[00:00:01] thanks for being here this evening my name is Kevin Conover and I’m the host of educate for Life radio we broadcast locally down here in Southern California

[00:00:08] on uh K praise 1210 a.m. and also on FM 106.1 in North County um and we also of

[00:00:16] course are all podcast all over uh the internet and the world and you can check us out on Spotify and all the other uh

[00:00:23] podcasting um hosting platforms and we’ve got a great uh discussion

[00:00:28] happening here this evening my guest uh today is Stan gray and I met him

[00:00:34] recently um just a few months ago at a homeschool convention in Florida and um

[00:00:40] I have my whole Booth up there for educate for life with the curriculum that I um sell and it’s got all kinds of

[00:00:46] stuff about apologetics up there and and uh if you don’t know what apologetics is it comes from a Greek word apologia

[00:00:52] which means to defend and a lot of people the the word apologize also comes

[00:00:57] from this word apologia and and uh a lot of people think apologizing is when

[00:01:02] you’re saying you’re sorry but there’s a little bit of a difference between saying you’re sorry and apologizing so I tell my students if you’re going to say

[00:01:08] you’re sorry to your parents for coming home late you’re admitting guilt if you’re apologizing you’re giving a

[00:01:14] defense for the reason that you were late so you got to decide are you going to apologize or you gonna say you’re

[00:01:19] sorry so uh anyway uh kind of a funny difference there that I think is

[00:01:24] interesting but uh Stan came up to the table and said hey um he said I’m an

[00:01:30] atheist just straight up and uh and I thought oh wow this is great we’re going to have a good conversation so uh Stan

[00:01:37] thanks for uh coming on the show today it’s my pleasure I’m happy to happy to be chatting with you again it’s

[00:01:44] always a always a nice experience yeah yeah so um yeah I thought that was so bold of you to just

[00:01:50] uh come up and uh I want our listeners to hear your backstory and just you know where you’re coming from but I just

[00:01:56] that’s not common I don’t typically have people at homeschool conventions up to my table and be like hey I’m an atheist

[00:02:02] and so I I thought that was kind of funny how you did that um what was going through your mind when you were walking

[00:02:08] you know walking past my uh table and then you looked over and you decided to come up to the table tell our listeners

[00:02:13] what was going through your mind well that’s a good question because um about 30 minutes into that uh my time at that

[00:02:21] convention I was like I’m talking to somebody in here I’m GNA I’m going to start some something with somebody so i

[00:02:29] i w over I walked around where a a couple people cuz I was I was kind of getting bored you know this the The

[00:02:35] Homeschool stuff mostly the curriculum and all that stuff that’s my wife’s thing she loves looking into that stuff

[00:02:42] I’m a little you know I was looking at the the the little wooden block puzzles with 240 combinations and I was looking

[00:02:49] at the books with the you know the humans and dinosaurs used to live

[00:02:54] together and stuff I was like maybe I should go talk to this guy you know and I did that did

[00:03:00] I didn’t get the vibe I didn’t get the vibe from him and something about you the way maybe it was the way you carried

[00:03:07] yourself you just looked approachable I was like you know what this guy looks like a nice guy let me just talk to him

[00:03:12] see what what he’s got over here I saw your pamphlets and everything and I was reading I was looking at it and when you

[00:03:19] spoke to me I remember telling you like a yeah I don’t I don’t actually I don’t believe any of this stuff anymore you

[00:03:26] know I’m an atheist and yeah your reaction was what made me say you know

[00:03:32] what this is this is where I’m going to I’m going to make my stand and talk and and have a have a conversation with

[00:03:37] somebody and you know pick someone’s brain I always like doing that and uh so

[00:03:44] yeah I mean the the fact that you were you know not dismissive you were pretty

[00:03:50] smooth conversation and you know it was polite and we were both cordial with

[00:03:55] each other and it was a pleasant it was a pleasant time I mean I could have if if I wasn’t having a good time I would

[00:04:01] have just been like all right man you know what good for you you have a good day thanks for humoring me for a couple

[00:04:07] minutes but you know we actually end up almost making you miss your your talk that you had luckily my wife came up and

[00:04:13] saw looked at your schedule was like hey aren’t you supposed to be somewhere yeah that’s so funny yeah we were having I I

[00:04:19] was really enjoying that conversation and and uh I I looked down and I was like oh no I’m supposed to go speak and

[00:04:26] uh ran off to ran off to do that and so uh but it was really it was nice to get to

[00:04:32] know you and it’s always nice when you have um somebody who’s interested you know I think my feelings

[00:04:38] were mutual in that that um you know it’s nice to have a civil conversation with somebody who disagrees with you um

[00:04:44] I tell people sometimes I get bored of talking to people that agree with me about everything and so I like to uh

[00:04:50] kind of hear other people’s perspectives and and uh uh I’m glad that you were able to come on the the program and and

[00:04:56] have this discussion I want to give our listeners a little bit more background about you um so that they know and um so

[00:05:04] tell us a little bit about so you grew up in a Christian family but at some point you decided uh that you were

[00:05:12] questioning the idea of God and his existence and the truth of the Bible and so forth give our listener some

[00:05:18] background there so yeah I mean essentially I was born into a Christian

[00:05:24] family uh pretty heavily so I mean everyone in my family to this say about

[00:05:31] 95% of them are Christian a couple of people have distanced themselves uh you

[00:05:38] know a couple people have kind of gone the same way as I’ve gone uh but for the

[00:05:43] most part up until about 10 years ago I was a Bible studying Bible preaching

[00:05:50] Christian I mean I’ve I’ve uh argued Christian

[00:05:55] apologetics in literally in war zones you know like standing there with with other people who you know when I was

[00:06:02] deployed with the military and everything I had a a buddy of mine who’s also was Christian who’s also

[00:06:08] now quasi atheist agnostic sort of uh

[00:06:14] situation with him as well now but I remember he and I used to be going

[00:06:19] toe-to-toe with atheists that were 20 30 years older than us you know when we were in

[00:06:25] our you know mid-20s and there was at some point oh

[00:06:31] you got a fly or something in your in there yeah fly I was like who hold on I wasn’t sure

[00:06:39] if that was on my screen or it was in in your room yeah

[00:06:44] so around in my late 20s I’m about I’m 39 now I think I was about 27 when my

