Firstly, I still think that the concept of that “I want to be a comedian that only tells inside joke” is pure comedy gold!!!
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David Smalley asked some preliminary questions such as “What is a messianic Jew?” and “Why do you think most Jews do not accept that?” and “What is it about the story of Jesus that is believable to you…?”
At one point, I noted, “you’re making that difficult for me to answer because all your hidden assumptions are just jumping out all over me…”
He assured me that we would get to that but first, “What is it about the story just on your own as you were raised Jewish what is it about the story or what was it about the story of Jesus that that seemed believable to you…?”
After some elucidation by me, he noted, “…my question to you was what is it about Jesus that is believable” and he took it that my reply was what he put as that (partially paraphrasing me), “You responded with, ‘I didn’t know any Christians and then I met Christians’ and then you started telling me about people who believed…‘people that I really respected who also believed this thing’…people that you liked or admired also believed in Jesus.”
At this point he asked whether that “was that perhaps a catalyst for you to start believing that maybe it’s possible that this guy really rose from the dead even though you know physically we don’t believe that to be possible well not really and partly because.” Thus, he asked me about whether meeting such people (plural) was a catalyst.
I spoke about that it was not people (plural) but one person (singular) and what that had to do with my journey. Now, David Smalley chimed in with, “Kenny, I want to try, I want to try one more time, like really directly man, like really directly here, help me out here, and this is, I want to have a direct conversation with you and people don’t want to hear these side off stories about all these other things that like they tune in for a very specific conversation what is it about this particular Jew who died and then came back to life and then literally floated to heaven that that made you say ‘Yeah, that sounds reasonable.’”
I replied, “I’ll just remind you that’s where we started but then you asked me about the people so that’s why I talked about them” (playing off of his plural them).
What ended up happening is that the more we spoke the more he was actually arguing with me and so I turned my focus to that he had no premise upon which to argue with me and he became increasingly emotive, increasingly incoherent, and eventually just ran away when he abruptly ended the interview.
At one point I noted, “What you appear to be doing is holding me to standards of logic and that you haven’t established yet. They’re just assertions at this point, hidden assumptions.”
Now, I was a guest on his show and noted more than once that he did not seem to like it when I was taking him outside of his comfort zone, beyond his safe-space, since I was attempting to get him to deal with issues unlike in the manner in which he has clearly become accustomed.
In short, his modus operandi, which he made quite clear, is that he was in charge, he had the big microphone, he was louder, thus, I had to jump through his hoops—and I played along a bit and interrupted whenever I could about his mere jumps to asserted conclusions based on hidden assumptions.
For example, I noted, “you said, ‘In reality, that doesn’t hold’ so then your hidden assumption is that adhering to reality is some sort of universal imperative and I’m curious as to why you think that.”
He rhetorically asked, “Are you now advocating for us not adhering to reality? Is that where we are in this conversation?”
I noted, “I’m asking you why you are asking me to adhere to reality as some sort of universal imperative.”
His reply was typically Atheistic, “I can’t even believe you’re saying that you’re, you’re asking me to defend, hold on, you’re asking me to defend why I think adhering to reality is the intellectually honest thing to do? Have I reached that point in my career well I’m now having to defend basic reality.”
That’s a diversionary tactic but I would imagine it came about from the fact that he’s never considered the implications of his worldview at such a fundamental, meta, level. Humanity has long pondered reality, the greatest philosophers who ever lived pondered it yet, it seems to be beneath David Smalley.
Now, another interesting thing is that I kept asking him whether on his worldview thus and such was the case. He would reply by taking offense that I was telling him what his worldview was rather than asking him. I would have to remind him that I had actually asked a question (in most cases, form what I recall).
Conversely, he kept simply assuming I held to divine command theory without asking me but I actually reject that theory.
Now, the last segment of the show is hidden behind pay/donation walls on David Smalley’s Patron site thus, I will just get to the bottom line of why he ended up running away when he abruptly ended the discussion.
He became increasingly emotive, increasingly incoherent, and was clearly incapable of handling having his worldview exposed for the fundamental level failure which it is.
He noted, “I saw that you gave a talk, I didn’t see the talk, I want to know what you mean that, and your post actually said ‘the Bible should be part of education—hear that Atheists?’ so I want to find out what that is.”
So, he merely read the title of a video that I posted and admitted, “I didn’t see the talk.”
I read part of what I stated in the video which ended with, “an Atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible and other sacred books out of our education.”
Well, of course, he took umbrage at the very thought of the Bible—yes, the Bible!!!—being part of education (meaning in public schools). I noted that the statement had been about literature and so of course the Bible can be taught in public schools as literature. He asked if that also went for other religious texts and I had to remind him that I had just finished affirming, “the Bible and other sacred books.”
He was concerned that some teacher who believes in the Bible may attempt to go beyond teaching it as mere literature, etc. I told him that the same actually holds for any subject: what about, for example, a teacher who is supposed to be teaching science but ends up teaching Atheist evolution as the worldview-philosophy which it is (or, American history with a Leftist bias, etc.).
I ended up noting that public schools basically teach the Atheist Catechism since all subjects are taught without regard to God: God had nothing to do with history, nor science, nor anything.
Well, David Smalley took affront at the very concept of me using the term Atheist Catechism and noted that he is sick and tired of Christians “pretending to be nice” but then making such statements.
I noted that he was playing mind-reader since he cannot know my thought or motivations so he actually cannot know (lest I reveal it to him) that I was just “pretending” to be nice—I actually was being nice.
So as to not belabor the point, I noted to him that the whole statement I had made within the video was not my own but that I had actually been quoting Richard Dawkins. Indeed, Atheist high-priest Richard Dawkins wrote, “an Atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible and other sacred books out of our education.”
