for most of my life
i've teetered between being an atheist
and agnostic
like many other skeptics i fancy myself
a rational person who believes in
science
but eight years ago when i got sober i
was basically given an ultimatum
either believe in a higher power or die
from your addiction
as a rational atheist i put the pieces
together
and just realized that i had to
understand that believing in something
other than myself
was one of the keys to sobriety so i saw
12 step meetings my support group and my
sponsor
as what some would call a higher power
my beautiful girlfriend tristan is also
an atheist
and we have some interesting
conversations although
atheists were firm believers that if
people are religious and aren't hurting
anyone
more power to them sometimes we watch
atheists on youtube and see how they
depict themselves
oftentimes atheists talk down to
believers from a pedestal
of science and pure rationality but for
this video on supernatural psychology
we're going to ask the question if
atheists would sell their soul
i've been wanting to make this video for
a long time because through my own
research
i found that many atheists won't sell
their soul
and it seems quite irrational in episode
74 of the freakonomics podcast
stephen dubner discussed a comment from
skeptic magazine which read
what is it about the idea of a soul that
even people who confess to not have one
are hesitant to sell it i have been
trying for the better part of 10 years
to buy a soul i've offered a dollar
amount between ten dollars
and fifty dollars for someone to sign a
sheet of paper that says that i own
their soul
despite multiple debates with confessed
atheists
no one has signed the contract i've been
able to buy several people's sense of
humor
and one guy's dignity but no souls
additionally will any freak anonymous
reader take me up on this
i'm willing to spend 50 on souls
so in this video we're going to dive
deep into some psychological studies
but i'm curious to hear from all of you
because this is really interesting
leave a comment down below and let me
know if you'd sell your soul
and for how much i'm even more curious
what your logic is
if you're an atheist and at the end of
this video i'll let you know whether or
not
i would personally sell my soul for two
dollars
but before we dive into some of these
studies if you're new to the rewired
soul
make sure you subscribe and ring that
notification bell on this channel we
apply critical thinking to various
scenarios
to improve our own emotional
intelligence and overall well-being
the internet is an interesting place and
it's made it so many people can buy and
sell just about whatever they want
during the current pandemic people have
been turning to online storefronts such
as
etsy to make some extra money then there
are people like myself who have the
ability to self-publish my own books
but then there are also more absurd
items that people can sell online
in one season of orange is the new black
piper creates a business
where female inmates can sell their used
underwear and this is something that
there's a real market for
and in a previous video on essentialism
we discussed how bell delphine
was able to sell her bathwater although
ebay has been the biggest platform for
buyers and sellers for over two decades
one thing that you
can't buy or sell on ebay is souls
for believers this makes sense and if
you were to ask a believer
they'd most likely be offended by you
even asking to buy their soul
we atheists love to chuckle at this
because we think we're
so much more rational than others but
when put to the test
we're even more ridiculous the first
study i heard about
was from the moral psychologist jonathan
hype and his assistant scott murphy
much like the man who left the comment
on skeptic magazine
they wanted to see who would sell their
soul but they were offering a lot less
for a person's soul they were offering
the low price
of two dollars why were they doing this
study you ask
this was actually part of a
psychological study on political moral
foundations
and by the way if you didn't watch my
video on shane dawson through the lens
of moral politics
make sure you watch that next so in this
study from jonathan height
they tested moral foundations such as
harm fairness
authority and purity as part of the
purity study
scott murphy went to random college
students at the university of virginia
and tried to see how many of them would
sell their soul to him
the piece of paper read as follows i
blank
hereby sell my soul after my death to
scott murphy
for the sum of two dollars below that
they would sign
and there was also a disclaimer on this
piece of paper that said
this form is part of a psychology
experiment it is not a legal or binding
contract
in any way not only did he put the
disclaimer on that piece of paper
but he told the participants that they
could rip up the paper immediately
after they signed it and he'd still give
them the two dollars
so before i tell you the results do me a
favor and leave a comment down below
of what percentage of people you think
agreed to sign this piece of paper
one would think that a hundred percent
of atheists would sign this paper
you don't have to be an economics major
at the university of virginia
to realize that this is a good deal as
an atheist
you're exchanging something with a value
of nothing for monetary gain
so it's all upside and as you learn from
the comment from skeptic magazine
the man couldn't even get people to sell
their soul for fifty dollars
well when jonathan height and scott
murphy did this study
they found that only 23 percent of
people
would sign the paper agreeing to sell
their soul
think about that for a second almost 80
percent of people would have signed the
paper for two
dollars in the study they didn't say the
exact percentage of people who were
atheists but we do know that there are
more atheists today than
ever in history in fact the
irrationality of atheists even goes
further than that
in the height and murphy study they
asked people to explain their
rationality
to better understand their choice and
they found that many people
couldn't think of any logical reason
especially the atheist
one debate that's quite frequent between
atheists and believers
is that of morality for example
believers argue that atheists don't have
morals
because religion is what provides moral
foundations
but this isn't true at all there are
plenty of moral atheists
but what's weird is how you can make
atheists even more
moral by discussing aspects of religion
dan ariely is the best-selling author of
predictably irrational
and he has conducted numerous studies on
irrationality of human
behavior and he has conducted numerous
studies on the irrationality of human
behavior
in his book the honest truth about
