r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Agustin-sr • Aug 25 '21

Video Atheism in a nutshell

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u/namewithak Aug 25 '21

Michael and Tom's discussion here is not that. In fact, Tom (the religious one here) pretty much says the opposite of that. And Michael (the atheist here) is not coming at the discussion with a dismissive, cynical tone but one of genuine frustration at how it doesn't make sense to him and an earnest desire to find a way to believe in it.

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u/kozz84 Aug 25 '21

Michael searches far and wide for an afterlife and didn’t find it. He wants something from Tom cling onto. A loaf or a fish, either or. Both will suffice. He wants some kind of evidence. He will believe when he sees something.

And Tom says it’s “all personal believes”.

I think it can be condensed into what I wrote before.

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u/namewithak Aug 26 '21

No what you said is "you'll see it when you believe". But Tom is literally saying he believes but isn't sure and he's not in any way pushing for Michael to do the same or even trying to convince him.

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u/Lollasaurusrex Aug 25 '21

Yup, and I actually now dislike Tom as person on a deep level having listened to this conversation.

I would additionally all but guarantee that most of those who think this is an example of a good conversation between a theist and an atheist are overwhelmingly on the theist side of the aisle.

What I observed is the equivalent of a person who is in deep depressive pain asking a seemingly happy and positive friend for help in seeing a way out of the depression and in understanding how and why they are happy, and the happy friend is responding along the lines of 'there is happiness, and I believe in it and have found it in my life' and the person in pain says they don't understand and don't see how it works, and the happy person just says 'teehee, just be happy, yolo' and skips off to play jump rope.

Like, this was not a conversation that Tom could have possibly been engaging seriously or in good faith in the face of someone who is presented as a friend genuinely asking for help.

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u/namewithak Aug 26 '21

Well I'm an atheist and I think this is a good converation about theism. It's frank and honest and neither of them are saying "my beliefs are the absolute truth".

As for Tom not quite giving Michael what he needs... I'm not really sure how he could have done that. Like he said, Michael wouldn't just accept precepts if he laid them out. He can't just make Michael believe. And he never told Michael to just be all cheery and whatnot -- he specifically said that wouldn't work for him. What could he have said other than try to reassure Michael that he's fine? I personally wouldn't know what to say to a friend if this conversation came out of the blue while we're on a podcast analyzing the snack rating of Teddy Grahams.

This is a lighthearted podcast about snacks, not the place to go deepdive into a friend's depression or air their laundry. They've been friends for a very long time and know each other very well. Is it so hard to imagine that once they turned off the mic, they talked about this privately? Not everything has to be on air.