Michael Shermer: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, Skeptic Movement, & More

Longtime friends Peter Boghossian and Michael Shermer sit down to talk about ideological capture in American institutions, skepticism, the Grievance Studies Affair, the Fermi Paradox, and more!
Dr. Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. Michael wrote a monthly column for Scientific American for 18 years. He is the author of several books, including his most recent, "Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational" His next book is set to be published in Fall 2025.
The Michael Shermer Show www.skeptic.com/michael-sherm...
Book: www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Why...
Michael on X: x.com/michaelshermer
Chapters
0:00 Intro
3:30 What people in the future will think about 2024
10:02 Ideology in institutions
14:40 Michael’s podcast
19:50 Are we in a simulation?
31:15 Fermi Paradox (David Deutsch clip)
41:30 Michael Shermer’s book
49:10 AI thought experiment
1:01:07 What Michael has learned from his podcasts
1:03:04 Rapid-fire questions for Michael
1:12:55 Academia & Grievance Studies Affair
1:22:22 Substitution Hypothesis
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⸺LINKS⸺
Podcast: "Conversations with Peter Boghossian": pod.link/1650150225
Website | peterboghossian.com/
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Resignation Letter | peterboghossian.com/my-resign...
⸺BOOKS⸺
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“A Manual For Creating Atheists” | www.amazon.com/Manual-Creatin...
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__________
#atheism #rationality #beliefs #peterboghossian

[@drpeterboghossian]

Watch my other interview with Michael Shermer next: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6CoeGmKbMmgptU

[@jkonior1]

Great interview. Michael Shermer never disappoints.

[@MosestheGrey]

Shermer and Boghossian, what a Duo. Great conversation guys. (and great work behind the scene Reid)

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you!

[@user-useff]

It is not the difference of how much one has fallen for "those beliefs". It is more of how much one is willing to lie to be virtuous.

[@jakez5894]

Hi Peter, big fan. I went to good public schools in America in the 1990s in a very progressive area. The reason why I was "fooled" into believing in gender ideology was because I had been taught my entire life that there were no group differences that mattered between men and women, just like there were no group differences that mattered between people of different races or different sexualities. If a person has been taught that males and females are virtually identical and all group differences owe themselves to culture, then it's easy to accept that a person's performance of gender should be honored as reality.

[@N7sensei]

At the end of the day it boils down to the two biggest failures of the education system (and parenting in general): 1.) We teach and condition our kids to follow authority blindly. 2.) We do not teach them that it is possible to teach themselves by formulating and asking questions, then reviewing evidence.

[@aidananstey9848]

It's still a big leap from "women can do anything men can do" to women can actually be men.

[@baconsarny-geddon8298]

Yeah, I support equal rights of course, but feminism really over-played the idea that "men and women are EXACTLY IDENTICAL AND INTERCHANGEABLE, except for reproductive plumbing". To be fair, it's a nuanced issue; There's many contexts where men and women ARE essential identical and interchangeable. If I'm hiring an architect, or a doctor, or most jobs really, men and women WILL be equally capable... But, in OTHER areas, the sexes have real differences, that no amount of exogenous hormones will level... Physical strength, of course, and sporting performance; Just look at the difference between male and female in virtually ANY sporting world record. Unremarkable male high school athletes routinely destroy female world records in many athletics categories. But also in terms of stuff like sexual behaviour, and also crime, especially violent crime, the sexes are VERY different... [and the stats show that interestingly, your self-declared "gender" DOES have some amount of impact... But not in the way that trans activists WISH it did... Instead of what they assume, that mtf patterns would more closely resemble female behaviour patterns, than males, the stats reflect THE OPPOSITE; That for eg, female rates of fetishism are fairly low, in contrast to male rates, which are significantly higher... And then you have mtf rates, which ARE different from the male average... except they're EVEN HIGHER than the overall male average; Like mtf's are the "MOST male" of all males. Same with sex crime rates; Females have low likelihood of committing a sex crime. Male rate (while still only a small minority of males) is significantly higher... And mtf rate is HIGHER STILL (But still a minority of mtf's. I'm not saying that ALL, or even MOST mtf's are dangerous). Of course you can interpret those stats in different ways; You COULD argue (but personally, I highly doubt this) that "trans" is a real, innate group who are also more prone to sex crimes and fetishism. Or the other (more likely, IMHO) option, is that there's no INNATE difference between "mtf" and any other male... But when you let ANY male opt into a certain group, who gets access to the places women and girls are most vulnerable, like bathrooms and changerooms, you're going to ATTRACT predatory males into that group. Same as if you have stats saying that people who wear big, bully jackets are more likely to shoplift; Does that mean there's something INNATE to bulky jacket-wearers, that makes them more shoplifty? No, it's just being a bulky jacket-wearer makes it EASIER to shoplift, so OF COURSE shoplifters are going to adopt the behaviour of wearing big jackets, because it HELPS THEM to shoplift] But every culture in human history has known that male and female have innate differences; It's only in the last century or so, that we decided the sexes deserve equal rights (which is good)... And some went overboard with that, extending it to "men and women are TOTALLY identical", and then "men can BE women, and vice versa"...

[@thechapelperilous]

Can someone name one mainstream belief that Michael Schermer challenged , or used his magazine as a pulpit to argue for, with reason and argument and spent time in the trenches over?

