[Applause]
Good morning.
Very, very excited to be here.
This, I think, is probably the largest crowd
that I've spoken to before.
And it's kind of interesting to see how ...
I probably wouldn't be here
if it wasn't for going out and learning
and practicing Street Epistemology.
And I think one of the reasons why I'm up here is
because this approach has really sparked an interest.
I'm just a regular guy who decided to go out
and just have conversations with people.
And I think it's gotten a lot of attention
from folks and I'm very excited to share it with you.
I think this actually could be
a turning point for atheism.
I forgot that I have slides. There we go.
[Laughing]
Okay.
And I think Street Epistemology is going
to be critical to the success of atheism.
Which is why I'm very excited to tell you about it.
We're gonna get really into
my journey and this method.
Okay.
I also want to talk a little bit about truth.
I want to kind of take a step back a little bit.
When we have conversations with people,
usually we're interested in
changing their mind or helping them to
believe true things and usually we want
to believe true things as well.
So, we engage in debate or dialogue
or conversation with them.
But we have to remind ourselves
that we ourselves are just as capable of believing things
that are not true.
It's entirely possible
that a lot of the things that I believe are not true.
So, what is the best way to determine what is true?
What is the best way to determine what is not true?
These are questions that have troubled humanity from the beginning,
but as atheists I think we try to accomplish this question about God
when we engage in debate with people we tend to argue
with them or discuss the finer points
of the Bible, for example.
And it's oftentimes hard to get
into the mindset of a believer
unless you discuss what that person believes.
We tend to focus a lot about that.
We tend to focus a lot about what the person believes
as opposed to their reasons or their method.
And I think it's really important
that as atheists we need to find a better way
of figuring out what is true
and helping people figure out what is not true.
And again that's why I'm so excited to be here
to tell you about this method
because I think this might be the thing
that helps atheists have better conversations
with the believers who are making these claims.
Okay.
I brought along--
Oh, did I kick out...
Bruce here?
Can you maximize that?
Okay, that may have been my fault--
Okay. So, I brought along a couple of video clips here.
So, just still just a little warning.
The first video clip I want to show you
is about two minutes long.
I've got five video clips total,
but I want to kind of show you how I used to go out
and have talks with believers.
This is a street preacher in front of the Alamo.
And this was back in 2012.
This is about two minutes long.
He does talk about hell during this video.
So, fair warning if that troubles you.
You might want to be aware of that.
Oh, there are some people that are really troubled by it and that's fine.
So, just fair warning.
And this is NOT an example of Street Epistemology.
Don't watch this video, walk out and think:
�Oh, that's what Street Epistemology is.�
And the other takeaway I wanted to let you know
is that I'm not really proud of this exchange.
[Laughing]
So, here we go.
Street preacher Phil.
IL: Jesus says,
[Playing video clip]
"My mother and my brotheren are these
which hear the word of God and do it."
AM: You said that already.
IL: You have the Word of God. It's in the King James Bible.
It's not the Book of Mormon.
It's not the Kabbalah.
It's not the Babylonian Talmud.
There's just a word of God.
The King James Bible.
AM: There's just as much evidence
for those Gods as there's for your God.
IL: Not really.
AM: Yes, there is.
There's zero evidence.
IL: The Scripture says:
"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
AM: That's what it says, but why should we believe it today?
Why should we believe that?
IL: Now are you a Mormon or a Baptist or a Catholic
or a Methodist, but are you saved?
The Bible says we must be saved.
Jesus saved me in 1987 in the month of December
and I'm not going back to what I was.
I'm no better than anybody else
but, my friends, as a street preacher
I gotta warn you: There is a hell and you're going there.
AM: There's absolutely no there's
absolutely no evidence for a hell
or a heaven or a purgatory.
There's no evidence for that at all.
IL: You'll find out!
AM: How could you believe in something now
without even knowing that it's true?
AM: You point to the Bible again.
There's no evidence that the Bible is true.
IL: You don't believe it, dude.
