampires ghosts like  or not ghosts because uh vampires astrology and reincarnation those are some things that and karma  those are some things

that you are not certain is true um can people be certain those things  are true do you think yeah okay of course i i see that you're yawning so uh last time i'm  good you're good it's okay because i i'm fading a little bit but i'm okay okay maybe today we'll  only stick to the ones that we agree on and then we'll leave the ones we disagree on for later  maybe because i last thing i want to do is uh overextend my my time because i know this is  a long process so let's go on to the next one uh w

e should be satisfied with a  test that can only confirm our claim you and i both strongly disagree with  that can you imagine someone saying that we should be satisfied with a test that can  only confirm our claim i think people do it all the time on social media yeah give me an example  what do you think what are you thinking oh people find out i write a book about the universe or that  i make a tweet about the universe they send me information about the universe in some way that  they think e

stablishes their presupposition of naturalism um and so they're absolutely 100  certain that not only here's the data that shows this to be proven and accepted but this  also does away with god and establishes naturalism and so i i get i mean it's twitter so you know of  course there's no nuance in that but there's no um there's no uncertainty if you will in these when  i get these kind of responses because what happens as you know on twitter people immediately go  into bunker mode and defensive

posture and start lobbing grenades at each other and you cannot  have a [ __ ] in your armor when you make a tweet you have to defend it or not at the cost  and peril of your twitter reputation so if somebody tweets me a new scientist  or a scientific american article that shows uh why this or that i was in the long thread  the other week about inflationary cosmology that sounds like it's a long topic and i'll take  a long while to explain how about this anyway so yes yes i agree you asked me t

he question um we  both disagree tonight number nine yeah we should not be satisfied with the tests that can only  right confirm our i've done that myself we're all guilty of that right there might be like some  some exception maybe i'm wondering if somebody sits down at your hypothetical street epistemology  booth and they tell you that reincarnation is true and you ask them how do you  know that and they tell you well what do you what can you imagine them saying reincarnation is true yeah i im

agine  they would probably talk about yoga and new eastern mysticism or buddhism or some kind  of spiritual but not religious kind of language i've had those conversations i actually had a  conversation like that with carl sagan's daughter you know and spiritual but not  religious would you would you say would you ask this person how they could test  their claim no not right away i would just well eventually let's say you talk you're oh yeah  they're comfortable you're comfortable you're driving

yeah i might i mean i i i'm not  one to go with the test language i think that's a little too formal and stilted for me i  would be more conversational literary approach sort of thought-provoking philosophical i  don't think i'd necessarily ping them on how do you test that well i don't i think  if you were to see someone else ask that so a street epistemologist asked that do  you think it would be an unfair question let's see that's that's this is where for me  as a critic this is for the quag

mire of sc gets into i think when you talk about tests yeah  this is where i want to understand you better this is where i think it's street  epistemology is way too ambiguous um it seems to presume a standard of truth  it seems to tacitly unspokenly presume that there there could be such a test or  that the person is using a specific method um and so it's kind of this is what i  meant by a leading language you tell me what method did i use or you asked what method did  i use how do i test right

without leading me am i doing that right now no i'm saying okay that  question makes me that's why i think it's leading to say something like that because now you sort  of put the scientist hat on my head and i don't think that way well would you agree that like  the tic tacs reincarnation is either true or not sure and i'm right there with you but i think  there would be nuance accepting the supernatural world i think that there would be nuance in  that there may be some true things like buddh

a or the dalai lama or gandhi said true things you  know not everything that they said was true but i think there is truth in a lot of what they  say that doesn't mean that all roads lead all roads lead to god every religion is true i'm not  saying that i'm not that open-minded about it but people can say true statements you know so i mean  i agree with that yeah the there's yeah there's true well it's lewis absolutely c.s lewis in his  book abolition of man compiles what he called the um what d

o you call it the dao the the  idea he compiled some some moral cultural standards from ancient times to the present and he  called it the tao and and it's like all of these cultures and societies with these very similar  ideas about stealing about adultery about lying showing trying to show that there is a human  standard that transcends cultures times periods and tempos um and so i think that you know  ancient babylonians to the egyptians the greeks the romans to us even atheists skeptics  bel

ievers we all have some semblance of the truth and we can all learn from each other so  so so i think yeah and i agree with that like so here's the thing if reincarnation oh am i am  i tiring you i don't want to no i'm no no i'm cracking my neck okay if reincarnation was true  hypothetically hypothetically if it was true let's just say it is for a second would you want to know  if it's true what what does make something else i would say this i don't think it is i don't  think it is either though

i would say i would not i would not i would not say i would not say that  i'm interested in knowing that reincarnation is true i would say i don't think it's true but  i'm interested to know why you do so i wouldn't pretend i was interested in it like that i would  say i'm not interested in it but i am interested in why you think it's true that's how i would  approach that question if i hadn't are you asking me that question right now no i'm saying me if  i built enough significant rapport with

somebody i would say i'm not interested in in embracing  reincarnation as a doctrine for my way of life i think it's miserable but i would ask the  person why they believed it i wouldn't pretend to be interested in it in that way but i would  be interested in hearing what the person had to say out of respect for the person i wouldn't  feen interest in reincarnation for me personally like oh i just if it's true i want to know because  i think if if you think something is nonsense i think the wor

