WEHOOO! We did it! Wow, wow. Nerdfighteria has just done something that has never been done before in the history of YouTube. We had a conversation about religion that embodied multiple, diverse viewpoints that was civil and interesting. OH MY GOD!

I honestly didn't think it was possible, I made a whole other video yesterday, in which I talked about how I didn't want to talk about religion at all, because it wasn't something that we people could have a discussion about, and then I was like "aw screw it, I'll make one about religion, and the- just see what happens" and you know what happened? When we came from a place of understanding and thoughtfulness, we continued in that vein, for the most part. 

Now I want to continue a discussion that is currently being held in the comments. At the end of my last video, I said that I don't like to have deeply held beliefs. Because when you have those deeply held, ingrained beliefs that you cannot let go of and you cannot compromise on, that's when two things come together and even if they aren't that different, they just mmm mmm mmm (bashing clenched hands together) and they never- nothing happens they just hit at each other and it hurts my knuckles owwww. 

But that being said, I do have deeply held beliefs that I am not willing to compromise on. We all do, its impossible not to. My big deeply held belief that I am not willing to compromise on is the idea of objective truth. Now this is not a religion conversation, because I don't know that anyone can really say that there is objective truth in religion. If there was objective truth, then there would be no faith, you would not have to have faith, and if there is no faith, then it's hard to see it as a religion.

What I'm talking about is, is objective truth like "I need oxygen to exist. Oxygen comes through my mouth and nose and into my lungs, where it oxygenates my blood and that oxygen is carried throughout my body and transferred into my cells and allows my body to do all the biochemical stuff that makes me a person". I know that is true because if I stop breathing, my body panics, and eventually, it will die.

That is an objective truth, and there are lots of objective truths. If I dropped my phone right now, it would fall, and hit my concrete floor. I'm not going to do that though because it was expensive, and would cost a lot of money to replace, so i'm just gonna put it right here. But invariably, if we are on the earth, things fall toward the center of the earth- objective truth.

My deeply held belief that I get angry when people refute is the idea of objective truth. When people say that they have the right to their own opinions and they also have the right to their own facts, because we do not have the right to our own facts, everyone has the same facts, and you cannot change facts person to person. It's not like religion where it's okay if someone believes in one religion but not in another religion, there is objective fact where, you know, y- you- you can do it, but you're wrong. 

And for the most part we don't argue about objective facts, like airplanes fly and medicines cure people and we're all down with that stuff. But there are situations in which people attack objective facts with craziness, and it is annoying. And you might not think that these things are controversial, but some people think that they are very controversial.

Like the idea that vaccines are good for people, because smallpox used to kill millions of people every year, and now it doesn't kill anyone. People don't even know what Polio is anymore, because of vaccines, and people are attacking vaccines, and saying that they're killing people, when they have saved more lives than any other scientific innovation in the history of mankind.

And there are other examples as well: the people who believe the US government attacked itself and knocked down the World Trade Centers and flew a plane into the Pentagon. As well as the huge example which is very close to my heart, and I have a very hard time dealing with this, is when people attack the objective truth of evolution. And the objective truth that the mountains outside of my window have been there for millions and millions of years. Those are objective truths, with scientific proof, and we do not have the right to have our own version of those facts. 

We all have our things that we get angry about, that's my thing. I'm a nerd, I'm a dork, I am a scientist and that is annoying to me, when people are like "well, that's what you think". And then we scientists, we turn around and we say the exact thing about God we say "well, that's what you think", but, you know, I can't breathe without oxygen. That's not 'what I think', that's the truth. There is no room for debate on that one, and that's what science is about, it's about no room for debate, finding out what the truth is.

Alright, well thank you for sitting through this much more possibly dangerous vlog in which I talk about the things that I actually do believe in deeply. Hopefully, we can remain civil. Thank you all very much, I'll see you tomorrow.