Dominic-CA | There Is An Underlying Higher Power! | Talk Heathen 06.16

Talk Heathen 06.16 for April 17, 2022 with Jmike and Kenneth Leonard.
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WHAT IS TALK HEATHEN?
Talk Heathen is a weekly call-in television show in Austin, Texas geared toward long-form and on-going dialogue with theists & atheists about religion, theism, & secularism. Talk Heathen is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
Talk Heathen is filmed in front of a live studio audience every week at the Freethought Library of the Atheist Community of Austin.
The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop & support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing & friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of government-religion separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists & to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism.
CONTACTS & SOCIAL MEDIA
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NOTES
The views and opinions expressed by hosts, guests, or callers are their own and not necessarily representative of the Atheist Community of Austin.
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Copyright © 2022 Atheist Community of Austin. All rights reserved.

[@feyfantome]

Dominic worked really hard on his presupposition. He must be so disappointed he got shredded out the gate.

[@solly119119]

JMike ... "What was the control in the experiment?" Dominic ... "What do you mean by that?" And ... we're done.

[@TrejoDuneSea]

Maybe my memory's tricking me, but experiments requiring a control is pretty basic, like high school basic? And yeah it made me want to give up listening too.

[@annk.8750]

Then he talked about looking at crystals and saying "at the molecular level". A crystal is not a molecule.

[@LOwens-xf8yo]

Yea, kinda like claiming to be an expert on Shakespeare, without knowing your ABCs!

[@LOwens-xf8yo]

@@TrejoDuneSea yes, controls are the back bone of research! Without a proper control, no conclusions can be drawn. If group A gets medicine A, and group B gets medicine B, you still need a group C given sugar pills, to show that the testing method actually works. Like the second bars on every covid & pregnancy tests, it shows that the test is working properly, before giving you an answer. If the test kit is flawed, then the answers are meaningless. I’m too invested because my job in bio-tech was specifically to evaluate research outlines from pharmaceutical studies, to ensure they had the proper controls.

[@TravisAllen-bl5ff]

@TrejoDuneSea It’s been a long time ago, but I think the control is used to establish a baseline. “This is what we should expect with no external factors acting on it.” Again, irs been a while, I might be very wrong, which is why I wouldn’t come into a debate like this unable to answer it 😂

[@sparki9085]

"why should i need to know anything about a topic to be able to talk about it!?" - the caller

[@FamRutz]

Love Kenneth and JMike combo. 👍

[@lennysmith8851]

“Water on the molecular is effected by thoughts and vibrations…….are you there?” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 i am fucking dead ☠️

[@marasmusine]

No, Dominic, the "water" experiment is contested because it can't be replicated, meaning there must be serious errors in Masaru Emoto's experiment.

[@marasmusine]

And there you go, Dominic goes on to describe an experiment with no control and no blinding.

[@marasmusine]

I don't blame Dominic, I blame the lack of science education. I was not taught the scientific method at school.

[@Heliscope]

The messages where not identical in length. The amount of ink that dissolves in water may cause different freezing patterns. Does water in USA understand all the different languages - or only English? What if the messages were written in Finnish?? Or some ancient language? I can not believe the caller was serious.

[@marasmusine]

@@Heliscope Oh he's serious, the researcher is real, I believe the caller must have watched the "documentary" What the "Bleep do we Know?" which is just horrible pseudoscience. My brother fell for the same crap.

[@Preservestlandry]

​@@marasmusinethere's no way nobody brought up the scientific method. It's at the beginning of every text book. He just doesn't listen.

[@cardboardmannequin4069]

Today I learned that if you ignore all the counterexamples to a thing, you can say the thing is universally true. Wow!

[@pidayrocks2235]

Exactly, it’s a universal fact… and anyone who disagrees with it must be “objectively” wrong because they are not aligned with what I claimed to be a universal fact… and everyone else, other than the people I dismissed out of hand, agree with my proposition, which proves it’s a universal fact! This is quite literally a steel-man of his position, yet it sounds like an SNL joke. Unbelievable.

[@romankvapil9184]

First claim he makes and he gets mad right out the gate when getting the most mildest pushback possible.

[@themanwithnoname1839]

Most mildest.......

[@Xynth22]

Someone really should have told Dominic that adding more claims to a list of claims isn't explaining how you know something.

