The Atheist Experience Transcript

Med104: engaging Media
Assignment 2: Remediation project
Prepared by Simon Whitaker



The Atheist Experience is  a public access television show in Austin, Texas that screens every Sunday in that city, and is also streamed live on the Internet. Archives of past shows are available from Theatheistexperience.org, where the video that the following transcript is based on was sourced.
The show is in  a live talkback format, where viewers call the show and talk to the hosts.  In this particular show first aired on 13th Feb 2011, a caller Mark rings in and talks to hosts Matt Dillahunty and Jeff Dee. A direct link to this episode is available at http://blip.tv/file/4765419


Matt: What’s up?
Mark: I go to church here is Austin, and there’s been a bit of a discussion about your show lately and there’s actually been a lot of concern...I don’t know which church you guys went to but we’re pretty much by the book...
Matt: I was primarily Southern Baptist.
Mark: And what did your church say about blasphemy?
Matt: i don’t know that blasphemy was specifically discussed...I understand that it’s a sin and that apostasy is the potentially unforgivable sin and things like that..I knew that blasphemy was wrong..
Mark: and if when you were at church there was a show like yours, what would you have thought about that?
Matt: I've thought about that a lot and I’m really not sure...because i can no longer view this show through the lens that I used to.  I can do a pretty decent job of imagining how I might have looked at it. I probably would have been concerned about the effect it was having on people.  I mean my parents think that I’m working for Satan and leading people to hell so i can kind of use their assessment as a barometer..and I would have been concerned for the souls of the individuals on the show for fear that they would be lost to hell as well
Mark:  Well that’s just a perfect answer.  My church believes that heaven and hell are real places
Jeff: uh huh
Mark: and guess which one you’re going to if you keep this up
Jeff: Oh dear..you see, here we go.  Why do you want to be our enemy? Why do you on purpose choose to think bad things about us?  What’s wrong with you?
Mark: the bible is really clear..
Jeff: Never mind the freaking bible! Do you want to be a person who can get along well with others or not? Or do you want to partition yourself off into some little sub group where if people aren’t in that group with you then they’re bad?  What’s wrong with you? why is this appealing? You want to believe that me and Matt who aren’t hurting anybody, just stating our opinion on TV that we deserve to be tortured forever? That’s what you want? cut it out, just relax!
Mark: we’re a new testament church and the bible is pretty clear about it..
Jeff: Well there’s your mistake!
Matt: Ok, i understand your position, I understand that you belive this becuse the bible says so...why should anyone else believe it?
Mark: that’s the reason I called, to defend the faith and the bible says you should defend the faith
Matt:  I understand Peter 3:15 I got you, we’re on the same page there I understand what the book says...what i asked is why anybody else should believe it? Becus ethe reason I am no longer a Christian is becuse I finally came to the undertanding that my belief were without rational justification and without evidentary support.  AndI’ll go a step further..even if the bible were true, and I don’t for a second think it is as nobody as yet has come close to demostrating that it’s true...that still does not put one in a position where they are worshiping anything but out of fear of a monster that is grotesque and wants to punish people for it’s own problems. Now, setting aside all that, why should anybody believe what you believe?
Mark: There are a million different reasons...
Matt:  Give us your best one
Jeff: Just give us your best one
Mark: Well, um, what exactly am I trying to demonstrate here?
Jeff: Why are you a Christian? What is the main reason?
Mark: Well there’s a lot of evidence that the bible was divinely inspired
Jeff: Such as?
Mark: There is...um.
Jeff: No no,. such as..?  Give us a piece of evidence that shows that the bible is divinely inspired
Mark: Ok the bible says things about.. um about nature that weren’t widely known at the time.
Matt: How do you know? And give me an example
Mark:  there are examples on carm.org
Matt: Oh no, Matt Slick has called in an the nonsense on carm.org has been widely refuted I don’t know how many times..but we’re talking about a book if you take it literally.. do you believe that the world is six to ten thousand years old?
Mark: well...there’s a lot of interpretation...
Matt: It’s an easy yes or no question...do you think te world is closer to 10,000 years old or closer to 3.5 billion years old?
Mark: Well, um, I guess if you take it literally then yes the world is closer to six to ten thousand years old.
Jeff: Matt asked you specifically what you believe, because we’re trying to get at What is the main reason why you are a Christan and your dancing all around.  Why can’t you give us a straight answer?
Matt:  If you listed back to the way you tried to answer that last question...all I was asking is what you think and we were going to go from there but I’m happy enough with your answer that a literal view would make it six to ten thousand years old. So clearly you think it’s that old or your not really a literal-list.  But irrespective of what your position is, do you at least acknowledge that all of the scientific evidence points to an Earth that is vastly older that six to ten thousand years old?
Mark: Yeah I’m aware of that.
Matt: OK, so how do you reconcile...
Mark: It doesn’t prove there’s no god though
Matt: You’re right! Did I say it did? I’m not saying that that proves there’s no god.What I’m saying it: here’s something we’ve learned about the universe and it doesn’t match with your lieral view of the bible. now there’s a conflict there, and we need to resolve that. And some people resolve it in favour of the bible, saying the Bible's literally right and ignore whatever actual evidence is presented. I find that to be patently absurd because it turns Christianity into a self contradictory proposition, and so does the idea of a revelation in the new testament because your position is one that there is a god who has an important message for mankind, and somehow he only reveals it to certain individuals who then write this down, the thousands of years after this revelation we have to rely on copies of copies and translations of copies by anonymous authors with no originals, and the textual testimony to a miracle, for example the loaves and fishes, there is no amount of anecdotal reports that could be sufficient in justifying believing that the event actually happened as reported. No amount. And anything that would qualify as a god would clearly  understand this, and if it wanted to convey this information to people in a way that was believable would not be relying on texts to do so. And this for me is the nail in the coffin of Christianity.  The god that Christians believe in is amazingly stupid if it wants to actually achieve it’s goal of spreading this information to humanity by relying on texts, by relying on languages that die out, by relying on anecdotal testimony.. that;s not a pathway to truth. And anything that would qualify as a god would know this, which means either that god doesn’t exist, or it doesn’t care enough about those people who understand the nature of evidence to actually present it.  Now which of those possibilities do you think is accurate?
