LIVE! with Q&A: Joe Schmid, @MajestyofReason, and why philosophers suck at the Bible

¶1Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Hey everyone. Uh, it's Friday.

¶2Um, what's what is Oh, it's it's the 28th of August today. Um, Friday. Friday, 28th of August. It's uh 2:00 Pacific out on the uh West Coast. I'm Kip Davis and uh this is my capable and talented and uh lovely producer Vashanti.

¶3Welcome, Vashanti. I got to pause. And uh we're here for uh entertainment and education every Friday at this time. I'm a biblical scholar and a specialist in early Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I like to talk about those sorts of things. So, if you're new here, welcome.

¶4Um but most of you uh are probably like here because you show up faithfully every single week. So, hi. It's good to see you all. And uh I hope everybody had a great week and is getting ready for an excellent weekend. So um I had a great week.

¶5I'm I'm drinking today, by the way. Uh this is my last bottle of a blue barrel hard new fashion hard root beer which I found at the Aldi here while I'm I'm on my vacation for $8 um a case which is like way way cheaper than the hard root beer that I purchased before I left for my vacation in Canada. So, um, yes. Uh, good to see everyone. Good to see you, Fishanti.

¶6Sorry, I've been babbling for a while. >> It's been Satan's armpit here in Los Angeles for the last week or two. It's just been like 100 degrees, crazy humidity. Apparently, it's the remnants of a tropical storm that, you know, blew north thanks to, you know, super Elino and climate change. Warmer water equals more tropical storms.

¶7>> So, one of the major contributing factors to me moving out of the deep south, which regularly experiences weather phenomenon like hurricanes, >> it turns out you can't outrun climate change. >> Damn it. Turns out, >> uh, turns out, uh, speaking of tropical storms, um, I was I I was in one, um, on Sunday night, uh, driving back. I I got I had a great weekend. Uh, I got to hang out with our mutual friend, the Dapper Dinosaur, >> as well as >> But I won't believe you until I see the photo with you and him in it.

¶8>> I think somebody took a picture. I'm pretty sure. I'll I'll have to I'll have to to get back to him on that. Um, >> as the kids say, Pixart didn't happen. >> Pixart didn't happen.

¶9It's true. Uh, I I did share with you a picture that I would like to talk about today and I will talk quite a bit more about um tomorrow when we do budget scripture Saturday with Dr. Tapioca Weasel because he was there. Um, so uh I I was uh Yes. Okay.

¶10Here is here is the picture. Um uh what stands out to you in this picture, Vish? >> Look, I see aliens riding on dinosaurs shooting laser guns. >> Yes. So, oh, and if you look closely, you can see >> Hang on.

¶11>> Uh Okay, here we go. Yes. Is that not amazing? Um, for real, >> were you amazed? >> Uh, I Okay, so uh I have to tell the story here.

¶12Uh, this tourist attraction is called The Thing. It's on exit 322, uh, between Las Cusus and Tucson, uh, just on the Arizona side of the border. Um, and I was seeing billboards advertising this thing uh, at least a 100 miles out, probably more. And I'm not just talking about like a billboard that says, "Oh, the thing, what is it?" I'm talking about 27 billboards in a row. um you know and so I as a consumer was of course very interested and my curiosity was peaked um about the thing.

¶13So I was trying to convince my um my my co-traers uh and and you can see in the picture there if you if you zoom in you can see uh Dr. Tapioca Weasel and uh Maya Atkinson who I was traveling with and um they did not think it was a good idea for me to stop for us to stop at exit 322 to visit the the thing museum. Um, but but I and I I was quiet about it. And as exit 322 approached, and I'm not kidding. I did not plan this.

¶14I did not this is this is just a thing that was happen stance. I was like, we're about an hour out of Tucson, but I really have to use the bathroom, so I'm going to stop at the next exit. Lo and behold, it was exit 322. and we we drove in and I was like, "Oh my god, here we are at at the thing museum. This is this is great.

¶15We could go and check it out and they didn't think it was a good idea." Um, so we went and used the bathroom. I I tried very hard to convince uh both Maya and Tap that we could get in uh for 10. They you know, we could probably get in as a family for like $10. I thought maybe we could. Uh they did not even they they did not even choose to try.

¶16They they they were like nope not doing that. Uh let's get ice cream from the Dairy Queen. So uh we did and uh uh Dr. Tapioca I'll talk uh a lot about this uh tomorrow night on Budget Scripture Saturday uh when Dr. Tapiocow will be in attendance.

¶17We can we can share uh the experience together. But I just have to say uh we met a man at the Dairy Queen at the um tourist trap museum with the pictures of the dinosaur riding alien and the laser gun. Uh, and this man asked me if I had ever seriously investigated the 6,000year true history of our Earth. >> Oh boy. >> So, >> you found life young Earth creationist.

¶18Oh my god, it was the most I felt like I was having the most quintessentially American experience that maybe I've ever had. Uh, driving through the heat on a desert highway, stopping at a tourist trap, and talking to a young earth creationist trucker. Uh, was it just I I don't know. It doesn't it it just doesn't get any more authentic than that. I I I don't think so.

¶19Um I'll I'll have a lot to say about it though. Vandy and I >> You went to the museum, correct? Inside it. >> We did not go through the museum. >> So, you can't even tell us what the thing is.

¶20>> Oh, but I can because Dapper told me what the thing is. So, uh Dapper when I showed Dapper a picture of this picture of the museum, he said, "Yeah, no, don't go there." So uh and uh especially because you know we we we were we were still on our way to to meet up with him and uh we did and and Dapper and uh Vandy uh Dr. Dr. Tapioca Weasel Maya and I had a lovely afternoon at the at another museum uh the uh this the Sonora the Sonora Arizona Desert Museum uh which was great and probably much better than according to Dapper much better than this one. So uh so that's what we did in instead.

¶21Um, I got to see a road runner, which was super cool. And, uh, yeah. Um, anybody have any guesses as what the thing is? Uh, just based on on this picture, maybe uh maybe put it in the chat and we can we can survey uh some of those uh some of those questions and I can let you know. Oh, yes.

¶22Uh, >> three clam tad for $5. Keep leaving the museum. You're going to have to sleep sometime. McCriedi, >> I don't know what that reference is from. What is that reference?

¶23>> Yeah, you do. We watched it. The thing with Kurt Russell. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah.

¶24Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. >> Got it.

¶25Very nice. Um, so, uh, this is >> a movie that would be instantly spoiled for Matt Monger if he were watching it for the first time because he speaks like Norwegian. >> Yes, very true. Shoot. the shouting at the beginning of the film, >> he'd be like, "Oh, well then I already know what's happening." >> So, this is this is true.

¶26Um, I did I did download the app uh for the thing. Um, so that I I can actually I it was free and you know instead of actually going through the museum tour, I can instead just listen to the um the the the tour. Here it is. Um uh yeah. Uh oh.

¶27Oh no, there it's not. It's it's on it's on my phone. But uh I can >> Well, here's the answer. the big Rocky member of the Fantastic Four. Uh says allegedly Fred >> and Grim.

¶28>> Oh, yes. That's That's But it wasn't that. I'm I'm sorry to say. That's that's kind of what I thought maybe it was, too. Um the I'll I'll tell you though.

¶29I mean, the pictures that they put on the billboard kind of or on the the sign above their establishment kind of uh gave gave it away. Um, is it an in real life alien that hates dinosaurs and shoots them with space lasers? If not, that sign is false advertising. Um, yeah. And who knows?

¶30Uh, we didn't we didn't actually see it. Dapper told me what it was. Um, but it it may have been uh false advertising anyway anyway you go. So, uh, but that that was the the the adventure uh that I was on this weekend. Oh, and I segueed into that because you were talking about tropical storms uh when we left on Sunday night.

¶31Um, the clouds were getting thick and dark and uh I got caught driving uh back through Arizona in like a monsoon. Um, which has I've has never happened to me before and I've driven, you know, I've driven through a lot of weather. Uh, I live in Canada. um grew up on the prairies where you know it was common practice to drive through blizzards um which is also a a harrowing harrowing experience um but we do it so as a a seasoned driver through all sorts of uh dangerous uh weather events I I just kept going but my god uh that was a lot of rain and uh such that it was very difficult to see most of the time and I was traveling very slow. Um and it was like rain and then we're in periods where the rain would stop then it was like dust storm.

¶32So, rain, then dust storm, and then my windshield would get like covered in in dust and uh and dirt, and then it just it was Yeah, it was it was quite an experience. Um but uh we made it uh we we got through it safe. >> Um and uh yeah, first first monsoon driving through my first monsoon was pretty pretty wild. So, uh uh yeah, it's true. Uh Gib is from the prairies where weather where the weather happens.

¶33It it certainly does. So um yeah. Uh there we go. But we're not here to talk about any of that. That's just the fun stuff um on my weekend.

¶34Something else happened this week and like ordinarily I wouldn't care so much but everybody seems to be talking about this and I ended up watching uh an interview on a channel that we have covered before uh Pines with Aquinus uh featuring Matt Frad is a Catholic apologetics uh channel and when uh Shang Tai and um uh CJ Kornweight were on our show a couple months ago. Uh we reviewed uh one of uh his interviews with uh Trent Dar who is like a philosopher and I think probably a terrible person. Um, and uh, so today, uh, we're also reviewing another, excuse me, Catholic apologetics video featuring, uh, another, uh, Catholic philosopher. Uh, but he's I I don't think he's a terrible person, though. I think I think Joe Schmid is probably an okay guy.

¶35Um, I have no reason to think otherwise. But as it turns out, Joe Schmid, uh, an agnostic, um, PhD student at Princeton University in analytical philosophy, uh, just came out, uh, to reveal that he has, excuse me, converted to Catholicism or more appropriately reconverted uh, to Catholicism. He was raised Catholic. he was a lapsed Catholic and uh is is no longer a a lapsed Catholic. He is he is uh he is a Catholic again.

¶36Um now the the point of today's stream is it's going to be a little bit different than probably some of the other responses that you've seen regarding Joe Schmidt's conversion. Straight up, I don't care. Uh, I don't care that Joe Schmidt was an agnostic. I don't care that he's Catholic. Um, what I care about is the intersection between this uh highlevel uh analytical philosopher, his faith and the part that the Bible has to play in that.

¶37Um, and as it turns out, it's a little surprising. Uh, can you guess uh how much of a role the Bible has to play in that intersection, Vish? >> Well, it probably plays about the same amount as it does for the other apologists. >> Ouch. Right.

¶38Yeah. So, um I kind of think that if you are going to embrace uh and and I'll back that up a little bit. Um I there are plenty of people who watch this show uh who are Christians. There are plenty of people who watch this show who are Jewish as well as agnostics and atheists. Um, and I everyone's welcome because here this is not about religion so much as it's about the Bible because as everybody knows I I [ __ ] love There it is.

¶39I [ __ ] love the Bible. Uh, but Vish loves it, too. Um, and that's what we're about. What what strikes me, I think, is how little people who purport to uh engage in certain uh religious apologetics make a lot of noise about the Bible and really don't seem to know or to understand it. Um I think that if you're religious uh you you have your own reasons uh for doing that.

¶40That's between you. It's between God or the universe or whoever uh you think is out there or not out there. That is that is that is totally your business. If Joe wants to be a Catholic, good for him. Be be a Catholic.

¶41Um, I I guess what's what's striking to me is that in the apologetics for becoming a Catholic, the foundational text of Catholicism, Christianity plays such an impoverished role. Um, and that's something that we're going to talk about today. Did you uh did you highlight some some comments out of the gate here? just one >> not very lapsed. He was praying on the regular and going to mass whenever he was at home.

¶42So the average uh Catholic college student. Yeah, that's that's uh that's fair. Um so uh before um let's see before can you before we Okay. Yeah, let's let's let's do this. We're going to pull up the video today.

¶43We'll watch the introduction. Okay. And then I've got some other timestamps because there's a couple of other things that I want to uh talk about. So, he's got some stuff to say about exorcisms that we're going to talk about. Uh he's got some stuff to say about uh an historic an historic miracle that we're going to talk about.

¶44And then uh some things to say about hell and about gay stuff that I want to talk a little bit about. Um one of the things that we're going to do that Joe does like almost not at all in this video is we're going to actually look at the Bible. Um because you know that's kind of what I what I do here. I think the Bible has some things to say with respect to the way that Jill wants to present represent his his public um alignment with uh with with Catholicism. So, uh I think it's it's useful to to look at some of that stuff, too.

¶45So, we'll start here with uh the introduction. >> You have a popular agnostic atheist YouTube channel. And by the way, as we're recording this, you haven't announced this publicly. Last time you were on my show, you were debating Father Gregory Pine on Divine Simplicity. You come on as an atheist agnostic.

¶46And then a couple of months ago, I get a >> just a reminder, he wasn't an atheist agnostic. >> He was last Catholic. >> Still a Christian. He was still praying and going to mass. >> That's true.

¶47That's not the same thing. >> I don't think we're going to get to it, but but Joe makes a makes a point in the video about how as non-believers, he thinks everyone should be offering conditional prayers to God on the regular in a very Pascalian wager sort of way because you never know, right? Well, >> now >> I could just make that argument for >> sure a god of rain. >> Absolutely. >> So, okay.

¶48>> Yeah, it's uh very >> my mutual friend Cameron Batuzi. What happened? What happened? Who are you and what happened? Why is gay sex impermissible?

¶49Why would God send people to hell? Why is there so much evil in the world? Why is God so hidden? Why is there so much religious diversity and religious confusion? Problem with evil is just so powerful to me.

¶50I'm very cautious. Like, it takes a lot to convince me >> at this point. I'm like, >> I know I'm a little bit scared. Yeah, >> it's just coincidence on coincidence on coincidence. >> I hope everybody caught that.

¶51>> Hold on. >> Of hearing coincidence. >> Coincidence. Yeah, it's true. Um, so, uh, I hope everyone caught that.

¶52Joe says he's very cautious. He's very skeptical. He says it takes a lot to convince him. Um I I feel so one of the things that I try to avoid in public is promoting my own level of skepticism. Um and it's for reasons like this.

¶53I've Everybody thinks I This is I I just I think that everybody on planet Earth walks through life thinking that they are careful thinkers, that they are weighing the evidence with great caution and skepticism and that it would take a lot to convince them to change their mind about something. I just think we go through life like that. So why would I promote that I do this when this is just the way we we all think that we operate? Um and it doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter how skeptical you think you are.

¶54What matters is how skeptical you actually are when it comes right down to it. uh are you using the tools that are available to you to carefully and properly evaluate evidence before drawing your conclusions. Um, so when Joe talks about being really hard to convince of things, uh, and then I watch stuff like this, I'm like, >> no, >> come on. No, that's it's [ __ ] dude. >> I was just doing like the performative apologetic thing to make you think like, oh, well, if it convinced him and he's got like skeptical like high standards, then he must have something.

