Episode 51 (March 25, 2024), "Is Religion Make-Believe?" with Neil Van Leeuwen 

I was listening to this for about 30 minutes, and I was thinking, "this all sounds kind of obvious". Then as I continued to listen, I realised that I'd never heard anyone make this subtle but very crucial distinction, and I'd never heard anyone explain these ideas in such a cogent and coherent way. Great job Neil and the 2 Dans. One of the best and most interesting DoD episodes thus far. Big thumbs up.

THIS is the kind of discussion I long for. Thank you so much for introducing me to this author. And yes, I bought this book!

He's spot on with his comment on persistent emotional tendencies while deconstructing.

I'm so glad that the idea that religious people are delusional is a topic brought about during the 24 minute mark. I've talked to a lot of theists, like Hindus, Christians, and even Norse Pagan followers who talk about their religious experience. And although the first response might be to say "these people are all liars", I personally think that's pretty douchy. Invalidating people's experience is not compassionate. Sure such claims should be investigated, but then again it is difficult to investigate a religious claim. One of the things I tell them at the end of the day is that while I validate their experience, I do not have to accept their explanations for it neither their conclusions from it if they can't give good evidence or arguments for it. I've heard voices say my name while I was in my room alone. But I can at least chalk that up to being sleep deprived since I was, and when I answered, I got no reply. You still have a lot of work to do to somehow go from "You saw Jesus in a dream" to "therefore the bible is inerrant".

I tried to become a Christian in my 30th . I believed the pastors gospel preaching . I believed what the bible said but then realized so much felt like make believe. Or I’m really bad at communicating with a God who is supposed to talk back and want a personal relationship.

Fascinating and helpful in self-understanding; I have to appreciate how this group thinking reminds me that in driving my kids to church every Sunday, especially after the divorce, I had to find my good Uber-Mormon mask before arriving at the church

I will have to read this book. This discussion is very helpful on my journey. Thanks.

Fantastic episode guys. One that I will listen to again!

This was interesting. FTR, I'm a Latter-day Saint. I'm also a therapist who gravitates toward narrative models for therapeutic work. I found parts of this as absolutely accurate while examining myself. There are absolutely aspects of my religious/spiritual experience that are creedal. That also goes with my practice as a therapist and my general engagement with the world as whole. I found myself really curious about the "wrinkles" or exceptions to this construct. Because along with aspects that it did mesh well with, there were other aspects that don't work. My husband's a stellar example of an exception. His beliefs and knowledge blurs hard and so you do get reactions that indicate and engagement that's not what you'd expect unless you assume some of what would be belief in others is knowledge in him. But there's other aspects in my that my own experiences both shape my beliefs and are at other times me trying to name or find words for deep experiences that materialist orientations do a shoddy job of explaining (at least I think they do). Those aspects aren't well described in this, as these do and have had fundamental shifts to how I engage with my world because my belief is blurring into a fact orientation. Anyways, this was intriguing to explore and think about!

I think the thing that is frustrating to us that deconvert is the asymmetry that lies in that distinction. Saying “I don’t think there’s a Christian God of the Bible because I don’t think there’s evidence to support it” doesn’t have the same rhetorical oooomf of the costly signaling pronouncements of religious conviction(often loaded with the accusation that a lack of religious belief is in fact just another religious belief and that evidence is merely a post hoc justification for living in sin.)

Thank you for this episode. I've been in the process of deconstructing my faith for the last couple of years. Dan M. and other scholars have been instrumental in helping me to analyze what I have believed and what I now believe. For my purposes, the fictions that we as religious people believe are just as real as those factual beliefs when they govern our behavior in the real world. My own experience is that even religious imaginings don't necessarily switch off when confronted with real world events. Hence, is it a voluntary delusion, or is it much more powerfully integrated into the person's sense of individuality? Wrestling with this proposition has been fun, actually. Again, thanks for this episode. It was very revelatory, in the best way.

Carl Jung said, “our mania for rational explanations obviously has its roots in our fear of metaphysics, for the two were always hostile brothers. Hence, anything unexpected that approaches us from from the dark realm is regarded either as coming from the outside and, therefore, as real, or else as a hallucination and, therefore, not true. The idea that anything could be real or true which does not come from the outside has hardly begun to dawn on contemporary man.”