st thing that you can do is tell the  person who actually believes it that you're really interested in it rather than just saying i have no  interest in it for myself but i am interested in why you believe it yeah i think some students  some street epistemologists will will feed oh i i you know if christianity is true i want to be  a christian in the back of their mind they're going i want nothing to do with these but they're  only saying that to get the person to open up i think that is that is

problematic okay yeah  i mean if that's what's going on then i would want to be aware i think the only way i could  really know is if somebody were to interview me like if i and i try that a lot uh there's like  a discord for street epistemology and i offer up beliefs of my own and people challenge me with  questions a lot to get me thinking then i pull away from it i think and think and think and i  come back and i have better answers the next time yeah uh just to put the survey aside for a se

cond  i'm just for my own curiosity and this is a i can cut this out of the interview if you  want and this is mostly a personal question so have you left the country before yeah i'm just  curious you have where where where did you go go wherever um egypt oh that's  cool israel israel sinai germany wow uh puerto rico that is leaving  the country technically uh mexico um well that's impressive i've we're i'm trying to  think what i'm doing in the military egypt germany sinai israel where else hav

e i been i  think that's i think that's an important job no i think that's it so i've been i've been  to mexico many times i've been to puerto rico um germany israel you don't want to spend too much  time brainstorming where you've been i'm sure i'm tired i'm trying to remember when i'm tired  i'm like what i'm gonna let you go in like the next ten minutes probably because of that sure i  don't wanna i don't wanna overstay um though uh i can't remember why i asked you that i think i  asked you t

hat because you said you're gonna ask me a personal question that was the personal  question oh i haven't been out of the country yeah only because you didn't mention it  so it's a little out of line for street epistemology to ask a question like i that  just mostly curious for myself because um because i have also some traveling yeah  where you been uh uh to india is the place that probably sticks out in my mind the most um  and there's a lot of i stayed there for a month like two years ago and

there's a lot of um hindu  and muslim people there as a matter of fact half the country is muslim and the  other half is hindu and it's like uh and i don't know if that's the right ratio it's  probably off but um i work with muslims in egypt and uh sinai there's like a billion people  there i was in sinai for six months wow yeah that's something else i am it's  absolutely phenomenally hauntingly beautiful yeah i just wonder like the the people in  those countries and the beliefs they hold do yo

u ever think about that like how many people  yeah than yeah absolutely that's what i do that's my that's my job this is actually i didn't intend  for this but this is a good segue for number 10. uh if all members of a society share a  belief they are justified to hold that belief was only going to talk about things in which  we agree though this is like an interesting one well i guess i guess for me i would clarify  that was a question about justification um justification means to me it  doesn'

t mean that you are necessarily that your belief is true as much as it is just  giving a reason a solid reason for why you believe so um i think when you are in a group of  people that is a very persuasive rationale for being dutiful to parents being being part  of your society and wanting to be a part of your society now i'm not saying that that justification  necessarily means that your belief is true but absolutely being a part of a group um part  of the justification for your belief includes

inclusion into a community i think that's just  the nature of human beings is community inclusion and so wanting to be accepted i'm not saying  that's the best reason to believe something is true but i think in terms of epistemic  justification that absolutely is a factor you can't rule that out what is the thing  that you're looking for when you accept so like number 10 is about the number  of people believing in something being yeah is a justification to believe something  is true and what is

the criteria that the number of people need to have do you think is there  something that the number of people need to have for for us for you and i to be  justified to believe what they're saying i'm just speaking in terms of in relation to the  cultural influence of it but when we're talking about you know using hindu or muslim we're  talking about billions of people that have had clinton had supernatural experiences i would  say if you're a devout hindu or devout muslim absolutely i would ab

solutely think that  here's a community of people that have had spiritual experiences encounters and i would  i would minimalize i would minimize that as encounters with the supernatural so  hindu's beliefs are muslims belief um all of them are whether there's mormons or  whatever uh because the supernatural is real i think that i think you can certainly argue  that having these supernatural experiences and a community where you can express those i  think gives absolutely gives you legitimacy to

to a justification process i had an experience so  have these community of people to which i belong um and therefore that provides me with  justification i'm not saying that justification is necessarily sound in this instance or or leads  to truth but but it absolutely we can we can't we can't exclude those things as being a part of  one's justification i wouldn't be a christian if there weren't christians right how would i have  ever known if somebody didn't write the bible if i wasn't in a co

mmunity of believers you  know how would i ever come to know jesus without that community right jesus works through people  and community so i think that is and that's absolutely part of justification people were  sharing christ with me and then i ended up going to church and getting baptized and and so yeah i  would say part of my justification for my belief is the long-standing tradition of the community  of christians that have existed since the time of christ and i'm not saying that exclusiv

ely  demonstrates that christianity is true i'm just saying that that is part of my epistemic  justification where i believe okay um so in my head i'm trying to both listen to you and also  figure out when to stick out the landing gear for this talk um i got another 10 minutes okay  that was going to be my question so let's go to uh let's see so i'm interested in 16 and 23. do you are you  looking at the survey also or no i see your screen share yeah okay um because if i if i go to the  screen i

'll lose you won't see me i'll get off the screen let's go to 16 i give all claims the  benefit of the doubt when i first encounter them we're pretty cool we're pretty similar on this  what do you what are your thoughts on that that's part of the respect of getting  to know somebody okay i'm not gonna just you know if i meet somebody and they tell me  what they believe i'm not instantly gonna just you know tear into them right if i were to say  i live in portland oregon in a house on a city bloc

k would you agree that i do or would you  would you ten would you give me the benefit of the doubt that that's true yeah okay yeah  yeah that's fine i probably would too um okay so i'm interested in 23 here now if you  rather talk about a different one or some other one that you think is more important  this one is of interest to me the more unusual the statement the stronger the evidence  needs to be and you're neutral on that do you want to tell me why you're neutral because  it sounds to me i

n both times it took it like carl sagan's extraordinary claims required evidence  so um i will grant that from a miracle claim you'd want to see something you'd want to  have some kind of substantiated corroborated testimonial evidence or something i understand  that you know however when you like if we if we take carl sagan's dragon in my garage in his  book the demon haunted world where this appears he's talking about this fantastical creature  that only he can see but he can describe it but t

here's no tangible empirical physical  evidence for it and so the more fantastic he describes this dragon the more he goes on to  say well shouldn't it be up to me to provide fantastic evidence for my fantastic flames and  then that's the chapter for which we get this extraordinary claims require extraordinary  evidence and so you've seen my video on that um yeah i didn't see it until after our last  talk so i only saw so my argument is that adjectives are subjective how do i know i used to teac

h middle and high school  english adjectives are not science you cannot see extraordinary in laboratory  the whole bit of this argument comes down to the elasticity and the ambiguity and  the subjectivity of the word extraordinary if apollo 11 was extraordinary the  evidence that we had to back it up was pretty ordinary but i'm using adjectives all right splash down do extraordinary  claims require extraordinary evidence no extraordinary is an adjective  and it all hinges on that your idea of ex

traordinary doesn't  fit mine therefore i'm justified in rejecting any evidence that you give me that's up now we now return you to our regularly scheduled  scrolling through youtube i'm daniel ray i i have no i i empathize with people that  feel like they need to they need to have they they want some attention substantiated  something solid to sink their deep into so uh to to accept a miracle claim but i  also have a problem with the elasticity of the subjectivity of these these descriptive  te

rms they're not scientific terms i can jesus did miracles people did not believe it they turned  right around and said what sign will you show us um and they didn't believe it and you know he  he walked on water he healed the sick he uh you know he did he turned water into wine he did  these things he healed people he got ridiculed chastised nobody believed him um and so um i  think that is a very we we have this come up with john loftis john w office from book club  he was pressing this john wo

uld not even define what he meant by extraordinary i don't need to and  that's where the ambiguity comes into play where it's like i went through this with reed and uh  pine creek like three years ago right i saw it uh doug sort of jumped in it was a conversation  with reed and i and then doug jumped in um and then tried to do the whole missile and um  just it was yeah back then and i wasn't going to bring this up because i didn't want to put  you on the spot because i care about our our ability

to communicate but back then you gave  a number for a scale and since then you haven't you you didn't want to give me any number for  any anything is it because of that experience that you have with reed is that why you don't  want to no it wasn't just that experience it was and that was three three and a half years  ago um i was still in my degree my formal degree for apologetics and i was doing a lot of reading  and research and philosophy and theology and all that stuff right well what i mea

n you gave  a 95 back then and then reid gave you other other claims to it to see how your number would  slide um depending on the extraordinary nature of a claim and you well what do you you tell me what  do you think happened there what was what happened well and um if there's one thing that i personally  hope you take away from this conversation is that by someone saying they don't believe  something doesn't necessarily they're saying that it can't be true i understand yeah and i  think that'

s a very very common mistake that a lot of people make so your unbelief is based  on evidence or lack thereof in other words you have a set of criteria that this doesn't match  and you've rejected it on those grounds yes that when you have an extraordinary claim that the  evidence should match it and if it doesn't um then we're kind of left asking ourselves what  claims are we going to believe so when you say i know that comes from carl sagan the extraordinary  claim yeah the invisible dragon in

the garage right um so my point is when when you come down to  the extraordinary aspect of it that seems to be a very subjective thing that empirical science  cannot finally establish so what constitutes criteria for extraordinary this is not a  scientific question this is a matter of adjectival predilection for uh is this extraordinary or  not like going to the moon was extraordinary a photograph of armstrong walking around the lunar  dust is a photograph that's not extraordinary by evidentiar

y means that's a normal means instead  of uh yeah instead of looking at it in absolute terms let's view it in relative terms uh the word  extraordinary so let's say i told you that i owned a car would you consider that an extraordinary  claim um it depends on your financial situation or if you're five or as a 46 year old professional  male who has no it's not extraordinary okay now if i were to say i live in portland oregon  in a house on a city block would you give me the benefit of the doubt t

hat that's true  yeah now now if i told you so here so we're setting a bar now doug has a car but our our  definition of extraordinary is still subjective we're still determining a subjective sense i what  i'm trying to do now is just rank levels of of extraordinary so i'm not talking about absolute  levels i agree with you that extraordinary could be absolutely at different levels but i want  to see if we agree on what's yeah the rank so we got doug has a card not that extraordinary  what if i

