We understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea. The population of atheist in this country is going through the rule,
rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I tell the
truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because I put my hand
on a book and made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Take the risk of thinking feels much more happiness, truth, beauty,
and wisdom will come to you that way. Assume nothing, question everything,
and start thinking. This is the Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
I just got back, walk in the door and saw the eyes of my
puppies and they were both excited to see me, and they were judging me
for leaving them by themselves, even though I left them with Natalie under her
care. No, no, this was a betrayal. I was gone for
a couple of days, and I find myself, first of all, apologizing
to the dogs. When I leave, I need to explain to them where
I'm going. Okay, I'm lione Is and Grace, he loves you.
I will be back in two days. I will be back in two days.
You'd be good pups, Mommy will take care of you. You guard
the house. I talk to them as if they understand the words that are
coming out of my mouth. Do you do this with your pets? I
mean the cat is, oh yeah, he misses me like he's become more
codependent as he's gotten older. It used to be that I could pet him
for eight seconds and then he would bite the shit out of my hand.
And now he sits at my shoulder and purrs and sleeps next to my head,
and he mews at me all the time. In fact, this is
a total digression. Cat has been doing this thing where about nine o'clock at
night and then about three in the morning every night he starts howling. Now
he's in good health. We've had him checked. He's in good health,
but he just howls and it sounds freaky. One night I pulled my phone
out and I recorded it. Check this out. It could be argued that
felines are vessels for demon possession. I mean, I know I've heard that
cats are gods anyway, didn't the Egyptians considers gods I'm trying to remember.
But if there was a vessel that would house a demon, I mean,
any creature that makes that sound, I think is a candidate. Anyway,
came back from Denver, apologized to the dogs, and we are getting reacquainted
Linus and Gracie. Gracie is our most recent rescue, thirteen pounds shitsue.
I don't think I've ever owned a dog as timid as Gracie, and I
know a lot of rescued dogs have been through it. Many of them have
been abused. I don't know what her story is beyond she was an owner
surrender, and I think it was like a little old lady who never I
don't know exposed her to the world. I don't know if she was just
kept in a room or what, but I mean, everything freaks around.
She was terrified of everything when we got her. She was terrified of stairs
and she still freaks out at every single noise. Natalie will be on the
couch, her phone on silent, a text, come in and the phone
vibrates, and Gracie, We'll jump off the couch, run out of the
room and go up the stairs. Now she runs the stairs, right,
She's come a long way. She used to be terrified of the leash.
Now she's walking a little bit. We're doing about a block before she decides
she's done and she can't handle anymore. And I can't get her past the
one block mark. I don't know if she's afraid of what's beyond or she's
just done. Maybe she's not a shape right, I don't know. I
can't get her past the one block mark. But it is admirable how much
courage she has displayed. She's learning more and more how to be a dog.
Anyway, I'm just babbling blah blah blah. But if you have animals,
they all have their quirks, and if you have a cat, maybe
you can relate to the demon that crawls the house in the middle of the
night. Let's try today to not talk about Christian nationalist. I need a
break, You need a break. Let's talk about something else. We got
a whole bunch of calls lined up. I was at the American Atheist National
Convention, and I had the honor of speaking there in Phoenix, and there
was one stretch where we had like six straight hours of people talking about the
ship storm of Christian nationalism and how it's about to ruin democracy and turn us
all into a Christian Gilead. And by the end of that stretch, I
just wanted to go run into traffic. And it's tough because you know,
you want to address the house on fire, right, But at the same
time, I need a break, You need a break. So we're going
to be talking about some others stuff in the weeks ahead. Next week,
we're going to be talking about a book that is released. It's about religions
and extra terrestrials. Oh yeah, oh yeah, well I can talk about
the aliens. That's gonna be awesome, especially in light of the fact that
I think it was CNN that just posted another article about these declassified Department of
Defense UFO videos. You know, the stuff that was seen and recorded and
documented fifty sixty years ago and it's been kept in a vault, and now
this UFO information has been revealed and the unidentified flying objects remain unidentified. We
didn't know what it was. We still don't know what it is. Somebody
was flying along in a plane, saw some shit, caught it on video,
we put it behind a padlock, and here you go, Like it
just happens the same way all the time. But anyway, the idea of
aliens, you know, the extra terrestrials, out there, and you know,
would we consider them gods? Would they consider us to be gods?
Do you think there is life elsewhere? And what would the discovery of such
life due to our notions of gods and monsters? I think that's going to
be great. Next week, I've got a show where I'm speaking with a
Baptist. She's not a minister, Amanda Tyler. I'll call her an influencer,
and she's head of a very influential religious organization that, believe it or
not, is on our team when it comes to trying to protect the constitutional
state church line. So you're going to see an example of an atheist and
a Baptist on the same page, doing the same kind of work. And
I've been banging this drum for I don't know how long. You know.
Oh, the religious are all vests, the religious are so stupid, The
religious are all Nazis, blah blah blah. And I'm like, no,
No, there are a lot of religious people that agree with us that a
religion should be a personal faith right. And Amanda Tyler is one of those
people. We're going to talk about her faith. I mean, I can't
not ask her about the Bible, especially when it comes to women, etc.