Thanks for this. I often struggle to understand religion because I find I lack the ability to believe something that I know someone else has imagined. Thinking about it this way definitely helps. I only wish religious types would think about it this way too and not take their beliefs so seriously.

Thank you for this discussion. Depth psychology, Jungian thought especially in its more modern forms address many of the questions you discuss. This perspective could add some clarity to your discussion.

I love the idea of learning how to talk with people in ways that have less "identity juice." Did I hear that right? That's a great term!

It's always interesting for us Brits to hear how (it seems) everybody in America has had a religious upbringing. It's just so different over here. Yes, of course we have folk involved in churches but they are a tiny, tiny minority of the population. Most of us simply don't give a moment's thought to religion from one day to the next.

This was one of the most insightful conversations I’ve heard on the topic. Instantly bought the book! Thanks

Great conversation.

Thank you.

I think a lot of people mistake religion as solely a misguided explanation for nature, and not really considering it as a feeble attempt to show gratitude for the gifts of nature.

Excellent!!

Very enjoyable and informative. Thanks!

This strongly resonates with my anecdotal experience and puts useful neutral verbiage to concepts I've struggled to articulate clearly in interfaith conversations. Really enjoyed this one, thank you.

You guys have somehow met the most polite Christians ever. I keep my atheism hidden at work -- I'm quite certain doing otherwise would get me fired. Y'all need to spend more time outside of academia. "Militant atheists" exist anonymously online, at colleges, and literally nowhere else.

44:00 Don't say, "I believe in Science" Say, ''in my opinion, the process of science has an impressive track record of making empirically correct predictions' 😅

This is perhaps the most fascinating show yet for me! I would love to have some citations for some of these studies and papers mentioned. It's gonna be a long slog thru google scholar.

I imagined Dan M jumping in and rephrasing the question “or… why are you trying to be a buzz kill, if you’re feeling nasty?” 😂😂

Every Jehovah’s Witnesses funeral I have ever been to has made it clear to me that they don’t really believe “we are living in the final part of the final part of the last days, shortly before the last day of the last days.” If they _really_ believed that was true, they would ‘know’ that loved one who was suffering so much will be back on earth in a perfect body in a couple of weeks. Good deal 👍 But of course they are usually appropriately inconsolable.

Allow me to offer a philosophical lever….. This whole conversation is about the epistemic status of beliefs based on and categorized as “faith”, as against the kind of beliefs that correspond to fact, or are “justified” with positive evidentiary chains that can be reduced to percepts.

As to practical applications this book may be helpful: How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion By: David McRaney

Thanks to the two Dan's.

After you watch this watch Angelas Symposium current episode on Christian Epiphatic Origins of Imagination

So interesting! Time to question how we know things.

I think the problem is a bit more complex than simply claiming religious beliefs are non factual and imaginary based. The author himself claims that factual beliefs can more easily be changed via exposure to evidence and that imaginary beliefs take a person breaking from a group/cult identification in order to be able to challenge those imaginary beliefs. But, we have the exact opposite concerning evidence. Since access to the internet and more access to scholarship of the bible has occurred, religious affiliation has dropped in the US from 90% to around 60% in a very short time. 30% of the US religious population didn't just become sinful or decide they don't identify with other Christians anymore for random reasons.. A large percentage of exchristians will tell u they didn't want to leave their social group or religious beliefs. Access to knowledge often proved their beliefs wrong and triggered the process which ended in becoming exchristian. The ideas presented by the author are admirable, but I think a hybrid hypothesis which is more complex is likely needed.

Very fascinating topic. Another book very similar to Leeuwen's is "How God Becomes Real" by T. M. Luhrmann.

Why should I believe something that is not evidently true?

The easy apologist answer to the grandmother story with the grandchild getting her head stuck is: "Of course she would have gone to heaven and be with the Father and that's what we all strive for, but grief is a visceral reaction ultimately birthed from selfishness. We're sinful and selfish and in a split second decision, would rather deprive someone's entry into heaven if it means that they not leave us. Our need to have them in our lives can sometimes guide us to make selfish choices."