Mark: I think you do need faith to believe it
Matt: Sure, but why would you believe anything on faith? Faith isn’t a pathway to truth.  Every religion has some sort of faith...if faith is your pathway you can’t distinguish between Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism or any of these others. How is it that you use reason as a pathway to truth in every other endeavor in your life and then when it comes to the ultimate truth, the most important truth your saying that faith is required. What kind of god requires faith instead of evidence?
Mark: Well I think you probably have faith about a lot of things too
Matt: Like what? I have reasonable expectations based on evidence. I have trust that has been earned, I will grant trust tentatively.  I don’t have faith, faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don’t have evidence. I mean if you can come up with something that I believe that I don’t have evidence for guess what I’ll do? I’ll stop believing it. That’s the nature of a rational mind. My only goal was to be the best Christian I could be and represent this to people who didn’t believe it. And what I found, because I actually cared about whether or not my belief were true rather than whether they felt good, was that my beliefs weren't justified, try as I might and pray as hard as I could. No answer comes, no evidence is forthcoming, and when I talked to people about this the only answer they ever offer is the one that you just gave. Which is ‘well you just gotta have faith’. Well sorry, I don’t!  Well I’m not sorry that I don’t, I’m sorry for others that they think I should have, because faith is not a virtue. Faith is gulibility.  It’s evidence that determines whether or not your perception of reality is reasonable and in conjunction with the world as it is.
Mark: Well I think Church give a lot of people community and values
Matt: Sure. So what? That has no tie to the truth of the supernatural claim. Religions and churches have tons of benefits for the in group and some of them even have benefits for the out group, such as feeding the homeless, although we have the atheist helping the homeless group in Austin, where we will actually help the homeless without making them sit through a sermon first, we don’t hold their sandwich to ransom in the name of Jesus. There’s no good thisg that a church or religion can do that a secular group can’t. And there’s no positive benefit of churches and religions the necessarily demonstrates the truth of their supernatural claims
Jeff: But there is a cost. in deciding that you;re going to take Christianity of faith, and that is when you run into folks like us who don’t believe it, you are compelled,  to believe in all kinds of horrific things about us, and come at us with these threats of eternal torment which just draws an insurmountable line between us. We cannot be friends because of what you have decided to take on faith. That’s the cost.
Matt: Yeah and that divisive cost plays out not only in the workplace but I have a fiance sitting in the room who is essentially estranged from a good proportion of her family who consider me to be the devil. No, I may not be a perfect person, far from it, but I’m generally a good person and a caring person and I do whatever I can to live the best life I can. I’m certainly not...well I guess if I was the devil this is exactly what he would say so who knows!  But the absurdity of the devisive nature of Christianity in particular, and by the way I’m an atheist in regards to all gods, I mean it breaks my heart...people who actually understand what love ispeople who actually understand what morality is, people who actually understand reality, it is almost unbearable to watch the people that you love be so absolutely duped into a divisive hateful religion that they think is not divisive , they think it’s inclusive and they think it’s positive...It kills me and it’s one of the reasons that I do this TV show.  Because I for 25 plus years believed this stuff, and I am so happy that I no longer think that my former roommate is destined for hell.  I am so happy that despite the fact that my relationship with my patents has changed I don;t have to worry about them.  The division is entirely one sided, I didn’t end relationships when I became an atheist, Christians ended those relationships.  And it was because their particular religion cannot tolerate ...I’ve had letter from people who says Í can no longer associate with you, you are of the devil’. Now, it’s possible that they’re right, though I don't now under what circumstances.  But the only way you could demonstrate that is with reason and evidence not faith.  I don't know how we can fix a world where people have become so convinced they are doing the right thing out of compassion and love and trying to help people when it is absolute poison, when it is absolutely destructive. I wish everybody could go through what I went though so they could have a proper understanding of wow, how the heck could I have believed those things that I believed. And how much better life is when you want to deal with reality on reality's terms.  Now I know we didn't give you a huge opportunity to express your views but every time I asked I got kind of a dance.and I’m happy to have you call back in but if your whole position is that the foundation of your belief is based on faith then we have nothing to talk about. Because I don’t think that that's a good thing. Until you can demonstrate that faith is a good thing how can you possibly convince somebody?  IT all comes back to reason and evidence.
Mark: [hangs up]
Jeff: I think hes gone
Matt: OK.  I was going to give him the last word. (Dillahunty & Dee, 2011)

Dillahunty, M. & Dee, J. (2011) The atheist Experience retrieved from http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive/