DEBATE: Is Street Epistemology Based On FAITH Claims And BIASES? Mindgasms Podcast
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Newest Mindgasms Podcast with my friends Reid Nicewonder, who uses the Socratic Method to ask people questions about their beliefs on his Youtube channel called Cordial Curiosity, along with Shane Kennedy, a Protestant Christian. Reid uses street epistemology on his channel, which is similar to the Socratic Method, in attempts to find out the reasons behind people’s beliefs about controversial topics like religion, politics and culture. Even though I am an atheist, Shane and I debate/talk with Reid about our shared opinion that street epistemology has its own baked in biases and faith claims, even though it is meant to highlight those in other people. Street epistemologists like Reid present themselves as neutral, and they do appear to be that way. But Shane and I agree that perhaps street epistemologists are not aware, or at least see no problem with, the way they frame issues and what questions they ask. The underlying philosophy that is rarely or never acknowledged is seeing rationalism, empiricism and being non-religious as superior. These are faith claims and biases in themselves, which are never questioned. Shane and I want to know why it’s apparently so important for religious or political beliefs, conspiracy theories, or new age fringe subjects like astrology to be proven empirically, or adhered to only for rational reasons. Also, why is it supposedly better to be non-religious than it is to be religious? Why are these biases never or at least rarely highlighted by street epistemologists? Perhaps these faith claims and biases are often not noticed because street epistemology was first put forward by the philosopher named Peter Boghossian in his book called “A Manual for Creating Atheists.” It was also continued in the less anti-religious “How to Have Impossible Conversations,”, co-written by James Lindsay, who is a militant atheist as well, and wrote a very anti-religious book called “Everybody is Wrong About God.”
Check out my last Mindgasms Podcast with Reid Nicewonder, who does Street Epistemology, or using the Socratic method to ask people questions about their beliefs, on his Youtube channel called Cordial Curiosity. He also runs the SE channel, Street Epistemology. We debate/discuss the similarities and differences between our views on truth and epistemology. What is truth? What is knowledge? How do you attain it? We get into these subjects in the context of many examples and ways of approaching them, including science, atheism, rationality, materialism, empiricism, and consciousness.
Check out my last Mindgasms Podcast with my Orthodox Christian friend Shane Kennedy, my Protestant Christian friend Justin, and my street epistemology friends Nathan Ferguson and Reid Nicewonder, who are Atheists like me. We discuss whether aborted fetuses have souls and go to Heaven. From here, we get into all sorts of other related questions like: Is abortion interfering with God’s plan? What qualifies an interfering in God’s plan? When does life begin? How do we know whether someone is dead or alive? Do souls exist? Can we know who goes to Heaven? Does whether someone has a soul even matter in terms of whether they go to Heaven? How can we know what God’s plan is? Can the claim that aborted fetuses do not go to Heaven be disproven? If so, how? Are there different types of knowledge? Are science, evidence and rational explanations superior ways of knowing? Is knowledge from the heart, or a feeling, better than scientific or evidence-based knowledge? What is truth? How important is knowing whether something is true or false? Is it more important for a worldview to improve your life than it is for it to be true? How can we determine this? Does objective truth exist? Can it be proven both by evidence and by intuition or feeling? Is one way of proving this superior to all others? If so, why?
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Check out my playlist with every Mindgasms Debate so far:
