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June 19, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:42:47

2999 Supernatural Death Threat Terrorism - Call In Show - June 13th, 2015

What are the effects of religious leaders convincing their members the end is near - possibly within their lifetime? Do Jehovah Witnesses and other religious organizations use propaganda to create prejudice against non-believers?

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux for Free Domain Radio.
	Hope you're doing well.
	We have a show of shows for you tonight.
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	All right, Mike, who have we got?
	Alright, well up first today is Emily and Stephen.
	They are a couple, and their question is, what are the effects of religious leaders convincing their members that the end is near, possibly within their lifetime?
	Does the Jehovah's Witness organization and other religious institutions have their own means of propaganda to create prejudice against other people who are parts of other affiliations?
	And the third question is, it is a proven statistic in the U.S. that religion is growing less popular.
	What may be some causes of this?
	All three very interesting questions.
	The first one is plaid, the second one is 4.2, and the third one is a unicorn.
	Because I've been working on this most of the week.
	It may take you a little while to unpack these symbols, but they'll be worth it, trust me.
	Well, thanks guys for calling in.
	Or did you?
	Stephen, Emily, you guys can unmute.
	Okay.
	Hey, Stefan.
	Thank you for having us.
	Oh, my pleasure.
	How are you guys doing tonight?
	We're doing good.
	We're actually a long-distance couple.
	We're actually meeting for the first time next week.
	So it's been exceptionally difficult as we both come from...
	I'm from a Christian background.
	My girlfriend's from a Jehovah Witness background.
	So we...
	Those two ideologies tend to knock heads, I guess, if you will.
	So, we've actually had a lot of...
	Not as much as both and atheism, I would imagine.
	Yeah.
	We'll help unite you against a common enemy, who is me.
	And that should bring you even closer together.
	Finally, Christendom has reunited against the big chatty forehead.
	Yeah, but yeah...
	Anyways, so we both had actually, we had a lot of more unsupportive things having to do with religious things against our relationship and such.
	And we also want to talk about some things possibly about the organization too.
	Because one thing is that, because the things that we're being told, it's more of a I'm starting to think of it more of a prejudice against another, in a way.
	For example, I guess my girlfriend could tell you of her experiences of people telling us, you know, you shouldn't be with this person because of this and this, or other things like name-calling or generalizations of people.
	So you said you shouldn't believe someone based upon because this and this, is that right?
	I just missed the word.
	Yeah, like, for example, like, I guess my girlfriend, she's a Jehovah's Witness.
	She has more of a right to talk about it than I do.
	But, for example, like, I would be considered to them as a worldly, so I'm not really a fit person to basically associate with.
	You said a worldly?
	And that's somebody who is, what, out in the world?
	I don't know who it is.
	Yeah, it's what they call, I guess, people who aren't Jehovah's Witnesses.
	They call worldly, which is actually quite an apt description in some ways, you know, of this world, in the world, in reality.
	Like, it's not actually wildly off, but they probably don't mean it that way, right?
	I guess it's a nice description.
	But yeah, when we first were talking and stuff, I couldn't tell them that he wasn't a Jehovah Witness.
	It made things awkward at first.
	Right.
	And how did you guys meet?
	Instagram?
	Yeah.
	It was actually extremely random.
	I used to have a page that had like It was just a really funny page.
	Yeah, I used to put comedic things.
	It's deleted now because I just don't have time for it.
	But anyways, I was cutting a tree and I get a message on my phone saying, hi.
	I'm like, sorry, I'm cutting a tree.
	Can't really talk right now.
	I just thought he was a bit douchebag.
	Yeah, because who says I'm cutting a tree?
	Sorry.
	Yeah, that's how we met.
	And then, yeah, from there we started talking.
	And I was even hesitant to tell my parents that, you know, I'm talking to someone that's Jehovah Witness because they think, like, the first thing that Christians sometimes think about Jehovah Witness is like, oh, it's a cult.
	They're satanic.
	They're going to do this and this.
	I'm like, that's not really how it is.
	Because they block themselves from associating with those people based on all this All these prejudiced things that I can't really think of where it comes from besides, you know, the leaders of the institution that say those things.
	Well, I mean, we got a bit of detail here about any person who is not a Jehovah's Witness is described by the Watchtower as a worldly person that is alienated from God and hence controlled by the devil.
	This standard for high control groups, such as exclusive brethren, this is a standard for high control groups who discourage members from associating with worldly non-members.
	So, alienated from God and controlled by the devil, everyone who doesn't believe exactly what we believe, you know, it could be considered a little bit exclusionary.
	Yeah, I was only allowed to associate with people who were Jehovah Witnesses, so even when I left the religion, I lost my whole circle of friends.
	I deleted my old Instagram account and basically created myself a new life, which is probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but it's taken me a year to get to this point where I can now be okay with the fact that I'm a totally different person to who I was a year ago.
	And, Emily, I'm so sorry, of course, to hear that you experience this sort of stuff.
	Was there anyone, when you decided to leave the church, was there anyone who said, gosh, I'd really like to stay in touch, even though I know we're not supposed to, because you're a great person, or, you know, you're going through a struggle.
	Like, it was just like, everyone was just like, cut the wire.
	Well, my best friend, who we've been best friends for 10 years, we're closer than sisters, actually.
	And even now, she tries to convince me to go back and stuff.
	And I have to explain to her, you know, it's not for me anymore.
	But she just says the situation I'm in right now is tragic.
	And she's really sad for me.
	And that's the end of our friendship, really.
	Because you are now under the sway and control of the devil.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And so you don't get to go to heaven.
	And if she consorts with you, the devil may jump from you, like a tick or a flea, may jump from you into her.
	And so it's risky for her eternal soul and her pathway to heaven if she breathes the same air as you.
	Am I sort of roughly...
	No, it's more that will influence her in a bad way.
	And, you know, that kind of way.
	I mean, we don't believe that, you know, go to heaven or what have you, but...
	Right.
	I'm very sorry.
	I'm very sorry.
	I mean, that is a very high hurdle to cross.
	And that is a...
	A very rigid set of beliefs.
	Like, it's one thing to say, look, we're a science community here, and if you want to join and be part of the science community, you've kind of got to do science.
	And they can make a rational argument for all of that.
	But it's quite another thing to say, well, we have these irrational perspectives, and you either have to adhere to these rational perspectives, or no one has anything to do with you.
	That is pretty rough.
	I think the worst thing is I still believe that The worst thing is I still have that guilt thing.
	Yeah, I still have this immense guilt over me almost all the time.
	And I still believe it.
	I still believe I'm going to die when this arm again comes.
	But I always feel like I live life now, live it fully, because life's too short kind of thing.
	Alright, so hang on.
	I'm going to back the trap here.
	I felt a little thump on the undercarriage.
	I'm going to back up a little bit.
	So, the guilt.
	I get the guilt, right?
	I mean, it's a very powerful belief system that was inflicted on you as a child.
	But you still believe that around the end times and so on?
	Yeah.
	Well, it's just always what I've been taught.
	So it's like, it's hard to like, Come away from that after knowing that your whole entire life.
	To just believe that the people are going to turn against you and this is what's going to happen and this is how you're going to...
	I don't know.
	I still have that constant fear, I guess.
	A fear of end times?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And can you describe to me, if you don't mind, I'm sorry to interrupt, but...
	Can you describe for me the end times as you anticipate it or as the belief system anticipates it?
	What's going to happen?
	People go, like, it says, like, we were told that people would turn to witnesses, including so-called wild days, and that they'll be targeted, and then God will act and bring a great war.
	And then destroy all the people who aren't righteous.
	Now, I'm sorry to interrupt, but does God himself, you know, like flicking Subutio players, does God himself come down and kill the non-believers?
	Or does he provoke a war and guide the missiles or something like that?
	No, I think it's like godly acts.
	I don't know.
	I assume it's like thunder and thunder.
	Striking people down?
	I'm not entirely sure.
	I'm just trying to figure this out.
	The physics of this stuff is always interesting to me.
	I don't mean this in a nasty way.
	It's really interesting.
	So I could be in my basement and a Jehovah's Witness could be out front, you know, holding up a golf club, but the lightning would go past him In through the basement window, like round the corner and then kill me.
	Yeah, like Bible times when we had miracles, it would be like that kind of thing, I guess.
	So God would then murder approximately 99.999% of the human population, is that right?
	No, because people who haven't got to know him, they're righteous.
	They don't know.
	So because I've been baptized into the religion, it makes me a worse person than you, than any other person who hasn't got to know the Torah and his faith or hasn't been baptized into it.
	It's almost as if I'd be better off if I wasn't baptized, but because I'm baptized.
	Yeah, because there are pygmies.