[@JayMaverick]

0 + 0 = 0 but 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 1 Your brain on theism.

[@shanewilson7994]

I love that he goes into a definition of natural laws in order to make sure there is no confusion, and then throws in useless terms like spiritual

[@puckerings]

If we're here to evolve consciousness to new heights, the caller isn't pulling his weight.

[@JayMaverick]

I love calls that get exponentially more ridiculous over the duration. 😂

[@amtlpaul]

The purpose of life is consciousness? Well, I'm conscious, so I guess I've attained my purpose! What else is there for me to do?

[@Cookingspider]

Anime, sports, drugs, travel

[@kenshiloh]

The purpose of life is to be friends with God. Just like a couple desires to have kids, so God made you for fellowship with Him. If you reject God, He will not pull you into heaven by your ears. He is not a 'shotgun wedding' God who will force you into a friendship. Yet, know that God is love. He is the author of truth and justice. If you go into eternity without Christ, you will forever live without things like love, justice, and mercy. In fact, Jesus said that there are 'torturers' in hell. Hell is the bottom of the pit for human cruelty! Think of a person who is, at this moment, being mercilessly and ceasely tortured right now. If I understand my Bible correctly, that you will be you in less than a 100 years - unless you go with Christ. He loves you. He died on a Cross so that we may become the goodness of God, rather than the wretched, filthy cusses that we are now. Jesus Christ is the light of the world.

[@amtlpaul]

@@kenshiloh "If you won't be my friend, I'll make you wish you'd never been born!" What a perfect being, not pathological at all.

[@kenshiloh]

@@amtlpaul God is love. If a person rejects love, they are accepting hell. How could it be otherwise? God made us for friendship with Him. He gave you a choice. If you choose not to love God, then you miss the whole purpose of your life. How could life without God be good?? What would you do if you were God? Presumably, you have lied and stolen. Would you accept lying thieves into heaven? If so, it would not longer be heaven! Are you opposed to prisons or would you have rapists and torturers walking the street? We lock up evil people. They are removed from society, just as no wicked people are in heaven. You have falsely accused God. You do not have honest questions, but are treasonable, accusatory. Christ died on a Cross because He loves you and desires your friendship. You and I deserve to be in hell right now. If you want to take your pride into eternity, the Bible calls you a fool. You could have forgiveness of your sins. God is good, yet you impune the goodness of God? You cannot get any more wicked than that! I hope you make this right. Settle with your Accuser on the way to court; when you stand before God, it will be too late! If you are honest, you will admit you have committed plenty, innumerable, crimes against God. He is good; we are not! Jesus Christ is the light of the world.

[@TravisAllen-bl5ff]

@kenshiloh Explain how you just perfectly described a sociopath in a coercive, abusive relationship, and came away with the notion that he loves you? Love under implied threat of eternal torture is not love…that’s coercion by definition.

[@richie_williams]

JMike is the most fiercely intelligent host of all time. He’s an amalgam of all the hosts on TH and AXP of all time. Except maybe excluding Tracey as she used to smile when she delivered her killer blows. He’s the Atheist Terminator.

[@whispersmith]

You can see the gears turning in his head like an artillery piece calibrating its trajectory

[@padresteve619]

And all this time I thought H2O was illiterate.

[@connix69]

This is what happens when someone thinks that "research" is a 2 minute Google search for something that supports their predetermined position.

[@funlightfactory6031]

Where does "good" come from? Human perception. Desired results are good, undesired results are bad.

[@NN-wc7dl]

The moment he said "the purpose of life" I knew this would sink fast...

[@AkanoWire]

'Ive done the double slit experiment to measure moral' Now im gonna measure the length of grass in my yard to see what the weather will be tomorrow, even that makes more sense then this dude xD

[@annk.8750]

He went off the rails right at the very start, when he said "We were put here..."

[@woodysdrums8083]

Dominic's whole argument is pure conjecture.

[@shanehisle1294]

It's impossible to be defined as murder if it's in self defense

[@lukesmithasada]

As soon as he said "spiritual" I stopped caring. There is no spirit. It is a ridiculous concept. The "Natural Law" applies to everyone, as long as they are "normal people". This guy failed so miserably at this. What a waste of 40 minutes.