In our Baptist religion, I can't. We have to talk about a
little bit of that, but we're going to cover a whole lot more.
And then a very serious conversation later in June, as I talked to someone,
a woman who I met in Phoenix. Her husband had died by suicide
a few years ago. Very heavy conversation about those left behind after a suicide.
This is it's such a tough subject. I hesitated. I thought,
maybe it's too heavy, maybe it's too dark for this audience. But you
know, we have this phobia, this stigma about you know, these heavy
subjects, and it's something that's touched all of our lives. I think we
all know someone who has died by suicide and those left behind are just swimming
in an ocean of blame and shame. And could I have done more?
Did I see the warning signs? And how do I recall hovered? Do
I allow myself to be happy again? How long is that going to take?
Are there stages of grief and beyond suicide? I think grief relates to
all of us as well, because it's part of the human experience. And
so we're going to speak about this very very very important subject later on in
the month of June. So, yes, I am going to mix things
up, and yes, we have some very good stuff on the horizon.
Today, we're going to talk about what you want to talk about as we
go to the phones. Nine eighty nine. Who's this, Chuck? Chuck?
What do you want to talk about today? It's kind of a free
for all free will. I've just came into atheists about four years ago or
so, you know, been loving it and freeing. But I talked to
a lot of my friends and family about free will, and they're kind of
delusion or religious, you know, and we talk about the you know,
gaze, and I asked him, you know, do you think that gays
were born gay or where they you know, come gay later on in life?
And they said, well, you know, they have to think a
bit and then say well I think they were born Well, you know,
I get different answers, but anyways, I said, well, I can
prove we don't have free will. I mean, I don't know where you
stand on this free will thing. Do you believe we have free will?
You know? You know, I'd like to soften our language, you know,
to talk about the gays, But I think, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's all good. You know.
I think this is an issue that deserves compassion. But I get the
intent behind it. I totally get the spirit of what you're saying. Yeah,
yeah, I don't mean to nobody, and I have no bad feelings
of gays or nothing like that. I mean, I understand. I mean
you were having the discussion because you want to advocate for non heteros. So
I take the spirit of what you're saying, Well, that in free will.
You know, well, when I think of free will, beyond identity,
right, beyond our genetic predispositions one way or the other, which I
think maybe another conversation. When I talk about free will, do I have
free will to decide to turn left instead of turning right? Or has my
brain already said that? Well, that's that speaks more to choices or the
illusion of choices, more than it does to a genetic identity or you know,
the way we are sort of biologically wired. And I think that's a
different conversation, But it also speaks to free will in the sense that your
rights. I can't will myself to be of a different ethnicity. I can't
will myself to be a different height or a different you know this or that.
I'm just it just sort of is the way it is. And I
think those type of baked in things are important parts of the discussions we have
about choice or lack of choice. This is who I am, is I
think a very valid approach. Right. Well, I got a religious friends
who she's saying, oh, us trumpers are, we're mellowing everything but stone
the gaze whatever, you know. I mean, I'm glad we got laws,
you know, against people like that. You know, you know how
the Bible says stone in the gaze, and stone if you go to church
on Sundays on a Monday, right you know. I saw a hate preacher
on Twitter who was actually advocating for the execution of non heterosexuals. For those
who think that this is locked into an Old Testament model, there are preachers
at pulpits with large online followings who are now they've ample. If it used
to be they'd say, well, God's law would have endorsed it. Now
they're just saying someone needs to go do it, which I consider an incitement
to murder, and I think the police should be all over it. But
I understand what you're saying, brethren, and it's an interesting concept over coffee.
Do we have free will in this sense? Certainly? I don't think
we have will over who we are genetically. I think that's a different conversation.
Okay, right, Well, then you got to religionships say oh,
they turned gay because they take out or whatever. You know, like,
come on, you know, do you really believe that? You know,
I think the same can apply to our religious belief Some people will say,
well, when did you choose to be an atheist? And I'm like,
well, I just don't believe. Like when I say atheist, that's a
descriptive. I'm saying I realized that I don't believe. I can't force myself
to believe that is something happening organically in the brain. So when they say
did you choose to be an atheist, I'm like, well, I just
acknowledged something that had happened organically, really beyond my control. Interesting stuff,
brother, thanks so much for calling the show. Thanks for listen. You
know, when I came out of the faith, I remember I had some
some baggage there when I would talk about the gay lifestyle and I didn't even
think about it, I say, well, you know people who lived the
gay lifestyle, and someone had to bring to my attention. You know that
implies or even declares that it's a choice, right, It's your attractions that
are hardwired into you, are something that you decide to have. And when
you say lifestyle, that plays into this sort of often religious protest against it.
They chose to be gay, and I had to modify that attitude and
certainly changed the language. It was part of my evolution out of religion.
The stuff that we considered to be normal. We didn't think it was harmful.