told you that i i'm making a claim now i own a nuclear missile well i i would doubt it but  i it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility right you doubt it but it wouldn't be out of the  realm of possibility right and it's not would you agree it's a little more of an extraordinary  claim than me owning a car yeah so i see what you're doing in establishing the degrees of ex  extraordinary but that you and i would agree on something doesn't establish that like that  hammer is read it just says

dan and doug agree that this is here it doesn't it we can't see it  like a beach ball or a coffee pot okay but let me let me take it one step further now because i'm  going to put two things together here the ranking of extraordinary um now the lastly if i told you i  had an interstellar spaceship that can travel back in time but but you i think we would agree on  the ranking of i would actually say that last one would not be it would be surprising  but in this day and age of competitive space

race i would say hey maybe doug's got  something he's just not told anybody but it's more exciting it's more extraordinary than a  nuclear missile because there's there's thousands of nuclear missiles on this planet and yet there's  no interstellar space time traveling i would invert those two i would say your nuclear missile  would be more extraordinary than a spaceship yeah an interstellar going from star to star  interstellar excuse me i skipped right over that uh important yeah i was wonderi

ng  am i hearing you right do you think no so the reason why the reason why i'm saying  all this is because if we agree on those rankings from car to nuclear missile to interstellar  spaceship then i think the evidence goes with it if i said i had a car and it's not that big  of a claim and i and you let's say you doubted me for some reason because you thought i was broke  and then i actually took the video camera out and showed you the car and ah that's good enough okay  i believe you now yeah

sure you might doubt more but you would you'd be probably satisfied with  that now nuclear missile my guess is you'd want more well you just have to show me the missile not  extraordinary my question to you daniel and please i want you to answer as honestly as you can i  will would you require the same amount of evidence for those two claims i own a car and i own a  nuclear missile would you have the same level of i would it would just depend on what  i'm trying to get out of you doug if you wan

t to say i would not put any stock in  the car unless it perhaps had some bearing on what you and i would be doing in future interactions uh  the missile claim it's just i it would depend on whether or not we're entering if you're selling me  the missile or the car then i'm going to be vested in that and i would want to see those things so  am i hearing you right that you would believe me if i said i had a car and i said i had a nuclear  missile and if i gave you a photograph of a car if that su

ffice for you for the car it would also  suffice for you with the nuclear missile but in terms of you said with the car that this is you  this is a picture of you with the car and i think it would suffice for me okay i have no stake in  this claim doug says that's his car that's his car we're talking about the idea of evidence matching  the level the level of evidence matching the level of the claim but but the the the level of evidence  would be the same it would be a certificate of ownership t

hat's it's a piece of paper yeah i  daniel i sense you know where i'm going with this and you're pushing back hard yeah i i i do  i've had this argument with with a few people online but not in person um but we haven't gone to  the extent that that i think we're going but the evidence to me the idea of it being extraordinary  is a subjective assessment made by the individual not scientific can you repeat back to me what the  purpose of my question is to determine whether or not we agree on level

s of extraordinary rankings  right rankings yes and so you and i can agree that you claiming that you own a missile is is pretty  is unusual but the proof that would demonstrate that would be ordinary it would be documentation  that we would rely upon yeah i um i think that's where we disagree because you would show me a  piece of paper you would show me the photograph i actually think you're being disingenuous  right now and i hate to say it because i think in your life you live your life exact

ly  the way i'm describing it when you hear a claim and it's sort of bizarre to you and i i think  you would you would doubt it more and require more evidence before you believe it compared to  a different claim that you don't find bizarre i think that's that's fair to say no no because i i  i agree with you that if you were to say you owned a missile i would be instant instantly curious but  if i have nothing vested in it doug i'm not going to press you okay let's use the word curious would  yo

u be more curious about the nuclear missile than the car not really because at that level you  are you are you have kind of subjected yourself to a level of something that's not normal  but if i don't have any vested interest in it your missile claim is likely to end the  conversation okay since you know where i'm going with this and you're pushing back  hard how does the vested interest-ness of it relate to the extraordinariness of it  well if he wants i was saying earlier if he wanted to sell

me these things then i would  have a vested interest in it if i was like i know it we're probably talking in circles  here but i'm going to give one last try sure what type of evidence if i made a  claim that i have an space spacecraft what evidence would you need to believe  me i really wouldn't pursue the question is that an honest answer other claims to  it to see how your number would slide um depending on the extraordinary nature of a claim  and you well what do you you tell me what do you

think happened there what was what happened well  number one i was frustrated by doug's intrusion because i immediately felt like doug was doing  i really wish it was reid asking you not doug doug jumped in doug i didn't i didn't know him  and i reached out to read and wanted to have a conversation read i like reid he was nice guy  i watched some of his things yeah and i was in my apologetics degree part of my apologetic  degree was get out there they were cordial to me yeah well you know part o

f my apologetics degree  i had to get out and i had assignments to get out and engage people that don't believe  like i did right so i was seeking out ways to do that and it seemed like youtube was a  way to do it i am an apologist in training so doug jumps in and it sort of happened the  same thing i described to um what happened with tom and i it's like tom doesn't want  to talk to me and i just shut down and and i was frustrated um but the the numerical idea  seriously i've completely changed