	In the rainforest, which have, I think, a tested average IQ of 53, who've never been exposed to Christianity or Jehovah's Witness or Mormonism or you name it, right?
	Would those pygmies also be killed in this process?
	No.
	No, because they know no different to the lack of their leading.
	Whether it be wrong or right, they know no difference.
	They haven't had the opportunity, hence the reason why the Jehovah's Witnesses, they go out.
	I used to be a full-time minister out from the doors, knocking and preaching, but I decided it wasn't for me anymore.
	Now, someone like myself, who's heard of the Jehovah's Witness and various other religious organizations, but have not studied them in any great detail, Would I be killed in this end times?
	No.
	I wouldn't be killed.
	Because, you know, people have knocked at the door at various points throughout my life and wanted to give me the good news with the, you know, cheesy crayon-colored magazines, and I have recycled them.
	So people have handed to me, and so am I off the hook because I've not read them?
	Probably.
	I mean, it all depends on heart condition, I guess.
	You know, you've got to look into your heart and see if you're a good person, really, and if you'll respond.
	There's like three stages to this.
	So you survive the war.
	You go then to the second bit, which is called the new system, where the earth is cleaned up.
	Then you're being taught about the religion.
	Then you have a trial period with the devil.
	It's like a thousand years.
	And he, like, tests you and tempts you, and then if you fail, you die.
	But the rest of the people, they stay and they live on forever.
	So that is how it goes, really.
	There's the tribulation, the new system, and then the thousand-year period.
	And that's the three stages.
	Now, in the first stage in the tribulation, does God reveal himself to mankind?
	Like, he's hurling thunderbolts like Zeus, he's creating earthquakes, bringing tsunamis, and killing people left, right, and center, if he looks into their heart and finds that they're bad people.
	So pretty much the philosophical question would be laid to rest along with billions of people.
	But the philosophical question, is there a God, would kind of be laid to rest because it's like, yeah, you follow that lightning bolt.
	You follow the ghostly fingertip up to the big guy with the white beard and the red eyes and the snarl.
	So that's God, right?
	So the question of faith would no longer apply in this situation, because God would have revealed himself as kind of psychotic, but he would have revealed himself as, you know, a pretty Old Testament, mass-murdering, vengeful kind of deity.
	So there wouldn't be any particular, like, I'd be religious then, right?
	Oh, I guess it wouldn't be religious in the way we'd understand it now, because it would be philosophically, empirically valid that there would be a deity casting down thunderbolts and killing people.
	So I would no longer doubt the existence of a deity because he'd be right there.
	I mean, you know, maybe I think always some space alien or something, but what would be called the deity would be beyond any empirical question, right?
	So there would be no atheists left.
	No.
	Well, I guess the atheists back in the Bible's time...
	Yeah, he's doing a pretty intense and long-lived game of peekaboo at the moment, so it's making it a bit more challenging for empiricists and rationalists to follow the trail.
	Not a lot of breadcrumbs leading to this ghostly attic of clouds and absence.
	So then everyone would say, wow, there is a God, and everyone would then say, but those Jehovah's Witnesses are not being killed by this deity, right?
	Well, it depends.
	It could be bad Jehovah's Witnesses.
	But the good, like...
	On average, most people would be killed, and a smaller proportion of Jehovah's Witnesses would be killed.
	At least I'd hope so, because Jehovah's Witnesses is supposed to help protect you from this wrath of the end times, and if it made you more of a target, it would be like, hey, take this pill to deal with your headache, turns out to be hand grenades, you don't have a great day.
	So we'd look around and we'd say, well, there was a giant tsunami, and But this shimmering ghostly shield protected the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they bobbed up to the top like bubbles, and they were fine.
	So not only would we no longer doubt God, but we'd also not at all doubt that Jehovah's Witness of Faith was the one true religion, because it was the one that was saving people from this wrath, right?
	Well, yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean that once everybody's got past that, that they'll stick to it.
	Like, That's why they have the test period of time, too.
	So even if people don't doubt it, some people know it's, or they feel that it's the right religion, but they still do things wrong.
	Okay, no, I got it.
	So then, after God lays waste to the vast majority of the planet and kills a good number of people, do the dead come back to life for judgment as well?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's called the Great Resurrection.
	That's part of that period.
	Just before everybody gets tested, they come back.
	Okay, so I would assume then that a Jehovah's Witness who was a secret murderer or something would get killed, but Socrates, for instance, God would look into Socrates' heart and say, good on you, mate.
	It would say, like, good for you, and you're an okay guy, so I'm not going to kill you.
	Is that right?
	It just depends.
	I don't know, I can't say.
	Well, it can't depend on everything.
	There has to be some, right?
	I mean, this religion is like quite, it's not yesterday.
	They've got some time, have had some time to work some stuff out, right?
	Yeah, but like you can't, you know, say God is a mystery.
	You can't exactly know what he's going to do or not do.
	It's not written in the Bible who's going to save and who doesn't save.
	But doesn't this religious group say that ours is the way that you get saved from God?
	They can't then say, well, it's random.
	Well, I don't know.
	Well, you should...
	I mean, the reason I'm asking these questions, these I think would be the interesting, curious questions that I would ask, you know, if I was some sort of space anthropologist and asking about these sorts of things.
	And I think it gives you some reason to doubt the edicts that have been handed or passed down to you, right?
	Because if you can...
	This is the fundamental question, right?
	So if you can be saved by good works...
	Which is the fundamental question that split up Christendom in the 15th century.
	If you can be saved by good works, if you're a good person, you stand up for the weak and the downtrodden, you speak truth to power, you take the punishments of attempting to pull mankind up by its bootstraps to a higher moral set of stairs, but you don't believe in a deity.
	If you're a good person, you can be then saved, according to some theologies, you can be saved by good works.
	You're a good person.
	That's not believed by the Jehovah Witness religion.
	And that's not what?
	That's not believed by the religion.
	No, like, just because you're a good person doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be saved because you have to believe in God.
	You have to...
	Wait, wait, wait!
	You just told me I would not be killed!
	Yeah, I know.
	But like, if you're a true witness, then you just do good works, but you don't listen to the religion.
	Oh, no, no, no, I get that.
	I get that.
	No, if you've been exposed to the truth.
	No, I get it.
	So if you've been exposed to the truth, and you reject it, and like, you'd be in a worse position than I would be, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay.
	So if you can be saved by good works, then virtue is conformity to moral ideals, not obedience to supernatural edicts, right?
	Because this is the real question, and I've got a whole podcast on this somewhere early on, which is, are you...
	Are you obeying commandments and calling yourself virtue?
	Just following orders, sir, right?
	That's never really worked.
	Just look at the Nuremberg trials, right?
	So there's no such thing as virtue which is called just following orders.
	And so mere obedience to God's demands based upon the threat of hell or the promise of heaven cannot be called virtue.
	It simply can't be to order someone.
	Cannot be called virtue.
	Like if I kidnap someone's kids and I hold them hostage and I say, you have to go and give $10 to a homeless guy and then I'll release your kids.
	And he goes hands shaking, gives $10 to a homeless guy.
	And then I release his kids.
	We wouldn't say, well, that guy was really into charity.
	Right.
	It would just be like, well, he's terrified and he's following my orders because I have the power of life and death over his children.
	So he's just following orders because I'm threatening him.
	He's following orders because I'm threatening him.
	That can never, ever be considered virtue.
	I mean, if that's virtue, then everyone below Hitler...
	You know, would have been perfectly moral because, you know, they were just following orders and they were being threatened.
	And so we generally don't consider that to be valid.
	Now, if just not following orders because you're threatened doesn't bring you to virtue, then the other question is, okay, well, what does?
	Well, let's say we call virtue going to give 10 bucks to a homeless guy.
	Then if someone just decides, oh, you know, that poor homeless guy has been there all week.
	I've won the lottery, so here's some money.
	They don't believe in anything supernatural, but they're doing good absent the threat of hell or the promise of heaven.
	So if you're not religious, then you do good things for a variety of reasons, but they're not to do with being threatened or being bribed.
	Being threatened with death, eternal death or eternal torture, or being bribed with eternal life or eternal paradise.
	Everyone who is supposedly doing good acts because they're being threatened or bribed cannot be considered as virtuous as someone who's doing those good acts in the absence of being threatened or bribed, but rather out of an internal motivation to do good.
	But that doesn't work very well in an exclusionary theology, right?
	Because if it's just, well, just do good things because you want to be a good person, then you don't need to be part of any particular religious group and you're not buying salvation by handing over money and time.
	You're not buying salvation from the hellfire and brimstone to come.
	So if it's just good works, then you don't, the religious organization doesn't make any money.
	But if it is Obedience to irrational edicts because threatened bribery, then they can of course claim that they can save you from something, but then they're just basically saying, from a philosophical standpoint, they're saying that obedience to irrational commandments because you're threatened or bribed is the ultimate in virtue.