[@timothybrown5999]

If I’m riddled with cancer to the point where everything I do hurts and I have to watch the pain in my friends’ and family’s faces whenever they see me and I know I’m being a burden financially, I might want someone to kill me. There are always exceptions to every rule.

[@cps_Zen_Run]

Timothy, sorry for your suffering. May you be at Peace. Gratitude that you were here at all. May you find happiness in the moment.

[@timothybrown5999]

@@cps_Zen_Run notice the first word is if, I’m not suffering. But thank you for your kind words.

[@nathanh1582]

The guy meant murder and rape. You can’t murder a person who wants to die and you can’t rape a person who wants it. He is just terrible at explaining what he is saying. People really need to remember that there is more than whether someone is right or not at play. A person can lose a debate but be 100% correct. Not that he is but too many people are picking on his poorly worded arguments instead of helping him make the argument and then crushing it.

[@AlexPBenton]

@@nathanh1582 In that case, his argument is completely tautological and useless.

[@cordo7051]

If you look at two separate things, you’ll always find a difference. The control for the water experiment would be to have 4 glasses of water, two with different notes (A and B), two without any notes (C and D). Now a scientist can compare A to B and C to D, without knowing which set had notes and which didn’t. If now there are differences in the first set and not in the second and this holds true for different scientists, at different places, multiple times, then you have an interesting phenomenon that is worth investigating further.

[@cps_Zen_Run]

The universe has no purpose. Life has no purpose. Evolution has no purpose. This allows one to have Graduate that we are here at all. Joy for each day. Don’t waste your brief existence looking for a purpose.

[@fredbohm4728]

The purpose of life is whatever you want it to be that gives you joy.

[@cps_Zen_Run]

@@fredbohm4728 , so true. But that is your individual choice. I was referring to intent. Universe happened. Evolution has no goals. Life evolved. Hoping your purpose brings you Happiness and Joy.

[@robertwrigley6950]

Ever since my pet dolphin died, my life has no porpoise.

[@TheNomad94]

@@robertwrigley6950 Ever since I stopped reading, my life stopped having purple prose.

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

The purpose of life is to mock Amber Heard.

[@tsdbhg]

Misinterpreting the facts and then drawing biased conclusions from them is a recipe for delusions.

[@Disturbed0neGaming]

The "water experiment" isn't even an experiment, it's just some guy saying he did something that no one else can even attempt and then claiming that it shows magic exists...

[@SecondaryHomunculus]

Dominic is totally right. I scream at my water all the time -- fear makes it taste better.

[@cctomcat321]

Cymatics would blow his mind.

[@ari1234a]

Uuuh... Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

[@brentmiller3951]

Chris cristofferson is a great song writer

[@romankvapil9184]

He also messed up by completely misunderstanding what both evolution and Natural Law are. One is the characteristic that is the nature of the diversity of life. The other is a human philosophy, man made to better understand the reality around us. Neither are attributed to the existence of a god.

[@mrnajafproductions6144]

Does nobody else hear Glenn from Superstore when Dominic speaks?

[@daveward4358]

I started to understand the very basics of quantum machanics, then me brain fused

[@cardboardmannequin4069]

Oh my god. I can't stand when people bring up the double slit experiment to prove woo. "Observation" does not mean "a person looked at it"!!

[@awesomesause]

I think that rape, murder, and stealing is wrong because I wouldn't want to be raped, mirdered or stolen from. There is nothing spiritual about it. If it comes from a book, that is obedience, not morality.

[@almightydiplodocus]

At around 30 mins he tries to bring up a point about how the double slit experiment implies that the universe is under constant observation because particles, energy would not have a defined state. But if everything is being constantly observed by an omnipresent being then the experiment wouldn't work.

[@alfredogarciamarquez4397]

I got dizzy just for listening going on circles

[@sparki9085]

Strangest game of pinball I've ever seen

[@cardboardmannequin4069]

"People refute the experiments because their egos get in the way" That might be true, but how did you rule out "people refute the experiments because they had flawed methodology"? You could perhaps read up on the rebuttals?

[@roberthamilton9154]

Homie has no idea what a control group is in a experiment but understands quantum physics? Bruh lol

[@sparki9085]

Dominic is playing pinball with the topic

[@LOwens-xf8yo]

Omg, this guy is hilarious! Well-being is the wrong agenda! God is well-being!