AM: Of course I don't. I'm not convinced that it is true.
IL: Well, that's all right.
I'm not condemning you because you don't, man!
AM: You're making the claim.
You need to prove to me that it is true.
IL: I don't have to prove to you anything.
AM: Yes, you do!
You can't stand out here and make claims as if it's a fact!
IL: Right here, man, that's my facts!
AM: And scare these people and young kids.
IL: Hey, listen dude ...
AM: What's wrong with you?
[Laughter]
[Applause]
I was kind of hoping that would NOT draw an applause line�
[Laughter]
You know, at the time it felt good to humiliate him.
It really did.
He was saying this nonsense and just yelling things and ...
I wasn't aware that there is
a potentially better way to interact with believers.
So, I was arguing with him.
I was just doing what just seemed natural
to point him to evidence,
to challenge what he was saying.
And I didn't realize it at the time
that it probably didn't make me as an atheist
look very good standing out there.
As I watch this even I noticed that he explains
why he believes that it was true.
He had a difficulty way back
when he gave an exact date.
There was some momentous occasion
and he didn't want to go back to that time.
He didn't want to go back
to that time of where he was hurting.
So, there's the motivation behind his belief.
But I couldn't even see it
because I was so interested in arguing
with him and tearing him down.
However, that approach I think does have its place.
If you look there's people in the background watching.
There's a young couple there.
Behind the sign there's a little kid.
And you never know what that
takeaway may have been.
They may have been shocked to hear somebody
standing up to a believer making a claim.
They may have gone home to figure out is the Bible true.
You never know how that may
have landed with people observing.
But let's think about Phil.
Do you think that his mind was changed that day?
It's probably unlikely.
More than likely he went home, read his Bible, said a prayer
and was emboldened by that conversation.
He's probably thinking that it's more true now than ever before
because his belief stood up
to the scrutiny of somebody yelling at him.
And just a little side note:
I follow the street preacher community a little bit.
They love it when people argue with them.
They love getting crowds.
One of the worst things I think you could do
is argue with a street preacher
and draw a crowd because they see that as a success.
So, please try to avoid doing that if you can.
Now, I wasn't that aggressive with my family members.
Okay, there was a brother-in-law.
Maybe I was a little bit like that.
[Laughter]
But I'd laugh at them
and I'd spend hours digging up facts
to show that they were mistaken
and I jeopardized those relationships
and I'm still trying to rebuild them.
Even though my style has changed completely from that,
I'm still trying to repair those relationships
and that's what kind
of one of the reasons why I'm so eager
to be talking to you today
because I suspect that many people have damaged
relationships with their loved ones
and friends and co-workers and so forth.
And I'm really excited to be able
to tell you about this approach.
So, let's talk a little bit
about Street Epistemology here.
Okay.
I think Street Epistemology might be
the best approach for having one-on-one conversations
with people about their deeply held belief.
I understand that that's a bold claim,
but I've been doing this for five years
and I've had profound one-on-one conversations,
sometimes two-on-one.
I'll talked to a Mormon couple.
And we've talked for 30 minutes and it was one of the best conversations
that I think I've ever had.
So, before I could explain why I think
Street Epistemology is going to be
fundamental to the success of atheism
--that it's a turning point
--I need to explain to you what Street Epistemology is.
So, the "street" part of it simply means:
"laymen engagements."
You're having a conversation with somebody.
You're not necessarily an expert in the Quran
or the Bible or what the claim is,
but you can engage with them.
It's actually one of the strengths of this method, I think,
is that you don't really have
to be well-versed in the doctrine
to have these dialogues.
In fact, I think the less you know about the claim
the better questions you'll form
when you have these conversations.
So, the "epistemology" part is the study of knowledge.
It's how a person determined that their belief is true.
When you hear the word "epistemology",
my recommendation would be:
Just think of the word "method".
Think of technique, think of approach.
Something like that.
I like to think of SE as a tool that we can use
to challenge people respectfully.
And this isn't my creation.
I didn't come up with this.