	Now if it is the case that this end times come and God is blowing up continents left, right and center, But there's a lovely little biosphere halo around the Jehovah's Witness communities, then it's very clear that there is a God and the God is Jehovah's Witnesses are right.
	And so people would then convert to Jehovah's Witnesses for the most part, I think, because there would be empirical evidence.
	It wouldn't be a matter of faith anymore.
	It would be empirically proven there's a God and boy does he have a love.
	The Jehovah's Witnesses, so here we go, right?
	I mean, that's where we're gonna go.
	Now, then the devil, you say, comes along and for a thousand years tries to tempt everyone who's ever lived and everyone.
	So I guess at this point we now live forever, is that right?
	Like there's no sickness, there's no aging, there are no accidents, like a piano can fall on your head and it just bounces off like bucks money.
	It will become perfection.
	Right, but the devil...
	So you'd now live forever, and you couldn't, you know, cut yourself shaving or anything, and the devil would then say, Aha!
	I'm going to give you, what, sex, money, power?
	I mean, what is it that he would want to give you that would tempt you?
	He could use any means.
	I'm sorry?
	He could use any means.
	It's not specifically said, but I don't know.
	He could use anything, I guess.
	People's...
	People's greed, money, power, yeah, that kind of stuff.
	But it doesn't go into the Bible deeply.
	We're never taught deeply of specifically what he would use.
	But I guess he would have...
	But people would know he was the devil, right?
	Yeah, but of course they would.
	But people, like with Adam and Eve, their greed was too much.
	You wanted to have eyes for God.
	Well, no, they didn't know.
	In Adam and Eve, they didn't know he was the devil.
	Right?
	He was a talking snake.
	Because, you know, if the devil comes up and says...
	Well, they knew snakes didn't talk.
	They were clever enough to figure that out.
	They knew there was some kind of supernatural being.
	Right, but didn't know he was the devil, right?
	No, no.
	Because the way that I would see it is that if the devil himself came up to me, came up to me and it was like, I'm going to give you...
	I thought he would make it too obvious because then people wouldn't fall for it.
	He would do it in a sly way.
	He's been studying humans for thousands of years now.
	So he would present himself as a god.
	Yeah, that's how he is.
	He's the god of the wild, right?
	Now, what I'd be confused about is if supernatural beings presented themselves, and I knew that there was a devil, that the God was going to put in control over human beings for a thousand years, and that the devil would present himself as something other than who he was, I'd be pretty tempted.
	I'm going to tell me what you think.
	But I'd be pretty tempted to say, Well, if God is...
	Sorry, if the devil is here, and the devil will present himself as God, and there's a giant guy up in the sky with his finger thunderbolts blowing up millions of people around the world, murdering millions of people around the world, bringing the dead back to life, and then blowing them up like some sort of skeet-shooting zombie-fest game, I think I'd be pretty tempted to say, well, that must be the devil, because he's doing a whole lot of killing, and...
	This is what the devil would do, is he'd present himself as a deity and then kill a whole bunch of people.
	So how would I know that it was God and not the devil?
	Well, he would lead you into temptation to do things that weren't right.
	So, God wouldn't tempt you, God doesn't tempt, so it would be the devil.
	Can I jump in on this one?
	Yeah, please.
	Yeah, so I know, because me, I'm a bit of a faith searcher.
	I've read several of these, of religious books and stuff, but into a lot of beliefs that I've read before and been taught.
	Some people say that, I know because I'm Serbian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox, it's very similar, but the way we believe it is, in the end times, I mean, me personally, I don't believe in the end times religious theory as much.
	Wait, hang on.
	I'm sorry.
	The as much is...
	It seems this is kind of binary.
	Yeah.
	You know, it seems like you...
	It's like...
	I don't see how you get to have somewhat of a belief that the world is going to end in fiery, God-driven Ragnarok death and hell.
	How do you get 20% of that?
	I personally believe in a more scientific theory because the world's been...
	A more scientific theory.
	I'm sorry to be annoying with language.
	I can't think of a less scientific theory, so we're not starting from the top of the CN Tower here.
	This is not right.
	It's not a more scientific theory to think that this end time scenario of gods and devils and billions of people coming back to life and then exploding.
	And like that is not, you know, I mean, smoking crack that's been directly injected into your near frontal cortex would be a more, would produce a more scientific theory.
	I just want to be annoying about that.
	I personally don't believe in the big mainstream religious Armageddon End Times.
	I guess you could say, I'd just say theory, but from my families and our Christian religions, what they say about the devil, like you were saying, is It wouldn't come as in you would know who the devil is or anything.
	We say that he comes, but he fakes it, like pretends that, okay, so it's Armageddon time, you see God, but that's possibly not God.
	That would be the devil because he would fake and pretend he is God.
	So that's how we see it.
	We don't say, oh, that's obviously God.
	We say, you know, you got to be careful because it's probably fake or you're being tricked or something like that.
	Now, would the devil, would it be considered an immoral action to threaten someone, to threaten to kill someone if he or she did not accept your commandments?
	You know, it is kind of immoral.
	Kind of.
	Okay, hang on.
	You gotta come out of the fog or we're not gonna get anywhere, right?
	Seriously, I'm walking down the street with an M16 and a copy of UPB. I scream my theory at people and give them 10 seconds to say whether they agree with me or not, or I double tap two bullets through their forehead.
	Am I a good guy or a bad guy?
	Yeah, well, I believe it's in the role.
	Okay, so we've got an immoral standard which says, forcing people at gunpoint to claim allegiance to your propositions.
	And let's just say, I think UBB is a little bit more consistent than religious edicts.
	That's an immoral action.
	So I can't for the life of me figure out how in the end times, a God coming down and saying, obey me or I will obliterate you.
	How on earth would you think that wasn't the devil?
	I understand that.
	I mean, it's definitely a black and white topic, but...
	Wait, you're not answering the question, right?
	Yeah.
	Do you want me to try again?
	Yeah, try again.
	Okay, thanks.
	Alright.
	The devil is evil.
	It is evil to threaten people with killing them to get them to accept your commandments.
	To accept your orders.
	God is good, and therefore, if the end-time story is like a supernatural being coming down and threatening people with death if they don't accept his orders, which is an evil action, that must be the devil, because the devil is evil and God is good.
	But he's not demanding anything.
	He's just looking into our hearts.
	That's what we believe.
	And we believe that the devil...
	Wait, God is not demanding...
	Obedience or allegiance?
	He is to some certain extent, but he's not demanding on the spot there.
	He will afterwards when he looks into their heart.
	It won't be like, obey me or you die.
	It will be If it's not in your heart, you're gone.
	But if it's in your heart afterwards, then...
	Well, okay, so let's say I'm walking, again, well, take me with an M16 walking down the street with a copy of Universally Preferable Behavior, my book of ethics, my book of ethics in my hand.
	How long do people get to read and review the book?
	I'm sorry?
	This is the time period now when people are learning about God.
	This is it.
	This is the searching for people, searching for righteous people.
	No, but how long do I give them before it's okay for me to shoot them, and it's no longer an immoral action?
	But you're no higher than another human, so you don't have the right to go and demand things of people, whereas God is a lot higher than humans.
	Oh, so God can do things which are evil for people?
	And which everyone would judge as evil for every other human being to do, God can do those things, but be called good because he's not human.
	In other words, God is the opposite of what is ethical for humans, but human beings should obey the ethical commandments of God, even though God is the opposite of that which is ethical for humans.
	You know, I think that's definitely true.
	Wait, what is definitely true?
	You just blew my mind a little short-circuiting.
	I'm trying to figure out what is true.
	No, what you said is true about how you're demanding God doing unethical things of what humans cannot, for example.
	I mean, that's definitely true, and I think a lot of religions say that also.
	Except the thing is that a lot of people in the religions, they justify...
	Anything that God does is correct, whether they can't do it or not.
	You know, same thing as how people will blow people...
	For example, like, all the terrorist attacks, people blow up because it's in for God, and just because they're doing it for God, they think it's right.
	You know, they kind of...
	It's kind of like, just because God says and does it's correct, even though you may not be able to do those things, everyone else still believes that I'm sorry, I fail to understand how according to any reasonable or rational human ethics, God is not a terrorist.
	Because a terrorist is a threat of violence to achieve a particular moral end.
	And the definition of, you're going to go to hell, you sons of bitches, if you don't obey my commandments, how is that not pretty much the divine definition of supernatural terrorism?
	But he has more of a right to be like that because he's a creator.
	So if you create something, it gives you special moral rights.
	So a parent can murder a child and it's not wrong because the parent created the child.
	Is that right?
	I don't feel like people directly create life, but...
	No, not necessarily.