[00:06:52] daughter was born and uh I started

[00:06:58] thinking all right I’m going to have to communicate and teach my daughter all

[00:07:03] about this my faith that I’ve grown up with I’ve I’ve it’s really solid strong

[00:07:09] I’ve studied it I’ve had questions and everything but growing up

[00:07:14] um my mother used to always have answers for my questions right like I would have

[00:07:20] really you know deep questions about the morality that I saw in the Bible the the

[00:07:28] certain things that just didn’t sit well with me and she always had what at the time I

[00:07:33] found to be compelling and convincing answers and at some point I just started

[00:07:40] wondering okay how much of this is me wanting to believe wanting to know that

[00:07:48] hey what I’m thinking and what I’m looking at and what I’ve been taught this whole time is correct and it’s accurate and it’s the the most important

[00:07:54] information in the world and um obviously there’s the social pressure of

[00:07:59] being in a family completely you know Christian family

[00:08:05] that you know you don’t kind not that we would overtly be facing uh banishment if

[00:08:11] we strayed away from that but you know you you want to you want to kind of fit in you want to not upset the the the

[00:08:19] balance or anything like that so I thought to myself okay how much of that is because of the social pressures

[00:08:27] because of me just wanting to be right and not challenge myself too much and

[00:08:32] you know how much of it is just really learned behavior and indoctrination sort of sure so I decided

[00:08:40] to do my best to kind of take an objective approach and look at it from

[00:08:46] almost an outsider perspective like I’m starting back to zero somehow which it’s not easy when you’ve been brought up in

[00:08:53] a particular belief system and uh I did that to the best of my ability

[00:08:59] and as I did it I started to see certain things weren’t really working for me anymore as far as the Apologetics of

[00:09:07] certain certain aspects of the Bible like you know genocides or or

[00:09:15] uh certain certain commands and things that things that God told people to do

[00:09:20] or things that God allowed to do or God or that God did himself according to the Bible so many things I started to see

[00:09:29] just In a Different Light a more objective light where I’m like okay if I didn’t already just assume that this is

[00:09:35] good and that this is the right thing because it’s in the Bible it it I wouldn’t I wouldn’t come

[00:09:41] to that conclusion unless somebody already had convinced me that it must be right it must be good yeah you know what

[00:09:48] I mean yeah and I felt the responsibility of like hey pretty soon I’m GNA have to teach this to a a child

[00:09:56] and yeah I was I was I eventually came to the conclusion that like no I don’t

[00:10:01] want to teach this to my child especially growing up where it’s going to cause them to be indoctrinated as

[00:10:08] well and have a difficult time looking at it objectively and deciding for themselves when they are of Co you know

[00:10:17] the Consciousness level that it would take to be able to make that decision you’re kind of making it for them when

[00:10:23] you bring them up just automatically teaching them all this stuff so I don’t

[00:10:29] know I don’t know how well I explained it but that’s kind of the the route that led to me starting to deconstruct my my

[00:10:35] faith yeah so um I I think I’m hoping that and I I think you are too that you

[00:10:41] know we can have a variety of uh talks over over time about different subjects

[00:10:47] because there’s so much to talk about uh as it pertains to oh yeah you know Theology and philosophy and these sorts

[00:10:53] of things and it’s it’s a very interesting discussion um but for the sake of our our talk this evening what

[00:11:00] we’re focusing on is the Supernatural and um the existence of the supernatural

[00:11:06] which is really interesting because you actually were doing a program where uh

[00:11:11] you were you were um having people call in and share Supernatural experiences

[00:11:17] and I think this is interesting because uh the question comes up um can you be

[00:11:23] an atheist and believe in the Supernatural um or or do you have to be less than an atheist a lot of atheists

[00:11:29] are materialists in the sense that um they don’t believe that the supernatural exists I have met atheists that say no I

[00:11:35] believe in the Supernatural I just don’t happen to believe in the god of the Bible um and so there’s I know there’s a

[00:11:41] variety of views out there but um uh so

[00:11:46] so what piqued your interest in starting a YouTube show and you have you have a

[00:11:52] ton of people that have watched this what what pequ your interest in creating a show in which people were sharing with

[00:12:00] you their experiences and then you were essentially um dramatizing uh their

[00:12:07] stories um I mean I’ve always been interested in the idea of the supernatural you know whether it’s from

[00:12:13] a religious standpoint or just you know observing the the world around me I

[00:12:20] would never claim that just like I can’t say hey there’s I don’t believe in a God

[00:12:26] but I can’t say there is no such thing as a god you know in the same in the same vein I

[00:12:32] can’t say yes we under we have a full complete exhaustive understanding of how

[00:12:39] you know the universe works how what what natural existence consists of and

[00:12:45] we don’t I mean we we don’t and I would be I would be an arrogant fool to say such a thing in my opinion um and then

[00:12:54] even the term Supernatural I mean to me if something is is happening

[00:13:00] or if something exists it’s part of the natural I mean our Supernatural is like yeah we don’t we just don’t understand

[00:13:08] certain things you know we it might be beyond our current perception or understanding that doesn’t mean it’s an

[00:13:14] unnatural or Beyond nature you know to me that’s kind of the way I look at it

[00:13:19] like everything’s natural we just only know about a certain portion of nature you know what

[00:13:26] I mean and that’s just pantic or anything but you know no that’s a I I

[00:13:33] think that’s a great um I think that’s a great explanation what you just gave there is um so my question for you in

[00:13:39] that regard is does that mean that there is room for in in your perspective is

[00:13:46] there is room for things like Spirits or potentially ghosts um in the sense that

[00:13:53] they may exist but we just don’t understand them from a scientific perspective currently but down the road

[00:13:59] it may be something we can actually figure out um or is is that your what

[00:14:05] you’re saying i’ like to think so I mean I would like to think that there is some way to like anything that

[00:14:12] exists there is some way to understand it we just haven’t achieved it yet I

[00:14:18] would like to think that that’s my hope you know I mean uh there might be things that are just always going to be beyond

[00:14:24] our comprehension and you know it is what it is there’s nothing we can do about that

[00:14:29] but I like to think that you know if you fast forward 5,000 years from now that we

[00:14:37] will have answered most of the questions that we have right now if we’re even still around and we haven’t killed

[00:14:43] ourselves collectively as a as a species yeah or Jesus Jesus hasn’t

[00:14:49] returned from the Rapture yeah I mean he’s he’s taking 2,000 years already

[00:14:54] what’s another 5,000 you know um so

[00:14:59] so um so Stan you know these uh people that were calling into to your calling

[00:15:06] in and sharing their stories with you um what kind of stories were these like uh give give us an example of what what one

[00:15:11] of these stories would be like and are these people that are sharing what they consider to be real life experiences or

[00:15:17] are these things that are made up by people so and this is all this all goes into a lot of what I I was really

[00:15:25] passionate about that that subject matter at first when I first started and

[00:15:30] it was fascinating and it was fun and I I I started building a following and

[00:15:37] everything like that you know a a group a listener base which was really cool and you to this day I just went online a

[00:15:44] couple days ago and like you know 20 people showed up out of nowhere like oh my gosh we missed you where where have

[00:15:50] you been you know and that you know that kind of thing is it’s cool you know this even though I I didn’t put in the amount

[00:15:57] of work that I could have I mean if I started 5 years earlier I’d be I’d be a rich person right now you know I’d be I

[00:16:05] I I missed the C like a wave that of those types of narrators that came on at the time and I was a little late and

[00:16:12] then I just kind of lost interest after a few years but there’s so many types of stories and

[00:16:20] experiences and my whole thing was don’t give me anything that you don’t believe happened yourself I mean I’m not going

[00:16:27] to judge whether it happened or not you know and I’ll give my theories of what I think it might have been if I feel like

[00:16:33] you might have just been having a nightmare I’ll look at the evidence and the the and and I’ll add that as part of

[00:16:39] my story part of the story when I perform the story write and perform the story you know so sometimes it was hey I

[00:16:47] saw this and I was slipped into another dimension or I went I was driving down a highway and I passed the same building

[00:16:53] twice even though you know I was that’s impossible it was a glitch or a glitch in The Matrix tricks those type of

[00:16:59] things I’ve seen people saying that hey I went into my son’s room and a 9ot long

[00:17:07] centipede with a human face was hovering over my son’s crib you know that’s wild

[00:17:12] yeah there’s there’s all kinds I’m I’m telling you yeah we we hit we hit a deer

[00:17:18] and it was and you know it turned out to be a human shaped shifter creature that

[00:17:25] ran away and jumped onto the roof you know like there’s and I’m I’m telling you this there was some

[00:17:31] there I had some really uh interesting things that came across and you know it’s to me I took it as

[00:17:39] mainly entertainment and I’m providing you know like it’s it’s it’s fun to talk

[00:17:45] about and theorize and conspiracy theories and stuff and one of the things that kind of got

[00:17:51] me down about doing that is the the level

[00:17:56] of and you can see you you probably noticed this in like just in society at large conspiratorial thinking and and

[00:18:05] this type of stuff people are amping that up over the last like five years or so it’s gone like everything is a

[00:18:11] conspiracy and everything is yeah is some kind of secret rituals and this and that and and that’s what it started

[00:18:18] turning into and I felt almost like I was feeding into that machine and the

[00:18:24] people that came up with me that you de feed that machine they’re

[00:18:30] they’re their live this is their livelihood now you know and they so they

[00:18:37] have a conflict of interest as far as uh promoting it potentially yeah and and

[00:18:42] there’s a lot of there’s a lot of like uh Christianity plays a huge role in that that thatp the religious thinking

[00:18:50] and the uh you know comp comparing it to biblical numerology and you know like

[00:18:57] biblical conspiracy is like a whole a whole thing now you know even with the Q

[00:19:02] andon movement and other you know side split brand branches of that and a lot

[00:19:08] of these a lot of the people that used to just tell cool creepy stories when I was doing it now they’re like hey you

[00:19:17] know Donald Trump this and Joe Biden that and that that’s where they’ve gotten to that was like the natural path

[00:19:24] that that it led to yeah you know it’s interesting that you it’s it’s interesting that you bring that up

[00:19:29] because I do think that’s a real you know it’s a it’s it sounds like you view that as a as a problem would you say

[00:19:37] that you you you don’t see that as a good thing no I I mean it seems almost

[00:19:42] predatory to me I mean people do what they want to do and they listen to who

[00:19:48] they want to listen to but I sometimes see things where I’m questioning like man do these do these guys really

[00:19:56] believe all this stuff that they’re saying or they or they just saying what they know is going to get the clicks and going to get people to keep tuning in

[00:20:03] and you know yep and these These are people that I was you know I’ve made

[00:20:08] friends with you know that I’ve I’ve known and that um like you know i’ been on their shows a couple times now I

[00:20:16] don’t really hear from them anymore because they’re they’re on this grind you know and they’re like yeah yeah you

[00:20:22] know they interesting yeah I I’ve had several um i’ I’ve had several discussions with because I teach 12th

[00:20:28] graders and I’ve had discussions with students asking how do you how do you delineate between you know things that

[00:20:34] are real and things that are not real um which is a really important question because like you said we we’re living in

[00:20:41] a day and age now where conspiracies are everywhere and it’s kind of a

[00:20:48] bizarre you know state of the world um you know it’s it’s it’s funny because I

[00:20:54] I this I teach on early Mormonism and in early Mormonism there’s a lot of stuff

[00:21:01] that is really um you know hard to believe and my students will say how did

[00:21:09] people believe this back then how did they decide that this was true and that they were going to follow this guy and a

[00:21:16] lot of what I would say is well there wasn’t a lot of ways to confirm things

[00:21:21] there wasn’t the internet there wasn’t you know news traveled slowly and everything but now we’re almost in the opposite scenario in which were

[00:21:28] overwhelmed with um information to the point where now you’re you have so much

[00:21:34] information that it’s difficult and overwhelming to try to sift through and figure out what is true um which I think

[00:21:40] is something that that everybody has to wrestle with as they’re trying to make decisions right absolutely and here’s

[00:21:48] the key whatever you want to believe you can

[00:21:53] find the evidence for it all you have to do is ignore the cter

[00:21:59] points you know you can find if you want to believe that that a politician is

[00:22:05] secretly a lizard person you can find all the evidence you want you know yeah

[00:22:11] that’s so funny that’s another problem that’s another thing that it ties this I see all this stuff and it all ties back

[00:22:17] to religion to me especially Christianity that’s my that’s my personal lizard lizard people don’t

[00:22:23] lizard people don’t not that one

[00:22:29] that particular so this as in as in the you know anything you wanna any point you

[00:22:35] want to take any belief any Viewpoint you want to take on hell you can find you can pick and choose a few verses and

[00:22:43] from the Bible and support your belief if you want to be a calvinist and believe that everybody was created with

[00:22:49] with their complete Destiny completely controlled and authored and tailored you know piece by piece and you can you can

[00:22:55] do that if you want to believe that gay people are going to be running around in

[00:23:01] heaven that you can I’m sure you could probably pick and choose a few a few verses and support that you know I don’t

[00:23:08] know so so this is interesting um I mean you you uh explained confirmation bias

[00:23:14] right so uh we have to be very careful of that everybody has to be careful of it and um no matter what your

[00:23:21] perspective is like you said I actually talked to a brain surgeon um I

[00:23:27] interviewed this was quite a while ago and he was discussing this he said the brain actually wants to confirm what you

[00:23:34] believe it it naturally gravitates towards um and so this is why it’s very

[00:23:40] difficult to Break um patterns in thinking that are wrong because they

[00:23:45] automatically have an advantage over you know something else um but the scriptures are really uh clear about

[00:23:52] this too because this is outlined in scriptures Paul says test everything hold fast to that which is true um and

[00:23:58] and Christ actually constantly warns about being deceived by Wolves among sheep it’s it seems to be a constant

[00:24:05] theme throughout the scriptures that you need to be very care Paul says to Timothy um you know um show yourself a

[00:24:14] Workman who does not need to be ashamed who rightly divides the word of Truth and lots of people believe lots of

[00:24:19] things that are false regardless of whether they’re Christian or anybody else um and so I think this brings us

[00:24:26] back to what what I would say is is um um that God has given us a mind and he’s given us logic and that logic is the

[00:24:33] useful tool to arrive at what is true and we all have to really focus on okay

[00:24:40] you know things like logical fallacies make sure we’re not we’re not we’re not doing any of those and really taking the

[00:24:47] time to think things through versus just like you like you’ve been saying believing these conspiracies or whatever the case um which this is a interesting

[00:24:55] discussion in and of itself because for me the way I at I I have arrived at that Christianity

[00:25:01] is true is that for me it’s just data points so I’m a my wife would tell you

[00:25:07] I’m extremely logical I’m like way far on the logic scale and she says I I need

[00:25:12] to be more emotional so you know I’ve been working on that for quite a while now my wife says the same thing about me

[00:25:17] it’s okay I can’t I can’t turn it off I know right so so there’s a benefit there

[00:25:24] and that is that you can try hard to be more objective in the conclusions that

[00:25:29] you’re drawing and I’ve tried to do that that’s why I have atheists on my show all the time I’ve had lots of uh people

[00:25:34] that disagree with me on my show because I want to see if I’m missing anything is there something I’m I’m not seeing that

[00:25:40] somebody else has a perspective and that’s that’s really nice but um back to

[00:25:46] the issue of spirituality um where so where have you

[00:25:54] landed when it comes to it sounds like you got kind of Jaded by the the overwhelming amount of stories that were

[00:26:02] uh you know that people were just going with they obviously weren’t being objective they there there was

[00:26:08] confirmation bias was that did that cause you to

[00:26:14] um did that cause you to doubt the stuff

[00:26:19] that was you know in the Bible as well or had you already been on that

[00:26:25] path I was already pretty well on the the path of deconstruction by the time I

[00:26:32] um started that but I was I was young into it you know I I was probably about

[00:26:38] two to three years into the deconstruction and I I I might have

[00:26:43] still even been calling myself a Christian at that

[00:26:49] time you know yeah that’s if I’m not mistaken you know like uh in the in the

[00:26:54] beginning years I was like I wasn’t prepared to just Straight Up come out and say hey I am an atheist you know I I

[00:27:02] don’t believe in God at all yeah um but it’s I feel like the two are sort of

[00:27:08] separate you know because I remember this thing it was almost like an elective you know it was a project it

[00:27:14] was a hobby that I was doing but it was kind of giving me a little view into the

[00:27:19] mindsets of hundreds of other people you know just like a little snapshot and I

[00:27:25] could sort of see like man this is what these people you know this is what

[00:27:31] people live their everyday life believing and you know and it’s even

[00:27:38] it’s 10 a hundred times more crazy now I mean because now it’s like it ratcheted

[00:27:44] up from hey you know what this was happening and then you know I said jesus’ name and then the thing

[00:27:50] disappeared or the thing screamed and ran away from me it was a monster you know looked like this or that okay I’m

[00:27:56] like okay that’s pretty standard stuff you know a lot of people believe in you know grotesque demonic entities that can

[00:28:05] run around you know and appear physically in front of people but now it’s progressed to like you know hey

[00:28:12] well obviously as you all know the Nephilim you know Lilith was the

[00:28:18] grandmother of this entity and then they they live underground and you know they sometimes can come through portals and

[00:28:24] and like everyone just takes the stuff for granted and to me I’m like oh my goodness how did we get all the way here

[00:28:31] you know yeah and they’re and using they’re using biblical references and

[00:28:36] extra you know things contemporan contemporaneous with the Bible to to

[00:28:43] prove these these theories and and stuff like that that they have and that’s jaded is the right word

[00:28:50] yeah so um where would you so you’ve said that you still um leave room for

[00:28:57] the idea that there’s things like ghosts and potentially spirits and these sorts of things um so what has caused you so

[00:29:07] where do you draw that line I guess is what I’m saying like I’ll give you an example I had an atheist say to

[00:29:14] me he said uh this I was actually this was back when I used to walk into the radio Studio up here in San Diego before

[00:29:21] we did things over zoom and stuff and we’re walking in and he told me he was an atheist and um I was was specifically

[00:29:28] wanted to interview somebody who was an atheist and he on the way in I said so where do you think the whole universe

[00:29:34] came from and he goes well some Force probably started it and I said what wait

[00:29:41] what do you mean a force and he said I I said I said you don’t think it came from nothing he said no no no it didn’t come

[00:29:47] from nothing some Force started it and I said what what kind of force and he said I’m not sure but I’m I’m some force and

[00:29:53] I said you mean like God and he said’ no no no not God but some force’ and I had

[00:29:58] another atheist say to me I said to himwhat do you think what do you think about Jesus and he said to me well he

[00:30:06] may have been a demigod and I I went wait what I said you mean like Thor and

[00:30:13] he said yeah I think he may have been a demigod he had powers but he wasn’t the

[00:30:18] god of the universe but he had powers now that blew my mind because I was like whoa okay this is I’m finding out that

[00:30:25] there’s a very wide range of beliefs here I had no idea there was room for believing in demigods in atheism you

[00:30:32] know what I mean and this guy was a scientist too right and so that really

[00:30:37] kind of struck me so I guess my question for you is is where do you draw the line um why have you decided that God is too

[00:30:45] far of a stretch um okay like theism versus

[00:30:52] there’s Christian theism but then there’s uh theism orm

[00:30:58] yeah yeah and where where do you draw the line and why have you drawn it there

[00:31:04] so here’s that’s a great question and and I’m gonna try I know my answers have been super long-winded that’s just how I

[00:31:11] I appreciate it no it’s great I’m going to try to I’m going to try to zero in on this one because it’s very important

[00:31:20] so my thing is this atheist to me my

[00:31:25] definition of atheist is the lack of Bel in a God so in order for me to believe

[00:31:32] in a God I will have to have been convinced of the existence of that

[00:31:38] God and I have unconvinced myself of the existence of the Christian

[00:31:46] God the way the way I see it is there’s there’s there’s several there’s several

[00:31:51] uh points that I would need to make here number one is I strive to be

[00:31:58] uh a humble atheist you know so I don’t I don’t like to

[00:32:03] overstep the bounds of my understanding I don’t like to make claims that I can’t

[00:32:10] back up or prove um and I don’t like to

[00:32:16] make big sweeping you know definitive statements about stuff unless I really

[00:32:24] can back it up and I can show you this is why I believe this strong fact here

[00:32:29] or what I believe is a strong fact so when it comes to why I draw the line per

[00:32:36] se at God it’s not that I’m drawing the line at the concept of a god generally

[00:32:46] it’s that the Christian God that I’ve grown up believing in that I devoted my

[00:32:53] life to for the first few decades and um that I’ve studied deeply

[00:33:00] for as long as I’ve been conscious you know uh including up until right

[00:33:08] now that character to me I can I feel that I can make strong

[00:33:14] Arguments for that character being like a basically a

[00:33:20] logical extreme improbability so there that’s kind of

[00:33:25] the way I look at it did a a God or some Godlike force or entity spark the

[00:33:33] original you know movement that created the universe I have no idea honestly I

[00:33:41] really don’t care you know I mean all I know is we’re here and what’s here is here as far as I can tell and you know

[00:33:49] that to me that’s like Way Way Beyond what’s really important

[00:33:55] for me living my life you know what I mean what’s more what I feel more

[00:34:01] passionate about and more more what I feel is more relevant to my everyday existence and that of the people around

[00:34:08] me is what do we believe as it you know related to us our

[00:34:14] our society our culture how we treat each other what do we believe about that

[00:34:19] that type of stuff what informs that and that’s what that’s what I really that’s

[00:34:24] the the context of my atheism okay that’s great that makes sense yeah

[00:34:30] thank you for that answer um this is good because you know whether it’s during this discussion or

[00:34:35] another one I’d love to drill down on that a little bit because um and we talked about this a little bit I’ve actually come to the opposite conclusion

[00:34:43] in the using the same kind of logic in that I believe that it’s far more

[00:34:49] probable that God does exist and that being specifically the god of the Bible than it is that he doesn’t exist and

[00:34:56] therefore I’ve deced Ed that I do believe the Bible um but one of the

[00:35:02] things that I think is really interesting that you you discussed just now you just said is you said it’s far

[00:35:09] more important to talk about how we are currently living our lives and for

[00:35:14] example treating one another now than it is about whether or not God started the

[00:35:21] universe or whatever the case and there’s been a phenomenon just recently

[00:35:26] that I’ve noticed that um kind of surprised me uh Richard Dawkins I don’t

[00:35:32] know if you know about this you know Richard Dawkins is a very wellknown atheist but he recently came out and

[00:35:38] said that he’s a cultural Christian and I thought that was incredibly strange um

[00:35:45] considering his his uh advocacy for atheism and actually his

[00:35:51] passionate um disbelief in the god of the Bible um and then recent Rec Elon

[00:35:58] Musk actually came out and said the same thing he said he’s a cultural Christian and I thought uh again there’s that that

[00:36:05] phrase and essentially as far as I understand it what they’re saying is is

[00:36:11] they don’t necessarily believe everything metaphysically or theologically that a Christian who

[00:36:18] believes in the Bible believes but they do value the um the byproduct of believing

[00:36:26] in Christianity which is things like uh do unto others as you would have them do

[00:36:32] unto you and um you know the Ten Commandments things like do not murder

[00:36:37] do not steal uh do not c a few a few of the Ten Commandments a few of them sorry

[00:36:43] yeah not Thou shalt have no other gods before me or or whatever the case but but um but what are your thoughts on

[00:36:50] that on this um because because it sounds like what they’re saying is is I like the byproduct of the morality of

[00:36:58] Christianity although I can’t logically um believe in what the Bible

[00:37:05] teaches you know historically and metaphysically well I mean I’m not going

[00:37:11] to say that I don’t benefit from you know the aspects the positive aspects of

[00:37:18] Christianity that are that permeate Society the society that I happen to

[00:37:23] live in right now yeah and I’m you know I’m I’m grateful for any positive influence that any religion has

[00:37:30] had in any culture around the world you know what I mean and in this country in

[00:37:35] the United States it’s a lot of that does come from Christians and Christianity and you know I don’t knock

[00:37:42] I don’t knock that at all um the the main issues that I find myself thinking

[00:37:50] about which you know initially even caused me to distance myself from the

[00:37:55] label of Christian and the the whole thing is just the logical

[00:38:03] inconsistencies that I started to find well I I’d always been asking questions about these things and I’ve always been