¶55This is no different from Jay Warner Wallace. I was a police I was an atheist police detective. >> Uh who, you know, >> except he was also raised Christian. >> Or Lee Strobble, I was a hardened atheist investigative reporter. Uh it, you know, if it if I was convinced >> from my rigorous uh standards of skepticism, then it's got to be true, right?

¶56It's got to be true. >> So, uh something else I will say, it's always interesting to me. You know what? Maybe I'll wait for a minute to to get into that, but let's uh let's continue. One of those things like again >> this came up for me again today because I was literally just >> I don't want to say dialoguing that's too charitable.

¶57I was arguing with somebody in a comment section because their whole shtick is this can't just be coincidence. It had to have been intentionally designed and it had to have been this. It's it just can't be a coincidence. It just can't be. Yeah, it can actually.

¶58I know that just shocks some people, but coincidences do happen >> a lot. A lot. I mean, I would say most of the time you think it's a coincidence. It probably is, honestly. Like, >> it's a phenomenon that's happened enough in human experience that we have a word for it.

¶59So, >> yes. >> Yeah, they can and do happen. So, your personal incredility isn't a gauge of whether or not it's a coincidence. >> So, I just can't believe this is just can't be. Yeah, it can.

¶60>> Yeah, >> it can. >> Um, before you press play, I do want to point out the the two pictures that are on the screen here now. Uh, the one on the left is I believe this this gentleman's name is >> Padre Poe. What do you know about Padre Po V? You probably know more about have stigmata.

¶61It was a big deal. >> Oh, it's right there. This picture is right on his hands. It's got to >> right. It's got to be true.

¶62>> Thank you for this. Is that Barnabas Nag thought the same thing? >> He's an idiot flat earther. >> Okay. >> I know.

¶63Redundant, but >> um u are you convinced of uh Pedro what did you say? Is it Pedro Pedro? >> Padre. >> Prepio. >> Padre Pio.

¶64Thank you. Are you convinced? >> Yeah, I was just about to say something and then we have Shassa who took it right out of my mouth. Padre Peio, who's widely known to have faked the stigmata with corrosive chemicals that he admitted to buying. >> So there you go.

¶65>> Uh this is this is the level of evidence we're talking about here. Um the picture on the right is uh I ass it's from um uh is it called Zateo? The um >> is it called Sato? The uh it's it's there was a series of of Marian apparitions in uh Egypt between the 1960s and the 1970s. I think it's I think it's a teao.

¶66Uh somebody can uh can confirm that in the chat because somebody knows uh this better than I do. Um, so this is uh apparently a picture uh Zetune. Thank you, Ben Green. Uh, Zetune. >> Uh, this is apparently a picture of uh Mary um on top of the the and it's importantly this is a this is a not a Catholic church.

¶67This is a Coptic Orthodox church in Zetune, Egypt. Um, so why Joe thinks that this is is a promotion of his Catholicism, no idea. But in any event, that's supposed to be Mary, I think, at the top of the church in in Zetune. I think the I think it's the the Nobody can see my cursor, but it's it's the the the sort of humanoid looking figure. Uh it's right up here center uh left top.

¶68Yeah, that thank you for the the little cross thing. Yeah, >> I believe that is supposed to be the Virgin Mary. Um I cannot tell if that is >> what that is. >> In the words of Dr. Josh Bowen, therefore what?

¶69>> Yes, that too. Um so great. Uh, but this is this is the kind of stuff that uh that Joe Schmid is going to spend three hours on his uh podcast on Matt Frad's podcast talking about as the big dominoes that fell to get him uh to rembbrace uh Catholicism. So, um, >> you know, the Catholicism that he never actually really abandoned. >> Didn't actually really abandon.

¶70So, um, >> uh, there you go. I think we can we can probably press play and get through uh, some more of this at that point, but this is where we're going. >> Tree claimed Tad for Five. If Jay Warner Wallace used the same investigative techniques to catch murderers that he used to find Jesus, then the Innocence Project is going to be big. >> God damn.

¶71>> I've been saying it. I've been saying it. Pull up his cases. Yeah, for right >> $4.99. We can have a thousand lease strobals now thanks to monetizable content creation.

¶72>> Thank you. Uh Tik Tok >> and YouTube. Um yes, for for that that was a that was a wonderfully uh helpful uh site. I mean we we take on >> coincidence. Oh no, Catholicism might be true.

¶73That's not good. Last time you were on my show, you were debating Father Gregory Pine on Divine Simplicity, and I'm pretty sure you won, which pissed me off a little bit. >> Did I win? It didn't piss me off either. I'm just joking.

¶74If I'm defending falsehood, I think I think I lost. >> No, it was pretty wild. I would I don't know. It wasn't like a knock him down, drag him out kind of thing, but I remember Father Pine calling me and he's like cuz he saw a picture of you and you know, you look kind of young and he's like, "Should I be debating this guy?" I mean, he's like, I know I'm not one to talk cuz I look young, but this guy looks really young. I'm like, trust me, he's really smart.

¶75It's just So, anyway, you come on as an atheist, agnostic and debate Father Pine, and he did really well. And then a couple months ago, I get a call from our mutual friend Cameron Batuzi, and he's like, "Uh, so Joe Schmid just converted." >> Um, now I I also want to direct people to um uh Katie Lewis is is in the chat. Uh Katie Lewis is a uh is is a friend of of the channel. She hasn't actually been on the channel. I've been on her channel before.

¶76Um so uh I think I think that makes her a friend. Um but she runs a channel called Nerd Church. uh and she did a stream yesterday uh about this and I believe she's got more uh content to deliver about uh about Joe Schmidt um and his and his conversion and she made a very important point yesterday and I think it bears repeating uh here he's a very young guy um he's he's not 30 yet and in my estimation that's I mean I have kids who are Josh Schmidt's age. Um, so he's he is a young guy uh who has uh he's a very smart guy or seems to be within I think his his field within his experience. I have some questions about how widely read Joe actually is outside of analytical philosophy, which is something that that Katie pointed to a lot in her stream yesterday.

¶77But something else that she pointed to a lot in her stream yesterday is that uh the I mean for all your inexperience, what makes you think that you now have such breadth to make the sorts of sweeping claims about the truth or falsity of what of this religion or that religion when you just in your words convert within the last few months. Uh I think it's an important point. Do you want to put that one back up? >> He didn't. Yes, I think uh useful.

¶78He didn't actually. Uh but yeah, you want to put that other comment back up because that was funny. Um the one that you uh the one you had. Sorry. Sorry about that.

¶79Um >> uh yeah. Why is it always the PhD candidates? Listen, um I will say I have a considerably greater confidence that Joe will actually finish his I'll just say that. Um although I did learn today that he hasn't even started his his dissertation yet. But >> so that was that was not that was not >> we're really uh batting a thousand here, aren't we?

¶80>> God, I Oh my god, that was that was that was that that was the most precious reaction, B. That was great. Is this the interview where Joe says that if he thinks something is true but the magisterium disagrees uh then he'll change his mind? It could be. Uh it's a long interview.

¶81Um but and he does say things to certainly to that effect. Uh the magisterium in the Catholic Church is what what establishes church doctrine and as a Catholic uh Joe is beholden uh to the magisterium. Uh >> probably for 99 he has Mormon missionary energy said as a former >> nice very nice. Um so uh and that's and that's fine. Um, I will say this though.

¶82Uh, you should be a little bit more historically curious regardless of what the magisterium says or does. Um I you know there's I've known a whole bunch of uh of Catholic biblical scholars uh critical scholars um who when it comes to their own work uh are not are are not invoking the magisterium. They're they're working like critical scholars. They're treating the biblical texts as critical scholars do. And then they uh they they they make their peace in other ways.

¶83Um it feels like >> despite what Richard Carrier thinks. >> It certainly is. It certainly is. And uh we all do it. when I was uh when I was last an evangelical um I uh used to I I used to uh say that I wore a scholars hat when I was at work and working on the biblical text and doing my work there.

¶84And then when I went to church on Sunday, I took the hat off and I put on my uh my my Christian devote hat and I compartmentalized. And you can do that and lots and lots of scholars do that because faith is different uh or at least it can be different from your uh own intellectual ascent. And I will say I think that to put so much weight on the science and the history and the evidence for your faith is a dangerous proposition. Um because it's falsifiable and it's not it's it's easily falsified as a result. The moment you say because of this miracle or because of the truthfulness of this text or uh because of this scientific fact, I am a believer.

¶85Uh you have suddenly set an enormous amount of weight on this one thing. um and it becomes incredibly vulnerable. Uh so which is why scholars usually are pretty careful. This is one of those things that gets me about um low barb bill is he wants to appeal to philosophy and logic and reason and a lot of evangelical or young earth creationist apologists will try to appeal to the science and evidence but then when it contradicts their uh predetermined positions or their theological commitments they'll back away and be like no that's actually not why we believe we believe because of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. So then why do you spend all your time talking about philosophy and science if the reason you actually believe >> is because you were convicted by the Holy Spirit?

¶86>> Exactly. Exactly. Um >> they want to have it both ways. >> You can't you Yeah, people want to have it both ways, but really I don't think you legitimately can. So uh Stephen G.

¶87Clinard for $5, thank you very much. Says universities are becoming diploma mills. uh nine-year PhD candidate. >> It's true. Uh listen, um I was I was a PhD candidate once.

¶88Um and I remember what that was what that was all about, what that was like. And Jesus, I got to say, am I ever glad that I was a PhD candidate in an era before this space, this this social media space, YouTube and Tik Tok and Instagram and Facebook be before uh this became the platform. Uh because boy, you know, I I probably uh well, I certainly had a lot of shitty ideas um back back when I was I was a PhD candidate that I'm very very happy uh were not thrown out into public discourse. So, um, I'll say that Toronto vote says >> you're for but instead of Joe Schmid, more like Joe Mid, am I right? >> I didn't say it.

¶89>> Here we go. I find the visual of this newbie Christian salesman sitting in front of a full bar bar of liquor to be amusing. I don't because Catholics drink. >> Catholics. >> Vocals might not.

¶90>> But >> yeah, Catholics drink. It's not a big deal. >> Yep. pre-claimed Tata. Give it two years before he's an evangelical.

¶91>> No, I don't know. I don't think I don't think there's I I Yeah. And I think I think Katie is probably right. Katie said yesterday she thinks that uh in in predicting Joe Joe's career trajectory, she's thinking uh he's on his way to Catholic Seminary uh to to to become uh to become ordained or uh he's going to join the Peterson Academy. And I I gotta say I I think those are good bets.

¶92Honestly, >> grifters going grift. Godless gurnie for five. If the way to belief, I think belief is what the other. If the way to belief is being led by the Holy Spirit, apologists should give up on arguing and pray. >> Yes.

¶93Yes, indeed. >> Yeah. I mean, look, it doesn't, again, I know that it's like me quoting scripture is about as useful as a screen door in a submarine here, but if you're going to talk to people about like evidence and reasons and logic and like philosophy and all these other things, when the text says you can't even approach God unless the Holy Spirit convicts you, unless the God draws you to him, then you can't do anything about that. So >> there we go. >> Yeah.

¶94>> Uh and this is true. Um Pints with Aquinus >> is a production of the Daily Wire, which is why we're not watching Pines with Aquinus. We're watching uh what's the title of this video, Vish. >> Uh if you can uh it is uh Oh, here. Philosophy Bros.

¶95Philosophy Bros. ignore the Bible because they are credulous who suck at it. So, um, not not a, uh, a Daily Wire production. So, that that's that's the one we're watching. >> All right.

¶96>> Okay. >> So, you and I have intentionally not talked about it. Even over lunch, we didn't talk about it. >> What happened? What happened?

¶97I was just >> Who are you and what happened? >> My goodness. I was just inundated with divine grace. That's what happened. I mean, ultimately, conversion is a work of the Holy Spirit, right?

¶98So, it's not There you go. >> He's speaking a little bit of inside baseball there. They talk about divine grace. It's like he said, it's a shorthand for saying the Holy Spirit like convicted me and it like changed my opinions and blah blah blah. So, >> and he's right in as much as this is how this is how the religious texts and the uh the the religious cannons say that it should be.

¶99This is about conviction from the Holy Spirit. This is about change in your heart and your mind by God that has nothing to do with evidence. >> Yeah. >> Um so he says this right out of the gate. Um but then the conversation in this video goes in a completely different direction.

¶100>> Okay. >> Me it's God working. So what happened? And you I want to say too before we get started that you have a popular agnostic atheist YouTube channel called Majesty of Reason, which will >> I know he keeps saying this, but agnostic atheist. Those aren't just interchangeable terms.

¶101This guy was never an atheist. >> That's true. >> May have been agnostic at some point. Sure, but you can't just agnostic, atheist. I'll just use them interchangeably.

¶102That's not how that works. >> That's true. That's true. But they're also two different like >> zategate. Yeah.

¶103>> Yeah. They're two different categories. Like one is knowledge and one is belief. >> Belief. >> And you certainly can be >> Yeah.

¶104>> an agnostic atheist, right? Um I mean I consider I consider myself uh agnostic in that I just I just don't know. And I'll add to that I just don't care >> whether whether there's a guy. >> He was an atheist in high school. I'm sure he was >> for a short time.

¶105>> Listen, I know that that's probably a little bit dismissive of me, but I'll just be honest. I have never met somebody that is now like a professing Christian of some sort of evangelical stripe who said, "Yeah, well, I was an atheist and then, you know, I came to believe." who actually knows what atheism is in terms of it being >> either I'm not convinced there's a god or there are no gods, >> right? >> They just didn't go to church for a while and just didn't really think about religious stuff at all. >> They were doing their life. Some of them may have been parters or not, but they just didn't really do religious stuff.

¶106That's not the same thing. It's just but it gives you my conversion story way more clout if you say that you were an atheist first. So >> So uh user I'm not sure I I yeah this person uh says Joe put out multiple videos on the atheist agnostic distinction in philosophy and why he identified as an agnostic and now he was apparently some kind of hardcore atheist. Uh, funny how that works. Now, I will say I think these are labels and this is the same thing that irritates me when it comes to people uh like Wes.

¶107Um, I'll say it even though he's a friend of the channel and I love him, it irritates me when it's applied to people like Justin uh from Deconstruction Zone. uh others. Wes Huff does not identify himself as a an expert in Christianity or an expert in biblical studies. In the same way, uh Justin does not identify himself as an expert in the Bible uh or biblical languages. But what invariably happens is everybody else does.

¶108And it's the the onus is on you as the specialist or as the featured uh guest on a podcast or or a production to make sure that the record is clarified. Um and your silence is in a way implicating you in probably ways that you don't uh intend it or maybe sometimes you do. Uh did Kip just describe Huff as a friend of the channel? No, you're imagining things. Um I was talking about Justin from Deconstruction Zone who often gets uh identified as an expert in the Bible >> is >> um and he's come around and drop the whole religion as a psychosis thing.