	I mean, we don't have the ability, or we do have the ability, we don't have the right to take or to give, so...
	Right, we don't have the right to take or give life.
	Well, we certainly don't have the right to take life, because that would be an evil action, that would be murder, right?
	Yeah.
	But God would be murdering people.
	Yes.
	In the second coming.
	So how would we be able to distinguish a God who's doing evil from a devil who's doing evil and pretending to be God?
	Okay, but the devil will be doing evil to good people.
	God will be doing evil to...
	There's bad people up there, but it doesn't necessarily mean everyone's bad just because they don't have a faith in God.
	Except good people who reject religion would also be smited under many religious beliefs.
	I think I'm getting a giant laser on my forehead again, because I seem to be going in and out of this death squad.
	I seem to be going in and out of this death penalty.
	Because I was raised Christian, and I went to church, I was in the choir, and then Variety of things happened and I am no longer a Christian so I would be considered and not only am I not a Christian and But I also talk about atheism and, you know, I would be very happy to convince more and more people to stop obeying supernatural death threat orders.
	I can't believe I have to say that and it doesn't make sense to everyone.
	But so I would be, as a proselytizer of atheism, I would be like one of the top five or top ten people first in line for this God Squad firing circle, right?
	So, your job is to convince people of atheism?
	Well, my job is to get people to think for themselves and to not obey supernatural edicts because of threats and bribes.
	Because obeying irrationality is the opposite of philosophy.
	And doing things...
	I want people to be good, to be moral, And you cannot be moral if you are bribed and threatened.
	All you're doing is you're like a pinball bouncing around off your bribes and threats.
	There's no morality that's possible when people have a gun to their head.
	If I hold a gun to someone's head and say, do something, there's no rational law system that would ever say, well, he's responsible for what he did.
	I would be responsible because I would have the gun to his head.
	So the purpose of philosophy is clear thought, right?
	Reason equals virtue equals happiness.
	Clear thought, moral action, and the spread of virtue and happiness.
	And you can't have morality in a state of compulsion and therefore religious commandments that say, Do it or devils will rape you for eternity or whatever or do it and will bribe you with eternal life and whatever.
	How many virgins?
	I know that's not yours.
	So that's the opposite of philosophy.
	The more the bribe, the more the threat, the less virtue there can be in this situation where there's infinite bribes and infinite threats.
	There can be no virtue at all in the situation.
	So the obedience to supernatural or obedience to irrational edicts or commandments.
	Obedience to irrational commandments.
	Under threat of murder or salvation is the complete and total opposite of everything that philosophy would hope to achieve in the world.
	So it is a win-lose situation, right?
	Philosophy wins, religion loses.
	Religion wins, philosophy loses.
	And so I'm not going to go down without a fight, no matter how many ghosts are called up against me.
	I'm sorry, I missed that.
	No free will in religion.
	I'm sorry, I'm not sure.
	No free will in religion.
	What do you mean?
	Yeah, like, so you can't have free will as long as you're under a religion or you're obedient to a god.
	There is no free will.
	Absolutely.
	You cannot have moral responsibility if you are dodging skybolts from a deity and you just have to obey or you're going to be killed.
	That's like saying that people in concentration camps are vacationing because they don't leave when they'll actually be shot.
	We wouldn't blame someone, right, for being in a concert because they'll be shot if they leave, right?
	So they're not in a situation of free will.
	I mean, as you say some things about obedience, I know in the Jehovah religion, also in some and other religions too, you're not necessarily considered a member of the religion or righteous if you don't If you don't put out to the organization itself, for example, if you don't...
	Wait, what do you mean by putting out to the organization?
	Like, if you don't volunteer for certain services within the institution or organization, you're not necessarily...
	Dedicate your life.
	Yeah, if you don't dedicate yourself to it, then you're not considered...
	You're not considered a righteous person, or...
	And just because you're not...
	For example, like, the fact that I had a full-time job and was searching a career was a bad thing.
	The fact that I didn't spend 70 hours a week.
	I no longer spend 70 hours a week trying to convert people is a bad thing.
	Oh, so if you don't provide slave labor to the organization, then that's bad, right?
	Yeah, I mean, their sole purpose isn't to get money from people, though there is contribution boxes, but it's more to donate your time.
	Donate your time to building the kingdom halls.
	Sorry, you say that their goal is not to get money from people?
	Yeah, their goal is not.
	I wouldn't say that at all.
	It's more time.
	It's more you as a person.
	They want you to be actively going out and constantly being with the religion.
	Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Again, I don't know anything about the finances of it, but If you convert more people to the religion and people give money to the religion the religion gets more money, right?
	Yeah, I'm not saying that's the only motive, but that would seem to know no.
	Yeah, okay Technically, if their sole goal was to get money for people, they would have some kind of tithe or whatever it's called.
	I don't know what they call it in other religions, but some kind of 10% of your wages.
	They're not the richest religion in the world.
	I know there's many others that have gold in their churches and stuff.
	Their churches are very plain and very simple.
	So, no, I wouldn't say that their motive is money at all.
	It's more gathering people.
	It's more people.
	Because the bigger the crowd, the more international you are, the more powerful you are.
	You know, you know a huge amount more, obviously, about this religion than I do, but I've seen some pretty big temples.
	You know, I've seen some pretty modern...
	Yeah, but they're not furnished in gold.
	Okay, they're not furnished in gold.
	Yeah, but they serve a perfect...
	But they serve a purpose.
	They house hundreds of Bethelites.
	They print magazines and they give them out for free, you know.
	They don't expect money for people in that way.
	And I'm not sticking up for them, but it was mainly to gather people.
	That is their sole purpose.
	But time is money, right?
	Time is money, yeah.
	So were you expected to put 70 hours a week into converting people?
	A month, as well as having a...
	Oh, 70 hours a month, is that right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, like, my sister does it good for her.
	You know, she can do what she wants, but the fact that I didn't do it anymore...
	Wait, wait, sorry, why is it good for your sister?
	What do you mean good for her?
	Well, I always feel like...
	I mean, I just gave you this whole speech about philosophy versus religion.
	I'm not expecting you to suddenly jump over to the philosophy side, but I'd like to at least have you acknowledge that I said that, so that I'm not going to agree with you good for her.
	No, but the thing is, though, is if that's what she wants to limit herself to in life, then that's her choice.
	You know, she doesn't want to seek a grift for herself and she wants to get married at 18 and, you know, whatever.
	That's her life.
	There's no talking to people out of this, you know.
	She's completely into it.
	But is she not under the threat of eternal death?
	No.
	Or the bribe of eternal life?
	Is this not what she's operating under?
	Um...
	Eternal life, yeah.
	No, no, no.
	You said that the people who back away from the religion or the people who've been exposed to it and then back away, that those people will be killed.
	But she hasn't backed away.
	No, I know, I know.
	But if she did, then she would be killed by God.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So she's operating under a death threat the like of which a secular or atheist person could never imagine the extent of it.
	You know, someone kills me, I'm dead, I'm food for worms, it's all over, right?
	But for a religious person, it may be eternal torment, or certainly it's the absence of eternal life and reunification with loved ones and eternity and God's chorus line or whatever.
	And so your sister is operating under a continual eternal death threat that if she abandons the religion...
	She will be killed by the religious deity.
	She will be killed by the religious deity if she leaves the religion, right?
	Yeah, I mean, every Joe witness lives under that.
	I get that, but we're talking about your sister.
	So if your sister was working under a death threat in a factory, you leave the factory, I'll shoot you.
	Would you say good for her?
	Probably not.
	Well, I would bloody well hope not.
	I mean, that would be a pretty horrible...
	Well, you know, she got kidnapped by the mafia, and she's forced to work for them for free, and I'll shoot her if she leaves, but good for her.
	I mean, I know with the organization, that's kind of like...
	Because, you know, with any organization, I don't believe in the money's a donation thing because, I mean, all these religions, not just Jehovah Witnesses, but they all have huge marketing tools.
	I mean, you should see the modernization of it.
	I know a Christian church that's actually near me, they produce millions.
	They have LCD screens.
	It's almost like a karaoke when they do their choir singing.
	They have applications.
	I mean, they have all these things...
	They obviously need money and everything.
	I consider you have Jehovah Witnesses, you have Christians, you have Eastern Orthodox Christians.
	I believe in a more unified, like people should be unified, but if you think about it, they're all different types of businesses and they're trying to compete next to each other.
	So they're all trying to differentiate from each other.
	If we're going to start talking businesses, then we can't have death threats because it's illegal for businesses to threaten customers with death threats for canceling the service.
	Like last time I switched cell phone companies, Jason Statham didn't follow me with a silencer in the subway, right?
	So you're not allowed to...
	You can't compare religious organizations to businesses because businesses can't threaten you with eternal damnation and the destruction of the entire world and separation from your loved ones forever and so on.