[00:38:10] I’d always been getting answers that used to work for me and really just don’t anymore but um yeah it’s more of a

[00:38:19] it’s more of a uh a an issue of logic to me which is funny because

[00:38:26] we’re both very logical thinkers and with the way we operate in life is you know logic plays a big role in how we

[00:38:34] make decisions and how we choose how we go about our lives yeah and you know no

[00:38:39] no there go figure how we came to two totally opposite conclusions but that’s

[00:38:45] the beauty of you know having so many people there’s so many different perspectives and so many

[00:38:50] different ways of approaching things you know and that’s why we’re here today you know yeah exactly hard hard to learn

[00:38:56] from someone that is just going to say yes to everything that you say you know as you well know yeah yeah exactly huh

[00:39:04] so do you think that um so do you think that there is a uh it is a fallacy

[00:39:12] logically for somebody to believe in the Supernatural now uh don’t get me wrong

[00:39:18] here let me uh let me see if I can phrase this better because we had that discussion about the Supernatural and it

[00:39:23] it it’s potentially natural just not understood um yeah so currently would you say so so

[00:39:32] I’ll give you an example one of my arguments that I use for the existence of a spirit and this is to justify also

[00:39:38] the existence of God because some people will say well as a materialist I believe

[00:39:44] in what can be you know tested and scientifically proven I’m uncomfortable

[00:39:49] with believing in things that are not um testable or proven therefore I withhold

[00:39:57] judge on that right or whatever the case um but one of the things that I I said is well look you have to have a spirit

[00:40:04] because your brain is is uh physical uh

[00:40:09] it is just chemicals and so in in order to have the ability

[00:40:14] to have purpose make free you know free will you have to have a spirit because

[00:40:20] your decisions have to be grounded in something um and if you don’t have a

[00:40:26] spirit then all you have is is the physical body and a brain is just a bunch of chemicals bouncing around

[00:40:31] inside of it which would mean that you are you’re just a a determinist you’re

[00:40:36] you’re just you know basically billiard balls on a pool table and so we know we

[00:40:43] actually have purpose to what we do meaning we aren’t just cause and effect machines therefore there has to be a

[00:40:50] spirit something that is acting on the brain to cause you to do what you do um

[00:40:55] and therefore logically The Logical conclusion is is that because I have

[00:41:01] purpose in what I do my things are not random because I have purpose therefore

[00:41:07] there must be a spirit and if there is a spirit then that certainly um in my

[00:41:14] opinion makes it more probable that God exists than that he doesn’t exist um

[00:41:19] that’s a little bit of a leap but but uh what do you think about that argument I think I I detected another leap in there

[00:41:26] some okay before you said the god existing thing to me I mean the idea of

[00:41:32] of purpose is very nebulous and it’s very

[00:41:38] subjective you know to say that I mean because we as we believe we have

[00:41:45] free will most of us right I’ve heard strong arguments towards the the idea

[00:41:52] that Free Will is not even possible you know and not I don’t I haven’t heard them strongly enough or often enough to

[00:41:58] be able to regurgitate it for you right now but I mean there are schools of thought and there are very smart people

[00:42:05] that discuss that all day every day and um it is worth a look if you ever look into that you know look at

[00:42:12] uh some you know mostly I think mostly atheist speakers talking about you know

[00:42:20] the free if you just go on YouTube and say Free Will is impossible argument or whatever you know as far as causing

[00:42:28] certain things you you you’re you’re most likely to do because of everything that came before you you know or the The

[00:42:36] Atheist is saying that the a The Atheist position that I’ve heard not the position actually that you hold but the

[00:42:42] atheist position I’ve heard is that we do not believe in a spirit there’s no such thing as a spirit and if you don’t

[00:42:49] have a spirit you can’t have free will so what they’re saying is is yes Free Will is impossible because we don’t

[00:42:57] believe in quote the spiritual world and and and so that’s a much more much less

[00:43:05] nuanced uh view than the one I’m talk about I’ll I’ll look it up and I’ll send it to you um I’ll find one of the you

[00:43:11] know the interesting arguments that I’ve seen yeah or maybe we can have a discussion about it next time yeah maybe

[00:43:18] we both rewatch it and you know we can discuss it you know what I mean yeah that’d be interesting from an ed a

[00:43:24] little bit more educated perspective yeah yeah yeah but I mean so

[00:43:29] in your in your view I’ll ask you this what about human activity necessitates a

[00:43:37] spirit what is it that contributes to that you deciding okay this isn’t just animal behavior this is actively this is

[00:43:45] purpose as opposed to what you know what a dog would do or or an a gorilla would

[00:43:52] do or a bumblebee would do yeah assume think that those

[00:43:58] creatures have Spirits you would I would imagine you only humans are granted the

[00:44:04] the rank of spirit I would imagine um I withhold judgment on that um I withhold

[00:44:10] judgment on what’s going on with animals um I don’t believe that they’re and this

[00:44:16] is metaphysics this is theology but I don’t believe they’re judged the same way people are judged because the Bible

[00:44:24] says we’re made in God’s image but animals are not they’re they’re not moral creatures therefore they don’t

[00:44:30] make moral decisions now whether they’re whether they have some sort of a quote

[00:44:36] soul that grounds their decisions or whether they’re purely uh cause and

[00:44:41] effect machines that are just incredibly complex like you know crazy AI or something um I withhold judgment on that

[00:44:49] I don’t I don’t have a position on it but for people the reason that I believe

[00:44:55] it’s far more probable that we have a spirit is because it’s very clear that

[00:45:01] our decisions um everyone we make is purposeful right so from from me just

[00:45:09] you know doing that that was not some random thing I I made that happen all

[00:45:16] the way up to gigantic decisions like who you’re going to marry or what college you’re going to go to or

[00:45:23] whatever these are all purposeful decisions they’re not random and because they’re not random

[00:45:31] they’re not a bunch of bilard B balls bouncing around on a table even that’s not technically random but but um the

[00:45:39] point being is is if it were random then you couldn’t predict anything that I was going to do and neither could I um

[00:45:47] therefore there’s something that is directing giving purpose to Everything I Do whether it’s moving my hands or

[00:45:52] whatever because the brain is it the brain by itself is not a

[00:45:57] is not a um it’s just cause and effect it’s it has it’s just random there’s

