Episode

[@RoyAlexander214]

I’m 30 yr old Hispanic male from Dallas tx. I would say that most of my life I have either been in prison or as my brother once commented “I could Never imagine what my brother goes through daily. He is not in prison right now but I know he’s in a prison of his own mentally”. I made the mistake of trying heroin. When the guy offered it I told him no way! I don’t shoot up and I don’t plan on starting now. He chuckled and said me neither. I snort it bro. A friend or More like sidekick was with me and I told him I’d try it if he did. If I would have know that it was going to consume my life..physically,mentally, even spiritually. I was 16 and until I was 28 I would never stop on my own free will until that age. If I would have know seems to always be the line of thought I go down when thinking about heroin. I ended up being that on the service road of the freeway with a cardboard sign that usually said something along the lines of “homeless from Dallas. Trying to get back home. Anything helps. God bless”. At the time I was in Laredo Texas. I went down there to learn how to drive 18 wheelers. And ended up staying four years strung out for the most part. I got my CDL and started snorting heroin while I was learning and then met someone who injected. I remember at age 19 I met a guy who used iv and asked if I should try and he said hell yes. So that made me not want to try and then at age 24 when I asked this guy the same question he said No way so of course I tried it. If I would have known is and understatement when it comes to injecting heroin. It completely rocked my world to the core and what really got me was that I made the decisions to slowly kill myself. I could not put into words the hell that intravenous heroin addiction is. Talk about staring into the abyss. But as the cliche goes.. “our experiences make us who we are” or “ our experiences build character”. Cliches are a funny thing because they are phrases or statements that we all pretty much agree on. So it’s not so cheesy because it’s for the most part true. Last year I got out of jail something that has become a trend in my life. I’ve been to prison twice. Adding up to almost five years together. Including a 9 month state funded rehab. But this time was different. It was only three months which is nothing for someone who is use to going to jail and staying for at least a year. That’s pretty sad when I think about it. But this last time was different. I was scared to get out. And that was different because I grew up in environments where fear was a sign of weakness. It meant you could be taken advantage of. It meant you were not a man. So one could never show if he was in fear. No way. But like I said this time was different. I had nothing and when I say that I mean it. All I had was my glasses. The pajamas and winter jacket I had on when arrested. That’s it. But I also had some hope. Hope that I needed to overcome this fear I had. What was I gonna do? Where was I going to live? Who would help me? I went back to the neighborhood called oak cliff in Dallas and went to my grandmothers. While I was in jail I met two older gentleman that for some reason saw some kind of potential in me. One was a ceo of a building company in Dallas but got three dwi”s and lost everything. I was teaching him how to play chess. So every morning we would play and he would talk to me about what I would do when I got out. And the other was an old member of the prison gang I had joined the first time I went to prison. He was going back to prison with a fresh ten year sentence. He would talk to me about getting some kind of help when I got out. He would talk to me about Alcoholics Anonymous. And it caught my attention because here is a man going to prison with a fresh ten year sentence. Who would cry on the phone when talking to his three year old son who didn’t know when his Dad would come home. Who thought his Dad was in school. Yet when he spoke of this A.A deal he would light up and he had this peace about him. I don’t think I would have given anyone else the time of day to talk to me about some A.A program. But this was someone I could relate to because he had gone through a lot of the same stuff I had gone through. So I feel he planted that seed. Would I become some gun hole A.A guy? No way. But the day they called my name to pack up to leave he came over with this big smile. He looked truly happy to see getting out. He asked me what I was gonna do? First thing when you get out? And I was scared.. very scared. As I said before I had nothing. All I could think to say was I’m gonna go to a meeting. He smiled and said that’s my boy. I believe in you son and I feel like your gonna be ok. So that’s what I did. I called my sister from my grandmas and she asked what I was gonna do and I told her I wanted to go to a meeting and she was like that’s awesome bro.Do you want us to pick you up beside I have to go to one too. She had just got out of a prison/therapeutic community. And one of her stipulations was going to meetings. The first meeting I went to I did not ant to be there. I got to my grandmas and my brother calls her and asks to talk to me. He’s like bro you ok? I’m like no bro I’m not I don’t ha e an urge to use but I don’t know what I’m gonna do or where I’m going to stay so I have an urge to go steal a car and make money. It was the fastes and easiest way I knew. He said no bro. You can come stay with Amanda and I. So that was a game changer. I moved with him. It was a different world. I was not in the hood anymore. I was in a suburb called FArmers Branch. My life was looking a lot better. I kept at it in A.A.. I told myself that everything I’ve done in life I’ve done to the fullest whether it be using drugs or terrorizing the communities around me. So I did the 12 steps to the fullest and I saw my life changing in ways I could never av imagined. But one thing that I must say was a big influence was Philosophy and psychology. My brother had told me to listen to this video on KZbin. The philosophers mixtape volume 1 and it begins with Charlie Chaplin giving this speech . It gave me the chills listening to that and then Alan Watts talking about religion. It did something to me. It intrigued me. So I began looking into Alan Watts. That took me on the journey I am on now. I just completely went on a trip right now but it’s not the first time and not the last. Something told me to write a comment on here. Who knows maybe someone needed to hear this. And what I always thought made me a pierce of garbage I now feel like is an asset to me and the most valuable one I have to offer. My experiences on heroin. Living under bridges being that guy with a cardboard sign. Am I proud of that? No way. Am I proud that I’m not like that today? No way. Pride is my downfall. The moment I start trying to take credit for this is the moment I start going backwards. I don’t want to go any way but forward. Life is way too short to be wasting it. I don’t know how many times I felt off and put on one of your podcast. You are a good guy Stephen West. Truly just want to help people learn about something that you love. That is something to respect in a person. And I have an immense amount of respect for the time and patience you have to make these episodes. So thank you for helping me to learn more than I did yesterday!