	Or if that is a business, it's probably the mafia.
	In 2001, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York was listed among the top 40 revenue-generating companies in New York City.
	New York City is not exactly known for being short of revenue generating companies.
	It was one of the top 40.
	Do you know how much the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society got as an annual revenue 14 years ago?
	No, they're looking to that.
	Would you like to guess?
	You tell me it's not about money, right?
	I don't think it is.
	Because if it was, then as I say, I think we would have to donate like No, but would you like to take a guess, 14 years ago, how much...
	This is just one of them, one of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York.
	How much they made.
	Is it just New York?
	Or is that over the whole entire world?
	No idea.
	The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York.
	I don't know if they do...
	I think that would be worldwide.
	I don't know, like, 3 million?
	It's 951 million dollars.
	Which is almost a billion dollars 14 years ago.
	Actually, that is one of their headquarters.
	I looked that up before.
	That's one of their regional headquarters in the world.
	That location.
	Right.
	So, one of their main corporations 14 years ago made almost a billion dollars.
	I assume tax-free because they're a religion, right?
	It's classed as a charity, so yeah.
	So for a business, given that the U.S. corporate tax rates, you know, 40% or whatever, 45%, so that would be $1.4 billion 14 years ago.
	Not counting all of the free labor that they get by threatening people with ostracism, with hellfire, damnation, eternal death, murder at the end times, they get all that free labor.
	We're just talking about the cash That they get, not the value of the free labor.
	Mike or Nostoi, if you could do me a quick calculation, find the number of Jehovah's Witnesses, assume that they're doing 70 hours a week, value their labor at, say, 20 bucks an hour, let's maybe see how much labor they're getting that they might otherwise have to pay for.
	So, look, I'm not saying it's all about money, and I accept what you say, that there's no tithe, but that's a lot of money.
	I would say only 3% of Jehovah's Witnesses do the whole missionary work 70 hours a month.
	I would say on average they'd do about 20 the rest.
	Oh, okay.
	So it's only 3%.
	So we'll make it 20.
	That's fine.
	Let's just say that all the Jehovah's Witnesses are doing...
	But as a young person, you're expected to give more.
	All right.
	So, okay, we've got...
	I'm just going to figure this out here.
	So we've got...
	There's 7.86 million Jehovah's Witnesses, right?
	Let me just see if I can figure this out.
	I'm on Windows.
	Okay.
	Yeah, as of August 2014, Jehovah's Witnesses report an average membership of approximately 7.86 million actively involved in preaching, with a peak of 8.2 million than reached previously.
	Wait, so 7.86, those aren't kids or anything, those are the adults who are actively involved in preaching?
	Yes, that's from the yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses.
	Okay, can you give me 7.86 million times 20 times 20 times 12?
	That's 1,886,400,000.
	That's the value of the labor that is gotten under threat of death and torment and torture and ostracism and so on.
	That is the slave labor because, you know...
	It's not labor that is voluntarily provided.
	Like, if I ask someone to share some of my videos, I don't say, or you'll burn in hell forever.
	Because, you know, I'm not that way inclined, let's put it that way.
	So, and also, let's just assume that the money is the same story, if you don't mind.
	Let's just say we've got the 936 million dollars.
	If we could just sort of convert that to modern dollars, there's been quite a bit of inflation and money printing since then.
	But I'm pretty sure we're over $3 billion of value, of free labor and cash.
	It's $3 billion.
	So...
	That's a lot of money.
	And the reason that it's frustrating for me, and I'll just be, let me be completely honest and upfront, as I always try to be, but in this one, I'm making it about me, and I want to be clear about that.
	Let me tell you why this is so frustrating for me.
	So...
	Oh, hang on, just before I do that.
	The number is from 2014?
	Oh, no, I thought the dollar figure was from 2001.
	Yeah, the dollar figure is from 2001.
	Yeah, the number of the people is from 2014, but the dollar figure is from 2001.
	So, and we'll get the number in a sec.
	Let me just sort of have my little rant here.
	I'll take off my earpiece for a sec.
	So the reason, guys, why this is so frustrating for me is that I am morally banned from issuing threats of violence to people who don't agree with me.
	I'm not saying I have this great desire to.
	It's not like this is, oh, I wake up every morning and it's like, don't threaten to kill people who aren't into philosophy.
	Just, I know you want to.
	I know you want to.
	Just find some way to resist the temptation to call in airstrikes on people who don't agree with you.
	I am not even remotely tempted.
	I would find that a revolting and repulsive way to spread rational, critical, voluntary, moral thinking.
	You can't spread philosophy with the sword.
	So I am morally banned because of the non-initiation of force from issuing threats to spread philosophy.
	So in the game of ideas, in this arena, in this marketplace, in this headspace of ideas, well, I'm operating at a slight disadvantage.
	Tiny, tiny little disadvantage.
	I mean, I'm storming the beaches of Normandy with a microphone.
	And a book!
	And some bad jokes!
	That's what I've got.
	Howitzers, Stukas, AK-47s, Kalashnikovs, airstrikes, drones, whatever.
	I mean, you know drones, but...
	I'm coming into this conflict for the soul of the species with a microphone...
	Lots of rational thoughts, passion, and peace.
	And peace.
	I'm in a tennis game with a tennis racket and a tennis ball, and I'm not allowed to hit anyone else with my tennis racket, and I'm not allowed to even shoot my ball at anyone.
	Other people have mortars that can land on my side of the tennis court.
	What is frustrating for me, guys, is that if people don't see the inequality of this battle, that I can only bring my humor, my intelligence, my wits, my charisma, my focus, my energy, that's all I can bring to the arena.
	I am not allowed death threats!
	No death threats in philosophy!
	No threats of murder, no threats of if you don't believe in universally preferable behavior, my theory of ethics, the world will end!
	I don't get that.
	I don't have two giant goons of good and evil and infinite power standing behind me saying, be a real good idea if y'all believe the little bald philosopher down there, because if you don't, be a real shame if everything happened to the entire planet and it all went up in flames and everyone who didn't listen to Steph the Magnificent will die forever!
	I don't have those guys behind me.
	I just have feet.
	Look behind me.
	Just a white wall.
	You got white in front, you got a white in the back.
	That's all I got.
	No airstrikes, no death threats, no eternal damnation.
	I can't bribe the living shit out of people by giving them these infinite marshmallow cloud Orgies of deity, proximity, bliss for eternity.
	I can't offer, hey, if you're into freedom and radio, I'll reunite you with your dead loved ones.
	And if you disagree with me, you're never gonna see him again.
	Forever.
	I don't have that.
	I simply don't have that.
	It's not a fair fight.
	Why does philosophy Not when?
	Relative to the state.
	Well, the state is like, obey these laws or we'll throw your ass in jail.
	Leave these premises.
	I don't care if you're wearing a bikini, or maybe I do.
	I'm going to take you down if you don't obey what I say.
	Pay your taxes or go to jail.
	Go directly to jail.
	Do not collect $200.
	So, why does...
	Philosophy lose to the state and to the gods because philosophy cannot bribe and philosophy cannot threaten and the state will bribe you with your freedom and threaten you with jail and religion will bribe you with heaven and threaten you with hell and it frustrates me Oh, my brothers and sisters!
	It frustrates me as it does all secular, rational, critical thinking, good people.
	It frustrates me to no end, literally to no end.
	It frustrates me that people don't see the simple decency Of people like me appealing to peace and reason and voluntarism and empiricism and argument.
	No death threats, no bribery.
	That is what is so frustrating.
	Is that these people with the uniforms and the funny hats are cheating.
	If I'm about to lose a chess game And I set fire to the person across from me, squirt him with some butane, light him up!
	What would people say?
	They'd say, what an unbelievably giant evil douchebag.
	Not cool, not fair.
	If you're gonna lose, you don't get to set fire to people.
	Not cool, not fair.
	If I'm about to lose a tennis game and I shoot the person, well, that's not right.
	You'd see that about eight billion times on CNN. In a surprise tune at Wimbledon, a Glock pistol was taken out.
	Yes, they exist.
	Look it up.
	A Glock pistol was taken out with a silencer.
	Closing game of Wimbledon, Mr.
	Molyneux was about to lose to the reincarnated ghost of Roscoe Tanner.
	And he shot him.
	And then he said, I win!
	Where's my trophy?
	I win!
	Or even if he just pointed at him or shoot him near the feet.
	Roscoe Tanner was a little bit confused because he was being shot at around the feet.
	Dance, Roscoe, dance!
	How fast is your serve now, you bastard?
	People would say, well, Steph is an evil guy who lost.
	You don't get to shoot at people.
	You don't get to threaten them with death.
	That's not how civilized debates and combat work.
	Intellectual combat.