[00:46:03] chemicals just bouncing around in your brain something’s got to be directing those chemicals because chemicals don’t

[00:46:08] have a will of their own we know that hydrogen and you know oxygen and everything else they are they react they

[00:46:17] don’t act they react but me I act I’m I

[00:46:22] don’t just react I act so everything I do is isn’t just a result of me reacting

[00:46:29] to something else that’s happened to me I’m actually acting on my environment it’s not just acting on me and causing

[00:46:36] me to react therefore logically you have to conclude that there is a spirit

[00:46:42] without it you have a a logical inconsistency um you you can’t justify

[00:46:48] why each person is making purposeful decisions can you define spirit

[00:46:57] so spirit in the broadest sense would be something that is the starting point of

[00:47:06] decisions so the spirit would be um whatever is in you driving the

[00:47:13] physical being I had a professor once say a spirit can enjoy a hamburger but

[00:47:19] your physical body can taste a hamburger so God gave you both he gave you a spirit so that you can actually enjoy

[00:47:27] he gave you a body so you can actually taste because if you had just a spirit you wouldn’t be able to taste if you had just a body you wouldn’t be able to

[00:47:33] enjoy and so the spirit is who you are well I mean you enjoy something when

[00:47:41] certain neurotransmitters are released into your brain right oh power came your lights came

[00:47:48] back on there you go I mean I don’t I don’t I don’t yeah that that was really good timing like

[00:47:56] and lights literally came that’s funny yeah this prob probably a go

[00:48:01] probably a ghost maybe or could be a lizard Joe Biden running

[00:48:07] around somewhere I don’t know flipping your lights on and there you go flipping my breakers off and

[00:48:12] on um I would say I would say your neurotransmitters yeah it’s true that

[00:48:17] there is a chemical reaction going on in the brain But but so your physical body is having

[00:48:27] an experience but your spirit is enjoying the experience so the spirit gives value

[00:48:33] to what happens to you the spirit gives value to I’m sad about this that happened but

[00:48:40] I’m happy about this that happened it’s not just the neurotransmitters the neurotransmitters are giving you a um a

[00:48:48] physical experience but the spirit assigns value to those experiences whether they’re quote good

[00:48:55] or bad because chemically you know when when Fizz

[00:49:00] carbonates in a soda you don’t assign a moral value to it you don’t go that was good or that was bad right there’s no

[00:49:09] inherent value bubbles fizzing but there is an

[00:49:15] inherent value to taste and that’s why we would say that was a good taste that was a bad taste well but it’s it is

[00:49:23] subjective though I mean because what what’s your describing I mean so let me ask you this let me put it this way if

[00:49:30] there was no spirit and it was just neurotransmitters telling you when

[00:49:37] you’re feeling good or when you’re not feeling good I mean what would be what would be

[00:49:44] the difference how would you tell how would you be able to tell so what I would say is what you’re

[00:49:50] saying is it’s a very emotional P it’s a it’s emotional information that you’re

[00:49:56] describing that well it can be objetive is very it’s very sub it sounds very subjective

[00:50:01] can you help me understand how that could be a logically objective uh aspect of The Human

[00:50:09] Experience the need for a spirit well I would say that it’s

[00:50:14] objective in the sense that we place a lot of people place a lot of similar values on certain things now it’s true

[00:50:22] that there is a certain amount of subjectivity there but I think to a large degree there’s also a lot of

[00:50:27] objectivity so most people when they see a sunset a beautiful sunset don’t go oh that is so

[00:50:33] ugly they go oh that is so beautiful and you don’t have to it’s not subjective it might be

[00:50:40] subjective to the extent like I like onet Sunset better than another but I

[00:50:45] don’t think there’s anybody that would naturally meaning just normally think

[00:50:51] that a sunset was ugly and so Beauty has an objective stand standard um we can

[00:50:59] see this in a lot of things right if we see burn down trees in a

[00:51:04] forest we generally go objectively oh my goodness this is not good and you don’t

[00:51:11] have to you don’t have to be raised to be taught that you know burn down forest

[00:51:16] is bad if you see that scene your mind intuitively just naturally goes oh not a

[00:51:25] good situation whereas if you see a lush forest with water flowing and waterfalls

[00:51:30] and flowers blooming objectively the natural reaction for the human mind is

[00:51:36] to go I like this this is beautiful nobody goes oh this is horrible so

[00:51:42] you’re gonna you’re going to hate me for this but I believe that what you’re describing is basically a product of

[00:51:48] evolution not necessar Ian it can it can be explained by natural processes you

[00:51:54] know obviously a burn down forest is dangerous and it’s and it’s it’s got it

[00:52:00] doesn’t have as much chance of finding nutrition or or shelter so therefore our

[00:52:06] ancestors would have probably avoided it versus a lush beautiful green you know

[00:52:12] Paradise of course so if we were doing data points right now right if you and I were doing

[00:52:18] data points to try to come to a conclusion one of the data points that we would in my opinion we would just

[00:52:24] have agreed on is that that there is an objective value to things like Beauty so

[00:52:30] it’s not purely subjective regardless of whether your explanation is it comes from Evolution or my explanation is it

[00:52:36] comes from God I I disagree I do disagree on that okay how how so yeah I

[00:52:42] don’t I don’t think I mean I don’t think there’s any the concept itself of beauty

[00:52:49] is in it I think it’s subjective like purely

[00:52:54] subjective because any can look at anything and find beauty or ugliness in

[00:53:00] it depending on who who’s looking at it it’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they always say I don’t

[00:53:06] think I don’t think this is think the concept of beauty is just something that it’s it’s something we made up I don’t

[00:53:11] know that like uh you know a gorilla or a chimpanzee would look at something and

[00:53:16] think oh that’s objectively beautiful you know or maybe you’re thinking that the spirit is the only thing that can

[00:53:24] decide what objective beauty is I don’t know that’s that we’re getting into muddy murky Waters

[00:53:30] here well that’s an interesting thing I mean I’d push back on that I think scientifically they they’ve actually

[00:53:37] proven that people have a objective view of what is beautiful and what is not

[00:53:43] there have been quite a few studies that have been done on this um so I mean we

[00:53:48] can we can delve more into this on a deeper level uh at another time but but

