I’ve noticed something lately and it’s becoming more common as time goes on, but as I watch the atheist call-in show channels, I am finding it harder and harder to sit there and let the religious stupidity wash over me.
I think I’m only able to finish about 40-50% of the calls before I click out. My bullshit alarm is going off all over the place and trying to wade through the religious desperately trying to rationalize their way back to their blind faith after getting demolished by the hosts, I just can’t take it anymore!
This has been worse since I’ve been watching videos on Deconstruction Zone and Planet Peterson because they tend to get the dumbest theists around. However, I’m clicking away from The Lone and Atheist Experience, et al, a whole lot faster than I ever have before. There were some that were such concentrated stupid that I couldn’t stand it, but that’s increasing dramatically these days.
Does anyone else feel that way? Let me know down in the comments if you do because I’m really getting sick of it.
Granted, most of the theists that call these shows are the extremes. You get a reasonable theist once in a blue moon, but the vast majority are fanatics who are not open to having intelligent, rational discussions of their beliefs. They just want it to be true and damn it, there’s no way they’re going to change their minds no matter what happens. Those people, I don’t want to listen to because it’s a complete waste of time. If I was a host on those shows, I’d hang up because it’s not going to be a productive conversation. I can see those coming a mile away.
Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer worthwhile theists out there, and it’s not just on YouTube. Look at any atheist debate forum and the theists have all been down voted into oblivion because they’re just spouting nonsense. There’s no reason to even engage these people because they are not honest interlocutors. Half the time, they can’t even string a coherent sentence together. They are fanatics, nothing more.
I’m even seeing this in the videos that I’m going after. I’ve been looking for a single rational theist for years now and not only have I not found one, but even the ones that pass the reasonable sniff test seem to have vanished.
Perhaps it’s because, as I’ve been saying for a long time, most of the moderate and liberal theists have gone away. They’ve realized there’s no reason to believe what they believe and either they’ve deconverted or they’ve just gone into hiding so they don’t make fools of themselves. It’s only the complete lunatics that are still out there, trying to preach to a world that only laughs at them.
If so, that’s a little bit sad, just from a channel perspective, because I don’t really have a lot of fun going after the extreme wingnuts. I want something that I can actually engage with on an intellectual basis and those are very few and far between. I’ve recently given up on Cameron Bertuzzi, probably forever, although those videos aren’t out yet. You get a little spoiler because you bother to read the blog. I’m going to ask my Patrons this weekend if I should just declare a permanent moratorium on Cliffe Knectle because his stupidity is off the charts. Yet is he any worse than anyone else? About the only theist I have any respect for, and it’s very little, is Randal Rauser and that’s because he’s clearly deconstructing his own beliefs and I expect him to be an atheist in short order. It takes time, but once you start asking those questions, the end is certainly nigh.
Where can you go to have those reasonable interactions with people who aren’t deluded out of their minds? If you have any ideas, let me know because I certainly haven’t found them yet.
I understand some of your frustration with the quality of discussions on atheist call-in shows. It is totally exhausting to listen to callers who are not open to rational dialogue and seem so entrenched in their beliefs. Watching channels that feature particularly irrational theists only adds to the frustration. It’s disheartening when reasonable conversations are so rare, and it feels like a waste of time engaging with fanatics.
I think you’re always going to get the same old song and dance: Fine-Tuning Arguments; Moral Arguments; Cosmological Arguments; Arguments from Consciousness; Arguments from “Reason”. You have fully deconstructed all those I know of.
You might explore, if you have not, psychology, cognition, and mental processes to gain insights into why people believe what they do. But even there, I know you probably already know the motivations.
It will never be about a search for the truth. Look at the way religion functions: to meet safety, security, hope needs (emotional comfort needs). You can’t meet those needs if you acknowledge the Bible is just full of factual and textual errors (it is); or, for example -if you are Catholic, that the pope is fully fallible (he is).
Faith does not function as a search for the truth. It functions as a way to stop looking for the truth because you already have “the truth” in your back pocket. That is how it meets people’s safety, security, hope needs; that is, all the emotional comforts and secure feelings.