Having had no idea of what I/Dawkins had stated in my video, David Smalley instantly asserted that Dawkins does not believe that. Well, I was just quoting Dawkins and Smalley seemed to be engaged in some form of denialism as a psychological Band-Aid—or, something.
He then decided to proclaim that I took Dawkins out of context. Now, unless he has memorized the book The God Delusion (and I had not even told him whence I was quoting Dawkins so unless he has memorized everything Dawkins has ever said/written) then I am not confident that David Smalley could, within mere seconds, go from having no clue that I was actually just quoting Dawkins to instantly knowing that I took him out of context—another form of denialism as a psychological Band-Aid, perhaps.
I had to explain to him that something is not out of context just because he declares, asserts, it to be so. Rather, something is out of context when the original context is considered and shown to not match the context in which it was placed.
So, yeah, by this point he was clearly emotive and incoherent. What brought it to an end is that he literally absconded into fantasy world. No kidding, he began literally fantasizing about how he just knows that when the interview is posted, people (imaginary people) would be in disbelief at my statements and even Christians (more imaginary people) would comment that they are embarrassed of me—on and on he went.
Do you discern the fascinating psychology going on here? He was utterly incapable of dealing with reality (which is accidental, on his worldview) and so engaged in what fiction authors term world-building. He was fantasizing about how everyone would agree with him and would put me down. He did not have to keep attempting to argue since in his imaginary realm, he was victorious.
I had to burst his fantasy bubble and point out that he was, yet again, playing mind-reader since he was just imagining what people would say in the future and well, that moment of clarity was much too much for him to handle so it was over as he ended the interview abruptly and retreated into his fantasy-land.
Another psychologically fascinating move was that he then ran off to Twitter to appeal to his yes-men-fan-boys when he tweeted, “I’m done respecting your stupid beliefs. We are not the same. If you worship a God who condones slavery, you are not moral. This is not just a difference of opinion. One of us lives in reality, and the other is delusional & immoral. I’m tired of pretending you’re normal. Grow up.”
Thus, he was vague enough to not alert his audience to what, to whom, he was referring and just gave them enough to make it easy for them to agree with him on principle—the lesson, of course, being, “I’m done respecting your stupid beliefs.”
Now, if you listen to our discussion, you will see that he is actually ignoring the fact that on his worldview, he cannot condemn slavery, nor not being moral, nor not adhering to reality, nor being delusional and immoral, etc.
See how it works? He cannot defend his worldview so constructed an imaginary realm in which he does not have to. He has implemented the only successful tactic of the New Atheist movement: replace engaging in reasoned discourse with being a childish jerk.
One last point that touches heavily upon the utter failure of his appeal to his Twitter audience.
At one point he went full blown elephant hurling (making so many statements that I could not possibly address them all) and noted, “If you look back throughout the bible, Ken, you’ll see that there were multiple times where people were just slaughtered…kill the nursing infants…”
I noted, “Do you see what I mean about Atheists only ever being consistently inconsistent? You just finished explaining to me that human morality evolved to the point that now we’re concerned with human flourishing. But now you’re artificially going back in time and using today’s morality to condemn the past. You can’t do that, on your worldview. All you can say is, ‘Oh gosh, you know, it’s too bad from our perspective today with this, the zeitgeist and everything, we can, you know, say that wasn’t very nice.’ But we can’t apply that back in time, that’s artificial.”
You got it, right? He (pseudo) condemned killing nursing infants way, way, way back before killing nursing infants was actually immoral.
Now, David Smalley retweeted a statement made to him by a certain John (@Johnmika76) stating, “If we could take a poll of babies in the womb I wonder what it would say?”
Smalley replied, “You just ran right into the point. Fetuses do not think, decide, retain memory, experience struggles, regrets, or have goals. They are a parasite on the female body and it’s her choice to allow it to continue. Why? Because she DOES experience all the things it doesn’t.”
I replied, “You moved the goalpost: was it on purpose or accidentally?”
He did not reply in turn. John referred to “babies” but Smalley decided to move the goalpost (not that there is anything wrong with that, on Atheism) to “Fetuses.”
John’s point was clearly speculative and spoke to the utter cowardice of abortionists who brutally violently serial murder millions of beautiful, healthy, innocent, and defenseless human babies (and “baby” is what a loving expectant mother calls her baby even when she first finds out she is pregnant: even if the baby is only a few days old, is only a couple of cells).
Smalley’s reply was his typical modus operandi: he merely asserted that it is perfectly acceptable to brutally violently serial murder millions of fetuses due to his merely asserted pseudo standard that they, “do not think, decide, retain memory, experience struggles, regrets, or have goals.”
He, who is a former fetus himself, actually dehumanized “babies” by referring to them by a Latinized medical term “Fetuses” and “parasite.”
FYI: the term fetus covers eighth week after fertilization until birth—during which time they most certainly experience struggles, think, retain memory, maybe even decide, etc.
Now, the point here is tricky since we are dealing with nursing infants vs. fetuses but it goes to show that he has no problem with brutally violently serial murdering millions of fetuses (for money) but once they are one second older than a fetus, when they are nursing infants (with infancy beginning at birth), then it is wrong to brutally violently serial murder millions of them (for money), which denotes the utterly arbitrary nature of his assertions.
Thus, he only pseudo condemns killing nursing infants but approves of murdering babies who are even one single minute younger than an infant—the ol‘ magical birth canal which somehow transforms a parasite into a baby.
Thus, the whole interview was mostly about me just exposing David Smalley’s failed worldview and he becoming increasingly incapable of dealing with it.
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