	And so all the reasonable people in the world, those who don't want to state and don't use the rhetorical and evil lies and bribes of heaven and hell, all the reasonable people go to mankind and say, here's my reason, here's my evidence, here's my argument, here's my thinking, here are my syllogisms, here's my facts, here's my sources, here is my case.
	Here is, in the courtroom of human belief, my case.
	And then what do we hear?
	Do we hear a rebuttal?
	Do we hear any facts coming back?
	Do we hear counter-arguments?
	No.
	What do we hear?
	The God Squad has arrived.
	And with flames jetting from their fingertips, they lay waste to the courtroom.
	And then a lot of people say, I like religion.
	It's faith.
	It's not faith.
	It's fear.
	Death threats and bribes.
	The degree of irrationality is the degree of the threats.
	And the fact that they're promising you infinite good and infinite punishment means the arguments are infinitely stupid, idiotic, irrational, ridiculous.
	It is not fair for one person in a debate to come in saying, I will reason with you, I will never use aggression or threats against you, because I honor your mind, I honor the facts, I honor truth, I honor reality, I honor empiricism, I honor oratory.
	So I am forbidden from using any threats against you.
	And then on the gods and the government side, what do you get?
	Do or die.
	Believe or die.
	Give money or die.
	Give work or die.
	In the most horrible way, for the most horrible reasons, and forever.
	Not fair.
	And this is why when human beings are so blind to the death threats of the state and of the God, until they become visible to people, which is what I've sort of been trying to do in this conversation, until the death threats of gods and governments become clear to people, they will not fundamentally understand why philosophy keeps losing.
	I can't win A chess game where someone pulls a gun.
	I can't win a golf game where someone can call in an airstrike.
	I can't win a court case when there are bombs under the judge's desk.
	I can't win a debate when the other people will take hostages.
	Can't do it.
	It's dishonorable to even try.
	And this is why I'm pointing out the death threat of hell and the infinite bribery of heaven is a confession of falsehood.
	It is a confession of irrationality.
	If I go to a prostitute and she says, Mr.
	Molyneux, It's true, I have a freckle forehead fetish, but still, but still, Mr.
	Molyneux, I'm going to have to charge you $1,000 to have sex with you.
	Maybe she's not a prostitute.
	Maybe she's just some woman.
	I'm going to charge $1,000 to have sex with you.
	What would that tell everyone?
	That I am minus a thousand dollars attraction to her.
	That I have to bring me plus a thousand dollars to have sex with her.
	I'm down a thousand bucks.
	The moment I have to bribe her with money to have sex with me, it is a confession that she's not attracted to me.
	And the only way she's ever going to have sex with me if I come with a thousand dollars, which means I'm a thousand dollars of minus attractiveness.
	That's the confession.
	That is the confession.
	The rich man who pays for all of his friends to come with him to Tahiti and buys them jet skis and drinks with little funny hats in them and fruit hats like Carmen Miranda.
	That guy is saying, I don't believe that I can have friends without spending all this money.
	He's saying, I am this amount of money unattractive as a friend.
	Pardon me.
	So...
	This...
	Infinite threat and infinite bribe is a confession of infinite irrationality.
	There is simply no part of the Socratic method that involves, I'm gonna cut you.
	I'll cut you!
	I'll cut you up!
	I'll cut you up!
	Unless you agree with me!
	Well, if I'm doing it because of a threat, it's not agreement, it's compliance with violence.
	So this is why I'm spending some time on this point with Yahweh, and pointing out the violence of eternal torture and damnation, the bribery of eternal life in heaven.
	Because anything which comes out of that is the opposite of philosophy, and until people see that, philosophy has no chance.
	Philosophy has no chance.
	The refusal to threaten Makes you lose in a world that cannot process or understand that threats are being made.
	If I'm a prosecutor and I throw the case because someone's kidnapped my brother and I can't tell the court that and I do it in a very subtle way, I lose the case because no one can see that I'm throwing the case because my brother's been kidnapped and I don't want him to get killed.
	But...
	If I go to the judge or an open courtroom, I say, my brother has been kidnapped, they want me to throw the case.
	If I expose the violence that is modifying the argument, then rationality has a chance.
	But as long as that violence remains invisible, rationality will lose and people will say, boy, that guy who's not on fire is a hell of a chess player.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it makes some stuff.
	I mean, uh...
	I don't know.
	I often...
	It just makes me feel that you're quite hungry for power, too, as part of these other organizations.
	I mean, if everybody had the same...
	Sorry, I just missed that part.
	Did you say, like, I was hungry for power?
	Uh...
	Almost.
	No, it's fine if you believe it.
	I mean, make the case.
	I'm not offended.
	I'm just curious.
	I mean, there are people that have beliefs, but they use violets, and that's the result of wars.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Let's get back to me.
	Me being hungry for power.
	That's fascinating.
	No, tell me more.
	Tell me more.
	I don't want to offend you.
	I'm open to the argument.
	No, don't worry about offending me.
	Good heavens.
	I mean, you've already said that you still have some faith in a religion that's going to kill me, so you saying I'm hungry for power is the least of my offense capacity in this conversation.
	But no, tell me more.
	That's fascinating.
	No, no, because you obviously want to be listened to, which everybody does, but you take it more to the extreme than most people.
	You care more about I guess you care because you say, you know, the threat of religion and other people, hence the reason this discussion.
	But yeah, I would say that you feel unnoticed and you're crying out for people to listen to you, but you also are kind of converting people to your belief as well.
	What do you mean my belief?
	If I say to a child that two and two make four, am I indoctrinating the child?
	No, because that's common.
	Everybody knows that.
	It's maths.
	No, it's not because it's common.
	It's because it's true.
	It is true, but you can't say that your belief is true over somebody else's belief.
	Sure I can.
	Because there's no facts.
	First of all, if it's my belief, Then it's not true by definition.
	It's just my belief.
	I believe blue is the prettiest color, right?
	I mean, it's not an objective truth.
	It's your opinion.
	Is it my opinion that two and two make four?
	No, because it's factual.
	Okay, so that which is factual, that which is proven, that which is logical, is not merely my opinion.
	I mean, that's like saying that a validated scientific hypothesis is just someone's opinion.
	It's not.
	I mean, it's validated.
	It's true.
	Yeah.
	It's confirmed, right?
	Yes.
	Like the theory of relativity, evolution, opinions, right?
	Yeah, I view their opinions.
	Wait, do you think that the theory of relativity is an opinion?
	No, no.
	What do you mean by relativity?
	All right, let's say, do you think that gravity is an opinion?
	No, it's a proof fact.
	That's the reason we stay on the Earth, is because of gravity.
	Okay, so if I say to a child, be careful, don't jump from the top stairs because you'll fall and it's a long way, I'm not indoctrinating the child, right?
	I'm saying something that's true in order to keep the child safe and happy, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, if I am trying to provide to people arguments that are valid, and if I put arguments out there and I'm willing to have debates and have people like yourself or other people come on and criticize and refine and improve things, if I put out corrections and so on, that's not the same as me saying, give me 70 hours of free labor a month or you'll burn in hell forever, right?
	I mean, that's a different situation, right?
	Yeah, because like you say, philosophy, you can't threaten violence or bribery.
	It's different.
	Right, and philosophy requires standards of rationality and empiricism in order to be valid, right?
	It requires free will.
	I'm sorry?
	It requires free will.
	You look into it.
	You consciously look into it.
	Right.
	Okay, so the reality is that I can't be looking for power if I'm subjugating myself to the higher powers and standards of reason and evidence, if I'm subjugating myself to those standards and welcoming correction from people who do better with those things than I in some particular moment, if I put things out as tentatively, if I put them out as a hypothesis and so on.
	And so I don't think that's seeking power over people.
	it is inviting people to evaluate their own thoughts and opinions according to a rational and objective standard, which is saying, look at philosophy, look at logic, look at evidence.
	I'm here to remind you that those are, that's how we think or how we're supposed to.
	That's number one.
	Number two is that, you know, if you want, if I wanted power, I have the rhetorical gifts and charisma to have made a fantastic priest or politician.
	If I had wanted power, I mean, good heavens, why would I be in this room and not in some giant megachurch or some parliament making my case in some other way?
	Because I certainly no doubt have the ability to do all of that.
	And if that's what I wanted, then that would be The idea that I would have gone into philosophy rather than politics or religion to gain power over people is...
	I don't even know.
	It's a ludicrous idea, if you understand what I'm saying.
	I wouldn't say power in general.
	Power in this subject to convert people.
	You don't like the fact that other people don't always agree with what you say.
	No, you cannot.
	Look, look, you cannot use religious terms to describe what I'm doing.
	Conversion is a religious term.
	If someone says, look, if someone's...
	No, if you said to me, two and two make five.
	Hang on, hang on.
