Ed Opperman is a private investigator turned podcaster who changed my beliefs, but not his own.

photo by: Skeptiko

… today’s show is about changing your mind changing, your beliefs, but as often happens on these shows it turned into a something else. I mean, how else can you explain how I could go from this:

Alex Tsakiris: … [Ed] you seem to follow data wherever it leads. That’s what I care about. And that’s what I hear from your show. It’s awesome. It’s rare.

To this:

Ed Opperman: …well, I would end it there because, you want to change my mind, I don’t think it’s gonna happen. I don’t have to justify my faith to you. What’s your need to change my mind?

Alex Tsakiris: I get that it sounds like I’m desperate to change your mind, I’m really not. This is the Skeptiko process for me — follow the data wherever it leads. I see in you someone who’s following the data, and then when it comes to this topic it’s like, ‘no, I don’t really need to follow that data.’ I hear this all the time, people say ‘I’m a smart guy if that was true I would know it.’

So, this episode has a lot of layers to it and I’m tempted to pull them all apart and lay them all out and explain them, but I don’t really think that’s what you want, or what I want. I want to let you know up front that the episode has a lot of political flavor to it, but not for the sake of politics, this is an episode about what I used to believe, why I believed it, and I came to change those beliefs.

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Alex Tsakiris: I’m a, follow the data wherever it leads, guy, I’m interested in the spiritual understandings that we can gain from analyzing the data in that way and I’m just a little bit surprised by the Christian, born again thing, on your part.

Ed Opperman: Okay. I’ve read the Bible, probably a dozen times, back to back, I’ve read The New Testament probably about 30 times, probably more. Like I said, I live this.

Alex Tsakiris: But, the Bible in not reliable in the way that most Christians think it is.

Ed Opperman: Well, I would end it there because do you want to change my mind? I don’t think it’s going to happen. Do I have to justify my faith to you? What’s your need to change my mind?

Alex Tsakiris: I don’t have a need. I get that it sounds like I’m desperate to change your mind, I’m really not. I’m pointing out, in the same way that this, to me, is the process, this is the Skeptiko process, for me. It’s like, follow the data wherever it leads, and I see in you someone who’s following the data and then when it comes to this, it’s like, “Well no, I don’t really need to follow that data because I’ve already done it.” It’s like I hear all the time from people,