my mind on that in three years after i've completed my degree  and written a book and yeah now you now you're fine with just saying confident not confident  absolutely because the more i read and the more i studied the more i understood philosophy and  epistemology which was part of my degree i had to take formal philosophy classes i changed my  mind on it no informed consent is the name of the game here and i don't want to push you into  a direction you don't want to go and i do want to end th

is soon so you can go to bed though is it  all right if i challenge you this with questions sure on this statement okay yeah earlier  i i said that uh i asked whether or not you you're confident that i that i'm truthful  with you when i say i live in portland um in a house on a city block and would you give  me the benefit of doubt that that's true yeah so i want to know are you confident that there's  some car outside my house on within the city block just any kind of car on again on the  curb

yeah my prior knowledge about city blocks and neighborhoods yeah  sure yeah okay um are you confident right right yeah okay right um are you confident  that there's three cars outside my house maybe okay are you confident that there's 10 cars outside my house on the city  block here in portland oregon i i don't know i'm not sure  i'm following the numerical increase in the amount of cars outside your house well okay well are you confident that  there's 200 cars outside my house on this one city

block here in portland  oregon i don't think there'd be enough room on city blocks for 200 cars so you would  probably be not so confident in that unless you're you've got a park right across the  street or something or stadium right across the street from a walmart truck across the street but  um you know it's it's abductive reasoning right so if it rains the ground will be wet right it rained  so the ground is wetter that's deductive logic right i saw rain the ground is wet it rained the  grou

nd is red abductive reasoning is oh the ground is wet it must have rained well that's a it's  not certain but it's possible that it rained right there's other explanations for why the  ground might be wet sprinklers somebody watched a car could be do whatever so there's two the  deduction is if it rains the ground will be wet it rained ground is wet abduction looks at the  wet ground and goes oh it must have rained but you didn't have the benefit of knowing whether  or not it rained through this

night and so the questions that you're asking me i think are  related to abduction because i can't i can't conclusively deduce that there are that many right  not conclusively yeah and that's yeah why i think of my and you know this is why i was asking how  confident you were uh and um and if comp and because you could be right i'm trying to keep an  open mind of what you're saying about confident or not confident though there is a point at which  it seems to flip to not confident uh and and i'

m open to what it is you have to think about that  thought experiment and how fair you think that was do you think that was fair or do you have any  questions for me about that thought experiment was that the cars in a way unfairly or unfair  the only thing i would say is that i know you like to use the number scale well maybe that's the  thing maybe it seems maybe it seems to you that i'm being deliberately uncooperative i thought  i felt like you are being cooperative and i actually really lik

e talking to you i'm really  just trying to to understand why we answer the way we do on the survey and well it could be  that uh because i could be wrong like the most true thing on this survey is 24 it is  possible some of my beliefs are not true so i'm trying to keep that in mind for myself  when i ask you questions because i i don't like i respect you a great deal and i  want to continue talking to you whenever you have time though i'm uh anyway i'm open to  any questions uh i'm ready to let

you go here whenever you want uh though i love talking to  you and i have so much respect for you and if you have any questions for me i'm open i'm open to  answering them yeah i'd be interested to know um and respond however you want to  think about it it's up to you but um do you do you really want to know  nathan that that god is real yes emphatically and the way i want to know  that is to i'm so today i felt like i wanted to talk about abstractly ways we think  about the way we think so lik

e this survey is all they're all just made up like we all got together  and wrote down things that we heard other people say and so this is a way of talking about i i see  it as a way of asking questions like it's a dial it's a it's a it's a guide an outline or a guide  for a conversation so two people can ask each other questions about the way they think about  beliefs that pertain to how we form beliefs and so i'm interested in that because if i can figure  out the way in which someone formed

their belief then i can apply that to myself so i can know  true things i hope now i could be wrong and how would i know unless i ask questions right and  um oh and being open to answering them myself and if i'm not open to answering questions or  then i would like to to know and find out and i think that you are a sincere honest good person  worthy of talking to worthy of my respect and we we come from different worlds though i  really do appreciate you inviting me to your book club like that w

as so cool  and uh content and stuff about se and you just you you interest me and i  follow your content i'm a fan of yours so um anyway i know you've got a lot on your plate and  you got to sleep tonight so i'm going to let you go soon uh do you have any other follow-up  questions because i'm i'm an open book here completely a wide open book so who is to  you who is jesus christ well that's some that is a long discussion well give me a  top of the head where's nathan on the first jesus hmm i'm

not going to debate you because i'm  too tired but i just want to know what's right um i don't know and i wish i did if i could give  if you evidence of what i think i know about it that would that would i would be i would like  to satisfy that question and i i really want to i think the best answer to that is there are  people that are sincere loving kind honest people who believe that there's a human  being who was sent in in flesh from god who is god it's then there's  there's a some believe

that there's um you know uh a trinity and there's different ways  to conceptualize it and um all i can say is that the people who believe in this are  deserving of respect and kindness and i want to know how they're conceptualizing  it since um i i've interviewed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people and i encourage  you to do the same in this way with like i do with like calvinists and like other people right  who who are like different kinds of who who think of the trinity differently