¶109>> I don't know and I'm not going into that. All I'm going to say is that Justin is very bright. Uh Justin knows what he's doing with the biblical text a lot of times, but he is not an expert. Uh I think he would never force that label upon himself, but it's something that certainly others are happy to do. Um and I think that's kind of what's happening here.

¶110That's probably what's happened with with Joe in in other contexts where he be he is identified as an expert uh or as you know an atheist or or or as as what have you um despite himself despite his own uh feelings uh and his own realization about who he is. So um it's yeah it's I yeah um it's uh expertise is now listen when it comes to expertise I mean I I I cringe a little bit when people even say things that I'm a Bible expert or that I'm an expert in Hebrew even though I teach it. uh and I teach the Bible and I am a trained uh biblical scholar at the PhD level. Um I'm happy to identify as an expert in second temple Judaism in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the transmission and the reception of biblical texts uh in early Jewish history because these are all things that I have uh done terminal work in and published widely on. Um but even there uh the field is so broad that uh and there are so many more people out there actual experts who know this stuff so much better than I do.

¶111>> Lots of specialists. >> I am I am not an expert on the legal material from the penetuk. I am not an expert on the book of the psalms. I've written articles on the Psalms. I'm not an expert on it.

¶112Um, you know, there's the expertise is one of these these tricky things. And if it were up to me, everybody would pay much closer attention to how they're throwing this word around. Uh, because it often makes me uncomfortable when it's applied to me by others. Um I try to be careful in applying it to myself. Um and I notice when uh the label is applied to others.

¶113Um so that's that's uh yeah so so that's that's that. Um anyways. >> Okay. >> To below which I imagine is going to take a different trajectory. So it's going to be wild to see.

¶114And you and by the way, as we're recording this, for those at home, you haven't announced this publicly. >> Oh, no. Yeah, we're still uh we're still in private right now. I told my social media guy as we came in, he's like, "What?" Cuz he was a fan. All right, I'll stop talking.

¶115Go. >> Yeah. So, right now, I'm a PhD student at Princeton University studying philosophy. And ultimately, it was philosophy and just reasoning about Catholic miracles that brought me to the faith. Now, again, divine grace was at work throughout all this, and this is not my own merit.

¶116This is God. Um, but yeah, do we where do we want to start? Do we want to start with the upbringing? Catholic upbringing. Well, I guess I would begin by asking you if like if I had said to you two years ago like you'll be Catholic one day and on my show utterly ridiculous.

¶117What are you talking about? Like I just had so many objections. I mean hell gay like gay sex morality. I mean I was I had boatloads of objections. I was like why is gay sex impermissible?

¶118Why would God send people to hell? Why is there so much evil in the world? Why is God so hidden? Why is there so much religious diversity and religious confusion? Like I would have just like and of course I would as I normally tend to talk fast I kind of slow down.

¶119I would have just like inundated you with like hordes upon hordes of objections. You know, I have this 12-hour long video where I'm like systematically debunking all the arguments for God's existence and it's like my most popular video. So, I would I would not have believed you. I would have thought you've gone insane, Matt. >> And if I had said, "And you'll also be wearing an alley of Guadalupe tie and St.

¶120Padropio socks." You would have went, "Okay, just stop making fun of me." >> Yeah. I would >> a Catholic wearing Guadalupe. I can't believe of all the iconography, >> the socks, too. Um, boy, I uh I I uh yeah, I I that's some attention to detail for the uh podcast host to notice what kind of socks you're wearing. I'm just uh just saying it.

¶121Well, at least we know, listen, um at least we know that Joe is not um a ghost. Unless they're Unless they're a person who's really into the fashion industry and is obsessed with shoes, you never see feet or shoes on a ghost. >> Never. Huh. >> I've never seen feet on a ghost.

¶122I don't know about you. Uh I never have. >> I mean, I feel like this kind of >> if somebody >> stating the obvious, but I don't think anybody's seen a ghost. Well, >> but hey, >> I'm open. >> I'm I'm open to correction.

¶123I I am absolutely open to correction. All right. >> But hey, if I do see a ghost at some point, I will hopefully remember to check for feed. >> Uh Tommy the Good to see you. Uh the human Tommy.

¶124Everybody uh check out uh the humanity uh their channel. It's uh it's very good. They broadcast every Wednesday night and it's fun. Um, Tommy has been on the show. Uh, I never wear socks on shows and yes, uh, I am unfortunately keenly aware uh, of the existence of Tommy's feet because I've seen them and it's gross.

¶125Uh, listen, uh, God invented or whoever invented feet for a reason. Uh, never, uh, for us to look at. Uh, that's just that's why we wear socks and shoes. Honestly, I It's because feet. Gross.

¶126Um, yes, >> he heard it here first, folks. >> You probably Well, as I uh discovered, you know, skeptics are inclined with respect to Catholic miracles to posit hallucinations all the time and whatnot. Like these really striking coincidental hallucinations like happening all the time. So, I would have thought that maybe you were just hallucinating or something. >> I do want to get into your story, but also >> I mean, so >> that doesn't require hallucinations.

¶127It's just one of those things where you notice the the circles of people who already believed in miracles and are very devout also are the ones who most frequently report seeing these apparitions. >> Yeah. >> Like the vin diagram is almost a perfect circle. So >> can we make this important point here? I think it's it's good to make it here.

¶128Um now uh for to to see visions to see apparitions to have religious experiences uh to have mystical experiences of any kind uh this this is and I'm not I'm I'm I'm I'm not qualified uh to to to speak on such things from a psychological perspective but I know enough to know that uh these do not this is this is Not this is not a mental defect. It's not a sign of a mental illness. It's not delusion. This is how the brain works. Uh our brains are like pattern building machines that are that's what they do is fill they fill in the gaps of the things that we can't perceive and don't know.

¶129And that's how we survived and grew and developed. So actually um you you've heard it said uh by some very silly people that religion is a mental illness. It absolutely is not. If anything, religion was inevitable. Uh religion is just the product of the brain doing what the brain does.

¶130Uh and uh I'll say this, I am not a religious person, but I have had religious experiences. I've had some really intense religious experiences. I was not crazy. I was not delusional. I was not imagining or seeing things.

¶131Uh my brain was reacting to stimuli. Uh you know, things that were happening around me, things that were happening in my life, uh things within there. There were social pressures on what was happening to me. Um it the the idea that uh visions or apparitions or religious phenomena can be chocked up to uh simple defects in the brain or uh in the way that you perceive or that you think is just it's wrongheaded. Um I I think I think we need to we need to get over that much.

¶132Um it's there there's other stuff going on. Uh so >> I mean and also the obvious question of why is it that people in the Western Hemisphere overwhelmingly see Christian apparitions and not apparitions of Krishna. >> I guess that's social pressures, right? There's there's all sorts of factors that that come to play in uh in these sorts of things. Um, again, not a mental illness, >> an apparition of the Mayan rain god, Chock >> for people who aren't, you know, practitioners of the like Mayan religion.

¶133And I guess kind kind of to bring this around back back around to uh the question of because I see it often applied to uh I see it often used as a as a convenient way to dismiss uh the Bible as a text as as a a a collection of of religious literature as uh you know stuff written by ill I've heard you the the illiterate goat herders written in the Bronze Age. Um which is all I hate it too. Um, it's all wrong. Uh, the the the Bible is a collection of yes uh very uh deeply religiously informed documents. Uh but these people were not seeing things.

¶134They were not uh they were not on drugs. They were not uh hallucinating. uh they were having just very ordinary uh human experiences with the world go because this is what this is what this is what humans do um when we're trying to make sense of things. Cheetah X for€ 10. Thank you very much.

¶135Says philosophy can provide arguments for or against the existence of God. Yes, a very important point. I prefer evidence. >> I prefer evidence. Yeah, >> cosigned >> for 10 pounds.

¶136Prediction of the positions he will now claim he used to hold. If you watch his former content, I'll wager a fat stack that he's previously called out at least half as being straw men. >> I feel like that's possible. I And again, unfortunately, I don't know enough I I've not followed Joe Schmidt up to this point. I don't know enough about about his earlier content, but I feel like that's that's that's possible.

¶137Yeah. Okay. Well, if there's a confirmed prediction, I'll go crack open a cold one. I just bought myself some Modello. >> Nice.

¶138>> The other day >> and I've got limes. So, all right. Let's go. >> Want to ask, how do you think your community is going to receive this when it becomes public? >> It'll be mixed.

¶139So, I've got Listen, I've been Iic for quite some time. I've been very cordial and convivial to people who disagree with me because I think that's how we discover truth, right? So, I think I've cultivated a community that first and foremost, at least I hope, love. >> I know I'm not going to start I'm not going to keep interrupting. I promise.

¶140I just want to say that this is something that comes up occasionally when you're talking to people. The reason that they're trying to be polite and genial and convivial >> is because they want you to listen and internalize their ideas and their points. Okay? If you're thinking of bigot can only be mean, racist can only be mean, transphobes can only be mean, but they're nice to me, so they're not a bad person. Stop it.

¶141>> Stop that. >> Yes. >> Stop being so goddamn naive. >> There's a lot of people who say very, very harmful things, but because they're really super nice and polite about it, >> then you should take them seriously. Don't do that.

¶142>> No, don't do that. Um, and we here on my channel, uh, we we've kind of positioned ourselves in this space, no. Uh, it is not good enough that you're you're just going to be polite and charitable. Anyone who thinks racist can only be mean needs, uh, a grandma from Alabama. >> I, my grandma from Alabama was very nice.

¶143I don't recall her saying any racist things. It doesn't mean she didn't. I just don't remember them. Um, but I have had conversations with my parents where they insist that the fact that they're nice to marginalized identities, like polite to their face, somehow doesn't contradict the fact that they vote for harmful policies and people who enact those policies, like I still haven't gotten them to connect those dots. So, >> yeah.

¶144Yeah. >> Yep. >> I can't be a racist or a bigot. I'm nice. like that's not how that works.

¶145But >> so um on this channel uh we have there there is just a uh there is just no tolerance uh for bigots here uh bigots of any doesn't matter how polite you think you are or you might be or how charitable uh if you're going to be a bigot we don't want you here. So that's uh yeah I so it's it's a different it's a different tack. Um I often talk about uh the the tyranny of politeness. Um and and that's you know in in many in many ways this is just a way to smuggle in bad ideas. Uh and that that's that's the way that's my approach.

¶146That's that's our approach here. Uh we're just not having it. So, >> um, but I do think, uh, contrary to what you might see people say online, I do think that I am probably a very nice person. >> I mean, yeah, but again, I >> It shouldn't matter though, right? Like >> sometimes, look, sometimes we're mean or petty or whatever.

¶147It it happens for human beings. Like I'll joke about this a lot that I'm petty and most of the time that's a joke. But when it comes to bad faith conversations, I'm mean cuz I don't spend energy being nice to bigots. Yeah, I'm a Chrissy on this one. The only good bigot could be a channel motto actually.

¶148Um so yeah. All right, let's see how much more we can get through this. >> Truth. And if they love truth, then they recognize that this is at least where I think truth is. I think they should be and potentially a lot of them will be open and receptive to what I'm going to say.

¶149Of course, a lot of them won't like it. I've got a lot of friends in the LGBT community. I have a lot of people who are atheist agnostics. I've co-authored papers with a bunch of atheists and whatnot, and they're all just going to be like, "What? You've lost your mind." Like, they're going to think I've gone insane.

¶150So, I do have a lot of friends who I mean, maybe we'll become estranged. Maybe I mean, I don't know what will happen, but >> are you bracing for that? Are you nervous about the potential fallout? Not because you'll change your mind, but because it hurts to lose friends. >> It does hurt people think ill of you.

¶151>> It it does hurt to lose friends, but you know, like if they hate me, they hated Christ first. Right. So, I mean, before I >> Hold on. >> Go ahead. >> So, um I'll just say at the outset, um I I've looked at some of the reaction online.

¶152Um and me personally, uh I I haven't seen anybody suggesting that Joe has gone insane. uh critics. Uh I certainly do not think that what Joe is doing is insane. There are certainly any variety of very good reasons, practical reasons for him to have taken uh to have have gone on the tack that he has and to have reconverted or or reaffirmed his uh his his conversion his his uh uh commitment to Catholicism. Uh no.

¶153Um what people are critical of is what we are critical of. And that to me is just the astonishing level of credul that is on display here in this video in every thing that I've seen from Joe since learning that uh that that he he decided to rembrace Catholicism. And this is speaking as someone who again has lots of Catholic friends, knows lots of Catholic biblical scholars who I would never ever suggest >> exhibit these levels of credul. You have something to say. Sorry.

¶154>> I you pretty much said it for me, but it's just one of these things where >> they want to be persecuted. so freaking bad anytime someone pushes back on an on a bad faith argument or facious reasoning. Well, they hate me because they hated Christ first. Just total nonsequittor, total like persecution complex. It's like you are literally the dominant hedgeimon in the west.

¶155>> Importantly, >> I know people are going to just like be so mean to me and they're just going to like cast me out of their social like you are not persecuted. Un if you live in the west or the global north and you're a Christian, you're not persecuted. There are very few places on the planet where there are persecuted Christian minorities. It's not in the angophone sphere. Like this is just >> infuriating.

¶156Um yes, >> good to see you, Katie. By the way, >> nuns are being kidnapped off the street and Joe says nothing because that would be personally dangerous to him. Yeah, there's a lot. And like I organized with them last week. Um a notorious uh fascist white supremacist said that he was coming to LA to you know talk about free speech and Christianity outside of a local Islamic center.

¶157And I was like the hell you are. Like those people specifically at that that Islamic center have been really good allies and they've been really good to some of the Jews here. They've hosted services for us. So I was like, "Oh no, no. I'm pulling up and I'm not letting him terrorize these people.

¶158Well, you know, bro got arrested. He's still in a Minnesota jail. So, l uh but one of his buddies tried to, you know, come to town and do stuff anyway, but he wouldn't even show up at the Islamic center cuz he's a coward. There weren't that many of us just standing there. That's all we were doing is just standing there.

¶159He posts a little selfie reel and goes, "Well, I'm at this, you know, specific Catholic church and I'm just here to talk about free speech and how Christians are like, you know, in danger." I don't know, maybe 10 to 15 people walked down the street to where that church is, and he and his little coward buddy ran into the church as if that was going to provide them sanctuary somewhere. And a guy picks the dude up while he's flailing like a toddler and throws him outside of the church cuz they didn't want any of this crap in there. And like they're the ones that are doing this. They're the ones that are like, "Hey, I'm going to show up and terrorize people." And then if somebody goes, "Nuhuh, we're not going to let you do that. Oh, I'm so persecuted and there's evil people after me." Like, shut up.

¶160Go put on a diaper and go home. Keep that fashy [ __ ] at home. >> All right. Uh I >> Yes. Uhed me.

¶161>> Oh, >> he got smurfed. >> He did. >> I I like I like this comment. Um the reason I like it is because I'm reason I'm reasonably confident that um both you and I are of like average IQ. Um, >> IQ tests are [ __ ] >> They are absolute [ __ ] Uh, but I'm reasonably confident that you and I are both of average IQ, which I think is 80, isn't it?

¶162>> Is average. >> You just tell us that you're troll >> or a manosphere red pill. >> But this is this is simple math, right? This is this is simple math. Um, I'm famously good at math.

¶163Uh, I know that 80 + 80 is 160. >> I am 80 plus 80 is 160. And I'm fairly sure that that is higher than any registered IQ to this point. So, uh, anyways. >> Oh, man.

¶164>> Uh, we haven't >> a super chat. >> Yeah. >> Uh, let's see. Few games for five bucks. No matter the words or tone, there's no such thing as a polite Nazi.

¶165also love God's propaganda was always curious about kosher law explanations. >> Wow, >> it's a lot. >> Thank you very much on there. >> Video games. Um, just as a a reminder to everyone uh in in case you forgot I'm going to find it here quickly, I promise.

¶166Uh, or not. God damn it. Did somebody Oh, here we go. There. >> Kev Davis has written notebook.

¶167Um, you can still buy the book. It's uh if if you haven't already, and if you have, you could buy it again. So, um, nobody is stopping you from from doing that. >> But, uh, yeah. Uh, I think where whereabouts are we in the video?

¶168Is it um >> uh about five minutes? Okay, let's play let's play a few minutes more until he gets to I think his his uh psychophysical >> argument for God and then we'll we'll we'll move to something else. >> Sounds good. >> converted. I did have a lot of these psychological barriers and whatnot pulling on me and tugging on me.

¶169Like man, dude, I've been like a public critic of Catholicism and Christianity and like specifically Catholicism. People can look up my papers and books and whatnot. I am just like tearing down divine simplicity, divine timelessness, divine impassibility, divine immutability. uh I'm just like going after the very core of Catholicism's doctrine of God. Um I just I've been systematically cutting that down.

¶170I've made videos against like the Bible and various other things like that. So, you know, I was there. So, firstly, I need to show some kind of compassion and love to them, right? Cuz I was there. >> Yeah.

¶171>> Um and if one of my best friends converted at that point, I'd be like, "What? What are you doing? You've I would also have had very similar reactions." So, I just got to show love. And again, I think uh at the time I had psychological barriers. Um, but I think through God's grace, through the intercession of our blessed mother and glorious Theoto, um, I' I've been able to I've been able to kind of >> It's so wild to hear you talk like that, man.

¶172I'm like, is he punking me? Is he about to destroy my worldview and make me an atheist? Cuz, you know, you're a smart guy. People should know you're a PhD student at Princeton. I'm glad to hear that you'll be having a conversation with Trent because you'll be able to go a lot deeper with him than you will be with me.

¶173He's a smart fell. Um, pause it for a second. So, uh, speaking as a PhD, um, it does not you don't have to be that smart to, uh, to get through a PhD program. You, you really don't. I think in some ways it probably helps, but uh the best the best way but budding PhD students, listen to me, the best way to get through your PhD program is to work your ass off.

¶174That that's it. You got to work hard. >> Um it doesn't require you to be smart to work hard. And uh if you have uh a really good uh PhD advisor, supervisor, uh they are invested in your success and they're going to do whatever they can to make sure that you uh that that you finish um and that you do well as as well as you can, right? So uh it honestly it doesn't it doesn't matter how how smart you are.

¶175People look at that, they look at the the PhD, the letters behind your name, and and think, "Wow, you must be like like super super smart." No, it just it doesn't mean that. It just means that I got super irrationally obsessed with this one thing, this question, that I couldn't leave alone. And I was fortunate enough to be able to fund my way through answering this question for over the course of of of several years. And now uh I probably have some regrets about that. But uh it it just that that's what that means.

¶176That's uh that's that's all that that means. Uh just you know think it's an important clarification. I mean, how dare you call my hyperfixation irrational spare the [ __ ] perception and qualia are weird. Therefore, Catholic god. Yeah.

¶177Also, yungai. >> Oh, Shangai is here. Uh, very nice. I hope you do something about this because listen, I uh we're not going to go into psycho uh physical harmony. Um but this is the number one thing that that has convinced Joe of uh the existence and the truth of the Catholic God and the truth of Catholic doctrine.

¶178And I had to I had to watch his explanations of these things several times. And as near as I can tell, I don't know this this is not improving my already very low impression of what analytical philosophers are doing because >> uh this is an argument that looks to me like a word game. and a bunch of uh uh theoretical speculation about things that are just not even possible. Like why? Anyway, um >> lizard glass for $4.99.

¶179I've heard a few prominent non-theist YouTubers mention how they could make a lot more money if they converted to Christianity. Yeah, apology has talked about that. >> Makes me wonder. Yeah, the the money is in the Christian circles. If you don't believe me, Michael Jones from Inspire, >> check out Michael Jones's Go Find >> Kicked a hornets's nest by being an Islamophobe and then he freaked out and goes, "Oh no, I need to move." So he raised a quarter of a million dollars in a weekend.

¶180>> More than a quarter million dollars. Um, so, um, uh, can you put that comment back up because I had a I had a thought about that. And, um, >> uh, yeah. So, um I do want to say one thing about this because a lot of people have speculated that that Joe has converted uh or has publicized this that leaned into this um as a means of uh financial gain uh to improve. I don't his own situ I don't I don't think that's what's at work.

¶181But what I will say is I do think that these are motivations that can work on you without you realizing it or not. I think there is possibly an incentive uh to uh uh overlook certain things to uh prioritize o certain arguments or ideas over others to um encourage your own blind spots. if there's this financial motivation piece operative in the background and you can be doing this like I said whether you're even aware of it. Um so I I I am hesitant to um to attribute malice in in that sort of situation. I I think it's unnecessary.

¶182Okay, back to the video. >> Yeah, but I really am it's it's it's weird to hear you speak like that because I'm used to hearing your videos where you and Alex Okconor are criticizing Catholicism and Christianity and you know always I thought you always did a good job doing it in a balanced loving kind of way. I never thought you were hostile or Alex for that matter. >> Yeah. Well, listen where where sin abounds, where darkness abounds, where imperfection abounds, grace abounds all the more, right?

¶183So >> yeah, I I don't I don't want to go back to your childhood. Maybe we'll get there eventually. What I want to get to is when did the first domino fall and how >> and obviously that's a you could go back to your childhood, but I mean like more recently over the last couple of years. >> It was an argument for God's existence called the psychophysical harmony argument. All right.

¶184>> So for the longest time I stop it here and we'll we'll jump ahead to uh the next time stamp which I think is uh is 4312. Um, so I I will say now before and just get Yeah. Uh, when you when you get the time stamp there, maybe if you could pull up this um I I uh or maybe I'll do it. Um there's a there there's another Let actually let me just do it. I'll pull this up and show it.

¶185Um, so this is and and this is kind of really wanted where I wanted to set my uh focus. Uh the the thing that really struck me about this was so this is this is the the index of the discussion that Joe had with Matt Fred from Pints of Pints with Aquinus about his conversion. These are the things that he wants to draw your attention to in what convinced him that Catholicism is true. Uh, demonic phenomena testimony, Our Lady of Zatun, apparition, the miracle of Kandra, medically documented healing miracles, investigating Eucharistic miracles, stigmata, uh, Fatima, Padre, Peio, uh, all of this stuff. They talked for hours about all of these things that in my estimate as a biblical scholar, I'm looking at this and I'm going, "What are you doing?" Um, none of this stuff is what I would classify as biblical.

¶186when I read the Bible, when I read the New Testament, which is something that I've done, um I'm not a New Testament scholar, but I've read it in Greek. Um uh despite my uh PhD supervisor's um recommendation to me that I I shouldn't bother reading the New Testament, I did anyways. Um I know some things about the New Testament. I know enough to know that uh the phenomena, the miracles, the uh healings, the signs, the stigmata uh this is not this is not uh what should be driving conversion. uh the New Testament authors tell us this uh rather explicitly.

¶187And this this is kind of what drew my attention to this in the first place. And maybe at this point I will uh I'll I'll bring this up now. Um and I want people to have this in the background as we as we continue this discussion because I think it's a good reminder. I am not a Christian. Uh Vish is not a Christian.

¶188um both of us were at one point in time, but I know there are a lot of Christians in my audience. There's a lot of Christians who are going to be watching this uh video, but I want to draw your attention to to what I see as what the Bible has to say about uh this this question of uh of of conversion. Um, so I'm bringing up I'm using uh Cross Bible, uh, which is which is a site that was developed by a friend of mine, Steven Nelson. It's an it's an excellent resource, especially I use, uh, both both Vish and I usually use Safaria as a web-based platform for investigating the Hebrew Bible. But if you're going to go through the New Testament, I would say Cross Bible is an excellent place to go.

¶189Uh so let's look at first Corinthians, the letter uh by the Apostle Paul, one of the undisputed letters of Paul to the Corinthian church starting in verse 17 to see what he says here. And I want people to think about what he's saying. Uh this is the New Revised Standard Version. I have the Greek text up here as well for those of you who are keen enough to read it. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might be might not be empty of of its power.

¶190Holos to the cross of Christ. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar?

¶191Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who believe. For Jews ask for a sign, and Greeks desire wisdom. But we proclaimrist estoon Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

¶192But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength and so on and so forth. But I bring that up to make an important point and to ask an important question. Those of you who are followers of Jesus, uh Joe, if you ever watch this, I just have to know where is this in your epistemology? How does this align with this rehearsal of, you know, casting out demons and seeing Mary on top of a church or, you know, uh, testimonies of people from Fatima or, you know, people growing limbs.

¶193Where does this fall in the process? Because I'm a Bible guy. I'm reading the Bible and I'm looking and I'm not seeing it. I'm just not. And I got to know it's your text.

¶194It's as I'm reminded by my Catholic friends, it's your book. The Bible, the the Old and New Testament in this uh in this configuration in this collection is the one that you guys put together. Uh are you actually reading it? And if not, why not? Um, so that's where I want to start with this.

¶195And with that, uh, we're going to to jump ahead here to one of these really key pieces of evidence that was seemingly very convincing to uh, Joe, uh, the analytical philosopher about the truth. Do you think of Christianity? One is demonic phenomena. And me even saying this right now, go back 2 years, I would have laughed. It would have been ridiculous.

¶196I would have joined the skeptics and be like, "Oh, this is just ridiculous. What are you talking about demonic phenomena?" Like, come on. We're preman proper intellectuals. We don't believe in demons or anything like that, right? That's what I would have said and I would have laughed it off.

¶197Would have thought that you guys are just like primitive superstitious morons basically. >> Yes. Um, but I have a friend, Cameron Buzzi, and he started making videos where he just has on a bunch of differentists, people who work in deliverance ministry, people who have like experienced deliverance ministry and people like that. And Cameron, we were good friends at the time. And Cameron was like, he started sending me some of these videos and he was like, "Joe, come on.

¶198Like, watch it. Like, stop making fun of it. Watch it. Listen to what the exorcists are saying. Hear them out.

¶199Listen to what Dr. Richard Gallagher on the faculty of Colombian NYU, a Princeton alum. Listen to what he's saying, okay? And give me your explanation. >> Pause it for a second.

¶200>> I demand it. That's I mean that's basic. >> Uh so, uh Cameron Bratusi of uh capturing Christianity for probably two years now, I think rather famously has been featuring uh a Catholic exorcists on his channel and their stories of deliverance of people from demon possession. He's received quite a bit of flak and push back for that. Uh, in large part, I think because the videos do very well.

¶201Why why wouldn't they? It's it's an easy way to capture an audience by, you know, pasting on your your thumbnail uh about experiences of somebody who who is uh uh, you know, encountering the demonic on a regular basis. Um, I I think it's uh I I think it's it's it's legitimate because uh these these are things like I said they they they did very well. Cameron seemed to lean into them quite a bit. Uh, and uh, the the problem, I'll say this at the outset, is not whether or not demons are real, whether they exist, uh, whether they are uh, an actual problem.

¶202Uh the problem here is the intersection with uh mental health professionals. Uh and this is this is something I want to draw some attention to. Um he mentioned here, hey, Dr. Richard Gallagher. um he's going to to talk a little bit about him and then I want to uh take a closer look at this gentleman and I've I've I've got some things to to say about this as well.

¶203Tree clam tab for $5 says listen to what the exorcists are saying. An extremely normal thing that extremely normal people say. Yeah. Uh thank you. Thank you for that.

¶204Uh Ted, you're you're absolutely right. Um, this is Yeah. All right. Uh, let's let's hear about Dr. Richard.

¶205>> What Cameron told me in a little bit nicer terms, but um, Cameron just kept on pushing me. He's like, "Explain it, Joe." So, he would say, "Okay, watch this video and if you don't want to watch the whole thing, just go to this time stamp and you know, I go to the time stamp and like the exorcist is basically saying like, yeah, so like we started the right, we did the litany of saints and then the person started levitating and then he was there for about 30 minutes and and I was like, uh, okay." And so I go back to Cameron. Well, you know, maybe, okay, listen, maybe the dude was just misperceiving. Okay, the person had it was like kind of like holding themselves up with their arm and maybe that was being covered by their like dress or something. >> Lying seems more likely.

¶206>> Yeah. Well, lying, that's another potential option. But, um, >> do they go to David Copperfield shows and just absolutely lose it? >> Yeah. Uh, yeah.

¶207Because there's a lot of ways to make yourself appear like you're levitating. >> I imagine so. I don't I don't I have no I have no idea. But listen, uh for a long time I really loved uh watching videos with Darren Brown. Do you remember that guy?

¶208>> Oh yeah. Darren Brown. >> Uh an illusionist. Uh not no not so much an illusion. He was a he was a hypnotist.

¶209>> He's a mentalist >> and a mentalist. Yeah. Thank you. a hypnotist, a mentalist from the from the UK who was very um transparent. Not necessarily about how he did stuff, but very transparent about the fact that it's just a trick.

¶210Everything that he's does, it's not it's it's a skill that you develop. He's very good at it. um many books on stage mentalism specifically. I have what is probably considered the book on mentalism. It's 13 steps.

¶211That's the name of the book. It's 13 steps of mentalism. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, this is this is timely because, um, last night, uh, Maya and I watched, uh, The Prestige, >> uh, from Christopher Nolan, which never seen it before.

¶212I love this movie, >> uh, so much, which is about a rivalry between two magicians at, uh, the end of the 19th century, uh, starring uh, Christian Bale and, uh, Hugh Jackman. It's just awesome. And Bowie. >> Uh, what? >> And David Bowie.

¶213>> David. Not just David Bowie. David Bowie playing Nicola Tesla. >> Nicola Tesla. That's right.