This came from a book called
'A Manual for Creating Atheists' by Dr. Peter Boghossian.
And it's based on the Socratic Method.
I read the book,
I started looking for examples online
and there were no examples at all.
And I would go out.
I was going out to try to do Street Epistemology.
There was one good "why" question in there.
When I was yelling at that preacher:
"Why do you think that it's true?"
But there was no rapport building,
the tone was horrible,
and I certainly wasn't trying to understand his methodology.
So, I've been going out
and trying to sort of perfect that
or hone this method the last five years.
Here's the definition of it.
Couple points of here.
Street Epistemology is a conversational tool.
It's not a debate.
It's a polite discussion and it is a tool.
It's something that you can use
if the situation is appropriate depending on your goals.
And the conversations tend
to help people reflect or think
about their belief long after the conversation ends.
When I have a dialogue with somebody
if they think about it then and there
but never think about it again,
then that's really not much of a success to me.
I want these conversations
to resonate with folks.
And then we challenge the method that they used.
Did they use a reliable method
to come to that conclusion?
All right.
So, one of the things I think
I need to kind of get out of the way really quick
are some misconceptions of this,
because the word "street" is in there
and a lot of the examples are people
going out with video cameras
and uploading their conversations
and they're like; "Oh, you're just like
proselytizing for atheism there.
�This is like Ray Comfort or something."
There are no bananas in Street Epistemology.
[Laughing]
[Applause]
Street Epistemology honestly is about helping people.
It's helping people slow down
and think about the belief that they formed.
And did they use a reliable method.
And it's not just about God claims.
It could be about anything.
Some of my best conversations have been
with atheists who are dogmatically sure there are no Gods.
SE is really good about encouraging
people to be less dogmatic
about the beliefs that they formed.
And we try to uncover truth.
Now these conversations can be initiated or organic.
My preference is to have an organic chat
like when I get in an Uber,
I almost always have a chat
with the driver about something.
They make a claim and it's game on.
I can start asking questions and we usually end it on good terms
and they usually give me a 5 star rating.
So, I think that's okay.
And I do the same for them.
So, I can understand how people might make the connection
that this is like atheist evangelizing or something
and I'm here giving a talk on Street Epistemology to American Atheists.
So, I could understand how you can make that connection.
But this is a tool that can be used for all different types of claims.
It doesn't just have to be about challenging people about God.
And this is so much about placing a pebble in a person's shoe,
helping the person reflect on their belief formation process,
so later, when the conversation�s over,
they can ask themselves: "Do I need to maintain this belief?"
"Do I need to lower my confidence in this belief?"
"Should I discard this belief outright?"
So, I wanted to put Street Epistemology in graphical form.
Now, I have had a thousand conversations at least.
I started looking at transcripts
and I started noticing a little pattern:
That we spend a little bit of time talking
about what they believe,
a little bit more time talking about why they believe it,
but we spend a lot more time talking
about how they determined that that belief is true.
And that I think is what makes these conversations unique,
and Socratic, and Street Epistemology,
is that we're interested in their methodology.
Here's a different way of looking at it.
Same pyramid, but different words.
So, we're interested in what they believe.
We want to understand their reasons,
their main reason,
but it's the methodology that they used.
So, when you think of Street Epistemology, think "method."
We're very, very interested in the method.
Because if the method is faulty,
all the other things above it collapse.
Okay.
Now, that doesn't mean that what they're believing is not true.
If they've based it on it [on an unreliable foundation].
I could base something on faith.
I can realize it's a faulty methodology
and what I'm believing could actually still be true.
I get that, but ones confidence should probably be adjusted accordingly
if they learned that their method was unreliable.
Okay.
A couple of video examples here.
I want to talk to that actually.
So, I was also thinking about these little [pyramid] sections here.
When we talk about what a person believes,
that's usually what the preacher tells you in Church.
�This is what the Bible says,"
�This is what we believe."
When you get to the apologists,
the people that defend the faith.