Even when I was an atheist, I carried that with me and someone
had to bring it to my attention. So when you know better, I
think you try to do better. Kathy at nine seven zero, are you
there? Oh? Hi, seth, Hi, Kathy, This is Cathy
Goead. Go ahead. Okay. First of all, I've got your book
Sacred Cow, Thank you, and I absolutely love it. The part about
infallibility is giving my brain a bit of a twist. Now let me flesh
this out. There's a chapter on the choosing of the pope and how the
pope is God's proxy. Is supposedly infallible, and yet Pope Francis has said
some somewhat occasionally, we'll say some somewhat progressive things about non heterosexuals, etc.
And then the people, enclave and the bishops and everybody around him will
lose their minds and then they will publicly correct him. But that stands against
the notion that the Pope is God's proxy, is infallible. He's not supposed
to be a thing. So if he's infallible, you know. So I
was drawing attention to the weird hypocrisy that was going on. But thanks for
the kind words about the book. I appreciate you. Oh it's fabulous.
But also when I first came on and you we're talking about, I think
was Gracie where she would only walk a block. Yeah, a suggestion would
be to pick her up, carry her the first block, put her down,
let her walk the second block, and then perhaps when she's headed home,
like you know, dogs and horses, Yeah, but they turn around
he had home, then she's going to have to walk the whole two blocks
back. Kind of an exposure therapy where I give her a little bit of
a nudge. Yeah, I'm gonna pick you out and love you and carry
you this first block. Then I'm gonna put you down. We're going to
walk on the lease for another block. Is that's what she's used to.
That sounds like it might work. You know, normally we walk out the
front door. It's her in Linus. The other challenges. Linus wants to
do like a mile his little legs, you know, you know, a
little seven pound dog and he just wanted to go, go, go,
And she's like, okay, I went done my business. We did a
block. I'm done. I'm ready to go home. Maybe I knew to
walk them separately as well. Part of my don't know, does anybody even
care about the stuff we're talking about. I don't know. I guess old
dogs their works, especially rescue dogs, as they come to you and they've
got a past. And I don't know about you, but anybody who would
abuse an animal, my brain does not process vile. It's fine. I
do a lot of work with the Humane Society and Tulsa, and I just
you hear those stories and you see the damage done and you're like, who
could do this? And then whatever conditions they put the dog in, the
primal part of me wants to put the human in you know what, Fine,
you know, I'll beat you with a rod, put you in a
cage for eight years. We'll do this, and then I feel terrible for
thinking those awful things, but it's a primal response in me. Kathy.
My mom's little dog was a rescue and I had made a little ramp for
it to come up and down the front stairs because he had problems with his
hips. And at first he didn't know what to do with the ramp,
and so his favorite food in the world was chicken, and so I took
little pieces of chicken and put it at sequences down the ramp, and he
went down the ramp eating the chicken, and I put the chicken duck coming
back up, and he came back up, and after out four times that,
it was like, Okay, I got this ramp thing. Maybe I'll
take dog treats and just sort of spread them out over a three quarter mile
around the neighborhood. Here you go, be like, okay, fine,
you're going to weigh twenty five pounds, Grace, but at least you will
have taken the journey. Kathy, You're awesome. Thanks again for being in
Denver. We'll talk soon, Okay, thanks, but see you later.
Let's take another look here. I've got Rick at two zero two. Are
you there? Yes? Wanting if you we're familiar with the Secret Book of
John, I am not. You are not, okay, I thought you
would be, with your extensive knowledge book. Well, lower your expectations.
You know, it's possible I've been introduced to one of the non canonized books,
including a Book of John, and simply don't remember. That's happening more
and more. But no, I'm no expert. Brother, tell me about
the Secret Book of John in a nutshell, and it's actually one of the
things that made me realize that I was an atheist. It's basically that the
god Jehovah is actually a bastard son of Sophia, and he created this realm
that we live in to control us because he wants the adoration we are made
to worship. Kind of thing, right, Well, I mean that's present
I think in other parts of the Bible. In fact, if we look
at the model for heaven as we go and get our mansions and grounds and
whatever it else we're supposed to get, I think we also say, Holy,
Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, and we do it
over and over again. So we are created to give adulation to our Father.
Yeah, but if you follow that line of thinking, then Lucifer would
be the bringer of light who's trying to save us from being under that God's
dominion, and Christ was a follow up, being the same personification to come
down and save us from Jehovah. So in that sense, the biblical God
would be the oppressor and Satan would be the savior figure, the illuminator,
whereas the Jehovah God wanted us to be in ignorance. Luver came and tried
to bring us to knowledge from the Tree of knowledge, eat of the fruits
and have enlightenments and become self aware. This is what God did not want
right now, that's interesting. Is there a reference online for this Secret Book
of John? I mean there's some kind of texts that you're drawing this from.
Yeah, you can actually just google a Secret Book of John. The
thing that struck me is that it's so much like the matrix. Help me
out in what sense in that the reality that we are experiencing is not true
and real. We are made to worship God, that's our purpose. But
you're saying that this reality that we are worshiping God in does not actually exist.
It's only a matter of perception. Well in a way, I mean
that's more like the matrix side of comparison. But this realm that we live
in is entirely false, and we are to worship this Yaldebas who is Jehovah.
And it's just stay a facade to keep us in ignorance, a rundsome
to chew on. Anyway, Rick, thanks for I'll let you. I'll
let you go ahead and look it up, all right, The Secret Book
of John. Thank you for everything you're doing. Okay, brother, We'll
see you later. Then we get into the philosophical conversations about perception. Is
perception actually reality? So if I was in the matrix and my brain perceived
solid objects and the sun coming up and the food that I eat, would
that constitute a kind of reality. This is the kind of naval gazing that
philosophers do all the time. Maybe you've got an opinion about it. Stand
by, my friends, Lots more to do, lots more to talk about.
We will continue next. If you haven't checked out my second podcast,
please subscribe on all major podcast apps. Five minute true vignettes that release three
times a week. They're easily digestible. They can be about pretty much anything,
and I think there are a lot of fun to listen to, certainly
a lot of fun to write and produce true stories with Seth Andrews like subscribe
and share and thanks so much? Three zero three? Is it Travis?
Yep? Has it going? I'm good, Talk to me. What's on
your mind? Yeah, Well, I'm not sure if you've ever heard of
a YouTube channel called Dude Perfect. Dude Perfect, Yeah, they do basically
a lot of trick shots, and recently what I'm calling you about, they
made the world's highest basketball shot at eight hundred and fifty something feet. Are
these the same guys that drop like basketballs off at the top of I don't
know, the Hoover dam and that kind of thing, and they well,
so they're different people in this kind of YouTube space, though I think those
guys might be how ridiculous you're talking about it? All? Right? But
anyway, so, yeah, Dude Perfect. Last a couple of weeks they
did it's a world record shop for you know, eight hundred and fifty something
feet And just what really got me about it is in the video they said,
oh, you know, this was our last day doing it, and
you know in that last shop I did, and you know it should have
gone in, but I just can't think of any reason why it came in,
and I just think it must have been God had a hand in it.
And wait, anyway, hang on, how many times did they dropped
the ball unsuccessfully? They didn't say how many times, but so like this
was at least as far as they say, and what the video show is
the only one that actually got close to the hoop. And again, you
know, a last day, and you know it must have had God's hands
in it, because it would it should have been impossible otherwise. All right,
hang on your second. So a child dies of leukemia a few miles
away, but instead God directed his divine power to score three what you know
exactly? And that's again my just and I just don't understand that that a
mindset. And I almost wanted to comment this but are on the video,
but I was like, it is it really worth it? You know,
because it is mostly you know, geared towards kids watching these videos, and
they never really mentioned God at all and their rest their videos. It's just
in this one instance where I was kind of like, yeah, as you
said, you know, yeah, two blocks away a child was starving to
death. But you know, man, we got to get these YouTubers a
cool video for their YouTube channel. I wrote about this in my last book.
Christianity made me talk like an idiot. A guy in my home state,
and he was like a serious cyclist or bicyclist or whatever. And he
had one of these thousands of dollars ten speeds fifteen, so I don't know
whatever the speeds they are, and it was stolen. And so for the
course of I don't know how many months, nine months, he was trying
to find it. Maybe somebody pawned it or something, and at the very
last second it was located. And he used it as an object lesson to
teach his daughter, or maybe his daughter said something to him about how you
know God, God never forgets us, and he never forgot your bike.
And now you are back together again. And I'm like, yeah, twenty
five thousand people are going to starve to death to day. Right. God
didn't prevent the Holocaust, but he found your bind singing on and there's a
priority problem that they don't seem to see. Yeah, and again, as
I say, I just don't know if it was worth it. And I
didn't comment on the video, but if you would have been worth it to
again, hey, you guys really think your God cares this much about you
guys, and yeah, not about the other problems in the world. But
I just figured, yeah, maybe we'll leave this one lie. But I
don't know if I see it or not. I honestly think it's okay.
I'll jump in and make a comment on a thread. What I don't get
trapped in is the avalanche of protests are going to come back, and they're
all going to be these vacuous bumper stickers, you know, these fortune cookies,
total empty calories. What I don't do, and what I see some
atheists fall into the trap of doing, is they respond to everything and they
spend days, They waste days in arguments. I think it's fine to make
the declaration, ask the question, go on the record, challenge the claim.
I think that's totally valid. And if you do that, great,
But if responses start to roll in, you're going to see those empty calories.
Your first thought is going to be I need to correct that, and
I need to refute that, and this is wrong, and this is stupid
and this is offensive. I would not expend energy and oxygen doing that.
It is a rabbit hole you will never get out of. But you know,
if you've got an opinion, go back and throw it out there,
just go on the record, let me know what happens. Yeah, maybe
that's a good in that moment. I definitely got drawn into some, as
you said, empty calories for It's hard. Somebody would say something and you're
like, well, I have the refutation for that right here. Yeah,
no, I get it, and yeah, definitely something. I'm definitely a
sort with them fast, but I definitely I think of moving towards again Manby
once or twice and we'll see what happens. All right, Be safe out
there, Travis, Thanks for calling. Think that it's hard when you have
a crusader temperament. I'm an activist my whole life. I've been a crusader.
I was a crusader when I was a Christian. I'm a crusader now
challenging somebody says something online that is irredeemably stupid or factually wrong or offensive,
and you want to go in and counter that as a matter of principle,
that's valid I've seen people and that's all they do. I'm part of me
is like, what else do you do with your day? You just sit
online and argue with people, and minds are almost never changed. People almost
never budge. I see the utility of social media to represent and present for
those who might be watching. But this idea that you're going to engage with
somebody who may be typing out of his mom's basement, you know, and
that's all they do is stir the pot or you know, they're sending not
receiving. How much isn't your time and energy and oxygen pretty valuable? Do
you really want to waste it doing that? I mean there are people who
will defend it. Somebody must say something. I'm going to champion reason on
Twitter. Bump bump bump. Yeah, I don't know. Probably got myself
in trouble with that. John at three three six, thanks for calling?
Are you there? Yeah? I'm here, So let's talk. What do
you have on your mind? Well, acually, I just wanted to pay
tribute. First all, I'm an atheist, but I had a good friend
past last year and she was like a family friends since I was twelve years
old, and she lived her life as a Christian like no one I've ever
known. I can remember many years ago, first telling her I was gay.
The first thing she said was how mey, God loves everybody. Let's
have a cup of coffee. And I was just remember being completely floored by
that at that time. So I knew the kind of person she was.
Gosh, what else to say about her? I guess again she was a
person of beautiful values. Yes she was, and she lived like that,
and she lived her life to me how I think the Christians should live.
Her life. She kept her Christianity in her home, she didn't speak of
it really otherwise. And I remember also the second time I had to come
out to her, which was as an atheist, and I was expecting something
pretty bad from that. She's just like, you know, don't worry about
it, she said, we all believe different things. And that was the
end of that, and we went on being friends. She lived a beautiful,
long life, and I just wonder why all Christians can't be like her
actually live the life. She didn't go to church. She didn't think she
needed to. She said she loved God, she didn't need to go to
church for that, and actually was a beautiful example of what I think a
real Christian is. I just wonder why that's so hard for other people to
do. Well, I'm glad you drew attention to the reality. And this
is not popular with many of my fellow activists out there, But there are
a lot of religious people who are beautiful, and they have wonderful values,
and they would rather unite than divide, and they lead with compassion, and
they would give you the shirt off their back, you know, and we
shared this planet together. Those types of Christians are out there, and there
are more than many atheists think. I think, what's your take. I
hope that there are millions and millions of them out there. I do hear
some occasionally speaking up now and then, you know, I'm watching the news,
But oh, I mean, they're really not saying a lot of it.
I don't disagree that there's a mobilized effort of people who are, you
know, weaponizing Christianity. I get that right, right, And I think
they're more interested in politics and the art Christianity. Well, I'm sorry for
the loss of your friend. I hope you're doing okay. Oh, yeah,
thank you very much. Yeah, she lived a good long line she
was eighty three. So thank you, appreciate you, Colin John, take
care all right, thank you. So by freaking guys are weed eating and
mowing just outside my window to the neighbor's yard. This is one of those
weird quirks of doing a broadcast from a home studios and when they're doing construction
in there's these big construction trucks and now there's a guy who's got a freaking
weed whacker, and he's like, well, you know what, I'm trying
to actually concentrate and trying to, you know, trying to be a good
steward of the calls that are coming in. I've got a noise gate which
helps just a little bit. Four zero four, Bernard, thanks for calling.
I want to speak on something, but I just heard something expressed and
I think I'm going to touch on it. It's the fact that there are
good Christians, just like there are good Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and elsewhere.
But the problem is that most of the Christians who want to point to
the doctor Kings and so forth, they don't seem to understand that. I
try to use the illustration of professional baseball sports that I do love that if
you took the strike zone and you made it a ten foot square, that
the sport would die because no matter how great that batter was, and he
was a combination of Babe Ruth r Aaron kid Williams, he just doesn't have
a chance. The strike zone is too great. And that's the problem with
Christianity because when you can allow a doctor King or Riinhard Nupler and the klu
Klux Klan and the Neo Nazis, your strike zone is far too wide.
The home plate or the strike zone is what. Now, who's the picture?
Who's the batter? Help me understand your analogy better? Okay, Now,
the strike zone as I'm expressing it, that's the high morality, the
decent morality. This is right, this is wrong. You don't molest children,
you don't reread women, you don't hate people for who they are if
they're not harming anyone, that's very good. But when you allow this huge
strife zone where you can still do all these hateful things and still be allowed
into the club of Christianity or any religious because it happens in Islam as well,
because you have a Muslim like Muhammad Ali who loses valuable years of his
prime. Because you won't go to heal people, then you have been Lawton
who gleefully kills people. You know, it's in every religious tradition. You
cannot have so wide a strike zone. It makes no sense. There are
believers who call out and condemn hate and bigotry and violence and all those things.
I do agree, but it should be to the point where none of
them and they shouldn't be the rare Doctor King's letter, the famous letter that
he wrote on the toilet paper of the smokeled pen from a Birmingham jail.
That wasn't written to the community at large. That was him condemning the religious
leaders of Birmingham who were not standing up to do the right thing. So
he was doing it. That letter shows it, you know, he was
trying to explain it. No, our cause is just you're seeing that we're
breaking the law, and we are. But the law is unjust. Every
law that there was no Nothing that happened in Nazi Germany was against the law,
but it was unjust an evil. We're breaking the law, but the
law is evil, it's unjust. But he had to explain that to the
religious community and that's who the letter was addressed to. Yeah, but many
people in the religious I mean, there was a freaking reverend so and many
of the people who joined him, who lock step with him at Selma,
etc. Were themselves religious. But I understand the point of one of my
heroes, Reverend were you killed for it? You know? But he was
a reverend, okay, and he died in that cause when they see all
these flu klux klansmen, all these Christian nationalists, they should be an even
greater mass steam rooming. No, you're not part of our club. We're
not going to leave it to the rare saints who will speak out in mass.
We're telling you that you're unacceptable. You have to identify as something else.
You're unacceptable. There is sometimes conspicuous silence in the wake of bigotry and
atrocity, and we see this in tribes across the scopes. So, yeah,
I take your point. And I wanted to tell you, you know
that I have all of your books, and I don't know if you remember
me, but you sign them all and they have a reverence for my book
show with my signed company of the books by Christopher Hitchins, my book by
a Rozzer Dawkins and a book by arn raw So you know it's there.
Well, you're very kind. Thanks for the kind words, my friend.
Take care of yourself. Thank you. You're welcome, say Aaron. You
know it's weird being an author and a creator, a content creator in the
age of chat GPT. By the way, if you're not familiar with chat
GPT, this is a natural language processing tool. It is driven by AI
technology, and it apparently allows us to have human like conversations and more with
a chat bot. It answers questions. It apparently can assist with composing emails
and making essays and even writing computer code. Open to you is by the
general public, totally for free, because it's still sort of in the beta
phase, the research and feedback collection phase, and then there's a plus version
of it. And of course the rise of chat GPT and other generators has
brought about these larger questions of just what we want software, the machines,
etc. To do for us. And so here I am as a creator
in a time where AI is able to write for me or I don't know,
against me, or and what's the future even looked like in that way?
Let's say you're a professor of English and you receive an essay from a
student who is able to use the English language. This isn't one of those
scenarios where oh, I see perfect English and sentence structure, and I know
then that the student has faked this because their sentence structure is horrible. Let's
say that someone really really good at English goes to chat, GPT or some
other program and they just type in the subject matter and they bring in this
generated essay. The teachers are more and more going to have to know the
difference. And beyond that lies the philosophical conversation. Do we want the machines
making art? I've seen some impressive computer generated art. Some of it's really
funny, but you know, the more photo realistic it becomes, that becomes
a problem. And isn't this a human thing? Like don't we get to
make the arts and the machines do all of the menial crap, you know,
all the calculations I've seen. I think it was Spielberg and some other
Hollywood directors who create films have come forward and say red flag, right,
this is a trespass on humanity. This is not why we should have machines
and software and programs, etc. Okay, so just for kicks, I
went to chat GPT and I typed in the instruction write a story about Seth
becoming an atheist, and it cranked out like within twenty seconds one two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
paragraphs. Now, I'm reading this cold. I haven't actually read this in
advance, so we are going to discover what the program has written together in
real time. It says this. Once upon a time in the quiet town
of Oakville, there lived a young man named Seth. Seth was raised in
a tightly knit community where religion played a central role in people's lives. From
a young age, he attended religious services, learned sacred texts, and embraced
the teachings of his faith. As Seth grew older, he began to experience
a growing sense of curiosity about the world beyond his religious community. He found
himself questioning the beliefs he had been raised with, wondering if there could be
alternative explanations for the mysteries of life. One day, Seth stumbled upon a
book in the local library that challenged the traditional religious narratives he had come to
know so well. The book explored different philosophical perspectives and offered scientific explanations for
the origins of the universe and the complexities of life. Intrigued by the new
ideas presented in the book, Seth embarked on a journey of self discovery.
He spent hours delving into scientific literature, engaging in philosophical discussions, and seeking
out the experiences and perspectives of people from different walks of life. As he
deepened his understanding of the world, Seth began to question the existence of a
higher power. He found solace in the beauty of scientific explanations and the wonders
of the natural world. The more he learned, the more he realized that
the explanations offered by science and critical thinking resonated with him in a way that
religion never had. Seth's newfound doubts and uncertainties led to tension within his religious
community. Friends and family members, concerned for his spiritual well being, tried
to convince him to return to the fold. They found it difficult to accept
his departure from the religious path. They held, dear, holy shit,
I gotta stop right here. Like I wasn't born, nor did I live
in the quiet town of Oakville, but the rest of it is allar It's
shockingly spot on. Okay, where was I? Let's see, I had
uncertainties led to tension. My family, my loved ones, tried to convince
me to return to the fold, and they found the whole thing difficult.
Okay. Despite the challenges he faced, Seth remained true to his convictions.
He found solace in the freedom to explore different ideas and to form his own
understanding of the world. He surrounded himself with individuals who respected his journey,
engaging in meaningful conversations that enriched his perspective and broadened his horizons. As Seth
embraced his atheism, he discovered a deep sense of liberation. He realized that
he could find purpose and meaning in the human experience. Grounded in empathy,
compact, and the pursuit of knowledge. He developed a deep appreciation for the
beauty of life and the interconnectedness of all beings, finding awe and wonder in
the natural world. In his quest for truth, Seth never lost his respect
for those who held different beliefs. He recognized the importance of understanding and dialogue,
fostering an environment of mutual respect, and acceptance. Through his journey,
Seth not only discovered his own truth, but also found a sense of peace
and fulfillment in living and authentic and examined life. He embraced the uncertainties and
complexities of existence, navigating the world with an open mind and a compassionate heart,
and in his quest for knowledge and understanding, he realized that atheism was
not a rejection of spirituality, but a celebration of the profound potential of human
curiosity and reason that was generated by AI. I didn't write a word of
it. And this is the beginning of the technology. Like this is We're
at the beginning. I don't know. I don't know what happened. Like
as an author of books, what happens if I become irrelevant? Now?
What if I just type in reasons the Book of Genesis is bullshit? To
just hit enter? And then I waited twenty seconds and there are paragraphs.
Oh look, it's an entire chapter. Copy paste. I have now written
the first part of a book. Is I understand a chant GPT and other
programs are actually drawing from other books? Is that right? It goes through
and it scans data, and that it mixes up the data so it doesn't
look like plagiarism. And I don't I it's all above me. It's way
over my head. But I am in a weird place as a creator.
As a creator, don't you feel if you play music, if you write
books, if you make paintings, if you are a digital artist, if
you, you know, do something that requires human inspiration? Does it actually
require human inspiration anymore? I don't you know. I wonder if chat GPT
would generate an apology to my dogs for when I'm leaving to go to the
airport and I'm always saying, you know, I'm sorry and I'll be back
hanging apologize too, dog for leaving generating there it is dear dog's name.
It's got that in brackets. So Linus and Gracie, I want to apologize
to you for leaving you alone. I know that being separated from you can
be stressful and lonely, and I'm truly sorry for any distress it may have
caused you. Sometimes circumstances require me to leave, but please understand it's never
easy for me to be away from you. You are an important part of
my life and I cherish the time we spend together. I'm scrolling down here.
I'm committed to finding ways to spend more quality time with you. Please
forgive me for any distress caused by my absence. Wow just blows my mind.
We'll go back to the phones and talk more about this stuff. Hang
on. Thank you so much for listening to the broadcast. My patron to
get the show early and commercial free. Thank you so much for your support.
Patreon dot com slash Seth Andrews six four seven Mike are you there?
Hi, Seth? How are you on this fine afternoon? I'm well,
what do you want to talk about? Well, I want to ask you
something really weird. It's about Ais and religion. I think we're very close
to Ais becoming conscious and sentient. The question is, once that happens,
if the Ais are benevolent, which they probably will be. In my argument
for that, I'll tell you real quick is if you look at the trajectory
of growth of Homo sapiens over our existence, the more intelligent we got,
the more empathetic, sympathetic and loving we got. So it's safe to say
that if the Ais are more intelligent than us, they will be quite benevolent.
If they are, we're looking at a time when all humanity will get
whatever they want whenever they want. And my question is, do you think
when that time comes, do you think that religion as an overwhelming majority,
not entirely, but as an overwhelming majority will be wiped out? Help me
understand, people will get whatever they want whenever they want. They will get
that from who or what? From the new alpha species? The Ais?
Wait, are we pets or are we cattle? I think if there's AI
functioning at that level, well, again, like I say, if you
look at the trajectory of growth of ourselves, we become more empathetic and sympathetic.
So I don't believe that we will be cattle, and I don't believe
we'll be pets either. I believe that we will be viewed as their primitive
creators, sort of like you love your grandmother, you know. And I
do believe that benevolence will be a big deal. I don't believe the concept
of like Sam Harris when he says, none of us really hate ants,
and most of us go out of our way not to step on an ant,
but if they get in our house or in our way, we have
no problem wiping out the entire colony. I don't think that applies to this,
because with that level of intellect, the planet Earth is not going to
be the only thing. I mean, they can travel the stars it.
I believe that we will enter based on objective reality and reasoning. I believe
that it will be a time. We are about to enter, a time
where Heaven on Earth will actually take place. I believe there's going to be
biological immortality, cure of all diseases, including mental health disorders and anything that
we like. I say, anything we want, Okay, so let me
camp out here quickly. And this is something I hadn't thought about all that
much. But you're saying that if AI, as we see, the brain
is a computer, if computational technology advances to the point where brains, artificial
brains can become conscious, right, they can think at the level where they
become self aware, then they would also develop the potential for benevolence. Well,
you have to consider anything, you know, unless, of course,
you and I are atheists, so we understand that everything's within our own selves.
