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The Moustache, The Bible, And The Kalam – 850k QnA

Alex O'Connor | February 3, 2026



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– LINKS

My writing on Unherd: https://unherd.com/author/alex-oconner/

– TIMESTAMPS

00:00 An Ethical Coin-Flip
03:51 A Day in Alex’s Life
06:31 Mixing Blue & Yellow M&Ms
08:07 If Determinism is False
11:23 Is the Glass Half Full?
12:41 Moral Relativism
14:35 When Alex Has Changed His Mind
16:54 Alex’s Loosely-Held Opinions
18:59 The Wisest Book in the Bible
23:02 Views on Consciousness
23:55 Is a Meal Deal Really a Deal?
25:53 The Kalam Cosmological Argument
28:37 Favourite US State
28:58 Jordan Peterson’s Suits
29:40 Alex’s Passionate Hates
31:15 Is From Ought
32:25 The First Cause of Everything
32:33 Teaching Kids About Free Will
34:02 What Colour Was the Dress?
36:08 Is the Milk or Cereal First?
36:33 The Problem with Sam Harris’ Moral Landscape
38:28 Plantinga’s Argument from Reason
43:32 Where Are the Drawers?
43:37 Beard Care Routine
43:48 The Moustache
43:53 If Alex Wasn’t Human
44:02 When is Alex Releasing a Book?
45:36 Thoughts on Alcohol
45:43 The Opposite of Spicy
48:09 Christianity’s Biggest L & W
50:50 Being Used by Fundamentalists
52:25 Alex’s First Job
53:06 Outro

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– CONTACT

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——————————————

Written by Alex O'Connor

Comments

This post currently has 20 comments.

  1. @1nnominatum

    February 3, 2026 at 6:18 am

    1:30 I would say definitely not. I think that the 30 seconds of joy would actually be the worst part of it as it’d likely lead to some kind of addiction to that high, or a sort of dissatisfaction with anything else afterwards.

    But if the risk of that would be eliminated, I think it’d be more debatable.

  2. @MattyB1134

    February 3, 2026 at 6:18 am

    I think being averse to the 30 seconds of pain is simply because your base existence is good. Someone who was suffering all their life I think would chose to suffer for 30 seconds for 30 seconds of pleasure .

  3. @larsjuul12

    February 3, 2026 at 6:18 am

    43:17 on things being true. I might be off but cant things be more true than others ? Like how people who believed in Newton had an advantage compared to deniers, but the people who listened to Einstein were "even more" true ? Like there's things that are closer to truth than others. Still all comes down to it helping our survivability I know, just had to write it

  4. @adcaptandumvulgus4252

    February 3, 2026 at 6:18 am

    i disagree, i think you want it to influence for attitude but it doesn't matter. I used to be upbeat thinking life was sunshine and unicorns but your opinion is interesting & hope your desires can influence your interpretation

  5. @andrewlovesbars

    February 3, 2026 at 6:18 am

    I think something interesting to consider in the argument of determinism, if we think of time as its own dimension; imagine asking the question of determinism within the context of a more observable dimension such as width. Is width determined? Width is manipulatable, or things that exist along the axis of width, but width will always occur, you cannot say the dimension of width is imagined. So the belief of free will comes from an idea that time doesn’t truely exist, things dont occur past or future, they just are. But you can’t say width doesnt exist itd be like saying the only width that exists are the particles that are affecting my neurons right now…seems unlikely. The question of determinism though I think is equally false, you cant say width isnt manipulatable, if you fold a piece of paper in half, you have manipulated in the dimension of width. In the same way this could apply to time, If you make a decision u have made a manipulation in the dimension of time. So I think the logical premise of determinism vs free will is flawed in nature because its developed from a flawed question or uncontextualized idea of how we address time.

  6. @erthboy47

    February 3, 2026 at 6:18 am

    Color is a property of an item's chemical/elemental makeup. That's where the redness is. Wavelengths and brain's perception of them are symptoms of the chemical/elemental makeup of an item. So since a green m&m is different than the sum of a blue mm and yellow mm, (blue dye's and yellow dye's chemicals don't instantaneously react to make the exact same chemical makeup as the dye used for the green mm) it is not the same as eating a green mm.

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