The Atheist Experience

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Shannon Q is joined by our longtime friend and co-host, Matt Dillahunty. Welcome back to the co-host chair Matt, we’re glad you are here to join us! (Shannon is taking the reins this week!)Let’s get to calls. Our first caller is Jenna from California. She’d like to discuss how her current boyfriend is freaking out about COVID and thinks they would be better off believing in his previous religion (JW) because we are clearly in the “end times.” Next up, Ricky from Georgia says Matt, theologians, and philosophers are all wrong about morality. He also talks about social cohesion and how it relates to morality. But, he seems to agree with Matt for most of the call...so, how again is Matt wrong?Pack it up folks, AXP is done. The next caller says Matt already believes in God. James is saying this in a roundabout way by intentionally manipulating words and trying to pull a “Gotcha!” Boring, NEXT!Next up, Mike in California misinterprets some of Matt’s previous videos. Ooh

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Hemant Mehta of The Friendly Atheist! https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/ Welcome, Hemant, we’re so glad you’re here!Time for calls! The first caller is a returning caller, Keith from Nebraska. He poses a question about hauntings and the supernatural...in a graveyard?! This story sounds very true and legitimate.Next up, Steve in Ohio. He is claiming his prediction about Trump is coming true, except that small part where it’s not even possible for it to be true or untrue yet...Nicolas asks: What if we devise a way to test or measure the supernatural? Will that prove the supernatural and God? The supernatural just means science may not have a way to understand it yet. Once it is understood, then it ceases to be supernatural. Craig in Texas wonders if people have the right to be stupid. Willful ignorance can be harmful to others, so in that sense, no, but this definitely seems to be a grey area.Julian asks a brand new question: how can A

The Atheist Experience is hosted today by Matt Dillahunty and Scott Clifton! Scott is an actor who’s well-known for his award-winning soap opera roles in shows such as “The Bold and the Beautiful”, but he’s also a secular activist! (Check him out at https://www.youtube.com/user/TheoreticalBullshit, or on Twitter @TheoreticalBullshit.) After sharing some sweet stories of Scott sending Matt’s grandmother Christmas headshots, we jump into calls!Josh in Tennessee was asked by his atheist wife to call in. Judging by his “evidence” for god, it seems as though he maybe hasn’t questioned his belief, but he’s friendly and open to conversation. This is awesome! (Be like Josh.)Russell in Georgia calls in to talk about how alien encounters are consistent with the Bible, then offers an analogy between himself as a parent using “tough love” to what God does to us as “his children.” He ends up saying morality is fickle because our perception as humans changes overtime, It’s yet another misunderstanding the difference betwee

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Seth Andrews. Seth is a long time friend of Matt and a friend of the show. Welcome back!First up, we have Jonathan in MI, who claims to have solid evidence for god. For example, he takes it on faith that they found Jesus’ tomb and his cross still stands in Jerusalem. Faith is not a good pathway to truth. Work on your Google-fu, Jonathan.Stephen in IL is up next. He was raised reform Jewish and is questioning if Jewish history and Hebrew school is right for his son, more for the culture of it. Our hosts are for religious history classes, just not the advocacy for a god.Matthew from NC is next up. His dad had cancer and Matthew believes his father's faith gave him strength to make it through the ordeal and into experimental treatments. We shouldn't have to lie to ourselves to push through. Great topic caller!RJ in CO is calling to argue that evolution is false and the Judeo-Christian theory is correct. He goes on to argue the origin of

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Jim Barrows. Jim is one of ACA’s own hosts and we are happy to have him today! Welcome back Jim!First up we have Emyn in OH, who is calling in about the Monty Hall problem. Pick a door Jim! Matt is not sure how this ties to atheism and thinks the analogy is untenable. Maybe compose your thoughts in an email?Jeury in NY is up next. He is calling to ask how to deal with conversations when there is no point. Our hosts explain that you need patience and may have to know when to walk away and regroup. Oscar from IN is asking why Matt is an atheist and not agnostic. Matt was a southern baptist and was trying to demonstrate the belief in god and found his way out. There didn’t seem to be a point so on to more callers.Gerard in CT is calling in to challenge Matt on believing as many true things and as few false things as possible. The caller goes on to demonstrate he wants to believe as many true things as possible. Daniel from CA is saying th