The story of the child's head caught in the balusters is a reverse form of Pascal's wager. If you don't believe in Heaven, then clearly you should save the child's life. If you do believe in heaven, then you should still save the child's life since they can always go to heaven the next day, but if you are wrong, a child dies unnecessarily. The safest and most logical choice is not to believe in heaven.

Yes, but my family DOES insist on a literal garden with a literal talking snake, and so on and so forth.

37:30 I think the concern (which is valid) is the Jordan Peterson Christians, and the way in which they use this for power. I don't think the guest has considered it from that angle. Keep in mind I am not at all disputing his analysis of the subject. I agree with it from what I am hearing. TBR

Morning everyone 😁

FYI your patreon link in the description is broken

This is one of the rare uses of evolution, proper orientation, and direction . All others have set entire diciplines behind trying to use it as an umbrella to project it in the wrong places where it in fact trys to control 1st position pov makes local systems out of pupils, society that's easily manipulated to evolve how they see fit . So I total support all human centric evolution proper lines of thought, information, library, theory etc etc etc As a retired tool & die machinest I know beyond all doubt I can manipulate form & shape how I see fit but I have to get mobile over cone horizon paradoxes where nature & origin of life has serious unconformaty

How does human predilection for conspiracies fit in this psychological model?

Only halfway through and loving this. Wonder if there is overlap between his work and that of Tanya Luhrmann? ("When God Talks Back" and "How God Becomes Real")

26:40 i've been told that the upright parts are bannisters, ehile the rail on top is the ballustrade. I havent fact checked that thoigh!

Make it what you want.

...as a Reality-Embracing Atheist for more than 50 years, my knee-jerk response to the title of this interview was: Well, DUH...😊. But after listening to the guest's (as well as the two hosts) addressing the issue from the perspective of Empirical Cognitive Science, I could appreciate the distinction between different 'types of belief'.. I like how the guest author makes the conscience effort to de-fuse potential "Group Identity" conflicts with people whose Personal Identities are deeply intertwined with that of the Group(s) which bring important meaning to their lives can be as simple as re-phrasing a question -- or the answer to another's question from "I BELIEVE..." to "I THINK..." It is thought-provoking to realize how much of human behavior is colored byThe human ability to "Sacrilize" just about Any topic, activity or 'Group Identity'. So I'll soften my original opinion by swapping-in the term "ILLUSIONAL-" for "DELUSIONAL Thinking"...

I don’t tend to use “belief” to describe my positions or inclinations. About the only time I say “I or we believe” is when I tell someone I am an agnostic, and they say “so you’re not sure what to believe?” I say no, I believe the ultimate truth is unknowable. Also I really don’t like the use of the word “faith” used to refer to religious belief. Evidence in the form of past behavior is required to have “faith” in continued behavior of a similar kind. I guess someone could say “every other time I felt the desire to join in when others of my age were going forward in church feeling the call, it was proven to be the lord moving in me, so I have faith this time is no different 😏

Where can I buy a data > dogma hoodie?

cool discussion. I appreciate that they veered off into other categories of 'belief' that are also subject to these features (resistance to data updating.. etc.) I see it mostly as that there are categories that are simply less informed by evidence and more by intuition than others. Political ideology is a type of ethics.. and normative ethics/morality is traditionally seen to be disconnected from factual claims (see Hume's in/ought problem). Yet almost everyone has strongly held moral convictions. Even the moral claim "you ought to only assent to factual claims" cannot be justified by facts alone. Its just how we are wired... and when we argue about ethics the best we can usually do is internal consistency.. not correctness - this is why we argue using counter-examples and saying someone is using a double standard or relying on a principle they reject when others rely on it, etc. Similarly metaphysical claims like the nature of personal identity, free will, the origin of consciousness, are all categories of belief that people who are not religious happy pontificate on yet these subjects are equally resistant to factual updating.