[@littlebrowndog66]

Hey, thanks for sharing your story. So glad you're doing better now! I'm a recovering IV opiate addict too (4 years clean so far). I was really lucky to never go to prison, but I spent a LOT of time alone in my addiction, just thinking and reading and writing. Philosophy helped me understand my unhappiness, what it was in me that made me feel compelled to do the things I did, and gave me comfort during my addiction and my recovery. Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Carl Jung especially. Definitely check out Stephen's episode called "Kierkegaard and Anxiety" if you haven't already. I think the concept of the anxiety of freedom really applies to early recovery and why people tend to have such a hard time when they first get out of prisons and institutions.

[@richardouvrier3078]

Mr West, you are a gem, a pearl. A genius. And, no ads.

[@anthonyedmonds1968]

My guy I used to listen to you on spotify having been told about you by a cashier I knew at the time & started listening, umm workin on catching all the episodes & look foward to those coming so please keep up the great work & helping others too along the way keeping up all the great work

[@howtochannel2937]

Dope stuff

[@christopherlee9026]

I actually got two of three of those critiques of the ontological argument on my own while listening.

[@washikiryu]

I really don’t why I started crying when you reached the part about maimonides describing God. I felt like an adopted child who misses or wonders about his parents. Or maybe i’m just pmsing haha

[@christinemartin63]

With Marx's and Freud's explanations, it is that simple. We don't want to believe that we are alone; we don't want to accept oblivion after death.

[@hantaramianhofman1313]

Thank you for such thorough background on the topic!

[@TheFrankHuda]

I am so glad to have found this podcast. Heard all except maybe less than a dozen so far. You add to my life, literally. Thank you. Also, I’ve heard people reading from primary sources from Roman and or Jewish scribes that do talk about Jesus, so from what I understand, the man Jesus did live and die on Earth. Idk if he rose after three days, but it’s a good myth. Anyway you’re great!

[@littlebrowndog66]

I wish I had friends like you. 😉 Do you not run into problems doing that dialectic/Socratic questioning thing to random people? I used to do that a lot as a teenager, and the people in my life REALLY didn't like it. They were usually happy enough to answer, "What do you think about _____ (complex issue)?" However, if I followed that up with something like, "How did you develop those ideas?" and argued a counterpoint, it wasn't long before I was accused of being intentionally annoying, trying to pick a fight, or some other such thing. I learned the hard way how few people understand the difference between a respectful, intelligent debate, and a nasty fight filled with personal insults. I still like playing devil's advocate. I think conversations are more interesting when an alternate point of view is presented and opinions are explored, than when someone just says "You're right, I agree with you." and that's the end.