dishonesty they took 450 participants
divided them into two groups and they
asked half of the participants
to try and recall the ten commandments
after that
they put the participants in a scenario
where they'd have the opportunity to
cheat
on a test or fight the temptation the
second group
was asked to recall five books that they
read in high school
of the two groups cheating rates were
typical amongst those to ask to recall
books
but those asked to recall the ten
commandments didn't
cheat at all what's fascinating about
this study
was that most of the participants
couldn't even remember
all of the ten commandments so just the
act of
trying to recall them made these people
more
moral many of the participants were also
self-proclaimed
atheists so dan ariely and his team
tried another experiment in this one
they took the self-proclaimed atheists
and
asked them all to swear on a bible that
they wouldn't cheat
and although these people don't believe
in god cheating was virtually
non-existent compared to the other
variations of the study
now in this final section we'll discuss
what this all means
and whether or not i personally sell my
soul for two dollars
on youtube there are quite a few
youtubers in the atheist community
i must admit that for a while i loved
watching them i enjoyed watching my
fellow skeptics
dunk on creationists by using good old
science and critical thinking
but eventually i had a change of heart
while i would never judge you
or anyone else for watching these
channels about atheism personally
it just started to feel really toxic to
me this happened around the same time i
started reading books from famous
atheists
like michael shermer sam harris and
peter bogosian
although i enjoy listening to how these
people form their arguments
and use critical thinking it just seemed
like a strange obsession to me
to constantly try to prove believers
wrong i started thinking of the people
who write entire books
dedicated to disproving those who
believe in god or make this the core of
their content on their youtube channel
i also learned that there are entire
conferences for
atheists and i started to ask myself
chris
why do you enjoy this type of content
when i got honest with myself
it's because it made me feel better than
once i reached this self-realization i
felt ashamed that i got any type of
pleasure from this
and i know that many people consuming
this content are doing it for the same
reason
now don't get me wrong after consuming a
lot of this content i realize that not
everyone is like this those who
experience the shot of florida
of seeing believers proven wrong may
even be the minority
some of this content is actually quite
helpful jimmy snow aka mr atheist is a
youtuber who left the mormon religion
and is passionate about the content he
makes he often tries to help people
who are on the fence about leaving their
own religion there are also creators
like rachel oates who have made
videos on toxic parenting books from
religious people
or about girl defined in their
anti-lgbtq videos
so yes there's quite a bit of atheist
content out there that is trying to help
people
or defend certain populations but i
wanted to make this video for those
who were like me and got their jollies
from seeing atheists own believers
although many of us atheists present
ourselves as the more intellectual
rational and logical side of the
argument you now know that's not always
the case
many of us atheists wouldn't sell our
soul for two dollars
and for some reason thinking of the ten
commandments or swearing on a bible
makes us act more moral at the end of
the day we're all irrational beings just
trying to do our best in the world
all right everybody i hope you enjoyed
this newest addition to the supernatural
psychology
series so would i personally sell my
soul
for two dollars i probably would
just because i'm curious and i like
doing experiments with myself and seeing
how i would react
like when i was discussing this with my
beautiful girlfriend tristan
it reminded me of this book amazing book
by the way again i link all the books
that i talk about down in the
description below
get them their affiliate links so when
you use my link a little bit comes back
and supports the channel but anyways
this book was called suggestible you and
it was like this uh previously super
religious guy
and now he's an atheist but he wanted to
learn more about like the power of the
unconscious mind and the placebo effect
but anyways in that book he paid a witch
doctor to put a curse on him
right and he's like here just do it and
in seven days you could take it off the
witch doctor's like oh my god i don't
even know if i want to do this
right but anyways after that like his
wife um she was pregnant with uh one of
their children
and like she had these stomach pains and
she had to go to the hospital and his
mind
immediately thought about that curse
he's like oh i'm so stupid i can't
believe i did that not another dog right
and it's kind of like this placebo
effect so where
even those of us who are completely
rational scientific
whatever like we still have this like
tendency to believe
in the supernatural so i'd be interested
if i sign that paper
like if i would just my mind would start
picking up on these
different things right tristan and i
have been talking a lot about this stuff
and
you know a lot of you mentioned in one
of my um uh videos i think it was the
murder house one
about uh the energy right and that's a
really interesting subject that i might
dive into but anyways again like the the
moral of these videos when i dive into
supernatural psychology
like although we're all sitting here
trying to be critical thinkers and
everything like that
like i said like i think it's important
to realize no matter how smart
or flawless we think our thinking is we
need to remember that we have the same
biases and
irrational thinking right like we think
we're so just
rational but when you sit back and you
really start to do these little thought
experiments you're like huh
i would do some pretty weird stuff and i
can't wait to check out the comments
down below and see how many of you said
that you would or wouldn't
sell your soul and why or why not it's
really interesting
interesting stuff anyways i got a
million more videos coming out so if you
like this video please give it a thumbs
up if you're new
make sure you subscribe and ring that
notification bell and a huge
huge thank you to everybody out there
supporting the channel or on patreon or
by my books
over at the rewired soul.com or getting
merch from the merch store or
using my affiliate links for all the
books that i recommend all that stuff
helps support the channel and all the
work that i do here
alright thanks again for watching i'll
see you next time