and things like that  and um i don't know which one is right like they tic tacs we could pour them out we can count  them then i could hand it to you and be like can you count them and then if they're the same then  i'd be like okay well we can be somewhat certain since somebody checked me they they checked  me they questioned me and now we can agree and it does there doesn't seem to be much uh of a  consensus that from my perspective now i could be wrong and maybe there's more of a consensus  t

han i'm that i'm um willing to to acknowledge maybe there is um and i do want to know and i'm  interested and if you invite me to your book clubs i will go uh probably not every single time but i  will go all right and i think that this unitarian thing that you've got going on that you are  you have like you invite all sorts of people like that i see myself in you about that like i  want to i want to do that sort of thing right i want to be able to know where i get that you know  where i get tha

t from where do you get that from uh basically the gospel in a nutshell john 3 16  for god so loved the world right and that that greek word is cosmos the god so loved the cosmos  which means an ordered system of everything he created including you and i that he gave his  only begotten son that whoever so shall believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life  and so the gospel of the message of salvation that you articulated is open to everyone and so as  me as a christian i am comman

ded to obey the great commission and to go to make disciples to  to extend the invitation to the kingdom of the and so god works through the agency of human  beings why he uses us i don't know he loves us we're knuckleheads but i think nathan that our  uh our relationship and the favor that god has bestowed to us i think is god's extending his hand  for you to consider his son jesus you know i'm never gonna i can't force anybody to do that but i  believe as i've been a believer for 28 years and

i don't just accidentally have people cross my path  and so you know i would give i would leave you with this yes i was thinking about a scripture  to share with you i was like i don't know i don't know but i kept coming back to  this passage at the end of acts chapter 5. this is after the ascension of jesus the apostles  are telling everybody that jesus is resurrected from the dead and the some of the apostles  are brought before the council the sanhedrin and the pharisees and the sadducees and

  they're exhorted to stop talking about jesus and so a council member stands up and he he  asks that the disciples be put outside he says put those guys outside let me say something  to the council and his name was uh and uh gamaliel stood up and he's not a christian  he's not he doesn't believe but he says to the council he says men of the council and  he says um you know a couple years ago this guy started a resurrection started a  insurrection and then had some followers and then he was kill

ed and they scattered and then a  couple of years later then this guy came up they killed him and his followers scattered and he's  relating this to the apostles he's like look if this is not of god this will scatter out and die  out but if this is of god men don't be found fight he's exhorting his fellow jews don't prevent these  men from doing this this might be of god this might actually be true this might be of god and  you don't want to be found fighting against god right yeah if you are co

rrect about all this then i want to dig into it like that's the  whole point so that so that that would be yeah my my exhortation that is a good note to  end this on because we because we can agree on that that yeah and i would say that to not  just not just you nate but but in general to street epistemologists who have the specific  agenda of trying to turn christians away from from the god who loves them so like i tried and i  would say other people are bringing you're indeed in my table so my

table is just open i say what  do you believe now other street epistemologists they might go can i talk about your god belief  that might happen right i personally nathan here just puts up a sign says what do you believe  and why do you believe it and i might give uh rarely to see if somebody consents to something  that i would sure i'm not i'm not saying that you are after i just want to point out that yeah  like for by and large street epistemology itself like is a it's a it's a community of

people  right and like each person's got their own agenda so like and and uh my hope is  that we're trying to stay open and um and i think the community i think you are  yeah i think yeah the community that gives essie life is the atheist community and my  my my underlying foundational criticism of sd and what i would tell any seo whatever their  motivations may be i'm not saying this about you i don't see it in you to be like anti-theistic i  mean maybe you are i don't know um but i would i wou

ld absorb any excited street epistemologist who  wants to go out there with the gopro of the camera to really take an internal stock and say am i am  i so confident that god likely doesn't exist that i'm willing to make a video of myself trying to  talk christians out of their faith and turn them away from god but that's a very heavy um ethical  issue and and i think there are too many people and i've i've seen it i've experienced  it that take this well of course atheism is ridiculous when we w

ere talking about re  reincarnation and traveling the world earlier and i am trying to stick the landing gear out  for for us both so you can go to bed though like are you saying like if you go to india or  somewhere else in the world and somebody's telling you their earnest sincere  belief that reincarnation is real let's say like it's an it's a it's a a lot of  people like hindus and buddhists and then all how i don't even know like  probably many other sex right are you saying that you becaus

e number 19 i often  investigate beliefs that do not match my own like do you would you honestly when if you were to ask  them a question about reincarnation are you open to what they're saying i'm open to hearing why  they believe it i'm not open to receiving it no i would tell them i'm not interested in in embracing  the doctor i am interested and open to receiving what you say about christianity well that's good  it started with sort of attacking christian theism and i know it's morphed what

would you need  to see to think that that's not happening with street epistemology um more open-mindedness  to to theistic ideas so here's a great example i've never seen a street epistemologist concede  an ounce of any truth that would be emanating from a theistic worldview yeah so that that  list of claims that i gave you and you wrote confident not confident and if i took the  opposite position on any one of those claims and i could not provide something that would draw  me to your understand

ing like basically if i just outright say nothing will make me confident  in this thing uh would i be open-minded i'm not sure that that there are people that i  mean maybe there are are there people that don't actually engage in some way with beliefs that  are contrary to their own i think everybody is whether it's consciously or unconscious would  you honestly when if you were to ask them a question about reincarnation are you open to  what they're saying i'm open to hearing why they believe i