[@cctomcat321]

The best part was "good vs bad vibes written on paper, put in water, and it affects that water when frozen after 24 hours."

[@0l550]

Dominic, think back to every conversation where you knew the person you were talking to did not understand a crucial part of the subject, now remember how embarrassed you were for that person, now go look in the mirror. It’s OK to admit that you’re not sure about it and that way you can quit while your still ahead.

[@2beers007]

this guy tripping😂

[@simonthompson2764]

Very useful concept that morality placed in the mind of a god is subjective given that that god could change his mind. So much for objective morality.

[@sparki9085]

Why does the caller get to decide whats normal?

[@brucebaker810]

Figures he knows enough physics to form conclusions. Accepts an experiment consisting of one A and one B. Doesn't understandwhat they mean by a control (group; well it'd be a group in an experiment where total subjects are more than...TWO) The backwards-inference syllogistic evidence for the negative is implied.

[@russellh9894]

Does this guy sound like Jordan Peterson? I'm listening at x1.5 speed. It's funny to think JP would call in under a different name to try to discuss this stuff.

[@Bebymeboo]

19:10 😂🤣🥲🥹😂😞

[@mikealexander2005]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but I appreciated this guy. As backwards and misguided as I felt he was, I also felt like he was really trying to listen. Most of the points didn't land but not many people even listen anymore.

[@advorak8529]

A photographic film (or plate) is a “conscious” observer. According to Dominic. Because it shows the double slit behaviour (even with at most one electron or photon being on the way at any one time).

[@capthavic]

Nope, I would have pulled a hard stop the moment he started citing things like that water woo as evidence. If that's your level of "scientific" evidence then we have nothing to discuss.

[@oscar.p3214]

People are unfair , there I fixed the title .. blaming life is like shouting into a void. Life is people , society is something we socially constructed if it’s not fair we’re not fair .

[@ShakeyVaccy]

'I said normal people' - because all those people who don't think the way your point is predicated on need to be dismissed as your point is then moot?

[@callmeflexplays]

Time to define a thing into existence and then act like it's obvious, weeeee!

[@MichaelMadrugada]

Somebody had an epiphany after watching the Ramtha cult recruitment film, "What the Bleep do we know?" OOF...HOT GARBAGE

[@shanehisle1294]

Jmike and he analysis of the ciggeret syllogism is horrible. P1 smoking causing cancer P2 cancer is bad for welbeing C people ought not smoke to protect their welbeing Is valid and sound

[@maxwellgillmore4237]

Shane you are inserting deontic logic into a first order logic syllogism Conclusion does NOT follow You would need to establish that well-being is an objective Without that premise the conclusion is faulty

[@shanehisle1294]

@@maxwellgillmore4237 my syllogism has nothing to do IF one ought to care about welbeing. It just simply follows that one out not smoke to protect welbeing. It doesn't matter if they care about their welbeing. It's a simple fact one ought not smoke to protect their welbeing if they care or not.

[@zachrichardson5581]

@@shanehisle1294 but then the question becomes is well being relating to physical health only? If we're talking mental health well then people SHOULD smoke cigarettes because it reduces stress. So in a certain context something can be harmful to our well-being and in a certain context something can be beneficial to our well-being.

[@shanehisle1294]

@@zachrichardson5581 that's subjective. Smoking to relive stress isn't a fact about health. In fact, smoking increases heart rate, blood pressure etc, all the things related to mental stress. But besides all that. Subjectively asserting you're less stressful when smoking literally doesn't mean anything.

[@zachrichardson5581]

@@shanehisle1294 yes it does mean something. You just said it's subjective which is exactly why I'm bringing it up. If person feels a reduced amount of the mental/emotional state known as stress (regardless of the literal effects on your body you pointed out) when smoking then that's what they subjectively feel. So again in that specific context there is a benefit to their individual well being as they now have a lower level of stress than before that cigarette. Which is why I originally asked are we defining well being as strictly physical? In which case I'd agree with you absolutely, there is no benefit physically to smoking. However if well being includes the mental/emotional side then we now have different contextual aspects to factor in.

[@Color-Painter-Blue]

Dominic: "..People dont want to get murdered!.." old Viking Culture: "..Are we a joke to you?.." There are cultures where Warriors felt it to be the greatest honor to be killed in battle rather than dying from old Age! But yep.. his easy cop out by making the *no true scottsman* fallacy with his "..They are not normal!..". He basicly: "..Everybody has to agree with me or they are not normal!.." and not realizing that this "..not normal.." People still destroy his entire Argument. People like him are so pathetic!