There was a guy [during the Q&A of the previous speaker] who said he was an apologist..
These are folks that defend the faith.
They come up with reasons to justify the belief.
Okay.
So, there's this reason level,
but very few people are looking at their foundation.
And that's why these questions I think are powerful.
Because we're not concerned with what you believe.
We're not really concerned with why, but how did you determine that it's true.
And the apologists are taken aback by this.
I'll get into this a little bit later.
They're a little worried about this.
Okay!
When I first started doing this there were no video examples.
Today there are hundreds and some of my favorites are not even mine.
It's really neat to see other people
going out, people in France and England.
Finland, for example.
They are going out and having talks all across the United States.
And this is probably an understatement,
but Street Epistemology did not come naturally to me.
I was arguing with street preacher Phil there
for a good year and a half, I was.
But I was getting out of it.
It was evolving, but uploading these videos, as horrible as they were,
I was getting feedback from folks saying;
"Hey, is that really Street Epistemology?"
And, "Shouldn't you be asking questions rather than telling them what to think."
So, it was changing the way that I was behaving,
it was changing my interactions, and I think, for the better.
So, I realized that it's kind of difficult to explain what Street Epistemology is.
I want to show you a couple of examples.
I have four little video clips, and they're super short.
This next one this is a good one.
A couple of things here.
I'm going to make sure not to laugh into the mic.
So, a couple things here.
Set aside your view on pornography whether you think it's harmful or not.
That's not the point of this little clip.
The point is to demonstrate the mechanics of Street Epistemology.
This also shows that you don't have
to use Street Epistemology for just God claims.
It's excellent for it,
but in this case the topic of pornography comes up here.
And the other takeaway, I think,
is try to set aside your biases.
When I'm having a dialogue with a person,
my stance on pornography is not important at this point.
I want to understand why HE thinks that it's harmful for example.
So, that's what this conversation is about.
And pay close attention to the real reason
why he holds his view on pornography.
IL: The scientific evidence is
just like any kind of drug, you know,
like, the first time you watch it.
AM: Do you value scientific evidence?
IL: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
AM: Denzel, if we can provide you,
if I can provide you or somebody that follows us closely..
If I discovered some scientific evidence that showed that everything
that you've just described very eloquently,
that it doesn't work in that way.
They've interviewed 10,000 porn stars
and a hundred thousand men and women.
And the overall result suggests that it's a positive.
All right.
People feel better about themselves. They�re living longer,
marriages are actually prospering,
crime is going down, like across the board.
And I don't even know if that can even be measured,
but if it could, if there was a reliable study that
showed something completely different than what you're outlining just now,
would you change your mind on it?
IL: No, I wouldn't.
Because at the end of the day
I do value like, you know, scientific evidence, historical evidence
and that kind of stuff.
But at the heart of it I'm a Christian.
So, I live by a finite set of principles.
Okay.
That was Denzel.
So, we could have spent a lot of time wasted
just discussing pornography,
because he admits there that it's not based on evidence.
Even if he was shown evidence
that it was not harmful, he'd still hold the belief.
And that's what I love about this method is that it's efficient.
You don't have to spend any time arguing about things that don't matter.
If somebody raises contradictions in the Bible as their reason, but they�d
still believe if every contradiction was adequately explained,
don't discuss contradictions with them.
Move on to the real reasons.
Get to the core.
Get to the lowest level.
And that�s what I think is so great about Street Epistemology.
If I were to meet with him again,
I wouldn't discuss porn at all.
I would talk about why he thinks his God is real.
And what's really interesting is
that once that God belief goes,
so many other beliefs fall away.
Well, and I'm sure many people here used to believe in God..
Once you lose that God belief,
so many other things fall by the wayside.
So, I'd love the efficiency of this approach.
And you may have noticed that
I didn't give him statistics
to show how beneficial pornography was or anything like that.
It probably would've been way more
likely [this this talk] would have been
a waste of time with this individual.
In fact, there's this thing called the backfire effect.
I don't know if I'm...