t i'm not open to receiving it  no i would tell them i'm not interested in in embracing the doctor i am interested and open to  receiving what you say about christian well that's good but i think i think they're they're you  can be open-minded to a fault i'm not saying you but if if you can't possibly be i'm gonna say you  again i'm just in general i don't think any of us are open-minded to the extent that we would  accept anything about everything from everyone that there are certain things in

the back of  your mind nathan that you are closed on and that's okay i'm sure of it yeah of course you are  i would not fault you for having a closed-minded um mentality but i am pretty solidly  sold on the question here and that's fine what i am addressing directly are are those  practitioners of street epistemology whose fundamental back of the mind under the table  intention is to deliberately undermine christians for views on youtube that kind of mentality that  i'm gonna go play gotcha well

maybe the next time we talk the next time we talk i'm open sincerely  open to you interviewing me in question form uh about the reasons why i do this with other  people uh because i would love to i would love to be challenged on that and i'd love to try  to explain it and i'd love to be heard and i'd love to i love to be questioned and if i'm wrong  then i'd love to find out also uh so one of these days like um let's try again and we can maybe like  plan ahead like you can be like hey i'll ques

tion nathan about his motives and why he would do  se with anyone or um i encourage you to take this link that i sent you and bring it to somebody  else and go through the survey with them because it's designed so that way more than one person you  can have as many people as you want fill this out and you can see the diversity of beliefs about  our beliefs and then you can just ask each other questions to resolve each other's understanding  about how we know what we know and that's something abo

ut it's about fun there's something  about the certain way you might you might want to you might want to keep in mind please um  in terms of and i it's just my impression okay it's a good survey good questions i think  it's great i want to know your impression yeah it's good to have it in the like in the  conference that you did that was that was completely normal to feel like i would get a  survey in a conference room where i came to learn something um i think an initiative right you  came into

my class yeah yeah no i'm saying that in that environment that's great i think that  where where where it kind of goes awry for me again this is what i said in the  beginning when we started talking tonight that it does kind of take on like the inkblot test  feeling yeah so much yeah it's like wow together you look at this and you tell me what it means and  this is where this is this is another issue i have with it it's street epistemology and i've heard  you guys talk about this it involves ps

ychology and nobody that i know in street epistemology is  a licensed clinical psychologist or psychiatrist uh that would be that what you mentioned in  the last interview um mark solomon he is a yeah okay so so no not all of us are just right so  so because i've i've gone to counseling a lot of my life for refreshing a lot and so part  of our conversation had a clinical feel to it and and that that so between the quiz  and i'm not i'm not saying it's bad i'm not saying it's bad i'm just saying

that that  what gives me the structured vibe of going down the cattle shoot if i you know to use that analogy  again are are the structured questions and the sort of clinical psychologizing i feel like  you know can you name them can you name the moment where you felt that way the most in this  industry yeah so i was getting to that right so so when you said when you mentioned the survey  the last time we talked i was like cool we'll talk about that and then when you said you had you  had the on

e from the one night and the one from the other night and you were going to compare them  i thought okay i said i what i said i wasn't going to hold you to the way you previously answered  that but you had but you had the two there this is impression this is an impression i wrote  down a hard copy of the way that you filled out oh great so let's see if i uh i'm consistent  well that's the thing to me like the way you view things now i mean if you changed your mind  that doesn't mean that you're

being inconsistent i don't think so do you have the do you have  the two to compare or you just have the one i do i have the two to compare yeah oh cool no  i don't think that i'm going to hold you to the way you previously i don't mind i don't mind um i  said you were going to compare them i thought okay i said i what i said i wasn't going to hold you  to the way you previously answered that but you had but you had the two there this is impression  this is an impression i felt like at that poin

t i said well maybe nathan maybe he  wants to find some kind of holes inconsistencies in my epistemology but uh no  matter i if i found them would you want to know about in your own inconsistencies or would  you well i don't i would i would have told you that i said the second survey was the direct  result of watching you walk through the first one and so it was heavily influenced by the way  you answered the questions with your group that night um but i think i think um like okay  so i don't li

ke the way ty uses i'm gonna he's good about ty he's talking about me because well  no i'm using i'm using i'm using the example because i'm not seeing you use it on somebody  i've seen ty use it on something okay so so he i don't know if you've watched did you watch  the video with tai the the one with the comments you've seen i've seen virtually every se video  okay so ty but i can find keeps pressing jacob for a number right and so just so you know tyrone that  so like a lot of us practice th

is and we start off not being so good and then we get better over  time like if you i'm not saying you could you could go to my earlier videos which are just  really bad and you could break them down but it's not who i am today right like you're  terrible absolutely absolutely that's why i was also as nice as i could about the way  i reviewed it but there was a point i wanted to make about and that's not it sorry i didn't  mean interrupt no no that's okay the the issue for me is that jacob doesn