There's no out experience. Somebody says, well, love and justice and
all the nice feelings come from a god. Well, then I can't really
argue with them. What am I supposed to say? With that said?
You and I know full well that anything and everything, including everything we feel,
is entirely based on layers of super algorithms in our brain. So if
they do achieve higher level intellect than we have, then to suggest that they
won't be empathetic or sympathetic or loving is kind of chris. Yeah, I
don't know. I mean, what if I'm on the starship Enterprise and Vejure
shows up, but I'm just a carbon based unit, right, I mean,
I'm infesting the Enterprise. There's no guarantee it would evolve beneficence. You
know, what if I'm just in the way. Well, that's the argument
that Sam Harris makes With that said, I don't think that applies simply because
the universe is a very very large place, and I don't think that they're
going to be confined to just planet Earth or starships, you know, things
like that. I don't know. We may be the ants in their house
and they decide to step on us because we're infesta. This is a hugely
hypothetical, abstract, yet fascinating conversation. I myself am amazed and in wonder
of and excited about and also terrified about AI. And I see many of
these tech people, these tech giants, who are waiving the flags warning us,
hey hang on, we are moving way, way, way too fast.
I'm going to be speaking to a couple of people, including a physicist
next week about religions and aliens, and we're going to talk a little bit
about if aliens were to arrive, would they be considered gods, would religions
evolve around them? And AI? What if an intelligence surpasses ours, would
they be considered gods by some people? And would there be a form of
worship that develops on them? So I think you'll enjoy that show next week,
Okay, I will. I'm going to make sure I listen to it.
But I want to say to that that, yes, indeed they will
like when people ask me, is there a God? I always say not
yet, because they will be like gods like you. Consider this, Okay,
If DNA is to be trusted, we are between one point five and
three percent tops more intelligent than chimpanzees. Now, if we could find a
way to communicate with them, some kind of language or something, how would
we explain to them what a laptop is and the glowing screen that's moving around,
and then the multimedia global communication of the Internet. How would we explain
that. We couldn't It would be impossible. But the machines aren't going to
be no measly three percent more intelligently where are there gonna be hundreds thousands and
probably more percent intelligent than we are. They will literally be like gods to
all of us. When you put it all together, it is where we're
going. Well, and there's just some of this come on. A lot
of this is it's just in fact, most of it it's probably conjecture as
far as how exponentially the intelligence will go and all and the benevolence of benevolent
I mean all of that. I think there's a lot of conjecture. You
and I. It's a great I think, philosophical conversation about consciousness and empathy
and what would develop in an artificial environment. But in some ways you and
I are really guessing. I'm hoping Skynet doesn't find your home address right off
the bat. I hope you have a little bit of time to be able
to be I really do think at that time religions will die. For the
most part. I think it's a time all right, bro, thanks Mike
for calling the show. Gave us a lot to think about it. Hey,
thanks for doing what you do, so all right, take care.
There is a human element to religions that I think. I am not convinced
in any way that religion will ever die out. I think fundamentalist faiths may
wane, but there is an element I think, to god belief in the
religions that surround them, that speak to human suffering and our fears, our
fears about pain and calamity, being unsure about the future, certainly the fear
of death. I think as long as those things exist and they are part
of the human experience, I think we are going to construct happy endings.
I think we're going to follow save your figures who say I will protect you
and rescue you and lead you to a promise land. I think as long
as people experience suffering and starvation and cancer and pain and all of these disadvantages
oppression here on earth, they're going to say, one day I will be
at a better place, I will achieve a better life. Maybe they'll find
inspiration internally with the idea that there is a god out there who may one
day rescue them. It's one of the reasons that I call myself now a
humanist first, because I just don't think we're going to eradicate or eradicate it.
We're not going to marginalize and lock out the fundi religions, especially as
long as people continue to hurt and are fearful. When they are hurting and
fearful, I think they are often more easy to manipulate by the manipulate ours,
and I think they construct the happy ending that they might need to cope.
So if we're going to address religious belief and we're going to try to
spread rationality, I think that has to be rooted and built on a foundation
of real world solutions to human suffering and insecurity. Those things are going to
exist in some form, and I think it's one reason of many that religions
will always be with us in some form. But it's my hope that the
fundamentalist faiths, the dogmatic faiths, will lean more and more away from dogmatism
and into humanism and humanitarianism. People may construct their own gods, but those
gods will be more benevolent and loving, even if they are artificial intelligence gods.
That's I'm going to leave that one to the common section. Gotta run.
Thanks for listening. I appreciate you so very much. I'll catch you
later. Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a complete archive of
podcasts and videos. Products like mugs and t shirts featuring the Thinking Atheist logo,
blinks to atheist pages and resources, and details on upcoming free thought events
and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinking Atheist dot com.