the patron link is broken

Very interesting topic, thanks for sharing. I understand if my comment gets deleted because it is kind of sensitive. There's a devoutly fundamentalist RU-vid channel called _"Endtime"_ miniseries that runs a daily one hour show called _"End of the age."_ Back in late spring/early summer (May-ish) of 2020, the then president of that ministry dedicated most of a one hour show to the idea that Covid-19 was God's judgement on America because of growing affirmation of LGBTQIA rights and culture. Unfortunately, In November of 2020, that very show reported that their president and founder passed from _"complications of Covid-19."_ Granted, this gentleman was in his seventies, but I get the impression that pandemic warnings didn't slow him down. He either _"imagined"_ or _"believed"_ that he was called by his god to preach his prophetic messages to all the churches of his denomination. So, throughout the pandemic era, he traveled from church to church, from venue to venue putting himself at risk. Another sad aspect to this, if I remember correctly, vaccines became available less than a year later.☹️

I wonder if it’s true that people who are more solitary and less social are also less likely to adopt a religious creed.

This sounds essential. One of the startling things after leaving hardcore Fundamentalism was discovering identical religious postures in the "secular" sphere, and how society fails to approach such issues appropriately with the "religion" lense removed.

"...we're gonna make some people mad." Love it. A woman I worked with once told me "If I don't piss people off occasionally, I'm not doing my job." Edit: This discussion reminded me of something I read years ago to the effect that religious belief is non-rational (not irrational, although people can be about it), meaning that it's not susceptible to empirical evidence. BTW, a Kindle version of the book is listed as available on Amazon.

Grandad would get his saw and cut the baluster.

I think it would be awesome if u did an episode that was filled with deconstructionist's testimonials & stories❣️🤔

in a word? yes. theology has motivated reasoning (bias) written all over it. the scientific method includes things like double-blind experiments and peer review in order to reduce human bias and error, resulting in more objective thinking. god tends to come from a more subjective state. people see what they want to see. the best way to describe it is using a venn diagram. two circles overlap. on the far left, you have objective definition number 1: that which lies outside of the mind, presumably objective reality. on the far right is subjective definition number 1: your preconceptions, values, feelings...all that make up bias. this isn't necessarily bad, because it's where art comes from. it's bad when it's passed off as indisputable objective truth. Where the 2 overlap, you have objective subjectivity....occurring within the mind (subjective number 2) but without the preconceptions (impartial, objective number 2). this is where direct experience and logic meet, and where science is (empiricism, correlation theory of truth, logic). when you consider the fact the people believe in a god more for existential reasons than facts and logic alone, you begin to see that the "logic" of god (theology) is based in hope and fear ("fear of god is the beginning of wisdom"), resulting in motivated reasoning. people often to talk about "the truth" (the truth will set you free), but they don't seem to realize it's not the truth they actually seek, but the functions it presents. god, for example, creates a sense of meaning in an otherwise meaningless "reality". meaning can't be anything other than subjective. the same with purpose. the purpose of x is to serve goal y. personally, i'm an ignostic Humanist. language, alone, is the social construct from which all other constructs arise. if people can't agree on what a word means, it is ultimately useless, and the word "god" is one that even christians as a whole tend to not really agree with. i don't really see a unifying essence in something like the christian "god", because interpretations have created many conflicting denominations. many see one of the more vengeful gods of the OT (like Yahweh) while neglecting the more Platonic god of the NT (the bible illustrates the evolution of culture and "understanding" of "god"). they result in very different political outlooks that range from christian anarchism to christofascism....two polar opposites. the only theory of god i personally find interesting is something like Pandeism, where "god" became reality in order to experience and know itself, and everything we see (including ourselves) is a manifestation of it. my political alignment is that of left libertarianism, and economically that of Mutualism (a form of libertarian socialism)...both supporting both individualism and egalitarianism, or social individualism in a more democratic society.

Absolutely fascinating and so many good insights. I, too, was raised in the CRC. Now, in my 40s, I finally feel like I can explore and question some of the things that I was taught... or dare I say, was indoctrinated with. I love the DOD podcast. Keep up the good work!

This is putting words to my crazy. Great talk thank you!

Nothing to fret about.

10:00 isn't this wrong, though? You don't choose what you believe because you don't decide whether you have been convinced that something is true. The faithful can't just choose not to believe in God (or whatever), so it isn't the same as imagining something that we don't actually believe is true.