't know what's  going on and i struggled with that because i thought this is so there's one point in the  video where i make i stand up for jaden and i do so kind of to make a point so jacob is  saying something like well i don't see how this could be the case i think he was talking  about biology in cosmology or something yeah and tai throws up on the screen that jacob is doing  an argument from ignorance okay because jacob says i don't see how it could be this way so tai says  you know argumen

t from ignorance now right if you are listening empathetically to jaden yes jacob  said i don't see how it could be otherwise granted i grant you that but i was still manning  what i thought jacob was really trying to do right what was he really trying about that you  are right about i was really trying all right make a cumulative case so well so now that's the  part where i'm not so sure oh let me well he says he let me i'll finish up and then you can okay  he says he starts with biology and th

en he talks about his cosmology friend and then he talks about  the disciples and he says there are other things and ty keeps trying to isolate a one thing and  reduce jacob's confidence in that one thing and then move on to something else reduce jacob's  confidence in that move onto one something else so yes i would and i didn't say it that well in  the video but it was by design throughout there i that i was i didn't say i was still manning  jacob's position but that's what i was doing i took

the fact that i was listening to jacob very  carefully i was listening to thai very right that and i hoped i didn't i hope i steal man pie as  well i mean i like him i respect you for that for at least trying that i really i you  know and even i said if you don't believe me watch what ty says here at the end of the  video and he says you know it's fun to be an atheist and i like to demolish there he is yeah  he said it okay i don't hate tai for it he's just that's what he does but jacob was tryi

ng to build  the case and he would say it's not just that thing it's this thing it's not just that thing it's  this thing but ty was like is it the one thing is it the one thing well here's the thing  if you if if you interview someone else in reincarnation and they give you five reasons  to get to their ninety percent yeah and you ask them if i take away this reason from you  would you still be 95 and they say yes i would do you think that person's really using that  as their reason to get to 9

5 or well again that gets back to what i think about the confidence  scale in general well that's what i'm saying the confidence skills so that we we can ask people  if i take this from you will it affect your confidence at all and if they say no how should  how can we know that's really their reason maybe okay so so but did you notice that that that  in one sense tai was not satisfied with jesus if in other words like if you want to get  to know what i believe like you you accepted what i said

about the bible we didn't argue  about it i mean i'm not saying you believed it but you didn't i can just listen you just  asked me a question and you just like okay cool but with tai it was like well you know jacob let  me just ask you a question if i and he he kept trying to like yeah it was it was really friendly  and really nice but he just kept trying to squeeze poor jacob was like in this thing now here's  the end result of that so so jacob doesn't know that ty's gonna billboard this as a

gotcha  video i mean i'm sure jacob consented to it but do you see like go fast forward  rewind that tape and jacob sits down hi i'm tai uh you're a theist i'm here to i want  to use this video to to embarrass your logic and reason well so did tai did this is a question  did tai ask can i talk about your god belief or did the other guy yeah no so no i think jacob  i think jacob mentioned god belief absolutely but i think that's also why tai was was there  it's like fishing right i'll take a perc

h uh in my quest for salmon okay i'll okay  i'll do it i'll take the little fish for for the big one that i'm after and and so i  think i think that's what a lot of street smiles just do they'll sort of wave through not saying  you but they'll wade through the politics and the karma and the ghosts and all that stuff to get  to i mean come on nathan you and i know what's the most popular videos on street epistemology the  ones where the christians are everybody but you know let's get a lot of vie

ws right because you  knock a theist off their feet and ten thousand views fifteen thousand views or whatever well it's  fun and time to watch put me in touch with some somebody who is uh you know an authority in the  in this matter and i'd love to investigate that belief from that person uh did you get uh tim  uh to mcgrew's email did i no i don't think i did but you should send it to me i don't know  what his uh his schedule is like but uh tim is a master rhetorician and philosopher on cosmolo

gy  he's written a whole book i have it right here foundations of knowledge right here he is a  preeminent world class i see this as a team i'm not so like i i'm gonna i'm gonna  try to really actually stick out the landing gear this time uh because i will  talk to you all night like if you let me i would just keep talking with you because i  think it's just it's really easy to talk to you um and um let's let's stay in touch let's  give each other a break for a couple weeks i'll put up some cont

ent on my  channel i'm sure you'll follow it if you have something to ever say please  don't hesitate to knock on give me a ring and um one of these days i would like to try to go  through this soul survey with you and maybe even whoever you want like i i would be willing  to take this whole thing to the entire book club even because you can have as many people fill  it out as you want like it's all good just yep and i really respect you i i watch your videos  now i've subscribed to your channel

and uh cool and i i yeah man it's good it's good  talking to you do you have any anything else to say from uh or ask of me before we  go only that from here until september on top of whatever church speaking schedules that  we will have as the summer opens up in churches so i'm not dodging you nathan i'm just no not  at all you're you're very is it okay with is it okay with you if i add your your information in  the description put whatever you'd like because i would like to help promote your s

tuff and sure  you're gonna you're probably gonna get a lot of probably gonna get smacked around by a few  street fistmologists for liking me so much they can ask me that they'll probably ask me  and be open to why i am being so nice right then i'll tell them but i i  say all that my summer schedule uh is stacking up not to avoid you but to say  that any kind of conversational commitment like this i i simply will not have the time trust  me trust me no no but i'm not i'm not cutting off communic

ation you know email me okay okay  i know all right i'm gonna go to bed thank you thank you go to bed good night all  right bye see you later see you then do do you