	If you said to me, two and two make five, and I said, no, two and two make four, and I showed you how, am I converting you?
	You're converting me to a different idea.
	No, it's not a different idea.
	It's correct.
	Two and two make four is not just a different idea from two and two make five.
	Like potato, potato.
	Two and two make five is wrong.
	Two and two make four is correct.
	I'm not converting you.
	I'm correcting you.
	Okay, so you're saying you'll be so right over everybody else's?
	No!
	Reason and evidence are correct.
	Right?
	It's not my belief that two and two make five.
	If it is true that two and two make five, then I'm not converting you to my belief if I tell you that two and two make five.
	And if you doubt me, you can go and count four coconuts.
	Here are two coconuts.
	Here are two coconuts.
	Let's count them together.
	There are four.
	It's independent of me.
	I'm pointing out that whoever's saying two and two makes five is incorrect.
	The answer is two and two makes four.
	Here's how you get there and you can do it yourself too.
	That's not converting someone to my way of thinking.
	That's helping someone think for themselves by giving the methodology and the arguments and the empirical facts or evidence that proves the case.
	Once you've proven something, it magically flies like a bird out of the egg and out of the nest.
	It magically flies out of someone's head into the great pantheon and constellation called truth.
	Two and two makes four is nobody's opinion.
	The sun is the center of the solar system is nobody's opinion.
	Because if it's somebody's opinion, it's still in people's heads.
	It hasn't come out of the heads and gone into the interstellar stratosphere called validated, established, true, real.
	The fact that gases expand when heated is not just a different idea from gases contract when heated.
	I'm sorry?
	It's more about philosophy.
	You can't say philosophy is fact.
	It's an idea.
	Oh, so you know what philosophy is.
	Let's have a definition.
	No, I don't know.
	You're telling me what philosophy is and what philosophy isn't.
	I'm happy to hear your definition.
	I may have missed something and I'm certainly happy to be schooled.
	Yeah, I wouldn't say philosophy is fact though.
	Am I right in saying that?
	What is your definition of philosophy?
	It's an idea of something.
	I don't know much, but I just know from talking to people about it, I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm believing it, but yeah, you should tell me, because I've never looked at it.
	No, you're telling me.
	You're telling me what philosophy is and isn't.
	Yeah, but it's not a fact.
	It's not something that's proven, is it?
	What do you mean it's not something that's proven?
	I don't understand what that means.
	It's not a fact, as in two and two is four.
	Philosophy is how you prove things.
	So we know that two and two makes four for two reasons.
	One, it is rationally consistent, right?
	Two units of two, you count them and make four.
	So you can do it in your head.
	It's rationally consistent, logical.
	And you can also do it empirically.
	You can get four things, put two of them on one side, two of them on the other, count them together, you get four.
	It's a methodology called reason and evidence.
	Right.
	I'm interested.
	So that's like the scientific method.
	The scientific method is your hypothesis has to be rational and it has to be consistent with the evidence.
	It's not global warming, right?
	So you're saying, is science true?
	It's like, well, science has how you know whether a hypothesis is valid or not.
	You follow the scientific method and you reproduce it and you establish it.
	It's independent of time and space and blah, blah, blah, if it's universal.
	So philosophy is how you know whether something is true or false.
	So when I say I work in the realm of philosophy or I put forward ideas that are philosophical, saying that I'm trying to convert people to my beliefs, that is a religious perspective.
	I'm not trying to convert anyone to To my beliefs, who would care about my beliefs?
	I mean, it's completely irrelevant.
	It's like saying, I need to convert you into thinking Indian food is the very best tasting.
	I mean, who cares whether I like Indian food or not?
	I mean, it's not important.
	It's not relevant.
	Who gives a rat's ass about it?
	And the idea that I have a mission in life to convert everyone to liking Indian food as much as I do would be mad, because that's a personal taste of mine.
	No, I just thought, because you were being frustrated at the fact that you couldn't use any kind of, I don't know, force or bribery.
	No threats.
	No threats, yes.
	In Velocity.
	Right, okay.
	It doesn't necessarily mean he wants to, he's just showing the difference how he can't and God can and the stuff before that, so I think that might have been a misunderstanding.
	Well, and that people don't see it, right?
	They see someone set fire to the chess opponent and think, oh, fine game.
	I guess they just have different styles of playing.
	It's like, no, I have a style of playing.
	They have a style of threatening.
	Yeah, I think just because you kind of contradicted, which I definitely think it's appropriate, of course.
	Wait, sorry, I contradicted?
	No, like, some of your points...
	I wouldn't say you went against it, but she felt that you were going against religious beliefs and converting other people, which I don't think is the case, but I think it was a misunderstanding.
	No, no, it wasn't a misunderstanding.
	She was very clear that she felt that I was in the same vein as religious people, right?
	In that religious people want to convert people to their way of thinking, they can't prove it, and so on.
	And so she was saying that I'm looking for power, perhaps, and trying to convert people to my way of thinking, and want to be heard like a priest with a megaphone and all that.
	And That's, you know, I get that.
	I mean, that's a valid perspective from people who are coming from a religious background, but it just arises out of not knowing what philosophy is.
	And I get that.
	I mean, why would you know?
	I mean, if you hadn't studied it or whatever, there'd be no reason to.
	Yeah.
	I do find it all very interesting.
	And I am very sorry that...
	You feel the guilt, Emily.
	Like, I thought that was where the conversation could have been most productive, sort of at a personal level, and I have no objection to the philosophical level that we worked with, but that level of guilt is tragic.
	And I sort of, I can feel it in your demeanor, in your mutedness, right?
	You seem...
	You come across to me, I don't think you are at all, but you come across to me like small, like very contained, like a mouse peeking out from under something.
	Yeah.
	And I think that has a lot to do with the guilt, in my opinion.
	No, you're right, completely.
	And it's going to take time, but eventually I think I'll get that.
	And I mean, within the organization, there is like, as you say, once you leave the organization, there are a lot of things.
	For example, we were scared about, she was scared about saying if I were a Jehovah Witness because something that's common in the organization is disassociating people from their families, getting kicked out of the house for that stuff.
	It's definitely, there is some type of Fear-mongering, which I would say, you know how you said putting a gun to someone's head, if you don't believe me, then just these consequences and such things like that.
	Right.
	Well, look, I wish you guys the best when you meet.
	I know that you're on the verge of doing so, and it really sounds like...
	You're going to have a lot to talk about.
	And I hope that the conversation that we've had tonight has been thought-provoking.
	You know, again, the great challenge is just to stimulate thought, to stimulate perspectives.
	I didn't run through every syllogistical argument behind what I was saying, and there's certainly no reason to accept anything of what I'm saying.
	But hopefully it gives you some place to look and to chat about.
	Yeah, we appreciate it.
	I mean, we're in a long-distance relationship, and we take a lot of value in our discussions.
	And arguments and debates.
	And it's something really great.
	Can I just say one last thing to you, Emily, if you don't mind?
	Yeah, of course.
	Because I think it seems to me like you're trapped under a lot of boulders of belief.
	And you didn't want those.
	You didn't choose those.
	It's just where you were born.
	It's where you were raised.
	It's what you were taught.
	And I would be exactly the same in your position at your age.
	So I mean this in no disrespectful way at all.
	I mean, the fact that you're willing to have a conversation like this If it's just no end of admiration from within my heart.
	I know that I'm still stuck under this whole belief thing, so that's why I want to be, I want my mind to be more open to other things.
	I mean, even with going to Stevan's church and stuff at first, I was completely against it, because any other religion is completely banned from any kind of thought.
	The fact that I'm doing this radio show is completely in secret at the moment.
	Yeah, so this is the reason why I came on this show, because I wanted to Have somebody like you show me how it is on the other side.
	Well, let me tell you something about size that I think will be empowering.
	At least I hope it will.
	This is a perspective that I had.
	And it helped me a lot.
	And I'm not going to tell you this is some reasoned argument.
	This is just a perspective.
	So...
	This, I guess, is conversion.
	So I'll tell you what my perspective was, and then you can tell me if it makes any sense to you at all.
	When I was a kid, and I thought of God, and I thought of God a lot when I was a kid, I mean, it would be crazy not to.
	Right?
	I mean...
	God is in charge.
	God is the dude.
	God is the conductor who's going to switch you train track to heaven or hell.
	God is the reason you're here.
	God is the reason you could live forever.
	And God is the ticket puncher of your final destination.
	So I thought a lot about God and I felt small, small.
	How could you not feel small relative to the infinite, relative to forever?
	How could you not feel stupid relative to omniscience?
	How could you not feel pitiful and weak relative to omnipotence?
	How could you not feel like a snap in an infinite symphony of eternity relative to eternity, to a conscious eternity?