Show of hands, who's heard of this before?
Lots of hands, good. Okay.
So, this is somewhat controversial.
This is a hypothesis that suggests
that if you provide people with evidence
that shows that they're mistaken,
especially on a belief that's very tied to who they are,
they are less likely to accept your evidence
and let it change their mind.
Now, the backfire effect part of that
is that some people even believe what they believe even more.
There does seem to be some new research that suggests that
people sometimes might accept your evidence,
but their attitude doesn't change about the belief.
So, I think we're still good with the SE thing here.
And that's the beauty of this approach.
We're not debating what they believe.
We aren't dismissing their reasons.
You don't need to know anything
about their holy book or anything like that.
You don't even have to provide evidence to a person when you have these talks.
It kind of takes the pressure off.
"I'm a questioner, help me understand,
teach me why you think that this is true."
When you start looking at these conversations that way,
I think it's really like I said,
it does take the pressure off.
It makes these conversations so much easier.
And somebody once described this approach
as making people "comfortably uncomfortable."
You may have noticed the difference
between the conversation with Denzel
and the one with Phil.
How drastic a difference.
I was asking him questions.
I was listening to him, and that type of thing.
Okay.
One more video clip.
I've got about 15-16 minutes, it looks like, left.
This is Gordon. This is two and a half minutes long.
He's elderly and I picked this one
because a lot of the early examples
that I uploaded was me interviewing
college-age students on campuses
and people would say �you're just picking on young,
inexperienced people."
So, I said "I'm gonna go talk to some older people."
So, for the last two years I've been
on this hiking trail, talking to people,
and this is Gordon.
So, there's really no age limit
but during this little talk,
which is two minutes long,
the video will stop twice when he says something
that I think would be raw meat to an atheist.
Where you'd hear it and you're like:
"There's no way he's getting away with that."
[Laughing]
So, the video pauses at those moments
and a picture of my face will appear.
I was gonna have a picture of raw meat show up.
It's just my face like: "Mm-hmm� in a thinker�s pose.
When that happens you'll be alerted
to that and there's a really big reveal at the end.
So, pay attention.
AM: Why Gordon do you believe that a God even exists?
IL: Because I was brought up a Christian.
I've brought up to believe that.
I mean.
AM: How long have you had the belief?
IL: Since I was able to think.
[he laughs]
And it gets stronger as I grew older.
AM: Interesting.
IL: Yeah.
AM: Yesterday I ran into a family that had a little four month-old baby
IL: Uh-huh.
AM: and they identified themselves as Christians,
but they could have easily been Hindus or
Muslims or Pagans ...
IL: Doesn't matter.
Well, not Pagans. Pagans are non-believers.
[Laughing]
But, it doesn't matter what what religion you come from
or what your ethnicity is
as long as you believe in a Supreme Being.
You can call him Allah or God or
Neihu or whatever as long as you believe
in the same being, it doesn't matter.
AM: Let's say that little girl is raised
to believe that there's no God.
IL: Well, I feel sorry for her.
[Laughing]
AM: Would she be just as correct in her belief as you
being raised with your belief?
IL: Just as correct?
No, I mean ...
AM: Why not?
IL: Because just we're all created for us by God
and we look for eternal life
and that comes through salvation.
And if you don't believe in God then you can't have salvation.
AM: Are you saying that if a child
is raised to believe in a God,
they're justified in having the belief
but if a child is raised to believe in no gods, they're not?
IL: A young child has no concept
of what's right or wrong at that point.
They believe only what they're told
And so what they are taught
in the first five years of life
will probably be with them for the rest of their life.
Which is unfortunate.
[Laughing]
Okay.
So, because I avoided the raw meat
of those two exchanges there
when he said that.
He said pagans are non-believers.
Well, that's not true.
I could have interrupted him
and corrected him and we could have gone on
this different tangent, but I didn't.
I just let it go. It's not important, really.
And then he said; "I'd feel sorry for the little girl
who was raised atheist."
That pisses me off.
I have two kids and they're the greatest kids.