Getting the book. He's succinctly stating the evidentiary problem with belef that others have only generally identified but not clearly stated.

At 14:20, believers (I was one for 30 years) will quote the verse about being a fool for Christ, with just a bit of pride that they feel privy to secret knowledge about how things *really* are. This is also why they have no qualms about pursuing political power because they feel like they are all that stands against the literal (to their minds) forces of evil. This is why they consider abortion a sacrifice to Satan. It has nothing to do with being pro-life. The whole imaginary world of friends and enemies is considered literal, and that belief is reinforced each time they gather with others of the same belief. Questioning any of it is seen as interference from the Devil, and loss of the social circle would feel devastating, as would the perceived loss of eternal life in paradise.

I'm still not clear on why ant-theists would be annoyed at this. All of the problems of religion remain. If granny from the story is in some way aware of the distinction between fact and the religious play space of the imagination, she still said nothing. She's lying by omission regardless and perpetuating the system of belief that leads to all kinds of harm, fundamentalism, fear of hell, authoritarian power structures leading to abuse etc. It's still bad whether it's delusion or play space. And of course, notably, all of the non-religious examples of the use of belief as social display were examples of things that are strongly correlated with religious groups. It's not for nothing that church attendance tanked as a result of the pandemic. A lot of those people decided that masks were a symbol of outsiderness and died as a result of their negligence. It's almost like allowing for this sort of play space has s strong tendency to lead people to create these play spaces in other realms.

If one supposes that some religious beliefs are based on some reality, I wonder this. Say, someone has epileptic seizures, which often cause visions or even a sense of some "otherness" around a person. Then you have this person communicates this, perhaps vividly to others in their community. How many other people would believe their experience as true? Now, we might suppose the person has seizures or something medically or psychology wrong and dismiss the experience. In the ancient past, however, gods, angels, and demons all would be the presupposition or create a presupposition. Perhaps a person or two more has some of these same medical or psychological issues j "sees" or experiences a similar thing. Would it not reinforce the veracity of this? Seems like the basis of a movement to me? Or a religion? I've read on this some, but I wonder what everyone else thinks.

“How do you put this into practical use” “I don’t” A really great conversation today. Really great way to help those who are spiritual.

Well, let's just say I think all religions are.......embellished and exaggerated. While all contain some wisdom to be sure, that wisdom is man-made. Plus, they mostly all contain quite a bit of questionable advice and "truths" about the physical world that science has long proven to be wrong.

Dogmatism is definitely a religious virtue.

Yes but how many angels can dance on the head of a needle?

"Have a coke and a smile". Or as the Eluesinians would have said have some ergot of rye and some opium and spend two weeks in a near death state. Or as the bacchae spend two weeks in the forest running around naked like a wild animal.

to be fair, one can have a transformative spiritual experience, & then experience a religious belief that comes out of that as involuntary. but even then, the experiencer may interpret their seemingly involuntary belief through the lens of the spiritual tradition they engage in.

Aint it possible the daughter REALLY believed in Heaven AND was crying because death hurts and not seeing mom for 60+ years still sucks?

Try this: Religion is the balanced conclusion of the verbal ( thinking, model constructing) brain's attempt to put into words what the non-verbal brain concludes about reality combined with observations of reality by the verbal brain. Thinking and no thinking stop, and accept whatever that conclusion is when the emotional brain concludes the explanations/explanatoru model is dufficient to reduce the fears of uncertainty of a chaotic world. The non-dominant hemisphere generates conclusions about things which cannot be readily put into words. Words like, "the Holy, Sacred, Numinous, Transcendent, Spirit, God, ghost, afterlife," are all associated with emotional agreement with what it's processes include. The New Atheism rejects non-dominant hemisphere processes. Nothing is holy, sacred, divine. Nothing spiritual exists. The Numinous and Transcendent are rejected as fantasy. No wonder. The verbal "monkey mind" precludes the wisdom of the non-vefbal mind.