¶214>> Right. Um, uh, of course Michael Kaine is in it because, you know, it's Christopher Nolan movie. Of course. So, but it just it's it's an it's just an excellent movie, but it's so many layers. And this is this is a key part of this, right?

¶215is these are magicians. These are illusionists. They are out to misdirect. And it there is that one of the messages of this movie is that success in this field in this discipline requires a level of commitment. Um, the one character, uh, uh, Bordon, uh, keeps getting after, um, Bordon is is, um, Christian Bale's character keeps getting after, um, Hugh Jackman's character, Anir for not be not being willing to get his hands dirty.

¶216he doesn't have a high enough level of commitment to the craft uh to pull it off because it's not just doing shows on the stage on the nights that you're performing. >> It's a lifestyle, man. >> It's a lifestyle. It is a commit and that's part of part of the story is the lengths to which this one guy goes uh to preserve the illusion and how much it affects his real life uh and the dram of course the horrible horrible consequences of that down the road. But uh the the illusion if you are if you are committed enough, if you have a high enough level of uh of devotion to the craft, uh I think you can get to a point to make enough people believe just about anything.

¶217The whole thing about that movie is like it literally was the simplest explanation the whole time. But bro just was like it can't it can't be the simple explanation. And then he literally ends up going to a guy who invents teleportation about it. Like come on. It's so funny to me.

¶218Like it's a great movie. Great actor. >> It's a it's a great movie but I think it's applicable here. Right. I will say the the book by Christopher Priest is nothing like like the movie.

¶219It involves like actual ghosts. So >> uh if you decide to read it, >> be prepared for that. >> Okay. I feel like I would grounded. Yes.

¶220>> Yeah. Know the book is like no actual ghosts >> indeed. All right. I was like I gave him this disjunction like okay maybe it's a combination of like >> either it's lying or confabulation or something or um maybe like some weird kind of trick or some memory distortion or confabulation or something. >> And I was like okay yeah and maybe the person was just as I said my initial thought was like maybe they were just holding themselves up cuz I think like I didn't have any independent evidence of the person lying.

¶221Um and then Cameron's like Joe I asked him that 2 minutes later go on and he said he could he literally put his head down and could see under it could see like a foot up. I was like >> you can see so hold on. Oh, like maybe >> think about this. Pause it. Pause it.

¶222Fish. Push the pause button, please. So, yes. Like, listen to what he's saying. No, not camera.

¶223He's relating a story that Cameron Buzzi is relaying from another person. Cameron Btusi is not looking underneath to to see. He's saying that the person who's telling him the story was looking underneath. I guess he passed a ring around her body. >> I've seen a magician do that.

¶224I've seen that >> half, man. >> In half. And they separate the the two. >> You could see the feet still moving. >> Yes, they're moving.

¶225>> Yeah. Uh, >> listen. I I don't drop this part of my lore very often because there's just not really any real prompt. But I've had experience in these so-called deliverance ministries. There's one in um Irondale, I think it is, uh, which is a suburb of Birmingham.

¶226As far as I know, to this day, they're still meeting every Tuesday night doing, you know, deliverance. And you know the usually the way that works is you go in and whoever's speaking that night does their little mini sermon and then they'll open up the floor for anybody who needs prayer or healing or whatever and you can go up there. Some people just need prayer or support communally. Some people don't really need much of anything so they'll just sit there. Um I had my legs lengthened there.

¶227You know, one of the guys was like, "Hey, did you ever notice that, you know, this leg is like shorter than this other one?" I was like, "No, I didn't notice that." And he did the whole spiel, had me convinced, you know, cuz unless you know that that's a grift and you know how they do it, it looks very convincing. You're like, "Oh my god." But, you know, like, so I've seen people have demons exercised from them and, you know, a tiny kind of woman is having five grown men having to like restrain her because she's so demonic and, you know, whatever. It's like >> I listen wild. >> I have I have some experience with this as well. I I was absolutely traumatized as a I was 15 or 16 years old.

¶228Um and it was uh it was in a it was in an evening church service. We watched the the movie the uh the Roman sorry not the the the Mormon uh the the Mormon smear film The God Makers uh which is all about how it's it's made by evangelicals about how terrible Mormons are. It was during >> view watching this film in my church in an evening service. There was a young woman who was undergoing some sort of episode of some sort and was making a scene like and it was terrifying to be in that situation. And then uh and we were all told that she was being tormented by demons.

¶229And we were all told that she was taken out of the service and into another room and was throwing, you know, 220 pound guys around the room like they're the rag dolls. We were told this. I didn't see any of it. I was told this and I believed it. Uh, I don't know uh what happened, but people swore by this and they repeated this story over and over again.

¶230Um, and you know, it just this is this is how this stuff works. And people are credulous by nature. I think as I I said before, I think we all like to think we're skeptical, right, by default. But I think at the heart of it, most of us just are ready to believe lots of things. Um, and I I think I think that I think that happens.

¶231I think that happened uh in this instance. I at at my local church. I think that's what's happening with these stories about uh about demonic possession. Um, uh, Shan Sai, uh, points out memory distortion is a big thing, uh, in I think he's talking about in this interview, you could literally see him exaggerating miracles like Padre Pio. Yes.

¶232And I'm going to talk about one of those here. Um, so yeah. >> Yeah. It's always second, third, fourth hand. I know a guy who went on a mission trip to the heart of this rural village and they were raising people from the dead and it's like I've even had a buddy who insisted that it was very real that he had experienced you know being in a situation where someone had been raised from the dead and he actually had some ministers you know VHS tape that purported to show such a thing.

¶233So >> right, >> they say it with such confidence and they're already like usually people you know and you grant them a degree of trust and you know credibility >> and if you say that >> with enough confidence it convinces a lot of people. >> That's why they're called confidence men or conmen for short. >> Uh and I think I think this is a very useful point. This is pretty analogist to the New Testament. Yes, we have a a a collection of documents.

¶234Well, let's just talk about the Gospels for a second. Uh a collection of texts uh that I'm not even sure were written with the intention of being understood as histories or biographies of Jesus. These are uh theological documents. These are uh collections of stories that are carefully told and arranged in such a way to communicate certain theological truths on the basis of the life of Jesus. Um but these are all third hand.

¶235They are not tied to eyewitnesses. There is no claim in the actual gospels if you read them carefully enough that these are stories that come directly from eyewitnesses. Uh it is it is fanfiction. Uh it is exaggerations of things that may or may not have actually happened. We have no access to that.

¶236But that is not even the point. Um but that is that is how we end up in situations like this where people are just credulously accepting what is written in the gospels as straightforward presentations of who Jesus was and what he did a long long time ago and the person just forgot or something. Um or maybe yeah some kind of fab confabulation. He's like Joe at the beginning of the interview he said that this was a week ago and I was like okay. Um maybe he's lying.

¶237Uh so then >> well K as you well know stories can't get exaggerated in a week. >> Never. >> Everybody knows that. >> No. No.

¶238Of course not. >> Oh god. I I'm fairly sure. I mean I was born in 1973 which was the same year that Elvis died. Uh, and I'm fairly sure, >> welcome back, Elvis Presley.

¶239>> I'm fairly sure reports of Elvis's resurrection were within days or weeks. >> People have seen him. I've been reasonably assured of that by reputable sources like the Weekly World News. There's a there's a whole >> is it the that it has the eighth highest or or at least at at the time when the the very good Mike Meyers movie uh Soy Married and Axe Murderer came out the the World Weekly News had the eighth highest circulation of any periodical I believe on planet earth. So, you know, it's an entire industry.

¶240Elvis died in 1977. Shut up. What happened in 1973? >> I'm sure a lot of things happened in 1973. >> God damn it.

¶241Uh the uh the Nixon impeachment, did did did that happen in 19 was that it was did that happen in 1973? Um, >> I study the early modern period and the late colonial period. I'm not going to be able to just rattle off stuff years. >> It was an important year, everyone. 1973 was very important.

¶242I very important. Uh, oh god. See, I look I I've got that wrong. Uh, somebody said Nixon was impeached in 1974. Was he elected in 1973 or or he start it?

¶243>> Somebody help me out >> with important things that happened there. >> I'm shifting in my seat. Notice what I'm doing. I basically have just divined from the armchair that this person that I don't know, who I've never met and whom I have no independent evidence of lying is a liar. And I'm accusing him of lying because well, I just have these other like arguments or something.

¶244So like I can like divine from the armchair these like empirical facts about the world even though I have no >> these other arguments or something are I have a dragon in my garage. That's what they are. Um >> why would I call you a liar? I mean I'm just deciding from the armchair my computer chair. I've just got all these preconditions.

¶245I have no reason to suspect that you would be lying to me. So, if I tell people that you have a dragon in your garage, like they should believe me. >> The Sydney Opera House was opened in 1973. >> And yet, again, it doesn't require that someone's lying. Lying is intentional deception.

¶246It doesn't require that your friend is intentionally deceiving you. Your friend might have been duped and sincerely believe that he thinks somebody was levitating. It doesn't make him a liar. It makes him mistaken. >> Yes.

¶247>> See, I knew I knew there was a lot of stuff that happened in 1973. Sorry. >> Until I learned the tricks of stage magicians and, you know, people like that. I legitimately for a while thought that I had my leg lengthened because I mean that's I was there. I looked I saw it happen you know and then you know I later on learned that this is a very common you know illusion by stage magicians and things like that.

¶248So, you can sincerely believe something and be like, "Oh my god, I was here. I had this thing happen to me. Like, I was there." Doesn't mean you're a liar. >> Uh, >> Lyndon Johnson died in 197. >> Yeah.

¶249>> Okay. All right. >> Uh, maybe maybe >> for them. And so just >> I I was thinking about all the resurrection reports of Lyndon Johnson and confusing them. Our generation project.

¶250>> Thank you. >> That's right. >> What a good show. Hosted by Mitch Pelgi of the X Files. >> All right.

¶251>> Okay. All right. Sorry. Uh a different time stamp or >> No, I I want to continue through this uh for a bit. Okay.

¶252Okay. I was shifting in my armchair. And you know, it didn't bother me too much at the time, but then Cameron's like, "Okay, Jo, you like he was a liar. Well, let's look at this other guy, Dr. Richard Gallagher.

¶253Okay. I've had him on." And just like you go through what Dr. Richard Gallagher is talking about. He has this Julia case, for instance, that he talked about when he was with you. And like the things that he's testifying to are things that are almost impossible to be honestly mistaken about.

¶254Like he would just be >> extensive interactions with this Julia person. And then things would literally just like just be him him and her and something would literally just like fly across the room or Julia would engage in extensive fluent Latin and Greek even though she didn't know it and Dr. Richard Galler knows that because he studied Latin and Greek at Princeton or you know like and he would just describe all these different sorts of things and I was like okay so this guy who has like all the professional credit and reputations you could see like a liar. Yeah it doesn't seem like a liar. Hey, here's a quick thing for you.

¶255If you want to have a really interesting rabbit hole to go down, check out all the studies that have been done on glosselia or speaking in tongues. Turns out that those studies find that when people go into these, you know, states of glossalia, they start talking in tongues, they only use phone names that they're already familiar with. people who are say angophones or speak Spanish or whatever do not use phone names from like tonal East Asian languages. It's always phone names that they're already familiar with because of their own language. So, dude, and then they started speaking in tongue.

¶256So, wait, the guy that is fluent in Greek and Latin says that he heard somebody just break into fluent Greek and Latin. >> I mean, that's what Joe is telling us about Dr. Richard Gallagher, right? >> Okay. >> Um, so I I was interested in this person and of course, uh, I mean, why would he lie?

¶257He's, you know, a a respected psych psychiatrist. Um, he seems like a genuine person. Uh, it doesn't seem like the type of person who would tell a lie. Did he record the Latin Greek that she said like write it down or tape it up? Well, listen.

¶258Um, we'll we'll we'll we'll get to that. I mean, that's Joe says that he knows it really well. He knows these languages. So, that's how he knows. she was speaking Latin or Greek.

¶259Um so now I will say that um I am someone who has learned ancient Greek. I don't know any Latin. Um or I know a very minimal amount of Latin, but I have studied ancient Greek and I read it. Um, if I heard somebody speaking ancient Greek, after a little bit of time, I could probably sort out that they were speaking Greek, I don't know that I would be able to follow what they were saying. And if they were speaking something that sounded like ancient Greek, but was just gibberish, I'm not especially confident that I could sort that out clearly enough.

¶260So, oh, you have no idea when I was learning Hebrew, I had fun because some words sound like Oh, there you go. Right. Some languages sound like other languages. Uh so >> but this is Joe has told us this that this guy who you know seems like he would never tell a lie. Um and why would he uh why would he ever lie about about anything.

¶261Uh he says that that's this is what happened. We should give him the benefit of the doubt because we have no reason to think. We're passing judgment on somebody that we don't know as being a liar without having all the facts in. That's basically and that's supposedly bad. >> It doesn't require that they're lying.

¶262His friend could have been sincerely duped. >> Could be. >> Because I mean, again, there's a lot of these stories that they broke into a language that they had no idea. They had no way of learning. How do you know they didn't know this language?

¶263>> Okay, so I was curious about this guy because I never heard of him before. Um, so I I went to I went to look him up and there is uh this article. Oh, can you uh let's pull this off. Um, there is this article from uh Esquire magazine. Um, >> really got to get you to start using Adlock.

¶264>> Sorry. There we go. Uh Dr. Richard Gallagher, demonic possession expert, isn't trying to convince you. He is the author of uh this book, >> Demonic Foes.

¶265My 25 years. >> Not trying to convince you, Kip. He just wrote a book about it. >> That's it. He wrote He wrote a book about it.

¶266Why would he lie, Vish? Uh >> yeah, there's no money in that. >> None. Uh so the author of demonic foes talks about exorcisms, possessions, and the complicated interplay of science and spirituality. >> Oh.

¶267Mhm. Yeah. Tell me about the science of demonic possession. >> Uh I don't think I can make this bigger. Or if I can, I don't know how.

¶268Um the same as you would do with a PDF. Hit control or command plus. >> Uh okay. Uh let me uh let me control plus. There you go.

¶269>> There we go. >> And then you can just close the little banner out at the bottom. >> I'll do that. Okay. >> There you go.

¶270>> Did that happen? No, it didn't. There we go. Okay. Decades ago, Dr.

¶271Richard Gallagher, an academic psychiatrist, awoke in the night to the sound of his two otherwise docsile cats screeching and clawing at one another. Gallagher was forced to separate the berserk cats into two rooms, then went back to bed, mystified by their strange behavior. The next morning, a priest with whom Gallagher was acquainted knocked at the door, accompanied by a woman with jet black hair whose eyeliner stretched to her hairline. Oh, I wonder what that could mean. >> That's how you know she's like evil or bad.

¶272>> Is that how you know? Maybe that's an eyeliner. >> How'd you like those cats last night? She quipped. This was Julia who claimed to be a high priestess of Satanism possessed by demonic forces because Satanism is is like a totally real thing, right?