But that really has nothing to do with it.
But if I went ... If I chased those distractions,
it would have been really unfortunate if I had done that
because we wouldn't have had
that wonderful discovery at the end, really quickly.
It's easy to be angry when you hear stuff like that.
Okay. Because let's face it:
We were told lies by the people that we love and it hurts.
We have a right to be angry.
We really do and yet most of us found our way out.
And I'm hopeful that
we can channel that anger into something positive.
Try to let those things slide
for the benefit of the conversation,
for the benefit of the discovery.
Like I did there with our friend Gordon.
Alright. I've got one more clip
Gosh, I just have 10 minutes left.
I think I'm going to skip this clip
That kills me to do that.
[Protest from the public]
It's not in my control. I'm sorry.
[Laughter]
This clip that's this minute...
I'm trying to decide where to go here.
Alright, let's stop talking about it.
I'm gonna show you one more clip.
I talked about the angry atheist.
This is Joanna, and we're on a trail.
She said she was ninety percent confident that God it was real.
She pumps it up to a hundred after ten minutes into the talk.
This is about twenty minutes into the talk.
It's a five-minute chat
and I want you to notice
her thinker's pose. And notice the pacing of this,
notice the calm nature of it,
notice the respect and the attention,
and the intention of wanting to fully understand
what she's saying.
AM: If this belief that's in your head
and this hundred percent certainty
that the God exists
is based on a foundation of you being raised and taught something,
how can you be certain that it's actually true?
IL: That's kind of like we we�re talking about earlier.
It's very faith-based.
AM: We're gonna to definitely have to unpack this faith based thing.
IL: It's pretty broad.
Um ...
AM: On what is a faith based...
IL: "Faith based" is that you can't see Him.
You can't always hear Him.
You just have to believe that
He'll pull through for your favor.
And even if it isn't in your favor,
that can work into your favor somehow.
'Cause a lot of negative things happen in life,
but really depends on which route you take.
But...
Gosh...
How...
That's the only way to put it too.
I just think it's something that's inside of you as well.
Which could go along other religions, too.
'Cause, like, being out in nature
gives you a lot of peace.
When I pray I have a lot of peace.
I feel like I have more direction.
I pause and reflect more.
You know.
You can never be...
Ahh...
kind of like you're thinking about that 90%, but...
I don't know how else to put it!
That's hard.
I haven't actually talked that out with somebody before fully.
I don't really have words.
AM: That's fine.
Now can I ask you one more question and then we'll wrap it up?
IL: Yeah.
AM: I suppose my question is:
if you couldn't use faith to conclude that your God exists,
to know with 100% level of confidence...
If a faith-based foundation wasn't an option for you,
IL: Mmm-hmm.
where do you think you would be in terms of your confidence that God existed.
IL: It wouldn't be very high.
Because like I said before, there's not really ...
He's not literally standing in front of us, right now?
IF that makes sense. I mean ...
AM: So, you can't see Him, you can't hear ...
IL: A lot of people kind of need concrete things in front of them
in order to kind of have that 100% ... faith.
Not faith-based, sorry.
100% trust in something.
Especially something that you base your whole life off of.
I feel like if you don't have ...
Faith is one of those things where you don't always feel like you're in control.
And I feel like as humans we always like to have control.
It's another thing where I kind of stray
everyone kind of strays off of their path,
but I always find my way back.
AM: Okay.
May I ask you one more question.
And I promise this will be the last one unless you say:
"Please, keep asking me questions." But this is my last.
In these conversations
that I've had with lots of people
regardless of what God they believe in
and regardless of how they were raised.
They will often say that "I believe it because of faith."
I can't see the God. I can't hear the God.
But I believe it and they are believing
in completely different deities, wildly different.
IL: Yeah.
So, my last question to you is:
[Sounds]
Is faith a reliable way to come to know something to be true,
if anyone can use it for anything?
IL: That's a good question.
Oh. Wow!
You got me there.
It doesn't change what I believe.