Demanding demonstrable, independently verifiable, objective evidence. . . . .using logic, reason, primary sources would destroy the function of religion and thus religions truth can never be seriously considered without destroying its function.
1 Corinthians 1:26
26 Just look at your own calling, believers; not many [of you are considered] wise according to human standards, . . . . well, there it is. . . .
Truth is just nasty stuff to the believer because and it deconstructs all the emotional comforts like a typhoon.
Christians care nothing for scholarship because it deconstructs, demythologizes, deweaponizes all their “facts.”
I understand why they do it, the point is to stop them from doing it. If you can’t do that, then nothing changes and nothing improves. If nothing improves then doing it at all is a worthless waste of time. Plus, the hosts of these shows are often just as clueless and irrational as the callers, just on different topics. It’s why I’m so critical of the extremes because they both tend to do the exact same things for entirely different reasons. That also doesn’t cause improvement. Without improvement, what’s the point? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is called insanity.
I’m tired of the world being insane.
re: It’s why I’m so critical of the extremes because they both tend to do the exact same things for entirely different reasons.✅ . . . .Yeah, both extremes often engage in similar behaviors, such as imposing rigid ideologies, suppressing dissent, and polarizing communities. They haven’t left the stadium they have just switched teams/sides.
re: Without improvement, what’s the point? -True.
I’m critical of everyone. It’s just that so many people are running on nothing but fee-fees and faith that it’s screwing everything up for the normal people. I’m at the point where I just want to get off of all social media because I can’t handle the concentrated dumb anymore.
re: I’m at the point where I just want to get off of all social media because I can’t handle the concentrated dumb anymore. . . .Yeah, understandable. The rise of social media influences attention spans and the quality of information consumed. The popularity of certain types of entertainment prioritizes instant gratification (all the feels) over intellectual engagement. Also, a culture focused on consumerism undervalues intellectual pursuits too. Sad.
It’s not just the influencers, which if they had a brain in their collective heads, would be okay. Stupid, but okay. The problem is that humanity is getting dumber by the day and I can’t find anyone to have a decent conversation with anymore. With no intelligent conversations, why bother?
re: I can’t find anyone to have a decent conversation with anymore. With no intelligent conversations, why bother?
. . . .Certainly the religious can’t have intelligent conversations. They HAVE to stick with the non-demonstrable, the non-objective; because (as you well know), to go down the strict road of logic, reason and demonstrable evidence only leads to demythologizing and deconstructing, et.al. It could be if you were having these conversations about technology, science, etc. the level of intelligence would move up?
It’s not just the religious, nobody can have a decent political discussion either. I find it hard to find people that can string sentences together intelligently. Most people don’t understand logic, reason, critical thinking or much of anything else. They just spout the nonsense that they hear online as if it’s true and what’s the point of engaging with that?
Yeah, critical thinking and logical reasoning are skills that require practice and education. Unfortunately, not many have had the opportunity to develop these skills to your level (re: your videos where you are just giving the commentary without previously viewing them). Meaningful conversations about complex topics like politics and religion are challenging, especially when people so often rely on superficial info. or just echo online crap-o-la without any real critical examination.
I’m nobody special. It’s just that we live in a society that pushes for emotional comfort over factual reality and I refuse to do that. People can’t take themselves out of the conversation because they’ve been taught that they’re special and their opinions mean more than the facts do. They are simply wrong.
Yeah, the importance of objective truth over subjective emotions has really been lost. Too much emphasis on validating personal feelings and opinions, at the expense of objective facts. You have to have (and prioritize) factual accuracy and critical thinking. Otherwise, no meaningful dialogue and progress.
I’m about to post a video that I saw over on the channel that sums up pretty much how I feel about it all. I’ve been saying it for a while, but we’re really in social and intellectual decline as a species worldwide. Good thing I won’t be around to have to suffer through it for too much longer.
re: the current state of things. . . . .It’s understandable to feel disheartened -absolutely understandable.