¶273>> This is a this is like a a a real religion that like people, you know, practice and are possessed by the devil through, right? If you're a Christian, you're very scared of Satanist because you think they have all sorts of crazy evil magic powers. >> What do you >> I could tell this guy's never been a cat owner because if you have more than one, they will squabble. >> They will. That's not weird.

¶274If you're mystified that cats will fight each other sometimes, you've never owned cats. >> So, what what do you know about Satanism, Fish? >> Well, there's two main branches here at least in North America. the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple. Do not get them confused because one is a harbor for really awful like abusers who repeatedly get, you know, accused of misbehavior in uh legal cases.

¶275>> So these um the people that are afraid of, oh my god, the evil's goth Satanists, they think they have all these magic powers and they're supernaturalists and all these other like occult. Most of the time what they think of as Satanism is edgy teens trying to troll people. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> If you actually engage with the writings of, you know, modern Satanism, >> you're going to be like, "Oh, this is it.

¶276That's pretty boring. Kind of not remarkable at all." like >> uh yeah, they do a lot of theater. >> Feels kind of like philosophical like >> friends were putting on theater because they liked riing up Christians. >> Oh no, you're doing a black mask. >> Okay.

¶277>> It's just it was just edgy theater. But yeah, >> edgy >> black hair, eyeliner. >> Yeah, very very legitimate. So, uh, here, let's let's keep reading. Her remarkable case was among the first of many that Gallagher would encounter in a long career spent distinguishing, this is important, >> distinguishing psychosis from alleged possession.

¶278I want you to think about that, chat. >> Y, finish that sentence. This is important. uh the sentence that I just finished >> from speaking in languages she claimed not to know to allegedly levitating for half an hour. >> Right.

¶279So, um where did where did you go? Because I don't see that. Um >> it's the it's literally that first paragraph. It's the last part of it. >> Right.

¶280Okay. Well, I'll just I'll just continue reading here. Uh Julia >> princess had tattoos, too. >> All right. Julia exhibited a series of behaviors that as Gallagher sees it constitute a once in a century possession.

¶281From speaking in languages she claims she did not know to allegedly levitating for over half an hour during an exorcism. I know I'm possessed, Julia later told Gallagher during a consultation. I space out and then don't recall what happens. Hey, you know that happened to me once, Vish, when I was on a stream with you >> and I got blackout drunk and you made me perform a sobriety test that I had to go back and watch the next day because I did not remember doing it in the moment. Um, so you know that happens.

¶282Uh, they tell me, >> "You have to give me credit because I didn't humiliate you. I didn't make you like get up and trip all over yourself." I was like, "No, just say the Hebrew alphabet backwards." >> And I did I did a [ __ ] amazing job. I think >> you did. >> Uh, considering I have no memory of it at all. Uh, yeah.

¶283Uh, so >> there's no way you could have known that language. >> All right. She continues or he appropriately he continues Dr. Gallagher to tell this story in Esquire magazine that probably also appears in the book that he is trying to sell. Uh they tell me a voice comes out of me.

¶284I don't know. I don't remember anything. It's a demon I'm sure. Um I'm fairly sure Vish I'll just say it. I am fairly sure that it was not a demon who was reciting the Hebrew alphabet while I had no memory of that while being black.

¶285>> All right. So began Gallagher's long immersion into the world of supposed demonic possession. In the decades since encountering Julia Gallagher has consulted with faith leaders from numerous religions on hundreds of cases, assisting them in the process of distinguishing troubles of the mind from what he believes are troubles of the spirit. As a result, Gallagher has been present at scores of exorcisms leading him to become a sought after resource on demonic possession. Since the early 1990s, Gallagher has been an active member of the International Association of >> International Association of Exorcists.

¶286Okay. serving for a time as a scientific adviser on his governing board. >> Uh Gallagher recounts his experiences in demonic foes. My 25 years as a psychiatrist investigating possessions uh diabolic attacks in the paranormal. A new book spanning the depth and breadth of his unusual medical career.

¶287I wonder if that book has sold a lot of copies. I I bet I bet it has. I mean, I I feel like I feel like that has New York Times bestseller written all over it. I don't know, actually. I actually do not know.

¶288Um, but I'm betting it has sold a ton of copies and has probably, you know, uh, given Dr. Gallagher a nice little bonus nest egg. Uh what what motivation could he possibly have? >> Whole industry of people who eat this stuff up. And if you don't believe me, this present darkness, >> a god.

¶289Yeah. Isn't that the truth? Um so, uh listen, but I I >> that people love supernatural scary fiction, the Left Behind series. >> Yes. um or even like outside of Christian fiction, right?

¶290Um you look at um uh things like um I mean there's there's there's plenty of of horror fiction and film. I can't think of the the the name of uh of of the series now, which is really annoying to me. But I mean, this kind of stuff makes a ton of money uh for for people. These are great stories. People like great scary stories.

¶291It's it's just it's we we we love it. Um so, uh yeah. Uh I did want to draw attention uh to this though which I think is really important in view of Dr. Gallagher >> uh claims that I think is really important because there are a couple of points there where he says that as a psychiatrist he's marshalling his expertise and then claiming to be able to from his position as an expert distinguish legitimate mental illness or um uh legitimate mental illness from actual spiritual oppression. Um, so this is from 10 years ago in uh, Skeptical Inquirer from Dean McKay, >> Rachel Amirati and Scott O Lilliamfeld.

¶292I'm just going to read this. An essay by Dr. Richard Gallagher, a sk a psychiatrist who forced to be a man of science, was featured in the July 1st, 2016 online opinions section of the Washington Post. The essay elicited strong reactions from many quarters. For example, it has drawn over 2,800 online responses as of this writing, although the title of G the title of Gallagher's essay is alarming enough.

¶293As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demon demonic possession. His grasp of science is even more troubling. In his essay, Gallagher claims to be able to identify individuals who are demonically possessed and to help exorcists distinguish them from people suffering from genuine mental illnesses. As clinical psychologists, two of whom are members of the public education and media committee of the society for a science of clinical psychology, we are deeply concerned that his approach to explaining human behavior has the potential to damage the profession and contribute to harmful mental health practices.

¶294At the outset, Gallagher tries to persuade readers that he is a skeptic. He describes himself as inclined to skepticism. Does this sound familiar? Josh told us that he's very hard to convince. >> Dr.

¶295Gallagher is inclined to skepticism. Lee Strobble was a hardened atheist investigator. >> Jay Warner Wallace was a hardened atheist police detective. >> Cold case detective. very rational.

¶296>> Dr. Gallagher describes himself as inclined to skepticism and notes that he once told an exorcist, "I wasn't likely to go in for a lot of hocus pocus." >> Uhhuh. >> He argues that respect for evidence, among other virtues, guides his approach to psychiatry, teaching, and evaluating claims concerning demonic possession. Further, he asserts reasonably that in most cases, behaviors attributed to possession can be accounted for by more prosaic problems such as medical disorder, mental illnesses, suggestability, or >> suggestability or fraud. >> But Kip, a goth chick with black hair and really, really strong eyeliner told me that she was possessed.

¶297The cats were fighting. >> Yeah. So, uh, Gallagher's apparent skepticism dissolves once he recounts the story of his first encounter with a woman whom he concluded was possessed by a demon. He describes her as a self-styled high priestess who called herself a witch and dressed the part with flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow black shadow around to her temples. Only only witches can be goths.

¶298Like they can't dress like just Betty down the street. They have to look like goths. >> It is unclear. >> Also, as someone who it here's another part of my lore. As somebody who did a wikah phase in high school, because of course did wick a phase in high school.

¶299Uh witches, if you're talking about neopagans, they don't believe in Satan. That's a Christian character outside the pantheon. So when you're like witches or Satanist like no those are literally two different things. That's like saying uh like the the Aztecs believe in Brahman. No they don't.

¶300Those are two completely different pantheons. Don't be a [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> It is unclear if the woman's prototypical appearance influenced his conclusion that she was possessed. Uh there is a study here from Tverki and Conaman for a discussion of the representativeness uristic but almost certainly other elements of her behavior did. shortly after touting his many Ivy League affiliations, which in science should carry less weight than the ability to think critically and a commitment to basing arguments on highquality data.

¶301Gallagher builds suspense by telling readers that he has witnessed phenomena that he cannot explain using conventional knowledge. He then relates the following observations regarding the woman's behavior. She could tell some people their secret weaknesses such as undue pride. >> Okay. >> She knew how individuals she'd never known had died, including my mother, and her fatal case of ovarian cancer.

¶302>> Did she just say sick? Your mom was sick? But I don't know. >> Did she specifically say ovarian cancer? >> I don't know.

¶303We weren't there. All we have to go on is Dr. Gallagher's obviously very trustworthy report of such things. Six people later vouched to me that during her exorcisms they heard her speaking multiple languages including Latin completely unfamiliar to her outside his her transes. This is kind of interesting to me um because I'm fairly sure I heard Joe say that Dr.

¶304Gallagher heard her speaking Greek and Latin and he knows this because he knows Greek and Latin. Um, but this is reported from his Washington Post article where he says that this was reported to her by six people who heard her speaking multiple languages including Latin. That's okay. >> Yeah, it's definitely not the case that, you know, the people here have seen a lot of Hollywood movies where the demonpossessed speak Latin. And I'm sure they're familiar enough with Latin to know when someone who claims to be possessed is speaking in it.

¶305I'm also sure that they could tell if it's grammatically correct. Yeah, >> because you know what famously is easy to >> Yes. >> Um, but I want to like I want to draw attention to Joe's report that Dr. Gallagher heard this stuff himself and recognized it, which is different from Dr. Gallagher's own report that people reported this to him that she was speaking.

¶306It doesn't sound like from this >> second, third, fourth hand. >> Yeah. >> Uh I'll I'll continue for a little bit here. Uh there are several serious inferential problems with Gallagher's argument. First, undue pride is hardly a rare or idiosyncratic weakness.

¶307Second, Gallagher neglects to consider the possibility that the woman's apparently preetern natural awareness could merely be the result of cold reading. Cold reading consists of a set of techniques such as making educated guesses based on population-based rates by providing highly generalized descriptions that apply to almost everyone which are routinely exploited by fortune tellers psychics. >> Yes. Faith healers do this. Um, magicians, >> psychics, >> mentalists, >> they do hot reading as well.

¶308>> Peter Popoff famously had the little earpiece in his ear and they had like surveyed people for their prayer requests and things like that on cards before the healing ceremony or service or event, whatever. and his wife would be reading off information to him and people intercepted the transmission and he was exposed for being a fraud. But you don't even need an earpiece to do hot reading. >> You don't. >> Again, if you pick up Tony Corinda's 13 steps to mentalism, it'll give you stage tricks to do, but it'll also teach you how to like cold read.

¶309It'll also also teach you how to speak in um >> in code with whoever's working with you during the uh performance, but it doesn't sound like code. >> It's just the way that you phrase certain things that will tell the person, "Oh, now I can read your mind because the prompt >> isn't code. It's >> it's a whole thing." Anyway, >> uh yeah. Third, what some some of what appears to be evidence for this woman's psychic abilities could also or alternatively reflect hot reading. Uh that is obtaining of information about a target using non uh paranormal means such as reading newspaper obituaries or searching the internet.

¶310Fourth, the assumption that a person could speak multiple languages only while in a trance is dubious at best. Did Gallagher entertain the hypothesis that she simply hadn't advertised having learned these languages previously, if she was even speaking them? How do we know that her Latin was especially accurate? Fifth, it is unclear why, given what is widely known about the limits of eyewitness testimony, Gallagher would be so willing to believe the vouched reports of a group of eyewitnesses, especially those who are presumably motivated to believe in demonic possession. The self-style selfstyled high priest priestess whom Gallagher discussed reported that she had connections to Satanism going so far as to identify herself as Satan's queen.

¶311Yet the accuracy of her report should be highly suspect given psychological research on memory. For example, laboratory research indicates that individuals who report experiencing past lives and alien abductions display higher rates of false recall and comp more recognition errors than do comparison uh participants. So, uh, I just want to say it's disappointing that Joe, the supposedly very hard to convince PhD analytical philosophy student, is so enamored, um, impressed by an appearance of this gentleman on Cameron Berusi's because I think that's that probably plays a role in this. Um, you can watch someone deliver a presentation which looks way more convincing to you than to sit down and carefully consider the written accounts of this stuff. Um, I think there can be a healthy level of distance applied to these sorts of claims when you remove the presentation of the person themselves and just consider what they're writing, what they're what they're saying, what they're what is being reported through through other uh sources.

¶312So, it's Joe, I have to say I'm not especially impressed by your own levels of critical thinking, of your levels to evaluate evidence, of your ability to engage with scientific discourse, psychological discourse, historical discourse. outside of your own field of philosophy on the basis of how you're presenting yourself to Matt Fred and to your audience as somebody who was honestly convinced that Catholicism is the truth if this is the best that you can do. You have your own reasons for converting reconverting recommitting to Catholicism. I'm not questioning that. But then to come out and say that these are the reasons, I don't know.

¶313Um, I'm going to say it again. It's disappointing. I already had a fairly low opinion of analytic philosophers of phil philosophers of religion are notorious for this. um in terms of your levels of engagement with other fields and your humility applied to other experts. You know, this is the proper time to bring this up.

¶314I'm not going to mention this individual, but there was a number of years ago somebody who was active in uh in the YouTube skeptic space who rather famously had uh Gary Habermass on his channel and interviewed him about his work on the resurrection of Jesus as well as Gary Habermass has also dabbled in um uh reports of modern reports of miracles. So he was on this on this other channel. He was interviewed about this stuff and rather famously Gary Habermass was challenged and I think it's an important challenge because I feel it all the goddamn time. Uh there are a lot of evangelical, conservative Christian uh individuals who entered into the critical study of the Bible into historical disciplines connected to the Bible and who came out on the other side of that very highly skeptical. of the biblical claims because they learned historical critical scholarship which challenges the straightforward reports of the Bible and sets them more appropriately within their actual historical, theological, religious context.

¶315Gary Haberass. Uh this is so there's a lot of people who have um come out as once professing conservative Christians. One of them is my best friend. Uh Joshua Bowen will tell you has said this on repeated occasions that he entered his PhD program at John's Hopkins University as a committed evangelical conservative Christian who held to the truth of the biblical accounts of things. And it was very quick that he basically abandoned all of that because of what he learned about the text, about the history, about the problems with it as a result of that.

¶316And he is one of a huge number of people who have gone through this same process. Uh so this is a thing lots and lots of people in my field started thinking one thing and came out thinking another. Um this once uh atheist commenter in the space who had Gary Habermass on his channel challenged him with this. This is the thing. Lots of scholars uh have you know deconstructed from previous positions as a result of their explorations of the history of the biblical text.