But ...
You actually have a good point.
A lot of religions are a lot of faith ...
Um, is faith-based.
AM: I beg your pardon.
Is there another way you can ask that?
IL: Or is it a question or is it kind of like an open-ended ...
AM: We can certainly end it on that point and if you want to...
you seem like a thinker and if you want to think about it
And we can ...
And if I never hear from you again
that's fine but if you want to ping me,
I can give you my email address.
IL: Yeah.
AM: I can rephrase it, to leave it with you one more time.
You can think about it I'll give you the card.
So, I suppose the final question
that you can either answer now
or just think about it would be:
If anyone can use faith to conclude that anything is true,
why on earth would they want to use that method?
IL: Mmm-hmm.
That's a good one.
I'm going to ponder.
I'm definitely a thinker.
I have five minutes here.
So, just really quick.
Did you notice the pacing of it?
Did you notice that it was calm? I was asking questions.
I wasn't telling her a damn thing.
I was just giving her some of my observations.
I was telling a story like the previous speaker had mentioned.
The importance of storytelling.
Now this approach is freaking out professional believers.
They're worried about it because I think they would
rather see us argue like I did there with street preacher Phil.
It's a lot easier to demonize an atheist
when I'm behaving like that as opposed to
when I'm having a cordial conversation
with somebody like Joanna there.
Okay. I've got one more video and we got like three minutes left.
So, let�s wrap this up.
This one is one and a half minutes long
and I'm showing you this video
because this one is so cool.
It's this couple, we start talking how this fellow is getting pressure from one...
He's a Christian. He's hundred percent sure yet he's getting
pressure from one of his friends
who's a Jehovah's Witness.
And we had this wonderful conversation.
His wife came up and listened mostly.
And he's extolling the virtues of the conversation that he just had
where I was using this approach.
IL: But you got me thinking though, Anthony!
I might have to email you.
James ...
AM: Nothing will make me happier.
[continues giving his email]
IL: Don't put it in the junk folder!
AM: I'll be watching for it.
AM: Yeah, hit me up.
I'd really like to find out if there's
a better way to conclude that this God exists
other than the reasons that you gave me.
Do you find that the reasons
that you've explained to me,
very great, very well...
IL: That's a good question for my friend...
That's a good question for him.
AM: Why?
IL: 'Cause he's so strong in his beliefs!
AM: Mmmm.
IL: You know?
My buddy, Gilbert.
He's so strong in his beliefs,
I'm going to ask him:
"Hey, is there..."
"How sure are you?"
"How?"
And I'm going to see what his...
I think his answers are going to be similar to what I just gave you.
But I'm going to ask him.
AM: You know what I think would be really cool
is if you were to learn about Street Epistemology,
watch a couple of my videos
and then engage with your friend.
IL: You got videos on that website?
AM: Yeah.
If you email me I'll send you the link to my channel
IL: Okay.
AM: And you can check them out.
IL: All right.
AM: Thank you so much, really, really enjoyed it.
Lovely talk, thank you. Bye.
Got me thinking now!
Good thing I don't have to work today!
[Laughter]
[Applause]
James!
If you'd like to learn how to do that,
we get into a lot more detail.
We had a workshop yesterday.
The organizers here were kind enough
to schedule another one for tomorrow at noon in another room.
In that room over there.
You'll find it.
So it's at Noon tomorrow.
We are tabling as well. And just to wrap this up...
I've got two minutes.
Let me just wrap it up.
I do think that's this method is changing the way atheists interact with believers.
And it's harder for believers to say:
"Don't talk to that person because she's asking hard questions."
If you have the truth it should stand up to the scrutiny of some simple questions.
And did you notice in that video how James was picking up that
I was asked him "how" questions?
"How did he figure out that that's true?"
So, he was getting it there at the end.
And I really do think that
when the history books are written on the success of atheism in America
that there will be chapters on Street Epistemology.
So, my question to you is:
"Are you willing and able to help us make that happen?"
Thank you very much.
[Applause]