[@lukec8371]

Completely relate... Must've made you feel a little isolated or especially frustrated

[@mabelpan2532]

Thank you for those ducks Stephen, love you man!

[@TheFrankHuda]

Comment for the algorithm. All hail the algorithm. Happiness is the algorithm.

[@christopherlee9026]

Maimonides makes God sound like SCP-055

[@soiko1784]

My only concern from my experience is that, no one was actively teaching me about my reasons for my reasoning or my beliefs. My open mindset kind of happened by accident. How am I supposed to pass this Mindset on to my children in the future?

[@Lee_Aeon]

Supposed, by who? There is no higher power, everything lays in your hands.

[@hairbruh4915]

I need some help clarifying this argument, because it seems open to interpretation and unclear (maybe thats on purpose) 1. i dont know what it means for an omnipotent being to be the "greatest" To be great seems very anthropocentric. "he is the greatest at football" is contingent on the existence of football. For a being that is all powerful and literally is everything, i have no idea what it means to apply "greatest" to this non-contingent omnipotent being. 2. What does it mean to say something "exists" in my imagination? this is a concept that needs to be justified before this premise can be accepted. Me imagining something is not the same as creating something within my mind. If that is the case, this needs to be demonstrated. I think of imagination as "painting" an image of something. In the same way that if i paint a picture of money on a canvas, i don't actually have that money. The painted money on the canvas is a depiction of something that exists. The money on the canvas is only a concept in this state and not the money itself.

[@fin4889]

24:58, it still is, what now

[@cockycookie1]

So if we were to follow these arguments to their logical conclusion, I could tell you I believe in the Spaghetti Monster and you would not be able to disprove it's existence either. What I'm saying is, it's just as likely for God to exist as it is for Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

[@nnnnsaakadamanas218]

I disagree with you. Kante - 1 Stephen West - 1 * Within your modesty lives your acceptance and thus not only your desire but you capability to proceed in full knowing of what is and what wants/needs to be done.

[@bouipozz]

It seems like St Anselm's argument for the existence of God hinges a lot on the concept of incomprehensibility. The fact that we have a convenient way of describing or merely labelling the incomprehensible should not necessarily mean that it is now comprehensible, and to say so would surely be a paradox. So by simply considering the possibility of something incomprehensible it does not make it exist, even if only in our imagination. If anything I would argue that by assuming this to be the definition of God, you are saying that even if God did exist in reality it would be impossible for them/it to exist in our imagination. Hence, regardless of whether or not God does in fact exist, anyone who thinks they know what they are referring to when they suggest one way or the other must be attempting to comprehend the incomprehensible and is therefore by definition incorrect. So... I think this means that God neither exists nor does not exist. I may have completely missed the point here. Listening to this podcast (for the second time!) is pretty much the extent of my philosophical education, and I know nothing about St Anselm other than what I have heard here. I will sleep easy tonight knowing that I have proved absolutely nothing!

[@Over-Boy42]

Saint Anlem's ontological argument is so obviously wishful thinking that makes an appeal to ignorance.

[@bluebogle]

Paraphrasing: If god existed he (it) would be the greatest thing ever imaginable. Followed by the claim that 99.9% of people would agree with that description of god. What? Why? This doesn’t describe the vast majority of gods imagined by humans over the millennia. It’s not the Greek/Roman gods (doesn’t describe Zeus, or any of the others), it’s not most Eastern gods. It’s not animistic gods. It’s mostly an understanding of an Abrahamic god. Why would anyone who doesn’t see god as a Abrahamic entity agree to this? It’s such a limited, dull description of god. So if I don’t agree with this limited description of god, what’s left of his argument for the existence of god? If we can’t describe what god is, why can we define what god isn’t? How do we know what something indescribable is not?

[@Lee_Aeon]

Exactly, you can't define it, neither explain it, neither comprehend it, neither prove it, or not prove it. IT is a PARADOX. This is why it has so many followers, they choose the side of the paradox that fits them.