[@theinnerlight8016]

Belief in the supernatural. Deism. Christianity (?) I wish I could say "Islam and the scourge it is to humanity" 😔

[@AegonCallery-ty6vy]

Well, it certainly isnt climate science/ alarmism. That is the subject i am most disappointed in him. It showed the limitation of his thinking..

[@theinnerlight8016]

@@AegonCallery-ty6vy I'm sure the whole climate change thing is being abused for monetary gains and power. But how much of it is human made, I can't begin to understand. I'm admittedly not educated enough on the subject so I don't have an opinion on the matter, but it's definitely being exploited.

[@anynimus1617]

@@AegonCallery-ty6vy for climate science and alarmism my man Michael Shellenberger is the go to guy!

[@xXxTeenSplayer]

​@@AegonCallery-ty6vy In what way? He has addressed climate alarmism tangentially, but you're mad that he accepts that humans are causing the Anthropicine. You're mad because he accepts that humans are changing the climate.

[@deathbysloth]

So many problems arise because no one even can agree what a "right" is, but everyone knows that if you couch your desires with that term then it gives you more standing, rhetorically.

[@Andre_Louis_Moreau]

I see this all the time, mostly because of studying authoritarian thought reform tactics. All brainwashing does is rewire a persons moral framework away from that of their traditional culture. All my cultures laws were an attempt to codify old school, John Locke, basic human rights.

[@dougmorrow746]

Lately, and sadly, "Skepticism" has devolved into simple denialism.

[@dks13827]

Peter we also allow certain people to beat up anyone.... old ladies........... and nothing happens.

[@theinnerlight8016]

If you're tolerant about intolerance you always lose. We all do.

[@ruthhorowitz7625]

Really going down the rabbit hole here😂😂😂

[@lcuddy12]

How have I not ever thought of The Shermenator? I've been reading Shermer's stuff since college.

[@bushwacka5187]

The Shermenator's the best.

[@nineteenninetyfive]

This is why Bayesian analysis is poor reasoning to me. People just make up their own parameters to create the conclusions they want.

[@AegonCallery-ty6vy]

Climate science in a nutshell. Or at least the 'reporting' of it..

[@nineteenninetyfive]

@@AegonCallery-ty6vy I will agree that the reporting of climate science is sometimes poor. It's one of the good examples of why it's bad to use poor arguments even if what you are arguing for is correct. People get the idea that all the arguments for your position are bad. My understanding is that the data for climate change and the cause of that change is very well understood and we can be confident in it. There is climate change and humans are influencing it.

[@Dan16673]

​@@nineteenninetyfiveinfluencing is the key and what degree. No one can answer nor present the trade offs that are needed

[@EarthlingEveryman-zv7bs]

@@AegonCallery-ty6vy What, exactly, is so Bayesian about climate science?

[@Gifthunterz]

Great episode

[@laugh629]

Looking forward to Shermer's new book.

[@halpippack8]

Hi Peter. Great conversation with Michael. I was hoping to hear your reasons for not buying into the idea of personality differences as a (partial) explanation for discrepancies in levels of belief within individuals.

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thanks. Great comment. I’m happy to go over that in depth in a future show.

[@halpippack8]

@@drpeterboghossian Great. Thanks for the reply.

[@thenookishome]

Two great minds in action !

[@AetheriusComics]

I think it's less about why the rational believe the irrational, and more about why the high IQ make irrational decisions. And I think the reason is, because high IQ is no remedy for lazy thinking.

[@baconsarny-geddon8298]

I don't think it's even "lazy" thinking- It takes far more effort to do all these bizarre mental gymnastics, to justify belief in a man rising from the grave, to save your soul. Or belief that males can be "REALLY female", in some mystical sense. In both cases, the rational option takes LESS effort to believe... I think it's that both those irrational belief systems( and countless others) offer emotional rewards, if you accept them as """truth""", which rationalism CAN'T offer, the same way. People love the idea of some grand, valiant struggle against injustice and "evil"- All the most powerful narratives in human history, from the story of Moses, to Jesus, to Mohammed, to Joseph Smith, Buddha, Hercules, Luke Skywalker, Clarke Kent, the founding mythos of America, Stalinism, Maoism, even Nazism- All these narratives that people find powerful and feel drawn to, have this same template of the little guy, struggling for righteousness, against insurmountable odds, and an unjust/evil world. And there's been many times in history, where you COULD jump on board a "righteous struggle against injustice" (ie Every revolution or political movement, or even religion, evert.. But people (even very smart people) can often get TRICKED, by the emotional allure of a compelling narrative, into BELIEVING they've joined a "valiant struggle against evil", when in reality, they just joined some goofball religion, or worse, they have actually BECOME the "injustice", when they started off believing they were the exact opposite....

[@AetheriusComics]

@@baconsarny-geddon8298 The word "Lazy", means, "unwilling to work or use energy". It tends to also result in dishonesty, as, it takes more work to be honest. So, the shortcut is to lie, by willingly deciding not to put in the work, to maintain real facts while figuring out complex matters. When people already perceive you as smart, and they tend to buy what ever you say because of it, there's no reason to put in the work.

[@katgod]

You might like this if you haven't read it. The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes

[@simonslade1013]

The words 'dumb', 'stupid', 'crazy' to describe the present state of (mystical) scepticism, although humorously accurate, do not capture the serious danger it represents to liberal societies today. Why not use the word 'fascistic'?

[@scoon2117]

The name Boghossian is one of those words i cant get out of my head and repeats over and over. its a seriously bad earwig that lasts hours lol

[@theinnerlight8016]

Boghossian explosion 😉

[@scoon2117]

@@theinnerlight8016 Boghossian, take me by the hand Lead me to the land that you understand Boghossian, the voyage to the corner of the globe Is a real trip Boghossian, the crust of a tan man imbibed by the sand Soaking up the thirst of the land

[@daxamudodaxamudo]

#42:52 There is a correct answer for max income tax. Tax consists on taking money from people by force. Aka, theft. Hence, the answer is 0

[@steverational8615]

No. I think it is totally accurate to describe your ideology as “scepticism”. As a Christian I am as rationale and reality based as you

[@Dreckmal01]

I really despise the simulation hypothesis. I have experienced DMT. I broke through. Doesnt make any of what we are doing a simulation. And, even if it is a simulation, that simulation is the reality we live in. There are no tests. So the simulation theory is just a replacement for god for people who find established religion distasteful.

[@Robert-Downey-Syndrome]

Sounds like something agent Smith would say, agent Smith.

[@danielpaulson8838]

We evolved by having emotions drive us with fear or joy. We had to or we wouldn't have evolved. We were once a regular food source for big hungry carnivores. I believe there is a point in the minds of many brain types, (not all but most) where modern day reasoning goes out the window because a supernatural belief for example, circumvents this wired in fear. A person can be a professional, and trained in higher level fields and still let this part go. As long as it doesn't effect their job or relationships and performance with others. They keep the two separated. But there is also another issue. The conspiracy theorists. They don't believe the earth is flat out of fear. That's different. When I discuss in length with an Abrahamic supernaturalist, Egyptians didn't build the Pyramids, or flearther for example, what I see in common between them is a complete lack of critical thinking skills. They have wild imaginations and even use technology, but they dismiss facts, invent new ones or torture and twist science findings to support their wild claims. (Fossils sea shells in mountain rock prove the flood happened, etc) To me, in my mind, they are mentally deficit when it comes to reasoning things out properly, but not inventing a path to keep one busy. We didn't evolve to do nothing but life is easier and people have time on their hands. And the majority moves ahead with what makes them feel good, not what is best for everyone in the world. That was critical to evolve. It is still in place. Here we are. Over evolving with blinders on due to fear. How ironic we drive ourselves faster to our demise through our very fear of death.

[@AegonCallery-ty6vy]

Michael is ignorant about the climate system in as far as he hasnt looked closely enough to understand the a priori impossibility of making reasonable settled predictions. But the enforcement of 'settled' science should be skeptically reviewed. He rather brushed it off. To me i call that negligent about one of the most important issues of the day. Forget about Woke. Focus on fascism and overreach..

[@Dan16673]

Over reach knows no party or group. It's universal that the gov grows until all he'll breaks loose

[@Litboy_skiddit]

I just appreciate free thought. You should have the ability to own up to what you were wrong about. You should be able to BE wrong. Furthermore what is right and wrong? For me it seems strange people say hey let a culture have their culture and we’re not the world police but will turn around and say hey this country should do this (energy, gay rights, etc). This is fundamentally flawed from their own logic

[@NotGovernor]

It violates Hume's law... "But so what?" I was shocked with this display of nonsense. :/

[@brek5]

I like that Shermer mentioned Trump having to have the military to pull off a coup. I mean, back when he lost last time and people were saying he wouldn't leave (and just for the record, I'm no Trump fan), I said, "Well, are we to imagine the Secret Service will just bend over and comply?" I know the country is in a bad place, but I haven't lost that much faith. I can only imagine the Secret Service guys escorting him out and going, "This is bigger than you."

[@N7sensei]

Wait. There is a completely demented vegetable with proven corruption ties at the wheel. His own daughter claims to have molested her repeatedly. His son is a childloving incestous junkie with corruption scandals. Pray tell, how much faith do you have in the country, and what is down of here? I mean... The president could be a cannibal, I guess, but short of that, how could this be any worse? We legalized theft below 1000$ in order to win votes and no doubt, to cater to online shopping lobbyists, such as Amazon. We deleted our southern border and let throngs of barbarians and saboteurs and criminals who now vastly outnumber Americans. We pretty much legalized fentanyl. We created an artificial opioid crisis. We literally gave millions of people with a booboo addictive opioid "medicine" knowing full well that they are going to be addicted for life - but it doesn't matter, because we could cash in on these human sacrifices. And so on, I could go on, but KZbin will just delete my comment and ban me again, as it does daily. - haha, how funny is that, we can't even speak our minds and discuss important topics. TELL ME HOW COULD THIS BE WORSE? I mean, sure, we could have pogroms and North Korean style indoctrination. But at what stop do we get off the ertard train? You have some faith left? Then you are not paying attention.

[@AKABattousai]

The military backing someone like Trump would depend on who else was determined to be a threat that was domestic. I think people lost their shit when Trump was elected, I basically enjoyed having less taxes for 3 years. And was fine then started becoming more involved with Internet politics when my nephew got into high school debate for two years before Covid. But yeah they have this irrational idea that somehow Trump of all people will just decide to keep running for more terms and keep winning lol. I think it's much easier to explain in the lens that boomers doesn't want to give over political power to the next generations and they are running the grift as long as possible. Especially in Congress.

[@dennisstevens4347]

Also, the Secret Service and the military are controlled by the elites, who don't like Trump. I think they found him useful - he passed a taxcut - but otherwise they thwarted Trump at nearly every turn. Orange Man doesn't have nearly the support he would need to pull off a coup.

[@wjdeoliveira3809]

How can it be a uniquely stupid time to be alive, and at the same time the best time to be alive? Is it the best time to be alive for children? Especially gender non-conforming children, but also all the other kids? Would Abigail Shrier say it's a good time to be a child? When I hear what they are going through, I count myself lucky having grown up the the 80's and 90's! Even if medical technology was a bit less advanced. (Even progress in that field seems to be stagnating btw)

[@grantbaker371]

Michael is not a very consistent skeptic. His reasoning for believing the election wasn't rigged is not in keeping with skeptisism.(I personally have no opinion on it being rigged or not nor do I have a dog in the american election fight) he said because some republican rep that voted for Trump said it wasn't rigged. That's good enough for Shirmer. Wow! What a skeptic. Now I'm skeptical of his validity of being a skeptic.

[@yamishogun6501]

He has done this a lot in especially the past 5 years,

[@tudornaconecinii3609]

21:00 I'm not exactly sure what Peter is getting at when he's saying Nick is "kicking back the argument a step". The simulation hypothesis doesn't claim that real physical reality doesn't exist. It's not... simulations all the way down. It simply states that, due to the principle of indifference and other factors, if it is possible to simulate minds at all, then each individual person should believe they are more likely than not to live in a simulated world.

[@AKABattousai]

That's like a faulty reasoning though. Because even if we can show that simulating a mind could be possible. It doesn't provide positive evidence that all reality is being simulated. Otherwise people like scientists could put forth the Dream hypothesis, and say it's feasible and may be likely that all we experience could be our own dream or someone else's because we are aware of the concept. So I think Peter is correct in that for simulation theory to be more plausible than the reality we are currently experiencing, you would need to be able to show some glimpse of an alternate reality that could also be testable.

[@tudornaconecinii3609]

@@AKABattousai You're missing my point. I'm not saying the simulation hypothesis is plausible. I'm saying Peter's counterargument to it is missing the point. For example, Shermer's counterargument (that the high level of detail the universe has is evidence against simulation) is actually quite good.

[@Dismal-future]

Wonderful! My two favorite sanity based podcasters. 1. We are still BARBARIANS, aliens want nothing to do with us. 2. William Lane Craig is an assclown.

[@aidananstey9848]

Peter trying to intellectuallize the "shop teacher problem" is exactly what he says is the problem with the universities, overly educated people can easily rationalize bad ideas, Matt's arguement was simple and perfect, "adults shouldn't act out their sexual fetishes in front of children". His "hard to make an arguement" rhetoric can be said about PDFilia as well.

[@AKABattousai]

The Issue I have is that Shermer has it backwards with secular humanism and modern peaceful theists The problem is one where the secular humanist can't base their morals being superior over some other civilized society that has also constructed their own laws and have a government system under laws. The secular humanist is stuck in a historical place where the rights of the people have to come from the government that grants those rights, and can also with the will of the people, remove any rights they dont want to grant. Where a theist concept of government like liberalism requires the rights of the people to be set in stone, and only recognized or observed by a non tyrannical government. There is still progress, but its that people can hypothetically build a best future that has God as the greatest authority. And the concept of a God that is most high and incorporates the All loving nature, meaning No Evil as an intrinsic trait. As long as there is a possible reality where the concept of a perfect Creator can exist. Then humans can have a goal of living in a perfect future.

[@pavelpudivitr9531]

It's ironic

[@rduse4125]

As I listen to you both I’m amazed at how you swallow the skeptical viewpoint (hook line and sinker). You have to have a “belief” in skepticism.

[@AKABattousai]

Very True. The skeptical position is a default worldview that Life did not come from other Life. Even though the evidence we can see points to the premise that life we observe has came from previous life forms. So they have an alternate idea with thousands of non discovered steps, and have found a few of those steps sporadically that could be possible without life previously existing... And somehow this gives them more convincing evidence that Life sprung from Inanimate materials. That's like saying we have a thousand steps that need to be done in sequence and we have been able to replicate outside of nature, steps, 34 and 56, 200, and 700. So it gives a shred more believability that there's no way a vastly more supreme creator had any part in the process.

[@rduse4125]

@@AKABattousai - Well said! It just seems funny (ironic) that two skeptics are accept their own worldview without any skepticism. 😊

[@postoergopostum]

Certainly, successful experience with skeptical methodologies will tend to give the user, or skeptic a tendency to believe that where a skeptical methodology is used in a particular manner to examine certain kinds of phenomena, it is useful. And, as far as that goes, those beliefs are very similiar to some kinds of religious beliefs. Let's accept that, and agree. You are, in these cases astute, abreast the available data, and deeply insightful. Well done. There is another kind of skeptical experience, however. Where a methodology is tested and found to be unreliable in it's predictions, where it is found that the skeptical criticisms turn out to be misleading, then these methodologies are quickly disregarded. Misleading, confusing, and wrong skeptical techniques are discarded. This, religion seems unable to do. "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live" 3000 years, at least, since somebody first thought it might be a useful methodology, and about 500 years since any sensible person thought it might really be a good idea to actually find some old lady and, on the strength of this methodology, set fire to her. It is not the way religion deals with good ideas that concerns skeptics. It is the way religion fails to deal with bad ideas that inspire our sharp tongues, and scintillating wit.

[@postoergopostum]

@@AKABattousai Please, please, please show me the quote, any kind of reference anywhere where a self identified skeptic asserts Life comes from not life, not where a theist, for example asserts that person X said Y or where a chemist demonstrates lipid layers in clays . Please just one verified instance of a skeptic saying life comes from not life, I'll wait. . . go on. . . . do it. . . . I dare ya. . . . . mmmmm, maybe there's stuff you don't know.

[@rduse4125]

@@postoergopostum Great answer, thank you… My reply is this: I am a profound skeptic (using your metric). Raised Catholic, I spent years as an agnostic. I could never turn all the way to atheism, but could also never believe something just because I wanted it to be true. What I want to push back on is the term “religious”. After years of searching, I finally found God in science, and it was simply by using your method of dropping a hypothesis that has decreasing merit. As time goes by, the theory of evolution is becoming more and more implausible (to the point, for me, of impossible). As a skeptic, I dropped the theory of origins back to the Big Bang in favor of intelligent design (which seems most probable). “Faith” is not synonymous with “belief”, and having “faith” is certainly not the same as “religious”. I once had doubt and remained in church, now I have found faith, but no longer go to any church. There is another level that deserves your attention….

[@NickMachado]

The first time i saw this guy he got annihilated by Graham Hancock in a debate about ancient civilizations. Ever since then i can't take so called "skeptics" seriously.

[@merc9nine]

I disagree with Peter on the grievance studies doing nothing. It woke many of us up and geave us another quiver to share with people to wake them up

[@EngineeredTheMind]

Questions that won't be discussed, what happened to your friend Bret Weinstein and why are you two both too cowardly to be honest about it?

[@axhed]

weinstein popped on the scene like 8 years ago; he's been through a lot of shit since then. could you please narrow it down and specify exactly what happened that no one is talking about?

[@throckmorton3705]

22:49 “Doors of Perception” is William Blake! Get it right.

[@user-tc6pe7mj6m]

LOL

​@@user-tc6pe7mj6m Aldous Huxley

[@N7sensei]

It is not obligatory that nonsensical beliefs go away. You and I both could sit down, start scribbling completely bonkers ideologies and beliefs continuously until the sun comes up. Transformers being a mental :||ness and deyenerate segsual dev:ancy are definitely going to stay with us until there is a cataclysm and being able to navigate in the real world and to allocate very scarce resources becomes the only way to survive.

[@theinnerlight8016]

Two giants meet on whose shoulders we stand. Love it! 😊

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

Thank you for providing me with my daily LAUGH, Slave! 😂 Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱

[@steverational8615]

No. Atheist by definition means someone who believes God does not exist. It is not a “lack of belief”. That approach is a cop out

[@AKABattousai]

Good luck being able to get them to see that it's their position. I've been at it for 16 years. And I can usually meet them somewhere around a long time frame and specific hypotheticals. Which would change their mind about things. Even if they won't admit to acting on a belief.

[@maxxwellbeing9449]

I’ve been an atheist for 50 years. I was 5 years old when I told my parents that I didn’t believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and God. This was quite a shock for my extremely religious Catholic family. They did everything in their power to convince me of the impossibly of God. I had to endure 12 years of Catholic School, Sunday School, Catechism and everything else that they could do to try to make me believe in God. They failed miserably. The problem for them was that there is no verifiable evidence that confirms the existence of God. My main argument was, if God exists, which God is the real one? Which God out of the 10,000 plus Gods that are currently being worshipped today is the right one? There are almost 5000 different religions world wide…and they all believe in something different, including believing in totally different Gods. The best way to make an atheist believe in God would be to have these 5000 different religions come together, debate and defend the existence of all of their 10,000 different Gods and all of their different beliefs until they all agree on the most plausible singular God and agree to worship that one God under one religion. And then……after they all agree on this one most plausible God, it’s up to them to then produce the verifiable evidence for the existence of this one God. But this will never happen, God doesn’t pass the stink test. Even if this debate was ever to happen and all religions became one, and even if they all agreed that there was only one God, all they would be left with is “faith” in their belief that God exists. Unfortunately, faith in one’s belief is evidence of nothing. Be well.

[@maxxwellbeing9449]

What if you told someone that pigs could fly, and they said to you, “I don’t believe you” Would that be a cop out?

[@AKABattousai]

@@maxxwellbeing9449 yes faith is different than knowing. But faith can also be what truth is. Having a lack of current evidence doesn't change this. For example people who had faith in the telephone had to initially discover it's existence through trial and error. It depends on how we are defining God and it seems to me that Atheists fall short of ever engaging with the hypothetical. As you have said trying to create thousands of other gods to decide from. This isn't the case in a monotheism model. The God being described in say Christianity is the Supreme or most high. One who is without evil, without limits to their power and ability, and all knowing. There doesn't need to be a grand religious debate with other religions about what their beliefs are about the natural world. The closest thing I have as a synonym for God is Nature and Time, being our current real world Authorities. And forces we have to play by the rules of. Faith would have to be in something which is possible for it to have any importance to Christians. And a God is a possibility. That's why Christians have faith in God and not in other cultures God's. Because the other gods had animosity and indifference toward humans. And their powers were limited. The evidence that Atheists demand is irrational because they can believe in things without having direct evidence first. Individuals like Dillahunty have admitted that what they are really doing is not wanting to be gullible. And they are trying to skip having a faith and just want provable evidence. The problem with this is that it goes against the concept of the Christian God, which has yet to reveal itself to the whole of mankind. Only in fulfilled prophecy will that happen. So currently we are in a time when they can reveal themselves to individuals and smaller groups. Just not the whole world. So whenever Atheists ask for evidence to be presented that they will find convincing, it's not going to be satisfying if it's only witness testimony and logical premises. But faith has been said to be a way to have God revealed to a person. And it bypasses having to say you are gullible.