¶317Uh he asked Gary Habermass, "Is there anyone who has gone in the other direction? hardened uh skeptic uh once professed atheist or non-believer who entered into a PhD program in biblical studies or some other relevant historical discipline not philosophical discipline historical discipline. Is there anybody who's done this in reverse and come out on the other side said you know what >> after looking at all the historical evidence for the New Testament for the Bible uh I am now convinced having been a hardened skeptic that all of this stuff is real. Gary Habermas made the claim that yeah, he has a list somewhere and he's going to reveal it >> and this was I don't know six or seven years ago and we still haven't seen it. >> It's always a list he has somewhere.

¶318It's always a a stack of statistics he has somewhere. He's got all of his notes somewhere and he just doesn't remember. Like, dude, you've been doing this for most of your professional career. How are you not organized? How do you lose this stuff and then comp completely like appeal to it multiple times?

¶319Well, I have a list somewhere. I have it somewhere. Yeah, well, my girlfriend goes to another school. You wouldn't know her. >> This is the thing.

¶320Put up or shut up. Provide a list. Show the evidence or stop making the claim. Like right now, SJ is super all up in her like feelings right now because she's mad that I'm calling her gullible for just believing that people walk on walls just on the basis of a priest testimony. >> Yes, that makes you gullible.

¶321You can't just take someone's word for it when they say, "Hey, I saw someone defy the laws of physics the other day. They walked up a wall." That makes you gullible. Provide the evidence or stop making the claim. >> Okay? If I say like I saw a pig walking on the ceiling, you'd be like >> that's preposterous.

¶322>> Mhm. >> You wouldn't say, "Well, why would she lie about that?" >> Like, >> you seem very trustworthy, [ __ ] I have no reason to think that you would lie. >> But do you think that like priests would lie? That's against, you know, church law and it's against the Bible. Shockingly, I know this is like a complete stunning revelation, but there are confessing Christians who contradict church law all the time.

¶323Christians are not immune to lying. Priests are not immune to lying. They're also not immune to committing harms. The fact that they're a priest does not make them a moral person. Your behavior is what proves that you're a moral person.

¶324You can lie and be a priest. Those don't contradict. Be less credible. Credulous. >> Credulous.

¶325>> Be less credulous. >> Be less credulous. Uh, so I bring that up because I want to make this point. I'm a biblical scholar. I'm not a historian.

¶326Although I have to work pretty closely with cannons of history, uh, with with with developed methods, critically developed methods of historical investigation. This is part of what I have to do. Um, I'm going to say this. There's a reason why uh Gary Habermmes hasn't published that list. There's a reason why you don't see testimonies from, you know, former skeptics who entered their biblical studies program and came out on the other side believing that Jesus rose from the dead appearing on Matt Frad's podcast.

¶327There's a reason why. because we're not this credulous because we can't afford to be this credulous. This is this is the field and I'm watching Joe Schmid on this podcast and I am reminded of every philosophy bro and everyone from that I have seen promoting their credentials in the philosophy of religion. And I'm saying to you guys, uh, I am not impressed. I continue to be unimpressed by this.

¶328All this is doing is reinforcing my opinion that you're all a bunch of credulous rubes who lost the memo, missed the class that I assumed we all attended in graduate school where we were taught that when it comes to other disciplines should probably listen to the experts. I'm not a biologist. >> Those are atheist skeptics who don't have the Holy Spirit. They can't possibly understand the scriptures. You have to believe in them to believe them.

¶329You have to believe so you can understand. That's the way it goes. You can't like understand it if you don't believe. Yeah. That's what it says.

¶330>> Yeah. That's not, you know, a >> circular argument or anything. Don't worry about it. >> No, not at all. So, um I'm hoping Joe Schmid is is a PhD student in analytical philosophy.

¶331Um I supposedly has not even picked a dissertation topic yet. That I I I found that in uh in in another video. Um, but I'm I am hoping that by the time Joe picks his dissertation topic and by the time he gets through it, uh, that he will have learned that there is more outside of analytical philosophy that other academic disciplines do actually exist and have things to say about this stuff. Um I would have hoped that I will hope that by the time he's done he will have recognized that biblical scholarship is a thing that we cannot just accept the New Testament at face value uh because there's all sorts of complicated historical questions that come to bear on that. Uh so please uh show me that I am wrong about you.

¶332Uh because so far, like I said, I this is only reinforcing my already poor opinion. Um so it yeah, it um yeah, I'm I I have I did want to get to uh the next time stamp. We we've been going for two and a half hours. Uh if are there things I don't know I went on a rant in a soap box there for for a little bit. Uh no no uh Gretchen he's he started he has started his P he's in a PhD program but within the United States you do a couple of years of very rigorous coursework and go through your comprehensive examinations before you even get to the point of starting to write your uh dissertation.

¶333So, uh, yeah. Uh, so as far as I am aware, he's not there, uh, just yet. Um, so actually, this is this is probably timely. I'm going to I I I did want to because there's there's a couple of other things that um that that have come up since uh since Joe >> uh went. And I I thought this I think this is timely.

¶334>> Um, >> hang on. I got to put it on the stage first. >> Okay. >> Also, man, I really miss James Randy because he told people to put the their figurative money where their mouth is and not one person could demonstrate their supernatural claims. Not a single one.

¶335>> Yeah. So, um, so this is from a recent stream on, uh, I believe it's on Capturing Christianity's channel where a bunch of guys came to defend Joe and his, uh, his conversion, but this this caught my eye. Um there there was a super chat that uh that that came in here and uh I I just I just wanted to play just a few seconds of uh of this here. >> Why didn't Joe consider the book of Abraham? >> Uh >> okay.

¶336Um do we know what the book of Abraham is everyone? I hope I hope we do. Uh this is >> the audience. You've got a lot of new folks in the audience. Okay.

¶337So, so the book of Abraham is a text that that Joseph Smith purported to translate from an an Egyptian uh an Egyptian manuscript that he came into possession of. And uh it was, you know, used as as evidence for for a time of the the antiquity of Mormon teaching. Uh this is this is a joke uh that somebody sent in to these guys. Uh why didn't Joe consider the book of Abraham or it was supposedly written in reformed Egyptian which is not a language? Uh it's it's it's a whole thing.

¶338But I want to point something. I want to point out what's happening here. Look at these guys laughing. Look at these guys laughing about uh how Joe didn't consider the historical veracity of Mormonism because of the Book of Abraham. Um and I'm going what did Joe read the New Test were wwolves?

¶339>> Did Joe read the New Testament? Have you guys all four of you on have you read the New Testament? >> Look, if people make supernatural claims and there's a lot of witnesses, I'm not inclined to believe them without evidence, which is, I think, a pretty reasonable standard to have. But for people who are fine with just, yeah, but so and so says that he saw it, you should be Mormon because that happened within the last 150 to 200 years, not two millennia ago. So, what's the difference?

¶340Yep. Many they testified about it. Why would they lie? >> Why would they lie? Um I it's it's uh this this compounds my disappointment.

¶341uh you guys uh are convinced that you have a clear understanding of uh the New Testament. you believe that you have an accurate reading of the texts and their place within Christian history, within world history, within the history of uh book culture, within the history of Greek literature. And you obviously do not know what you're doing. So obviously for you to laugh and snicker about those silly Mormons and their their weird ideas about their scriptures. My guy, my guys, look in the mirror.

¶342>> I know >> this is what this is you. >> This is you. you are you are laughing at a character of yourselves and uh it's tiresome as somebody who is an actual scholar uh working in the historical critical details of these texts. Uh it's a joke. Uh we're we're laughing at you um because you don't know what you're doing.

¶343Um let's uh so we've yeah we've been going for over two and a half hours but I did want to talk a little bit about this if you want to jump ahead to uh the next time stamp about um uh the miracle of Kandra at 117. So this is something that also caught my attention uh as exemplary of Joe's uh naivity with respect to history and with respect to how historians work with respect to the value of textual evidence of uh documents ments in our evaluation of uh of of history. Uh but this is one of the things that was very very convincing to Jo uh in his uh journey uh to Catholicism. >> Okay. >> Cool.

¶344That came along the way um that started pushing me again more towards uh Christianity before I even met Ethan the Muse. Okay. So um one of them was uh so like the miracle of Kanda for instance. So Jimmy Aken put out a YouTube video based on um a paper that Caleb Jackson has on the miracle of Col. So this is I think in the 17th century Juan Miguel Pelicair.

¶345He's like a Spanish um farmer and his leg gets trampled on when he's out on the farm or something. And so he used to travel I think to Zaragoa Spain to get his leg amputated. Okay. So there are two doctors there that amput amputate his leg. They go out they bury it in the graveyard or whatever.

¶346And um you know he he has an extensive convolescence there because of course it's they have very primitive techniques and he has to be there for months on end being attended to by these doctors who you know by this time they know exactly who he is like you know they're spending months on months with this person that they amputated his life for. Okay. And then he goes after his combence he goes and he becomes a beggar because now he can't work. Um so he obtains his beggar's license. We still have that by the way.

¶347um he obtains his beggar's license and he basically uh every night um I think he Yeah, he every night he prays I think to um like uh Our Lady of the Pillar or something like that for um I think maybe for the healing of his leg or something like that and he was like rubbing the oil from uh something associated with Our Lady of the Pillar on his stub. Um and so you know at first for whatever reason he had caused to go back home. Uh so he goes back home and like you know he uh he's greeted by everyone there cuz like he was known by the village or whatever. And so the people there they wanted to see his stub and they literally like felt his stub um like his stub for his ear whatever. Um, and then I don't know how long he was at his home, but one night I think he like had a dream some or something of like Mary and he wakes up and his leg is back.

¶348His leg is back. And so like everyone's like going insane. They have like um um like a canonical investigation for him, like an inquisi like the uh Inquisition trial they have for this just to make sure like is this a fraud? Like what is going on? And we literally have like the transcripts from that.

¶349We have like two dozen people from his town testifying to like feeling his stump beforehand. No leg. And then afterwards leg. So no leg leg. We even have they even sought out the two people who amputated his leg and attended to him in his comolescence.

¶350They sought him out and they gave testimonies at this trial as well. They're like, "Yeah, I amputated this guy's leg." So like we have just dozens of testimonies to a leg being miraculously miraculously restored. People can look at the video on like Jimmy Akens channel and they can go to Caleb Jackson's paper on academia. I think he may turn it into a blog post on his Substack. But like I'm like, "Oh gosh, like this is insane." Like this is much better evidence than the resurrection for instance.

¶351like in my in my view like the resurrection like yeah we >> go for it. Uh well, I mean, in the first place, I think I think that's quite telling, but I also think it's a good point, and this is part of the problem of setting your standards of religious devotion on uh an event that is and and the level of evidence for that event. What he says is true. Um there is more evidence for this contemporary 400year-old miracle claim in Spain than there is for the resurrection of Jesus. Uh what did we say Vish?

¶352What did the Apostle Paul say about um the the the value of the resurrection of Jesus? We read it from 1 Corinthians chapter 1. he said and uh I I don't know maybe I'll uh yeah I'll I'll just I won't put it on the screen but I I will remind everyone u since the wisdom of God for since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom God decided through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who believe for Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom but we proclaim name Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

¶353Christ crucified. That's it. That was Paul's message. uh because it's foolishness. It's poorly evidenced.

¶354Uh on its own, it's not convincing because of the wisdom of the world. Uh Joe's right. This miracle claim, the supposed miracle claim from the 17th century is much better evidenced than the New Testament claims about the the crucifixion and resurre about the resurrection of Jesus. But that's kind of the point. Um, you're not supposed to believe on the basis of volumes of evidence.

¶355You're supposed to believe on faith. Um, all the miracle claims are not supposed to. I mean, as much as as as anybody wants them to purport to the truth of the gospel, according to the Apostle Paul, you're supposed to just discard all of that. All you need according to the Apostle Paul is Christ crucified. Uh but Joe is not that that's not what convinced Joe.

¶356Uh Joe was convinced by uh this 400-year-old story of a man who had his leg amputated and supposedly uh later the leg uh reappeared. >> What do you do? Do you know anything about this? >> Oh yeah. I mean, I've heard uh several people discuss this and talk about the incredible lack of evidence and how this just kind of spun into a bunch of hyperbolic legends.

¶357And yeah, it's um it's one of those that really doesn't frustrate me quite as much as like a bunch of people claim they saw a miracle in the sky, but only the people who already believed it. Yeah. >> Also, I just want to remind credulous folks in the chat that 1 Corinthians 14 talks about what sorts of signs convince believers versus non-believers. Believers have prophecy. Tongues are for non-believers.

¶358>> Where are those things happening? because it doesn't mention healing at all in those that little passage. Doesn't mention anything at all about exorcisms in that passage. >> It's true. >> I mean, I think exorcism is a way cooler sign.

¶359I think supernatural violations of the laws of nature are a way cooler sign. That would definitely make me stop and con like consider some stuff, but no. Glossy apparently is supposed to make me believe. That's the one. >> So, um I want to get back to this this miracle this supposed miracle of of Kandra for a second which took place in uh 16th or 17th century Spain during the Spanish acquis acquis Inquisition which is something that you do know quite a bit about.

¶360Um, now I'm just thinking here under these conditions when a miracle claim is made and endorsed by the Catholic Church, um, is there anything like does the Inquisition motivate anyone in one direction or the other in terms of how uh, willing they are to to publicly affirm or denounce. >> I'm really glad that you asked me that because you know that I study the Inquisition as a hobby. >> Mhm. >> I read court transcripts. I read the actual manuscripts for fun, if you can call it fun.

¶361It's pretty dark material >> in Spanish. >> There's all sorts of claims that are made in these courts. Like records, man. People are accused of witchcraft. They're accused of idolatry.

¶362They're accused of being secret Jews. They're accused of [ __ ] Muhammadianism, you know, just being Muslims. They're also, you're going to really freak out at this. They really didn't like Lutheran. >> Yeah.

¶363Wrong kind of Christian. Not allowed. >> But, uh, since you asked, Yeah. People are motivated to say a lot of things in inquisition chambers as it turns out and they're motivated to report things to the Inquisition. Like there are people who wanted to get at their neighbors or business partners and would report them to the Inquisition.

¶364Sometimes their accusations had merit. Sometimes they were just made up. >> See, >> but uh what's really fun about that is uh if the Inquisition arrested you and decided that you were guilty of whatever you were charged with, they got to take all your assets and your money. >> It's great. It's really cool.

¶365>> Yeah. See, this is the sort of context and nuance that you understand if you're well-versed in historical disciplines uh are extremely important when it comes to evaluating the kinds of documents that you're dealing with and the sorts of claims that are being made. Um, as an historian, when you're evaluating the documents of the Spanish Inquisition and the claims being made in them, uh, you take into consideration these sorts of things, uh, outside pressures, uh, ration that people uh, employ because they feel sometimes they feel like they have to. uh in order in in order to survive the ordeal, in order to uh come out on, you know. So, um yeah, but this is interesting to me.