[@fakename4678]

Very good podcast so far however I was quite disappointed by your misrepresentation of common atheist positions. While the people who dismiss the idea of god out of hand and claim to have "disproved" god do exist they don't seem to be as present in serious intellectual discussions. You also didn't mention believers who believe for poor reasons or express bigotry towards non believers. Your usual good faith approach seems to go completely out the window in favour of a rant, against an obviously weak position, which contributed almost nothing to the rest of the episode. Ironically it was analogous to atheist "debunking of religions" which attacks the weakest arguments for theism, something you were criticising.

[@DaBeezKneez]

Interesting thought but it doesn't change the fact that, as much as we don't want it to be the case, god does not exist.

[@Yourdrunkuncledave]

You don't know that.

[@DaBeezKneez]

@@Yourdrunkuncledave you're right, but I will say that the probability of the existence of god are very small.

[@Yourdrunkuncledave]

Well, the degree of probability for anything depends on the specificity with which something is presented, so if we assume that God is as characteristically specific in its features as is the God of Abraham, then I agree that the likelihood of that being true in exactly that way is likely to be rather low, however we can also have a more abstract and general conception of a God which is not tied to a culture. More like Aristotle's unmoved mover or Avicenna's necessary existent. There can at least be good deductive arguments made about the existence of such concepts, we don't need to picture them as man-like personal Gods with human features like anger, wrath or happiness. I think in light of that, the likelihood or at least the possibility of existence becomes significantly more probable, just want you to consider that. But of course there can never be absolute certainty and hence no knowledge of facts, only belief. And if you think that there is nevertheless a higher probability that there is no God-like being, however characteristically specific or non specific an image we conceive of it might be, then thats completely fine. :)

[@DaBeezKneez]

@@Yourdrunkuncledave Well I can't really argue with you because I don't understand what context you're using. Can you tell me, if you believe that there is a god, can you first provide the definition of god as you understand it.

[@Yourdrunkuncledave]

@@DaBeezKneez So, I think the best way to arrive at any working definition is to search for a universal one. To do this is to look at many existing definitions, extrapolate overlapping characteristics and then scrape off as much semantic weight as possible to arrive at a universal one. Once arrived at such a definition, one doesn't even have to use the word God, as it is in itself imbued with personhood. Rather, we can talk about any metaphysical absolute instead. So something we assume to exist in a way which transcends physics and our formal laws of it. The only thing I assume about it and indeed the only thing we would have to assume to make it divine in any sense of the word, is that this existent thing must exist necessarily and not be contingent on something to call it into existence. By only assuming this one thing, at least two other characteristics already must follow logically: 1. If it exists necessarily, it is by definition metaphysical because nothing in physics preponderated it to exist. Therefore, if nothing in physics preponderated it to exist and all matter exists contingently, the necessary existent must be incorporeal. 2. Since it is necessary, it must exist outside of time or at least before time, which is interwoven with space, (as general relativity theorises) and hence must be eternal. See how we assume the most minimalistic thing that can be assumed to make a concept divine, and already such a thing must have at least two following characteristics that already make it absolute? Even without saying that it's a man-like personal God. It is this definition and starting point that philosophers try to prove by using cosmological arguments, to then gradually work themselves into a more specific conception of God and prove case by case, how all of its attributes that their culture has assigned to it must also in turn, be necessary and not contingent. It is at this stage, where, the more specific they get, the more tenuous their arguments become. These arguments are too long to explain now, but you can just look up the people I mentioned. So if one were to make the most solid case for the existence of a necessary absolute or a God, then it would in my opinion be wise to first stick to the most abstract conception possible. My point however was not to say that we can know of such an existence for sure, nor was it to argue about the probability, but merely to suggest that we can have rational assumptions even if the assumptions cannot be proven with absolute certainty (which would be to prove them experimentally) but we can at least have them be deductively sound to a high degree and then base beliefs on that. We are all agnostics in terms of knowledge, in terms of belief we can chose, and this choice can be moral if based on assumptions of logic, or immoral if based on nothing else but authority or fear of societal rejection. I just wanted you to be aware that, and two more things: 1. The probability of existence depends on how specific our conception of God is and varies accordingly. 2. Regardless of what the probability of our necessary absolute being or God might be, one shouldn't state it as an obvious fact that any such God doesn't exist at all. Have a nice day !

[@rodrigodiazcasas384]

i actually can think of something greater than god, if he existed: whatever the fu** created him. And whatever created what created him. And so on with that dialectic nonsense.