[@AKABattousai]

@@maxxwellbeing9449 my brother and my best friend are atheist and my uncle has been agnostic for 45 years. Would you agree that it's different positions. Agnostic being that you don't know if God can be known to be or not. And the other more loose definition of atheism being that a person believes there is no God. The cop out I believe is the people who say they simply have an unbelief in any God. Because this doesn't describe what their belief is in. When these same people think that simulation theory can be a more likely explanation than reality.

[@zedasamuel7164]

I always find it fascinating how the so-called skeptics (read: scientific rationalism) are so certain that all the other so-called “religious” or “dogmatic” views are so openly risible, when they’re so obviously, equally guilty of the same siloing of thought. Pete, I hope you can avoid your own boomerism.

[@TomPerkinsCountry]

Peter I have been a fan for a few years now. Recommend to others. Street Epistemology episodes are great. NPR expose… great. That being said, whether you agree or not with various religions, to the believer, at least within the Christian faith, Biblical morality is where they derive their objective truth on so many issues. While some Christians do reject science/data/rationality, as Michael points out, many, probably most Christians, while still subscribing to what they to believe to be Biblical truth, also subscribe to Western values of rationality, data, science etc. When the guardrails of moral objective truth are scrubbed away, then what is the authority for other truth claims? Science? Ok track record I guess but over the years a lot science, (especially in medicine), that’s all the rage for a time period, in hindsight is seen as morally repugnant. (Lobotomies to cure societal ills, cruelty to animals in studies, gain of function research, Tuskegee Experiments etc) The DSM5 just moves the goal posts of what it deems “aberrant” and acceptable. So, once God is scrubbed, and Science has a questionable moral track record, doesn’t it seem logical that the societal norm is “every man for himself” to decide what is Truth? So, 335 Million people all unilaterally deciding what is true. And so what’d you THINK is going to happen to society? Well now you just have various groups, holding competing truth claims, vying for power. They’ll use academic ideological capture, media capture, political capture,… any power tool will do. What surprises me, is how shocked when liberals of old, after decades of telling society, there is no such thing as final objective truth (even science… isn’t static about what is true) they are shocked that now tribes of people embraced this philosophy and decided any truth claim is viable as long as you can marshal enough power to coerce agreement and stifle debate. To be clear, this new “stupid” as you put it, didn’t grow out of the conservative/Christian side of society. At times it feels like liberals of 30-40 years ago, philosophically set the house on fire, and are now clutching their pearls because it burned (cancelled, banished) THEM. It’d be refreshing to at least see a liberal/atheist for 30 years acknowledge this came from YOUR camp… and is still being life by YOUR camp. Instead of saying “I can’t believe we have to rely on (horrible person) Ted Cruz to argue against it.” Why don’t you interview him and ask him?

[@JereKrischel]

Shermer's fall came when he gave into the pressure from the Church of Global warming. I'd love to see him come full circle and re-embrace his skepticism on that :)

[@_nebulousthoughts]

Sigh. Sorry you think that but its true. Weve been cutting down and burning trees for 25000 years and that has consequences. Where as this happens naturally we dont replace trees at the same rate as nature.

[@ruthhorowitz7625]

GCC has solid science behind it.

[@mostevil1082]

​@@_nebulousthoughts The passive agressive sigh isn't persuading anyone, especially as the comment indicates a very shallow understanding of the topic. Trees only store carbon through thier life cycle. Fossil fuels represent millions of years worth of burried carbon, orders of magnitude more than all the trees on the surface. That process doesn't really work now we have fungii that quickly break dead trees down. You can sequester some in the soil but its still limited and temporary on geological timescales. There are many unanswered questions that require scepticism beyond "is it real": -How fast are the changes and how far will they go. Thus far the models have all failed to predict anything other than it'll get warmer. The degree has been a lot less than previous doom claims. -Do the proposed solutions actually do anything to fix it. Offsetting programs are producing a lot of scams and often more emmissions. Planting trees only traps carbon until the tree dies, even if you bury it, they break down and it can escape. Even if we stop all emmissions tomorrow, the majority of the human population dies but we don't know if that even stops the changes. Eating bugs is less energy efficient than current farming methods. Not all land is suitable for arable so plant based diets don't look like a solution so much as a virtue signal. We may already be in a feedback loop to an early exit from the ice age and may be better to spend resources dealing with it rather than schemes that pointlessly limt the lives of the poorest.

[@nineteenninetyfive]

How did you determine that you were right and he was wrong?

[@JereKrischel]

@@nineteenninetyfive When he failed to state a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis for either AGW or CAGW. You can't play the science game without it.

