Joshua spent some time being interviewed at Pinecreek, with Doug, the former Mennonite turned atheist, and YouTube favorite. Doug engages in a type of “street epistemology,” to see if he can get Joshua to “embrace his doubts.”
Aside from the fact that I can not figure out how Doug @ Pinecreek finds the time to sift through so many other YouTube videos (what type of day-job does he have, if any??), Doug apparently saw Joshua Swamidass in discussion with William Lane Craig, and he had some pretty tough questions for Joshua, to dig deeper.
I got the sense that Doug was frustrated that Joshua was not answering many of his direct questions, with direct answers. But on the other hand, Joshua was right to push back and question how Doug was framing those questions. Thoughts?
Is there a transcript? 1:43m is more time than I can spare for this.
I like the Street Epistemology approach, it’s a far better way of discussing that we commonly get from our media. Knowing Joshua a bit, he is very clear is his doubts and certainties, and he does not hesitate to push back when needed.
I listened to the whole thing. You explained yourself well. It was strange to see an atheist wanting to pin you down on exact beliefs. I think you were honest with your “I don’t know” answers. He doesn’t know that there isn’t a God(s). He may assert that it is improbable that there is a God for lack of evidence, but He can’t use science to tell one way or another, as science is neutral on such questions. You did a good job.
Can you show me the questions I didn’t answer? It seemed he was most frustrated because he didn’t like how I answered his questions, so he just stated I didn’t answer them.
For the record @cmorledge, @patrick is an atheist. And other atheists actually reached out to me, apologetic for Doug’s approach.
As I understand it, I did give straight answers to his questions. Just turns out they were nuanced answers, he couldn’t really deconstruct them like he is used to, and that was really frustrating for him.
If you can clarify my understanding of this exchange, please do @cmorledge.
Oh, Joshua, I think your answers were spot on. They just weren’t direct, in the way Doug was wanting you to answer. As you put it, your answers were more nuanced.
I think Doug is all about trying to show the absurdities of fundamentalism, and dragging more liberal forms of Christian faith into the absurdity orbit. The problem with doing “speed rounds,” as he does them, is that they don’t really allow for nuanced answers.
You did great in engaging with him. Doug can be abrasive at times, but he is a pretty smart guy… still don’t know where he finds the time to parse through every Christian apologetic YouTube video
Hehe, I see. Well I suppose the difficulty here is that I am neither a fundamentalist nor a liberal Christian. He may not have met many people like me before.
I’m about half way through. I agree that Doug is missing the nuance in your answers. I’ve watched other Pinecreek videos and most of Doug’s guests give simple “the Bible says it and I believe it” answers. I agree that he probably hasn’t met many people like you before. You mentioned a couple of papers you wrote. Could you link them here?