	How could you not feel powerless relative to a being's ability to create the entire universe and do anything?
	How could you not feel bound by tiny time relative to a being outside of time?
	So I felt small, tiny, weak, helpless.
	That's a perfectly rational belief if an infinite, omnipotent, omniscient Perfectly moral being is out there who made you and made everything forever.
	It's a perfectly rational perspective.
	If God is out there, you are tinier than krill before the teeth of a humpback whale.
	I know they're strainers.
	But I'll tell you what freed me from that.
	Emily and I hope it will make some sense to you.
	Human beings are larger than God.
	The human mind is larger and deeper and more powerful than the mind of God.
	And the reason for that, Emily, is that God only exists within the human mind.
	Everything that exists within the skull must be smaller than the skull.
	Everything that exists as a part of the brain must be smaller than the whole brain.
	Your neofrontal cortex, your medulla, your hippocampus, these are all parts of the brain and they're smaller than the brain.
	A piece of a cake is smaller than the cake.
	So God, the infinity, the eternity, the omniscience, the all-powerful, It is merely a concept, an idea within the human mind.
	Which means we are larger than God, because God is contained within us.
	Within the mind, within the instincts, within the body, within the gut.
	Within the subconscious, as I argue about in my free book, Against the Gods.
	We feel small relative to the God outside us.
	We feel infinitely small, non-existent relative to the God that's out there.
	But that's not where God is.
	God is within.
	God is a concept, an idea, an error within the human mind.
	And therefore, like you are bigger than your kidney and you are bigger than everything that is inside you, You are bigger than God, because God is merely an error inside your mind.
	And that is quite a harpoon strike that philosophy can provide you.
	Quite a lasso.
	You know, it's the idea...
	Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket.
	Save it for a rainy day.
	Like you can lasso the moon and put it in your pocket.
	Gru style, right?
	I mean, that's a crazy idea.
	The moon is out there.
	It's huge.
	You can't put it in your pocket.
	Yes, you can.
	It's a concept if the moon is in your head.
	To shoot the harpoons of reason and evidence at the giant infinite balloon of a deity and see it deflate Pop back into your ear and take its residence as a false illusion in your mind.
	To deflate from eternity and to squirt into your ear and to take its rightful place, not as an infinity and eternity out there who will destroy the world.
	And judge the good and the evil and loose the demons or shield you from the demons to take that massive, giant, awe-inspiring infinity of error and suck it through the straw of philosophy into your own mind and put it where it should rightfully be.
	Not on the throne of the universe, at the beginning of the universe, but in a little disused attic called Wrong!
	Error!
	False!
	To take him from his giant throne and throw him into the attic of things we have outgrown.
	You can't stay small when God takes his place beside the tooth fairy and unicorns and leprechauns and Santa.
	And all the gods of the other people's religions that you kind of roll your eyes at.
	When all the gods and all the fantasies and all the devils and all the demons and all the hells and all the heavens and all the stories and all the books and all the buildings and all the songs into your brain and become a little pantheon called Oops!
	I was told things that weren't true.
	You put them in that little crate, in that little box, inside your head.
	Yeah, it feels like sucking eternity up through your nose through a straw.
	But it's where it actually is.
	Where religion, where deity, where nationalism, where statism, all of those things are just to be banished, to be exercised, I would say, to their rightful place.
	Which is a little back corner attic called Things...
	We used to believe we're real.
	And that's a lot smaller than you are.
	The capacity to call infinity a falsehood That capacity is far larger than any deity, because that faculty, that capacity, your reasoning, your philosophy, your thinking, your evidence, your empiricism, that is larger than all errors, past and future, because that is the only faculty by which those errors will be defined and destroyed.
	You are far larger than the errors of the species.
	You are far larger than the mistakes of mankind.
	You are far larger than the lies of the power hungry.
	You are far larger than greedy fuck-ups.
	You are infinitely larger than an infinite error.
	Philosophy wins all, but it requires That we make ourselves bigger and larger and deeper and more powerful than all the combined predatory errors, lies, delusions and exploitations of our entire species throughout time.
	Given how few people get to the top of that mountain, Everest must be a breeze!
	A cakewalk!
	But that's the size that philosophy demands that we become.
	It's not grandiose.
	It's not megalomaniacal.
	It's not narcissistic because it's subjected to reason and evidence.
	But when you hook into the power of reason and evidence, not only can you send a probe past Phobos, past Deimos, past the asteroid belt, past Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, not only can you guide metal hundreds of billions of kilometers away, Not only can you see to the very edge of the universe, not only can you see what's inside an atom.
	See, we are bigger than the universe.
	We can see to its edge.
	We are smaller than an atom.
	We can see inside it.
	This is the incredible power of the human mind, of reason, of evidence, of science, of philosophy, of thought.
	We can be gigantor in stride from one end of the universe to the other.
	And we can be Ant-Man deep down inside an atom.
	We can be as big or small as we need to be.
	If we obey.
	Reason and evidence.
	Nature that we commanded must be obeyed.
	Our true proportion is infinity.
	Because logic is eternal.
	Laws and properties of matter and energy and their effects are eternal.
	And the degree to which we surrender and hook into those capacities, reason, evidence, is the degree to which we break from mortality and join into eternity.
	The more our minds conform to that which is eternal, reason, evidence, the more we break the mere bonds of life and death and join together.
	And become one with all the matter and the stuff that gives us life.
	All the star sneezes that coalesce to make you and myself, Emily, Stephen, Mike, Stoyan, the listeners, everybody listening to this.
	We are all part of the eternal principles of the universe.
	Without those eternal principles, we could not live, we could not breathe, we could not function.
	None of this communication would work.
	The degree to which we let go...
	Of our mere temporary ego and hook in to the eternal.
	To reason, to evidence, truth, the eternal.
	A truth is true forever.
	A fact is a fact forever.
	Even if it changes, the fact that it was true now will be true forever.
	The fact that I, if I was in Seattle yesterday, the fact that I was in Seattle yesterday will be true forever.
	When we hook into truth, we cast aside mere mortality.
	We cast aside mere identity, mere meanness, and we join in the eternal and the divine and the perfect and the ineradicable.
	And we add our peace to the growing omniscience of the species.
	Never to be achieved, always to be built upon.
	We break out of time.
	We break out of substance.
	We break out of today.
	Whatever I have said in these 3,000 odd shows that is true will be true forever.
	People want these footprints On a sidewalk in front of a theater.
	The walk of stars.
	No.
	That will all go at some point.
	But the ideas that are true, that we can convince other people of, that they accept, is how we join everyone together in eternity, in that which will be true forever, valid forever, part of forever, rooted in forever.
	In the laws of physics, in the laws of reason, in the laws of empiricism, in the reality called philosophy.
	And the people who say, if you know the truth, you live forever.
	That's true, but they screw it up with cloud castles and devils and silly stories.
	But it's true.
	If you know the truth, you will live forever.
	Because everything that is true is true forever.
	Everything that we accept as true.
	Everything that we propagate, that is true.
	Everyone we convince of the truth.
	Not convert, convince of the truth.
	The spark of eternity called philosophy that we can light in others.
	You know, you blow a tiny little ember to build a fire.
	We blow words into microphones to build the fires of thought around the world.
	It's a great line from a Peter Gabriel song.
	You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire.
	Watch the wind begins to catch.
	And once the fire begins to catch, the wind will take it higher.
	We are trying to bring the divinity, the eternity, the omniscience.
	The omnipotence of truth around the world.
	And when you know the truth, you live forever.
	My thoughts, after I am dead, will be in the world as long as there are people.
	And after there are no people and no life, there is no time.
	Doesn't match a relevant concept to inanimate objects.
	There's no mortality.
	Who cares about time?
	A rock doesn't.
	It's an old...
	I even got my philosophy from Peanuts.
	There's an old Peanuts cartoon where...
	Charlie Brown picks up a rock and throws it back in the ocean.
	And Linus, who could be a kind of a sadist, comes up and says, oh great, he just spent four million years getting ashore, now you've thrown him back in the ocean.
	He walks off.
	Charlie Brown says, everything I do makes me feel guilty.
	It's a rock.
	Rocks don't care.
	As long as there is time, as long as there are people, truth is eternal.
	And if you want a piece of the divine, Learn the truth.
	Seek the truth.
	Speak the truth.
	Never back down from the truth.
	Because everyone who wants you to accept lies or propagate lies is trying to detach you from eternity and make you a merely mortal body that festers in the ground unmourned by any virtue in the future.
	So that's my perspective, if that helps.
	Yeah, it's good to know everybody's perspective.
	Well, thanks guys for calling.
	I appreciate it.
	And if you get a chance, let us know how it goes when you meet up.
	All right, we will.
	Definitely.
	Thank you for having us, Tom.
	And thank you for having us.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Have a good one.
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