3 lists of questions. 1 for me to ask to verify that I receive the expected answers. 2 too people who know me to ask if I am not acting in my usual manner. Have multiple delusional episodes and you should set up reality checks. Reality is based on facts.

I always think it is funny when I hear somebody in my faith (LDS) characterize another faith as "crazy" and I wonder if they even pay attention to what we believe and look at it as a person not of our faith would. Because they would seem 🦇 💩 to somebody else.

49:13 but the presenter is proof that religious beliefs can be changed because at least one presenter is no longer religious

Nah, Mr. Expert man. I aint nobody, and I could be wrong (I'm not) But people really do believe in God like they believe their hands are attached. That the deconstruction community really does have "Hell trauma" and are not just "doing a credibility enhancing display" or "costly signaling". That the young lady crying because her momma died still makes sense even if she "really" believes in Heaven. We all miss people. Nah, I can; as a "hArDcOrE aThEiSt" THINK that people believe in god WITHOUT it being some attempt to "gotchya" Christians about "delusion". I am the first to rebuke other atheists when they say this. Nah Mr. Expert man. I think people really do believe in God like they believe the sun will rise tomorrow.

Everybody wants to go to heaven... but nobody wants to die to get there... 🤷🏽‍♂️

1+1=5 can be true depending on your number line. Oh crap I just became an apologist 😅

If only Dan would engage all the data on the jabs, including the [censored by ThemTube] and the [censored by ThemTube], he would stop making blanket statements on the subject. But perhaps it is just a credal belief used as a tribal identity marker for him.

Religion is very real. The stories and Gods behind said religions are completely absurd and make believe though.

29:00 grandma actually really thought that little girl would go to heaven if she died, but still tried to save her because dying and going to Heaven would have meant not seeing her again or soon

These are the precise thought processes that are used by politicians these days. Hence, the tying together of religion and specifically Christianity to political positions, like vaccines, immigration, abortion, etc, etc. The ease with which it happens and even reverses the position of people we know to previously accepted facts is alarming, to say the least.

Dan bringing the wokeisms as usual…

Great discussion (per usual). What is the best way to put this? I'll try "common narrative". In my opinion, the common Christian and atheist narratives are nonsense. The common Christian narratives are nonsense because of authoritative interpretations of scriptures and the atheist narratives are nonsense because atheists are applying the common Christian narratives to the entire realm of not only Christian, but religious and theistic belief. Both practices are swimming in convenience. It makes for easy argument. Being critical of religion is one of the easiest things there is and atheists do not have the monopoly on being critical of religion. When it comes to the physical manifestation of being critical of religion, religious people have made today's atheists look downright friendly towards religion. Religious people imprisoned, tortured, banished and executed other religious people for centuries for their religious beliefs and practices. In my opinion, a lot of today's common atheist narrative has a lot in common with the religious narratives in the past that led to the persecution of people with different beliefs and practices. The factual belief being presented is attached to this physical universe. The imaginative belief in the context of religion is attached to the belief in other than this physical universe. Granted, religious people engage in different levels of how they combine the two, but the fact is, they do not have to be combined at all. And imaginative belief can be influenced and even based on reason. To insist there is no reason to think there is something more to being person than this life and death is in my opinion, very odd. For the sake of cooperation, I will take it at face value and say that there may be two different type humans. To dismiss the entire history of humanity, spanning cultures around the planet as simply fearing death and needing to explain the physical unknown is again to me, very odd. In my opinion, dismissing the attraction to belief in something other than this life and death is bizarre. The fact it has been prevalent throughout human history doesn't prove anything, but it is being unreasonable to dismiss it as something that should be outlawed for the sake of the advancement of the species. It is obvious a lot of humans are drawn towards the belief in something other. Science is involved in many questions regarding "reality" right now and we're talking this physical reality. Basing argument on this physical reality is....let's just say it's more complicated than the chair in the office or adding 1+1. Science doesn't have to perfect. Science doesn't have to be true. Science doesn't have to be fact. Science just has to get the job done. Science is the investigation of that which can be detected and that investigation leads to workable manipulation of the world around us. It doesn't matter if the world around us is real or not. One can define real as that which we have to deal with, as in balancing the checkbook. According to my reasoning, temporal existence is not real. That which ceases to be, for all practical purposes, never existed. Humans deal in small numbers. The age of this universe is a very, very small number. I'm just not impressed with the reality of this universe or the reality of this human life. I realize how awesome, horrific, beautiful and painful if can be. I simply think there is reason to contemplate and imagine more. Belief generated from that exercise, while imaginative, could also be reasonable.