[@ahh_yes_mr_bax]

This is a person who is probably really good at something he thinks requires great intelligence to do.

[@fleshbones7606]

Ok Deepak

[@cmack17]

If I kidnapped Dominic and kept him in a cage for torture, he could not argue that I have infringed on his freedom because he is aware of this god.

[@complexeddrummer]

Sounds like a bongcloud Buddhist. Some "spiritual" dude that heard or read about something like Shingon or Mahayana Buddhism, combined it with some spiritual theism, and thought he just figured out the whole universe.

[@franktheexpertstrenchclub9025]

The non-aggression principle 🙄🙄🙄 So this supergenius is both an extremely confused theist and libertarian. Man, imagine how unbearable he’d be at parties

[@carrie5980]

I didn't think they were very fair to this caller, and they came down on him too hard.

[@Mmmmilo]

I’m surprised you even continued after he cited “scientific evidence” yet literally didn’t know what a control was.

[@Mmmmilo]

Freedom to murder is also freedom. His ridiculous argument is self-defeating.

[@Terence.Tristan0806]

A little over a minute in and I am speechless, 34 minutes in and he's at the same place he was when he started. It seems to me that most (at the very least a majority) of America is people who think akin to this goof. He is beyond clueless, but thinks the worlds problems are a result of not thinking like he does.

[@jaege]

I would have to agree. Most of my countrymen (and women) are clueless boobs, that have no idea how reality works.

[@topcat2069]

Delusional is not a Survival Strategy This dude explains nothing. Ignorant arrogance seems to be a major attribute of "plebeian" christianity.

[@colinellicott9737]

"Epistemic humility". Thx KL, that was my take-away from this epic D-K caller.

[@sparki9085]

My dude can't understand hypotheticals...

[@DANISEVIL]

So some lunatic yelled at water and somehow that proves a God?

[@jeziscricket4448]

Jmike listen to Saint Dominic and stop asking for justification before you can justify your own math beliefs in your spirit.

[@dimitrioskalfakis]

an obviously science literate proponent of a spooky experiment with far reaching results and implications; also, a self-contradicting manifesto with a variety of unsupported claims ;-)

[@beyondu77]

Love you guys, but you go way too long with guys like Dominic who doesn't make a lot of sense.

[@2robdot]

Nothing anyone said made any sense.

[@johnd.shultz7423]

Water can read? even by cosmically low woo-"science" standards this caller is digging desperately in his pants pocket expecting a gold coin and comes up with a pinch of laundry lint...

[@kevinfancher3512]

Dom, dude, stop pretending science supports your claim when all you're doing is heaping your philosophical wishful thinking on top of the work of actual, professional, committed scientists while contributing no scientific inquiry yourself. This is why we were all required to show our work in school, well, real school, not Sunday school.

[@NN-wc7dl]

Wow, Dominic presented the worst blah-blah I've heard in a long time. He should take at least a grounding course in philosophy before unleashing his thoughts on green pasture.

[@chrisgreene2070]

JMike, im sorry, but it feels like you gish gallop more than any other host. Youre human. Juat trying to give perspective ❤

[@Furry-iousNews]

You do realize the gish gallop is fallacious because tge points raised are bulls**t right? Making many points in a row that ARENT might be a tad rude conversationally, but its not gish galloping for one to make multiple valid points

[@Zdaren]

Does talk heathen actually expect people to call in and talk for 20 minutes and change their mind? Does anyone ever ask them if they think they can actually do anything in 20 minutes? This is such a setup and dumb

[@GoodBrotherGrimm]

@@Zdaren No, and they've said as much multiple times.

[@Furry-iousNews]

Its not about changing minds, its about providing a countet narrative to the indoctrination. I cant make you believe water feels wet, but you can touch it yourself, other people can see this experiment and replicate it. If you watch this person engage with the experiment and ignore the logical and rational conclusions then what else are they ignoring because its inconvenient to their previous belief system. Its about teaching and showing how skepticism can and should be used to educate people who have been denied or indoctrinated to be against, skepticism

[@brentmiller3951]

You get your freedom from submitting to the skydaddy .that should be the Christian motto