Today we’re joined by Justin Looney, who helps the ACA by answering the e-mails you, the fans, send us! After some regular announcements, he offers some tips about e-mailing (or voice mailing) the ACA, its shows, or members. Then off to calls!Our first caller, Michael in Pennsylvania calls in to say he doesn't want to publicly label himself an atheist "because atheism is too close to communism." He won't budge from the position that America is inherently tied to theism due to particular words in its founding documents.David in Mexico City wants to call nature "God" for what he claims are pragmatic reasons when talking to theists. (AKA: It's easier to talk to theists about stuff if you just say you believe in God.)Next up, Steve in Ohio wants to bet $1,000 the following prediction is accurate: Trump will lose the election in November, refuse to give his position over in January, and become a military-backed King of the U.S...We'll see you in January, Steve.Questions...and agreements?! Josh in Israel doesn't bu

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Shannon Q. Shannon is a longtime friend of the ACA and we are glad she is joining us today! Welcome Shannon!First up we have Earl in New York, who has proof of the nephilim (aka giants.) He claims his “evidence” comes from the bible. It could be confirmation bias and very likely internet hoaxes or conspiracy theories. Shannon puts it best: “Advocate for your own understanding. Go and find your sources, seek out the information, do the research.”Will in Washington is up next, claims the ability to perceive beauty is proof and evidence of God. Will sounds a little confused about his thoughts and comes off a bit hostile. Dude, chill and maybe email us! Or not.Victor from New Mexico claims to have had a demon inside him and the only remedy was Jesus. Goes on to say that a lot of this could very well rooted in anger and hatred of others. Shannon gets to the core of his issues. And he hasn’t listened to a word Shannon has said. Sigh.Ivan in

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Lloyd Evans. Welcome back to the co-host chair Lloyd, I quite enjoyed your last appearance on the show and have since added ‘an onslaught of nutters’ to my lexicon.Let’s get to calls. The first caller is Dave in Austria. He would like to invite us to question slavery in a different way, one that shifts the question. Matt has OPINIONS about this. Next up, Sawyer from Australia would like to talk about becoming an atheist activist after leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses. Lloyd has a fantastic perspective and whether this is the right path for him.Kevin in Arizona claims Matt has a flaw in reasoning on whether it was rational to believe in god. He also says essentially god exists beyond our reality. “I have a cognitive bias and I don’t care if it’s flawed or an argument for personal experience.” Sigh.Douglas in Georgia is up next wanting to prove the existence of a soul. He talks about the argument for the existence of a soul and that a soul is

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Phil Ferguson. Phil has been a long time and recurring co-host on the show. Welcome back to the co-host chair Phil! Also happy birthday Phil!Let’s get to calls. The first caller is David from Georgia. He claims that 100,000 years ago, the magnetic field was decaying and caused the Earth to… all of the what? I am not following this caller at all. Phil puts it succinctly: “Wow, that was… profound.”Next up, a different David, this time from New York would like to talk about prostitution and has reasons for believing it is morally wrong. He provides these reasons and doesn’t provide evidence or provide justification for these reasons: 1. Self value (“selling oneself”) 2. Harmful/damaging to one’s self/spiritually/psyche. It sounds more like he has a personal problem with it and seems to be projecting. Paul wants to know why atheism is a better default position than theism. It’s real simple, Paul. We have no evidence for the existence of a

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by the wonderfully amazing Don Baker. Before we get to calls, we have a topic to discuss from Don: ‘Are Christians Lazy?’Let’s get to calls. Andrew from California wants to discuss something that has never EVER been discussed on the show… Are you ready for it? Julian from Canada would like to break down (in a nonreligious way) that a god or deity or higher power exists. Are we ready to get dizzy? When pressed on the definition of god, he responds with “god created himself and creation.”Keyon from Utah is wondering how we had the first babies and how they came about. Ummm… they came from their moms? He also tries to argue against evolution, talk about divine human intervention through “visions” at church, and we are just denying god. Wait. what!? O.oCaller Dave is next wanting to talk about Christian laziness with Don. This will be great! Don asks for examples he would like to talk about and Dave claims it’s the atheists’ burden to bring t

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Johnny Angel. Welcome back to the co-host chair Johnny! We loved having you on with us a couple weeks back, glad to see you again!Let’s get to calls. The first caller in the queue is a returning caller, Javier from Florida. He would like to discuss how he had a street discussion with a preacher against theism and it had him in a bit of a fluster. It sounds like he is almost on his way out and clinging to religion it seems. Good luck to you Javier!Next up, Dormand from New Jersey claims that he can prove a god and this god is all powerful. He’s called before and we’ve gone over this before with him. But this time he claims he can prove it with mathematics and philosophy! Show your work then, I’m waiting for the equations and eventual fallacies. Nathan is up next, claiming he has good reasons to believe in god, and it’s FAITH. It’s our problem we don’t believe because we are atheists, man. C’mon dude, give us something to work with here

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Jenna Belk is joined by Anthony Magnabosco. Here’s his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/magnabosco210/ and here is his website: https://streetepistemologyinternational.org/ Ready for round two Anthony? We are so glad you are here. It should be a good show!Let’s get to calls. The first caller is Trudy from Texas. She is all over the place on this call and super difficult to follow; babies are miracles, she has an Atheist best friend, she experienced an NDE. Listen in and challenge yourself to figuring out what her point is because I’m totally lost.Next up, Debbie in New England is calling in with her son Eric who was on a mission trip in Australia and is now home. He was encouraged to call in with his mom as an update from their last call. He talks about his reconversion and his experience within the LDS church. He was convinced of these two things: The LDS church and their message/teachings made sense and was appealing to him. Ooooh boy.Adam calls in saying h

Welcome back to The Atheist Experience! Today’s show is hosted by Matt Dillahunty & Shane Isgrig. We have a little pre-show chatter, but most important is we have Secular Survey results! https://www.secularsurvey.org/executive-summaryCharles is curious whether our hosts accept any sort of supernatural phenomenon, then explains that God is as clear as the cause of a scraped knee!David wants to talk about Aristotle’s reason for believing in God, assuming we care specifically about Aristotle’s opinion.Andre has an argument from quantum mechanics. The call ends quickly and Matt and Shane discuss these odd “proofs for God” from quantum mechanics. What an interesting follow up from quantum gods. Michael says God exists, doesn’t exist, is mathematics, and is reality. Uh...what?!Brian believes Matt’s position on how likely a god is to exist changed, and Matt clarifies this misunderstanding of his own positions.Glenn says the whole show is pointless, because God doesn’t exist and no one will ever call in with evid

Welcome back to The Atheist Experience! Today’s show is hosted by Matt Dillahunty with guest Dave Warnock. Dave is an ex-pastor turned atheist who was recently diagnosed with ALS, a terminal illness. He now travels the world talking to interested groups about dying as an atheist, embracing life’s “moments,” all wrapped up in one statement: Dying Out Loud. (https://www.daveoutloud.com/) Dave also advocates death with dignity, which allows those with conditions like his to choose when they’re ready to go, when they have had enough pain.Javier wants to know what Dave and Matt think about the concept that religious leaders often are the catalysts of religious followers losing their faith.Marcus claims to have a syllogism that proves theists and atheists are just as rational as one another. He then explains that a bad argument isn’t necessarily one that leads to a wrong answer, as if we didn’t already know and say that on this show...constantly.David calls in to ask Dave a specialised question: What should I do to

Greetings folks! Today’s episode of the Atheist Experience is brought to you by, I can’t think of anything clever to say, so it’s brought to you by virtual hugs. Virtual Hugs to all! Today’s episode of the Atheist Experience is, Matt Dillahunty and Jenna Belk. It’s going to be a great show!Let’s get to calls. Our first caller is Bug from Texas. He wants to discuss how he is convinced there is no deity helping us make our decisions. He also rambles a bit and it was difficult to really follow what the topic was, but he seems very sincere. Good luck to you Bug!Next up, Phillip from Florida would like to speak about “the Absence of God Paradox”, claiming if there are no divine laws, God doesn’t exist, and religion is wrong. That’s not a paradox though? The following caller is Javier from Florida. What is going on in Florida?… don’t answer that! He posits that the foundation for morality is subjective. Matt then says “There is no objective reason to care about well-being, nor what you think your God wants.” Pretty

Welcome back to The Atheist Experience! Today’s show is hosted by Matt Dillahunty and Jim Barrows! We start the show with a little more COVID-19 talk, as has become an unfortunate tradition in recent days. Jim addresses an earlier comment he made about suicide as a sin in the Catholic church.Our first caller, Tony in South Africa, thinks that atheists (he uses the strong definition of believing there is no god) and theists can both be correct about God. There is a god, but also...there isn’t. Maybe.Aligaz in San Antonio claims to have undeniable scientific proof of god, but things get squirrely when Matt asks for a definition of god. We get to all-powerful, and Aligaz’s response to whether or not God can create a rock so big he can’t lift it is surprising.In what immediately sounds like a strange re-definition of “god,” Tony in Illinois (who claims to be neither atheist nor theist) says that men are gods, but have to earn the title. Turns out he means people will figure out how to overcome the end of the eart

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by two very distinguished guests and friends of the ACA, Nick Fish and Debbie Goddard of American Atheists. They definitely have some experience being atheists and we are happy to have them join us today! Also, happy zombie day to all, keep your brain safe by staying inside and away from everyone. Let’s get to calls. The first caller is Guardy from Canada. He believes that some people need God because they also need defined rules given to them. And he’s an atheist? This is interesting and may potentially melt your mind. Good for zombie day I guess?And we are done, we have our Sundays back folks. Dewitt has historical proof of Jesus. Though, his name was Yeshua, and oh he probably didn’t exist... nevermind. hmmm… how historic is this claim because I have serious doubts? I’ve noticed lately that we get this kind of call quite a bit. But because we get this sort of argument frequently doesn’t make it true. Even though we are done here and ha

Welcome back to The Atheist Experience! Today’s show is hosted by Matt Dillahunty and friend of the show Dragnauct Sylvas. We start the show with discussion about the coronavirus and its effects on daily life, from isolation depression to grocery store gross-outs. Then, we get to caller numero uno!Dragnauct picks an interesting topic from Gavin, who says he wants to check in on his own rationale. Gavin says he believes in a soul, or at least something like it, based on some experiences he’s had in life, but he’s pretty sure something about that rationale is faulty. Is he right?Brian in Washington, DC calls in to convert Matt by asking, “What’s wrong with being a saint?” and using a version of Pascal’s Wager. When Matt and Dragnauct bring up the fact of Catholic cover-ups of child molestation, Brian starts to get a little squirrely.We have a few frequent callers, and one is coming back: Kamal in Alabama was brought into a Facebook intervention by his family, who tried to bring him back to Jesus. We’ve all had

SUMMARYWe look funny today, but it’s because our awesome crew figured out a way for us to continue the show from individual hosts’ and crew members’ homes! Thanks, guys! We start off with a bang: What do we do about church gatherings that could spread the corona virus more? If God isn’t real, why is religion influential? Can you even test science, and do the same forces that “created” the universe still exist? Isn’t there something “higher” that’s apparent? Why is Matt inconsistent with standards of evidence for others’ beliefs vs. his own? Ending the night with a beautiful summary of so much of this show’s history: Why don’t we believe in Jesus and his resurrection? But then technical issues cause us not to end the night, so we talk to Lana about her family’s gross treatment of her transgender daughter. And that ends our show.SHOW NOTESToday’s show looks different, because we’re all at home right now! Hosts, crew, all of us! Even me, writing these notes (although that’s no technical feat). Thank you to our w

SHOW SUMMARYWelcome to the Atheist Experience where we experience life as atheists. Today’s episode we have our wonderful host Matt Dillahunty being joined by Shane Isgrig. Welcome to the show Shane! We begin the show with Dean claiming ancient oral tradition like the Dead Sea Scrolls are more accurate than modern human communication. Brent the pantheist calls in saying the universe is conscious and alive. We have an update call, Traci calls to update us on how she’s doing. Damon “thinks” he can prove reincarnation due to the universe expansion and contraction (LOL ok.) Anna Marie is seeking to understand coincidences and un-explainable events. And lastly Brian doesn’t think it’s fair that atheists can cherry pick the bible (sounds like projection!)CALL NOTESIn today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Shane Isgrig. Shane is a host on Atheist Vanguard and he is Welcome to the co-host chair Shane!Let’s get to calls. The first caller is Dean from North Carolina. Why are the transmi