[@mattwa33186]

Over the years I have realized that Michael Shermer tends to reach his conclusions first, then develop arguments to support them. Exactly the opposite of what he claims. Like his take on simulation "theory" (which I think is a useless thought experiment). Either Shermer has no knowledge of how we interact with the universe, which I doubt, or he's only interested in showing the other guy has none. Just winning an argument, not looking for the truth. He's basically Destiny without the stupid name or ridiculous backstory.

[@N7sensei]

Destiny has a backstory? lol

[@AKABattousai]

​@@N7sensei (destiny) was the first to quit his day job and do streaming full time to support himself and his kid and ex girlfriend. So as much as you might not like him. He did it first. And he built up politics streaming on twitch. When it was just a gaming platform that had to stream gaming.

[@Andre_Louis_Moreau]

Lmfao! You really consider Shermer a skeptic?! My gratuitous appeal to incredulity aside, he's a smart guy. We all rely on heuristics, we simply need to. It's irrelevant how smart anyone is, when their heuristics draw from authoritarian institutions, they'll be light years off. Because their premises will be off. By 'authoritarian' I am always specifically referring to groups or institutions that use heaping doses of the authoritarian thought reform tactics as outlined in Robert Lifton's 8. This is why Bill Maher says "5 cops died on Jan 6th!" His trust in the authoritarian "media." Believing all the information authoritarian censors allow. Seriously, with no appeals to incredulity, Shermer is not a skeptic. His heuristics drawn from authoritarians. Authoritarians, specifically meaning those who use heavy doses of thought reform tactics, they ALWAYS lie. Shermer buys their lies. That's the antithesis of skepticism.

[@OneMoTry]

I wonder if the irony is lost on Shermer that he is sounding an awful lot like pre-CRA 1964 conservatives by trying to arrest the extension of rights to a new group (ie, trans) on the grounds that there are competing rights (ie, women) in the balance. I guess freedom of association was an acceptable loss to Shermer whereas gendered only spaces are not. FWIW, Shermer is right about women’s rights but wrong about FoA.

[@axhed]

they did mention that trans-identified m2f's commit sexual assaults against natural women at the same rate as cisgendered men.

[@NotAnEvilPersian]

Michael Irrelevant Shermer!

[@skitzrv9773]

PB has TDS, certified

[@mrslave41]

peter and michael are moral absolutists. 😮😮😮😮. basically cavemen. 😮😮😮

[@johncassell3362]

So arrogant and smug

[@JimCastleberry]

Atheism is not skepticism. I'm skeptical of atheism and atheist nonsense claims.

[@zedasamuel7164]

Amen

[@axhed]

lol. could you give me just one 'atheist nonsense claim' ?

[@nikokapanen82]

@@axhed "Morality is subjective" or "intelligent sentient, emotional life came from non-intelligent, non-sentient, non-emotional, non-life" or "because we know so much about the universe and see no God there, we can be relaxed and understand that God is not real"

[@Dan16673]

​@nikokapanen82 those aren't atheist claims in general. Atheist just aren't theist. Anything further and it's individual

[@nikokapanen82]

@@Dan16673 Not that simple. When you ask an atheist does he believes in God, and his response is no, naturally, the next question is why not and here the majority of atheists begin to bring up different answers and these ones that I brought up are very well-known and are used by most atheists.

[@HelpMeFindTheseSongs]

Religious people are going to hate this one 😂

[@BigMeatyClaaws]

There seems to be a great mixing of terms with regard to the trans conversation and wokeism. There wasn't much contact made or charity put forward and everything was simply dismissed as pseudoscience. Why not pull out a claim being made on the opposing side, steelman it, and then take it apart? Saying, well a man can't be a woman, biology doesnt work that way makes a complete mess of the everything from the getgo. The conversation has moved on from here. The concepts of male and female and how they relate to gender need to be examined more closely to get the full picture of whats being said. Number 1, and this is basically the starting point of the entire rabbit hole, sex and gender aren't the same thing. We can argue about terms, but we can generalize this more by simply saying there are two phenomena here that are distinct and require their own terminology in order to discuss them properly. Call the phenomena whatever you want, but sex and gender are useful terms here. Dont think theres a difference? Okay, what do we want to call the performative, cultural acts associated with masculinity/feminity and what do we want to call the biology associated with gametes, chromosomes, and reproduction? Continuing to refuse to break these concepts apart and just say, nope, thats not how it is, or how I choose to think about it, is not making contact with the best form the arguments take place in. Deny that there is a difference (this conflicts with observations), or accept that there is a difference and show why it doesnt get us anywhere. I agree, there are some crazy claims made in the wokesphere, but there are some valid ones as well. Just lumping it all in as woke and doesnt need to be taken seriously is also doing a disservice to the conversation. Woke can mean many different things to different people. Be more specific with your language. Break that concept open and extract the specific claims you want to say are irrational. I understand you're talking in a context where you both agree on stuff, but I'm disappointed with the sloppiness.