[00:53:54] um I I guess what what I’m saying is is that uh the necessity of the spirit I I

[00:54:01] think the spirit is a logically uh deduced based on the fact

[00:54:07] that we have purpose to what we do uh fundamentally anyway I guess what I was

[00:54:13] saying was um I think that for me the probability of the

[00:54:20] spirit world existing is um very strong because of the fact that we have purpose to our

[00:54:25] actions we’re not just cause and effect machines um I’m blanking now how how we

[00:54:30] got onto the topic of objective versus subjective uh uh yeah we went down a rabbit hole

[00:54:37] just now yeah we did but it was an interesting one though I I think maybe one day we should we

[00:54:43] should you know uh expound upon that a little bit a little bit more yeah maybe

[00:54:48] another conversation I’ll make a note on that but um well we’re we’re coming to the end of our time here um I feel like

[00:54:55] we could talk for quite a bit more so I I definitely U want to do this some more but

[00:55:01] um so I guess I’ll end with kind of a a statement here on my view on this and then you can end with your statement on

[00:55:07] it and we’ll leave it at that um basically for me the reason that um I

[00:55:16] feel confident that a spirit exists like I said is because we’re not causeing effect machines I don’t just react I

[00:55:22] also act on my environment which um if you go back backwards from you know

[00:55:29] muscles to nerves to the brain there has to be something that that um basically

[00:55:36] turns the light switch on for the brain to then make purposeful decisions and if

[00:55:41] the spirit exists then to me there’s a strong probability that the spirit of

[00:55:47] God exists and so for me that’s a strong data point in the direction of God

[00:55:53] existing I’ll let you have have the last word here okay so just in summation I

[00:55:59] mean I I’m not completely I certainly don’t know that there is or isn’t a

[00:56:04] spirit realm sometimes I’ve experienced things that made me feel like maybe there is you know my mom passed I

[00:56:12] certain thing times that I saw her in Dreams made me think that perhaps she

[00:56:18] was reaching out to me somehow you know and i’ I’ve got a million stories about

[00:56:24] things like that which are I’ll share with you sometime maybe we can have a more focused uh about that type you

[00:56:30] afterlife type of uh stuff and the things that I’ve seen throughout my YouTube career related to that but um

[00:56:39] I’m not so like I’m not opposed to the idea I’m not I would never say that yes that that exists or doesn’t exist my

[00:56:45] whole thing is there may or not be there may or may not be a God

[00:56:51] but I don’t see the logic behind a God that would would for example

[00:56:58] create a being Satan that he knows with for

[00:57:05] knowledge is going to basically ruin this entire human experiment for him and

[00:57:10] uh cause everything to

[00:57:16] be messed up for thousands and thousands of years from God and still decide you know what hey I’m going to create that

[00:57:23] guy anyway you know for as just one example doesn’t seem like something that an all loving all powerful all knowing

[00:57:32] uh being would would do so that’s one of the one of the many things that to in my

[00:57:39] mind makes me say well if there is a God I don’t think that the Christians have

[00:57:45] it right you know I and I actually I hope they don’t

[00:57:51] because you know I can I could give you a thousand reasons why I hope that that’s not the actual

[00:57:57] God you know well you you opened up a whole can of worms on that last statement there yeah yeah see originally

[00:58:05] that’s what I was originally um going to talk about today but we actually got into a whole different interesting you

[00:58:11] know line of conversation too so you know that’s that’s so that the people out there listening when next time you

[00:58:17] see Stan gray show up on the Kev right right they’re going to be like I want I got to listen to this that that was a

[00:58:23] little sneak peek you know what I’m saying I’m doing this for you Kevin you know I’m helping you out thanks man

[00:58:28] you’re such a you’re a good guy man well um uh you know I’m gonna write

[00:58:35] that down because I think that’ll we’ll start our next conversation off with that topic and that’ll be a lot of fun

[00:58:41] so okay Stan um well you’ve been a blessing and uh I’ve really enjoyed talking to you and so uh I hope you have

[00:58:48] a a great time uh there in Cape Canaveral and uh get done and that your

[00:58:53] your family is uh does fantastic with homeschooling too so thanks a lot man appreciate your friendship thank you sir

[00:59:00] it’s been an honor and a pleasure um have a good night and I wish all the best to you and your family as well

[00:59:07] thank you okay for those listening we’ll see you next time and uh make sure you keep an eye out for uh Stan’s H face on

[00:59:13] my uh my page there for the next time we uh have a great discussion so God bless

[00:59:19] you and we’ll see you next time when you need tires or service count on Conover tires wheels and service in Oceanside

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[00:59:31] offers online hours Tuesday through Friday 7:30 to 5:30 and Saturdays 7:30 to 5 call Dan and his team at 760 4391

[00:59:41] 1631 Conover tires wheels and service 2405 Oceanside Boulevard and Oceanside

[00:59:48] 76439 1631 how can you live in San Diego and miss out on enjoying the water fast

[00:59:54] lane kaying sells popular hobiecat kayaks that you pedal not paddle that means your hands are left free for

[01:00:01] fishing and fun just throw these on your roof rack they’re light and they’re easy to use and maintain just rinse them off

[01:00:08] try one free on a demo ride for 36 years Ron and Debbie Lane have served San

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[01:00:18] sailing.com 619 222 0766 hi this is Jason Hall president of

[01:00:26] team homans a branch of synergy1 lending I just want to take this opportunity to thank Kevin Conover for the profound

[01:00:32] impact he’s had on mine and my wife’s spiritual life as well as being an incredible teacher while our kids were

[01:00:37] his students his knowledge and passion have taught us all how important it is to be Defenders of our faith it’s our

[01:00:43] honor and privilege to support Kevin and his show it is our sincere hope and prayer that you will continue to learn

[01:00:49] to be Defenders of your faith through Kevin’s radio show and through his educate for Life teachings thank you

[01:00:54] Kevin from the hall family and team Home Loans educate for life helps you build your life on the Rock LG equipment helps

[01:01:01] Builders build on good soil Luke Gibson’s team at LG equipment is your local source for grading demolition

[01:01:07] hauling and more learn about their bulk water services from trucks to tankers to Towers at rwater tower.com get your

[01:01:15] questions answered call LG equipment at 619 988 924 learn more at LG equipment.com 619

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