Matt Dillahunty and The Atheist Experience
Who is Matt Dillahunty?
Matt is a well known ex-religious person, who's become one of the most feared atheists around. He has a tendency to get frustrated by constant irrational callers on his show, The Atheist Experience, and ends up shutting them down and cutting off the call. Matt's arguments are amazingly resilient, and he can find the cracks in every single theist caller that calls in.
Unsurprisingly, Dillahunty comes from a religious background. In fact, he was on his way to becoming a minister! But during his research, he discovered just how obscure, wicked, and disgusting the Southern Baptist belief system really is.
Matt now devotes a massive part of his life to spreading his atheist views in different TV shows, debates, and speeches. Unlike some of our other favorite atheists, like Richard Dawkins, Dillahunty has much less tolerance for religious mumbo-jumbo and isn't afraid to say it. Many times, religious believers will hide behind their vague ideas, avoiding drilling into the core of the proposition. Anyone who tries to circumvent his line of questioning will either be swiftly hung up on or absolutely decimated by rational and logic arguments. So if you were thinking about calling into the Atheist Experience, you might want to think again.
Best Moments From The Atheist Experience
In episode 696, Matt engages with a caller from Austin, Texas. The caller provides a muddy description
"Why would you believe anything on faith. Faith isn't a pathway to truth. Every religion has some sort of faith. If faith is your pathway you can't distinguish between Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, any of these others. How is it that you use reason as a path to truth in every endeavor of your life. And then when it comes to the ultimate truth, the most important truth, you're saying that faith is required. And how does that reflect on a god that supposedly exists and wants you to have that information. What kind of god requires faith instead of evidence?"
"Faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have evidence. If you can come up with something that i believe that I don't have evidence for, guess what I'll do. I'll stop believing it. That's the nature of a rational mind. That is the goal."
"Faith is not a virtue. Faith is gullibility. It's evidence that determines whether or not your perception of reality is reasonable and in conjunction with the world as it is."
"The absurdity of the device nature of Christianity in particular, and by the way, I'm an atheist with regard to all gods, but since you're kind of representing Christianity... it breaks my heart. People who actually understand what love is, people who actually understand what morality is, people who actually understand reality, it is almost unbearable to watch the people that you love to be so absolutely duped into a divisive, hateful religion that they think is not decisive (they think it's inclusive) and they think it's positive. It kills me, and it's one of the reasons that I do this. Because I, for 25 plus years believed this stuff. I am so happy, so happy, that I no longer think my former roommate is destined for hell. I am so happy that despite the fact that the relationship with my parents, the nature of it has changed, I don't have to worry about them. The division is entirely one-sided. I didn't end relationships when I became an atheist. Christians ended those relationships. And it's because their particular religion cannot tolerate... I had letters from people who said we can no longer associate with you, you are of the devil."
Take a moment to soak in one of the world's greatest religious rebuttals of all time.
Be sure to check out our Christopher Hitchens to learn more about another awesome atheist.