[@AKABattousai]

I think the underlying issue with the trans debate is that those who identify as trans and have argued to separate sex from Gender, still try to fit themselves into a gender affirming model if they are highly uncomfortable and feel like their birth body going through maturity is incongruent with their personal idea of what they desire to present themselves as. The other issue is that the separating of Gender from Sex was an idea from John Money, and his experiments with trying to convince children they could be someone born in the wrong body, and the children ended up self deleting. And the idea to come up with a different definition for Gender stems from queer theory where admittedly many of its proponents are pro involving children in adult sexual experiences. Under the idea that the norms in society should be condemned and that age isn't a strong consideration for consent, etc. So they actively want to break down traditions held within tight knit family groups and evolutionary biology. Promoting ones ability to self determine a physical expression and individual sex traits associated with how they want others to acknowledge them. For example, a person who is trans feels uncomfortable in their own body, with changes taking place, and seeks to want things to be reality that are not in congruence with reality. Basically the thing they want is something that can't be achieved yet with medical science and technological advances in cosmetic surgery. When they use terms like assigned female at birth, it's fallacious to say it's assigned at birth when your physical traits are determined by your genes when the zygote is formed. And other chemical changes come following a genetic code and pattern. So they aren't assigned at birth, they are just born, and then categorized into one group or another group based on which organs that when matured and functioning produce one set of sex gametes for reproduction in the species. We are also categorized as mammals that have reproduction cycles of males and females with each member of the species contributing one half of the sex cells. And to my knowledge, there has been no true hermaphrodite human capable of providing both required sets of Gametes that are fertile and healthy. These intersex individuals fall outside of a spectrum and still end up leaning one way or the other more with reproductive ability, and which organs are functioning. But they happen to have a different set of the usual chromosome structures. Masculinity and femininity expressions are not strictly attached to ones set of reproductive organs. But to emphasize these sexual traits socially we can still call it being or feeling more masculine and vice versa. Feel free to respond and I will offer my opinion and my idea about how an author of a story character can choose that characters gender expression. And how we can compromise with trans definitions expanding in language.

[@N7sensei]

Sex and gender aren't the same thing - says Lysenko authoritatively. Good to know! "Age and length of life are not the same thing. You see, my length of life might be 60, but I identify as age 14." says the childlover sxual deviant.

[@catmeme2446]

Human sex is bimodal. Intersex, brain receptors for hormones can be different. Endocrine system can be blocked, or down regulated hypogonadism. Phenotype sex variation due to the mothers hormone fluctuations pre natal, post natal brain development differences… look up Güevedoce (Güevedoces are classified as girls when they are born but, around the age of 12, they start developing male genitalia) Then you get into the gender stuff if you want, but imo ya just normal human variation.

[@tinymutantsquid]

Sex is based on your biology. A person "is" or "has" a sex. Gender is not something a person "is" or "has" (unless using it as synonymous for sex). The portion of society moving the conversation forward before understanding that point has led us down the wrong rabbit hole.

[@BigMeatyClaaws]

@@AKABattousai There's a lot here. I'm going to try to stick to one topic and put the rest on "the shelf". Take something off the shelf if you want, but please make clear when you're doing so. Add any topics to it if you think they'd be important to discuss. On the shelf: Sex assigned at birth Intersex individuals Masculine/feminine vs gender as terminology --------------------------------------- Sex and gender: What I'm gathering from your first paragraph and rewording: Those who identify as trans argue that sex is separate from gender, but still try to fit themselves into a gender affirming model. A trans person experiences sensations indicating they prefer to present as the opposite gender and they try to do so. (Let me know if I didn't extract something important from your text). How I'm translating it: Your first paragraph seems to have three claims made by gender proponents which get presented as contradictory: "Gender isn't real", "Gender is different from sex", "Trans people try to fit themselves into a gender different from what's societally normal (the traditional gender behaviors associated with male and female (trucks and action figures vs dresses and makeup))". Agreed. Saying gender isn't real and then saying you're transgender makes no sense. From what and to where are you transitioning? I disagree that this is what the gender movement is saying though. Gender proponents are making the claim that traditionally, gender roles are societally crafted and assigned based on sex characteristics. Society arbitrarily pushes certain behaviors on people based on their sex (assigned at birth or no) and without some particular tests being performed, we actually can't conclude anything for certain based on sexual phenotype. We have to use terms like "mostly" and "probably" which are useful terms. Additionally, we get our cake and can eat it too, in most cases, the gender typically associated with the perceived sex is a fine thing to assume. They are also making the argument that there is no biological basis for the gender norms that get associated with the sexes. Saying you're transgender, therefore, is not standing in the face of any scientific fact. Biology and gender are related, but one is not logically/empirically dependent on the other. This should be an uncontroversial claim. Back in the day in America, pink was considered a boys color and boys wore dresses. These were the gender norms of the day. Back then, biology was the same, and yet the gender norms were different. Gender changes irrespective of biology. Sex and gender are different. Sex is associated with biology. Gender is performative and associated with societal norms. Do you agree with these claims? Before we can move on to anything else, this is like the one thing we need to agree on. Everything else is bunk if we can't move from here together agreeing that this is what the pieces are and how they relate to one another. ----------------------------------------- On John Money: This is irrelevant. Per Wikipedia, John Money coerced involuntary sex reassignment of a child and had him perform "sexual rehearsal" with his brother, which Money photographed. One brother overdosed on drugs, the other committed suicide at the ages of 36 and 38 respectively. This was coercion. This was a pretty fucked up "experiment". Are we trying to say that there was some sort of sound science being performed here that we can draw relevant conclusions from? Obviously not. This was child abuse. It says nothing. ------------------------------------------ Queer theory and pedophiles: This is an irrelevant relationship to form even if it were true. The theory of relativity could have been developed by pedophiles. This would have exactly zero bearing on the truth or falsity / utility of the claims made in that theory.