Percepts are not beliefs and the presentation of the chair in your room is qualitatively different than abstract theoretical objects and your premises about them.

This is a waste of time, these scholars have wasted their time debating the wrong concept. There is a definite meaning to the book, it is found thru understanding nature snd natural processes. Im not talking about the moons influence on the emotions of the wind, I'm talking sbout s tual knowledge about the many many life forms on earth snd how they are physically constructed and how they work. Until you go down this road you cannot say the Bible means whatever you want it to. You simply have not done your homework, probably because you didn't know to look down this avenue. The Bible has a very specific meaning, the message is us simple, the meaning is clear. You simply haven't discovered it yet, but it is really there. Don't worry, I'll be helping the most of you out in the near future, stay tuned. The truth is on it's way. The only thing that has no meaning in this video is anything these people talk about, it's bad logic, lazy and not very intelligent. Thus was like a party for their own arrogance, topped by their ignorance. These people aren't excellent thinkers, they are simply looking for shock value to gain.

"Atheist" shouldn't be a tribe. When people act like it is they give credence to the theists who call atheism a religion. Atheists shouldn't see this as some tribal conflict. Magic people don't live in the sky. That shouldn't require social reinforcement. Criticizing someone for taking a tool out of the toolbox or whatever is just silly.

The Bible is evidence of religion, not God.

J e s u s P o w e r S t a r t I n g U willing to bet yr soul😮

38:46 "That's Hopefully useful...also for people themselves for introspecting, "What's actually going on with me?" That's so cute, that you think that religious fanatics (your story about the pastor berating his own daughter for grieving about the mother's dying, as one example) have any amount of self-awareness, empathy, or the ability to even ponder why they believe what they do. People that far down the rabbit hole of religious zealotry or identity politics are too far gone to question themselves. Their only questions are, Who is part of my "in" group, and who are the enemy?

“What is a belief” is an epistemic question and I always find Cognitive Scientists end up basically doing poor philosophy because they have no background in the perennial back and forth. The prob is they usually see themselves as doing a much harder* scientific endeavor….

You needed an hour to say “Yes it is”?

I would agree, most religion is make believe, but a specific religion did accurately inform my knowledge of the future, some of which is now the past and some of which is in the process of becoming the past. So until I can figure out how something make believe was able to inform something real, I'm stuck having to believe this specific religion is real, whether I wish to or not.

Everyone here may have misjudged the father who told his daughter not to grieve. He may have been mistaken, but his advice may have been born out of love for his daughter. He may have believed that she would have been happier had she focused more on her mother's promised resurrection than on her imminent death. Obviously, his daughter resented his advice -- which is why Dan heard about his 'awful' treatment of her. However, to a certain extent, this was her choice. Had she chosen to try her best to follow her dad's advice, she may have gone on X to exclaim how glad she was for her father's advice and example. She doesn't know how she would have made it through such a tragic time without his strength and reassurance. Etc. I am NOT recommending the father's approach and would never adopt it for myself. However, it's undoubtably true that millions of people have received such advice over the last centuries and many claim to have been helped by it. The father, as a minister, probably gave such advice to dozens of his flock over his decades of service. His experience taught him that his approach was comforting to many. And, lest we forget, this was a very traumatic time for him, too. He was losing his life partner. Given all of this, is it any wonder he said and acted as he did? Should he have been more understanding of what his daughter was feeling? Yes, but she should have been more understanding of him, too. Most likely, this wasn't a hardcore, unfeeling, man like he's being represented here. He was a grieving man who was doing his best to put on a brave face in a (failed) attempt to confort his daughter.

Belief is make-believe, not religion. Real religion isn't about belief.

Stopped watching at 25:23. Started to sound more like an apologist defense.

There is alot of extra cognitive work in pretending this much of your life.