Atheist vs Christian vs Spiritual Thinker: The Paperclip Problem That Exposes Religion!

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 204 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are We Living Through the BIGGEST Crisis of Purpose & Meaning in History? 3 in 5 young Americans believe that their life lacks purpose. This isn’t just a statistic, it’s a silent epidemic reshaping mental health, identity and future...So, how do we fix it? In this DOAC debate, Greg Koukl (Christian), Alex O’Connor (atheist), and Dr K (psychiatrist) explore why so many feel lost, whether God is the answer, how death anxiety drives our search for meaning, and how YOU can find direction…today. This isn’t just a discussion. It’s a confrontation with life’s hardest challenge: finding meaning, and how faith, reason, and spirituality compete to fill the void. Greg Koukl is a Christian apologist, speaker, and founder of Stand to Reason, Alex O’Connor is a philosopher, writer, and host of the Cosmic Skeptic channel, and Dr K, is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, mental health educator, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. Together, they discuss: ◼️If God gave you a purpose…what does that actually mean? ◼️Why “do what makes you happy” is terrible advice for finding meaning ◼️How comfort is quietly killing your sense of purpose ◼️The shocking truth about modern loneliness and identity loss ◼️The “paperclip problem” that exposes religion (00:00) Intro (02:27) Atheist vs Christian vs Spiritualist (05:24) What Is Purpose? (12:56) Is Meaning Necessary? (17:24) What's the Point of This Conversation? (18:53) Can Humanity Find Its Purpose? (36:55) Is It Important to Be Curious About God? (42:14) Is Modern Society the Reason for a Meaning Crisis? (42:46) What Is Meaning and Why Do People Feel the Lack of It? (51:20) The Problem of Consciousness (1:06:56) How to Find Meaning (1:25:45) Is Agnosticism the Truth? (1:35:13) Ads (1:36:11) Do We Each Have a Specific Purpose or Is It Self-Chosen? (1:39:59) Dharma and Karma (1:48:28) Can We Have a Fulfilling Life Without a Transcendent Purpose? (2:20:02) Ads (2:22:23) How to Create a Meaningful Life as an Agnostic (2:40:05) Is Alex on His Way to Getting Closer to God? (2:51:59) How to Remove the Feeling of Being Lost in Life (3:05:23) What to Do When You Feel Stuck (3:11:27) Closing Thoughts Follow Alex: YouTube: http://bit.ly/3KCRM0B Substack: http://bit.ly/46GsExC Instagram: https://bit.ly/4mBNW5o Follow Greg: X - https://bit.ly/4nMy80v Stand to Reason - https://bit.ly/4pFtYJG A Gift to DOAC Listeners from Stand to Reason: Download "How God Rescues Broken Souls” from Greg Koukl’s book, The Story of Reality, at http://bit.ly/3It65o4 You can purchase ‘The Story of Reality’, here: https://amzn.to/4nGNft3 Follow Dr K: YouTube - https://bit.ly/48wUuig Instagram - https://bit.ly/48xxSy3 Twitch - https://bit.ly/42zkAO3 HealthyGamerGG Podcast - https://bit.ly/42gCFAf You can find out more about Dr K’s guide to mental health, here: https://bit.ly/4nUKjZm The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Adobe Express - http://ADOBE.LY/STEVEN Plaud - https://www.plaud.ai/pages/steven use DOAC22 for 22% off Note and NotePin Function Health - https://Functionhealth.com/DOAC with code DOAC100 for $100 towards your membership

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you've ever worked in a startup, you already know it's chaos. It's speed and it is survival.
0:04.9	And now with AI accelerating everything, that speed has only increased. Startups are landing enterprise
0:09.5	deals even earlier than before, but what comes with those deals is regulatory requirements,
0:14.9	something a lot of early stage businesses aren't equipped to handle. And a SOC too, if you know what
0:19.6	that means, isn't always enough.
0:21.8	When having the right kind of security is the difference between making a deal or breaking a deal,
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0:36.4	monitor your compliance so any future
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0:43.1	and when it's needed. And they've built the fastest and easiest path to get you there.
0:47.5	If you're running a startup in this appeals, you can visit vanta.com slash diary and get a thousand
0:52.7	dollars off. That's vanta.com slash diary for $1,000 off. And the bigger win, your peace of mind.
1:00.1	Nine and ten young people in the UK believe that their life is lacking purpose. And what are people are turning back to religion?
1:06.8	There is something going on. This is about the most important thing that anyone can ever find out about their life. And God has made us for a purpose. And the purpose flows from that meaning. I kind of reject that because this is a perfect example of a solution being provided without explaining exactly why it provides a solution. And that's what people are doing in religious traditions. I hard disagree. For me, finding meaning and purpose is like a very
1:28.7	practical thing. And that's what I want to talk about today. We are joined by an atheist, Christian,
1:33.0	and spiritual thinker to find an answer to the purpose crisis millions are facing today. One of the reasons
1:39.2	that I'm a Christian is because it's the best explanation for the way things are. But if Christianity
1:43.0	were true, we would not expect the kind of suffering that is present in the world. So I'm very curious. What if I died it from cancer at one years old? So someone violated God's commands, and that had an impact on the world. So children get cancer because a few million years ago, someone ate at a fruit. If you want religion to provide existential comfort for people who are suffering, you have to do more in the face of children dying of cancer than some reference to mythical human beings.
2:06.8	But if your worldview does not have a way of making sense or immoral intuitions about suffering, it's not an adequate worldview.
2:13.7	What I would say to science and spirituality can really add is it's effective in terms of reducing suicidality, improving resilience, giving them a reason to wake up in the morning, and we'll get into that. And Alex, if someone's listening now and they feel lost in their life, is there any advice that you could give them? So as an atheist, I'm offering a psychological explanation. So I would recommend that they... You're spot on, Alex. So the first thing to understand
2:35.0	is it is an internal feeling. We found in our study that if you... Your sense of purpose
	...

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