¶366So, the he told the story here of a man who had his leg crushed. Uh it it was uh it became infected. He went to a hospital in another town that took several days to get there and apparently had it amputated and got a license as an amputee for begging and and did this for like 2 years, moved back home and was living with his parents and then after two years uh the the claim was not that his leg grew back necessarily that a new leg grew back. The claim was actually that the original leg was restored and they went and like because in at at the time when you amputated a limb uh the common practice was then to take the limb that had been amputated and bury it. So the claim is that the limb was restored and they went back and and after two years found the place where they buried that particular limb and dug, you know, went to dig it up and it wasn't there.

¶367Uh, and they were able to, you know, the the limb that was restored had the same kind of bruises and marks on it that So, it's not that a new limb grew in its place. It's that the original limb that was cut off was somehow reattached miraculously. Um, and we have, the reason we know that is because they went back and looked for it and it's not there, right? The limb is is missing uh from the place that they buried it two years ago. Uh so uh um I I want to put this up because David Hume uh actually talks about this case in his um of miracles his famous treatise on miracles.

¶368So this is this is something that he was already dealing with hundreds like like contemporary like this isn't it's not anything new. Um, this is not should people shouldn't be surprised that uh somebody made these sorts of claims and that there's documentation for it. Uh, I just thought it was useful to maybe look and see what David Hume had to say about it. >> Can I read this? >> Yes, please.

¶369>> All right. Can you make it imbigened like maybe one more notch? >> All right. >> Okay. Okay.

¶370Cool. Yeah, they picked a very like interesting font for this, so I want to make sure that I don't misread. There is also a memorable story related by Cardinal Duretses, which may well deserve our consideration. When that intriguing politician fled into Spain to avoid the persecution of his enemies, he passed through Sarosa, the capital of Aragon, where he was shown in the cathedral a man who had served seven years as a doorkeeper and was well known to everybody in town that had ever paid his devotions at that church. He had been seen for so long a time wanting a leg, but recovered that limb by the rubbing of holy oil upon the stump, and the cardinal assures us that he saw him with two legs.

¶371This miracle was vouched by all the cannons of the church and the whole company in town were appealed to for a confirmation of the fact whom the cardinal found by their zealous devotion to be thorough believers of the miracle. Here the relator was also contemporary I think they meant to the supposed prodigy of an incredulous and libertine character as well as of great genius. the miracle of so singular a nature as could scarcely admit of a counterfeit and the witnesses very numerous and all of them in a manner spectators of the fact to which they gave their testimony. And what adds mightily to the force of the evidence and may double our surprise on this occasion is that the cardinal himself who relates the story seems not to give any credit to it and consequently cannot be suspected of any concurrence in the holy fraud. He considered justly that it was not requisite in order to reject a fact of this nature to be able accurately to disprove the testimony and to trace its falsehood.

¶372Though all the circumstances of neighboring credul which produced it through all the the circumstances, he knew that as this was commonly altogether impossible at any small distance of time and space, so it was extremely difficult even where one was immediately present by reason of the bigotry, ignorance, cunning, and roguary of a great part of mankind. He therefore concluded, like a just reasoner, that such an evidence carried falsehood upon the very face of it, and that a miracle supported by any human testimony was more properly a subject of derision than of argument. >> So the the priest, did I get that right? The the the cardinal who related the story does not believe the story. >> Didn't believe it.

¶373>> He didn't believe it. Um because >> she was like, "Yeah, people don't sprout or regrow limbs. >> You can't regrow a limb." Uh >> especially when you just rub some oil on it. >> Yeah. Like >> uh I want to I want to jump ahead here to um to to this this conclusion by Hume.

¶374>> All right. The wise lend a very academic faith to every report which favors the passion of the reporter, whether it magnifies his country, his family, or himself, or in any other way strikes in with his natural inclinations and propensities. But what greater temptation than to appear a missionary, a prophet, an ambassador from heaven, who would not encounter many dangers and difficulties in order to attain so sublime a character? Or if by the help of vanity and a heated imagination, a man is first made a convert of himself and entered seriously into the delusion, whoever scruples to make use of pious frauds in support of so holy and meritorious a cause. The smallest spark may hear a kindle into the greatest flame because the materials are always prepared for it.

¶375The avidum genus aricularum the gazing populace receive greedily without examination ever soothes superstition and promotes wonder. >> How many stories of this nature have in all ages been detected and exploded in their infancy? How many more have been celebrated for a time and have afterwards sunk into neglect and oblivion? Where such reports therefore fly about. The solution of phenomenon is obvious, and we judge in conformity to regular experience and observation when we account for it by the known and natural principles of credul and delusion.

¶376And shall we, rather than have a recourse to so natural a solution, allow of a miraculous violation of the most established laws of nature, I need not mention the difficulty of detecting a falsehood in any private or even public history at the place where it is said to happen. much more when the scene is removed to ever so small a distance. Even a court of this is a new word for me. >> Judicature. >> Interesting.

¶377Okay. With all the authority, accuracy, and judgment which they can employ find themselves often at a loss to distinguish between truth and falsehood in the most recent actions. But the matter never never comes to any issue if trusted to the common method of altercation and debate and flying rumors, especially when men's passions have taken part on either side. In the infancy of new religions, the wise and learned commonly esteem the matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention or regard. And when afterwards they would willingly detect the cheat in order to undeceived the deluded multitude.

¶378All the seasons now passed, and the records and the witnesses which might clear up the matter have perished beyond recovery. No means of detection remain. But those which must be drawn from the very testimony itself of the reporters, and these, though always sufficient with the judicious and knowing, are commonly too fine to fall under the comprehension of the vulgar. upon it. Okay, it appears no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof, and that even supposing it amounted to a proof would be opposed by another proof, derived from the very nature of the fact which it would endeavor to establish.

¶379It is experience only, which gives authority to human testimony, and it is the same experience which assures us of the laws of nature. When therefore these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have nothing to do but subtract the one from the other and embrace an opinion either on one side or the other with that assurance which arises from the remainder. But according to the principle here explained, this subtraction with regard to all popular religions amounts to an entire annihilation. And therefore, we may establish it as a maxim that no human testimony can have such a force as to prove a miracle and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion. No human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle and to make it a just foundation for any such system of religion.

¶380Um thank you uh David Hume. Yeah, >> but I think >> Yeah, it's uh it's this is this is for for for Hume understood Hume, a famous philosopher, understood uh the value of rigorous historical investigation and the value of methodological skepticism withholding uh your with withholding your affirmation until all the facts are in place. it uh it just I I'm struggling to see how and I I mean I I I have to think it's there's more to this than I was convinced by the evidence to embrace uh this faith. In his reputation video, Joe addresses this objection from Hume. His answer is no.

¶381But Joe, uh, please Joe, >> take some courses in history. >> And I love this studies. A shame that Hume didn't apply skept this skepticism to his racism. What can you expect from an 18th century? >> Fair.

¶382Exactly right. Fair. Absolutely. That is that is true. So, um, I want to share one more thing.

¶383I want to look I want to read two more Bible texts and then uh it's been three hours and Dapper is doing a stream right now that we're all going to go and uh and and watch when we're done. But we're going to finish with this uh because I think I think it's um No, there we go. Uh, I I think it's a useful reminder um to not just the uh the the skeptic the skeptics the the the non-religious skeptics in my audience but also the uh the the the skeptical believers in my audience. So this first text is from u Matthew chapter 7. I'm going to start at verse 21 here.

¶384Oh, is this Matthew chapter 7? No, that's Matthew chapter 1. >> That's one >> one. Um, that's seven starting at verse 21. >> So, people are like, "You're quoting the Bible.

¶385I can't believe we're doing Bible in the Bible stream." Like, I quoted some Bible. I read First Corinthians 14. >> Bible stream, guys. >> Yeah. >> What did you expect?

¶386We always sort of kind of >> uh so and you're you're going to get a whole lot more Bible in this three-hour stream than you get in uh Joe's stream on uh Pints with Aquinus or I'm willing to bet many other of Joe Schmidst Street. >> And uh honestly uh I I think I think you're doing this wrong. I think you need to start here right before you're going anywhere else. Jesus speaking, purportedly speaking, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those only the one who does the will of my father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?

¶387Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Go away from me, you who behave lawlessly. And then I want to read from the Gospel of John chapter 20 uh vers 24 to 30. This is a famous story and one that is unfortunately often misapplied in people's theologies. This is the story of Thomas who is called the twin.

¶388>> One of the 12 was not with them when Jesus came. Uh this is when Jesus came and appeared to the remaining 11 uh disciples. So the other disciples told him we have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, "Unless I see the marks of nails in his hands, and put my fingers in the mark of the nails, and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be to you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands.

¶389Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe. Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God." Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that were not written in this book. But the point is for this gospel writer, for the Apostle Paul, for the leaders of the New Testament church, that it's not the signs and wonders and the miracles and the exorcisms and the statues that cry and bleed.

¶390It's not that that is the measure of their faith. It's to those who haven't seen such things that uh that are are most to be favored. So I don't know. Um I I I'm coming back to this. Um, I'm not impressed by philosophical arguments of this nature, especially ones that do not factor into consideration the Bible, the text, and the New Testament that do do not bother to take into consideration the history of the text, the history of the people behind the text, the critical biblical scholarship that is so important for understanding these texts where they came from.

¶391Um, and you know why they are where they are. Uh, I'm not impressed by people who just ignore that or who attempt to sidestep that in favor of something. >> I always I find this story about Thomas also kind of ironic is that Thomas was like, you were saying this guy came back from the dead? Uh, nuh-uh. I don't believe that.

¶392I need to see it. And instead of them going, "Well, you just need to have faith." Jesus literally shows up and goes, "Hey, Thomas, check it out. Put your fingers in." >> But he then chastises him. >> And chastise him to go, "H, I can't believe that you would ask. You just don't have faith." He was just like, I mean, apparently, hey, people, you know, the implication, I guess, is like people shouldn't need proof, but he gave Thomas evidence that he asked for according to the narrative.

¶393Like, obviously the text doesn't explicitly say that Thomas put his hand in the wounds. He just sees Jesus and goes, "Whoa, >> yeah, that's it." >> But >> yeah, >> it's not relevant. This is often used to sidestep people asking for evidence. >> Exactly. >> When Jesus literally shows up because Thomas was like, "I won't believe it till I see it.

¶394I just never >> try to square that circle." Man, >> uh, I was never here asked, "Should I be the exceptional philosopher of religion who consults you on the Hebrew Bible and doesn't suck at the Bible?" I would prefer that more philosophers of religion didn't suck at the Bible. Yes, please. Uh and talk to actual biblical scholars about the Bible instead of pretending like it it doesn't matter because it sure as hell does. So, absolutely. I I I welcome it.

¶395Shh, I was never here. So, um >> uh >> Okay. Um, no. No. No one is going to comment on that because you know what it stop.

¶396This is not >> Also, I know you're full of [ __ ] I'm built like a pint glass. Saying that I have curves tells me that you just don't know what I look like. I'm a stick figure. Curves. Not quite.

¶397My big chipmunk cheeks are probably the curviest thing about me. Also, That's a little weird of a comment to me. >> Creepy. Yeah. So, please please don't be creepy in my comments.

¶398All right. So, uh that's it for today. Um I Yeah. little different from from usual, but uh you know I just I was I was frustrated uh by by seeing this and just the just reflecting on the bankruptcy of so much of this uh philosophy bro [ __ ] when it comes to handling matters of uh of faith and religion and uh guys, uh, get back to reading your Bibles, please, and listening to experts about the Bible when they talk about it. And, you know, you should take that seriously.

¶399>> It was very frustrating. Thank you. >> You're welcome. You're welcome for the frustrating video. I I could recommend um if if you guys are interested in more of this kind of stuff um uh go and check out uh Katie Lewis over at Nerd Church who did a great stream about it yesterday and I believe has some more planned.

¶400Oh um yeah. So so go and go and and check those out. Um that's it for us today. tomorrow. I believe we are both on Dapper's channel.

¶401Uh, Dapper Dinosaur, >> thank you for saying that you like my cosplay. Uh, for those of you who are going to be in Atlanta next week for Dragon Con, I will be there. Not with as many costumes this year. My life's been kind of chaos. I'll have a few things, but uh the one new thing that I'm bringing, I'm pretty pretty uh entertained by how it's going to land with folks.

¶402So, uh yeah. So, uh we're on we're on tomorrow at uh 3 Eastern, noon Pacific on Dapper Dinosaurs channel. And I believe it's not it's not actually a Dapper Reacts. Uh, it is a it is a Gish with Vish. >> It's Gish with Fish.

¶403Yep, we are back. >> I've been invited to hang out. >> Discord folks found more Dwayne Gish material to react to. So, here we go. Gish round two.

¶404>> So, come and check out Dapper Dinosaur and Vishanti. And I'll I'll hang around for that. And then tomorrow night, uh, there will be another episode of Budget Scripture Saturday at 10 o'clock Eastern, 7 o'clock Pacific, where I will be back with, uh, my co-hosts Niti and Dr. Tapioca Weasel. Um, and we will be reviewing more Bad Bible and AI slop, which is always fun.

¶405And >> and uh, Dr. Dr. Tapioca Weasel and I will tell the story of the meeting with the creationist trucker at the uh roadside uh tourist trap on the desert highway. Uh so be sure >> be be sure be sure to come and check it out though. Uh Simone says, "Is it though?

¶406Is it Come on. It's always it's always fun." Yes, because even if the material they're reviewing sucks and is painful to look at, the more altered they get, the more entertaining it is. >> It's true. >> At least >> you guys You guys have had the pleasure of watching uh Dr. Tapioca Weasel put funnels on his head.

¶407You have got to watch me do a sobriety test that I don't even remember doing. Um, I have operated power tools on my show. >> That's dangerous, >> but but it it it's happened. So, uh, this is, uh, this is what the show is, and you should Oh, god damn. Did How did I forget about that?

¶408You got to see Tommy's feet against my better judgment. But, uh, it is, uh, it's it's a great show. Uh, y'all should uh come and check it out. >> I also have anti-semitism channel. >> Oh [ __ ] Yes.

¶409>> Aka like half the time that I'm scrolling social media. Yeah. >> Uh we try to avoid those as much as uh as as possible. But you know um sometimes sometimes those those those jump scare all of us sadly. So, um please yeah, come come and check it out.

¶410Um but until then, unless I see feet as >> as you as you should. Um as as you should. >> Unless >> unless they're unless they're a person who's really into the fashion industry and is obsessed with shoes, >> you never see feet or shoes on a ghost. Was that Was that text written by Jerry Brudos? Wow.

¶411If you know, you know. >> All right. Uh it's late. We're getting out of here. So, uh until next time, uh be good, stay safe.

¶412>> Hell, man. And as always, everyone, take Yeah. Heat. Yeah. Heat.