It's beginning to look a lot like Saturnalia, that time of year when Rome
celebrated the coming of spring, honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture, by
committing acts of debauchery and exchanging gifts. Roman soldiers and gladiators celebrated their patron
god, Mithrist, the Zoroastrian sun god. Other Europeans observed the flight of
Odin as he flew across the land, deciding between his friends and his enemies.
That may have hung holly and mistletoe to ward off spirits, or decorated
trees to honor nature. Some deified the Byzantine bishop and philanthropist Saint Nicholas,
who left treats inside people's shoes. Jesus, if he even existed, symbolized
rebirth what was probably not born On December twenty fifth, the time for celebrating
new life in midwinter, pre dates Christianity. Pagan customs were instituted into Roman
practice as the Empire subjugated its colonies. Whatever you celebrate, we hope you
have a wonderful holiday season, and we're happy you've tuned in call us because
the show starting now. All right, all right, it is December third,
twenty twenty three. Welcome everyone. I am your host, Jimmy Jr.
And joining me is the wonderful Tom Benson. Tom, how are you
doing today? Dantastic, Jimmy, Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah,
no, I was thrilled to find out that you were going to be
joining me. I'll tell you I have been wanting to work with you for
a long time. I came across you. I think when you first did
your Truth Wanted show. That was back in probably April, So viewers,
if you're interesting interested in seeing Tom's first ever ACA appearance, you go check
out. I think it was about April seventh. It might have been because
it was a week after I did my first Truth Wanted. Yeah. Yeah,
I'm not rememory numbers. Yeah, don't be fooled. Don't be fooled.
But I remember specifically, somebody called in and they said they gave some
kind of anecdote and you said something. They said something to the effect of,
well, how do you rule out ghosts? And you said, how
do you rule them in? Very quickly and very very astutely, And I
thought that was excellent because I don't know how you feel, but you know,
a lot of times when we have these calls. In these conversations,
we always have to grant a little bit of territory to the interlocutor, right,
we have to presuppose that something exists. We have to kind of give
them okay, assume this kind of thing happened. Assume this thing exists,
and then our conversation starts. I don't know, I wanted to kind of
ask you, you know, what's your experience been, you know, in
this in this realm where we kind of try to get to the bottom of
things. You know, usually when you hear somebody say, let me grant
you X, you know that the next thing is probably not going to be
the rest of your argument is also true. For me, the reason that
I got involved in the ACA and listened to it is because, like I
really want those like, hey, if I'm telling you an argument and you
say, let me assume everything you're saying is true and then they can combat
it in a different way. I want to know about that. I want
to get better in my thinking, and so for you and I, we
came to the show at a similar time because there was a call out that
probably a lot of people listening right now were watching scene, which is like
we need hosts, we need crew, come volunteer here, and being a
five oh one c three nonprofit that still stands, we want if you want
to do this like what Jimmy and I are doing, and if you want
to help out on the technical side and learn your broadcast skills and audio and
video and all that fun stuff, come on in. We got an open
community and everybody's welcome. We're happy to have you here. But that's you
know, from from my side, that's kind of how I got here and
starting to have these conversations and conversations with folks. Yeah, yeah, And
on that note, you know, we want people to call in and challenge
us. You know, we want people to and not in some kind of
some kind of malicious way or negative way. This is an arena for positive
conversation and we have them all the time, whether whether it's on the show
and we can have an understanding with somebody who disagrees with us or thinks completely
differently from us, or it's you know, off on the side often the
the show, comments offen email or maybe on some other kind of social media
platform. I get engaged regularly, and so you know, I want I
want to bring people out of their shells, get comfortable, you know,
put yourself in the situation where you can have that kind of conversation. And
so that's a very good, very good synopsis, Tom, and I appreciate
that. So I want to getting back to the crew and getting back to
you know, our folks. I want to send out a special happy birthday
to one of our very own crew members, maybe a day or two belated,
but nonetheless got to show that love and that goes out to Multi aka
Maltese Falcon. Congrats on another trip around the sun, and thank you for
everything you do for the ACA. We wouldn't function with you, or excuse
me, we wouldn't function without you and the other incredibly valuable crew members that
run things behind the scenes. So but Tom, we have another birthday coming
up soon, or at least people pretend it's a birthday, don't we.
How are you spending the holiday season this year trying to do something new on
my part? Right, there's always opportunity for reinvention. I feel like,
you know, I've gone through the cycles. I haven't been believed in any
of the stuffs for a long time. Like maybe some of the folks who
are going to call in and challenge us here will be. But you know,
you just see the rampant consumerism out there and the unending, relentless pursuit
of stuff and things, and like doing these traditions without giving it another thought.
Like you said at the beginning, you listen to a lot of things
that if somebody actually, hey, why are we putting the missiletoe here?
Hey? Why are we kissing under it? Why is the tree here?
If we really dug into those and recognize the roots of them, it doesn't
change that they can still be significant and meaningful and purposeful to you. But
wouldn't it be awful if you were believing something for the wrong reasons? Wouldn't
it be horrible if you know, in an inadvertent way you were doing something
that was actually against what you believed with or thought to begin with? You
have a background in history. You want to understand things. I want to
understand things from a host perspective and from like the best thinking possible perspective.
That's why we're here. So I'm really interested to hear more about, like
what you know about some of those elements of Christmas and the holidays that have
been stolen from the Pagans or other religions and otherwise and like co opted by
you know, the Christian Judeo principles as they say. Well, yeah,
so so let me first premise with this with the fact that I am not
an expert. I am not an expert historian, but somebody who has some
education and some training and definitely the ability just like all of you out there
listening to dig into stuff. Right, And so from what it seems is
that you know, this is largely a European holiday. And by the way,
I did put we did put in the chat poll on for you YouTubers
that are watching a question about whether or not Christmas is a Christian holiday,
and we want to hear your thoughts about that. But getting back to kind
of the origins, you know, this is really this really comes from a
variety of different nature worship religions. You know, there are German tribes all
across Europe vikings who by the way, were not just one people. You
know, they all were different, scattered type of cultures with a love for
religion or excuse me, love for religion, a love for nature that developed
into their own religions. And this was not only common in those kind of
tribal groups, but also in the Roman Empire as well. So worshiping Saturn,
the god of agriculture, who was actually the I guess, the adaptation
of Cronus, the Greek god, because as you know, as we all
know, or probably should know, that the Romans just took all the Greek
gods and renamed them and did what they wanted with them. And isn't that
convenient? And it's not an isolated incident, right, So while the Romans
were off taking traditions from other people, here we are the descendants of the
European Christians who took our own traditions from other people. Right, So we
came along we said, hey, man, this is a good idea.
Why don't we do that. Why don't we get drunk and celebrated every year
and give each other awesome presents. Uh sounds like a good thing to do.
So, uh, we're still doing it. We're still doing it,
man, And uh, I plan on doing that. I don't know how
drunk I'm gonna get, but I'm gonna give some people some good gifts,
that's for sure. Hopefully I get something. You know. One of the
growing up as I was like, hey, you know, getting into my
high school years and be like, I don't know that I believe in any
of this stuff. One of the criticisms I always got was like, yeah,
but you you gave you know, so and so a Christmas gift,
and like, clearly you ate some ham on Christmas even all that. What
do you make of that argument of like, but you said, hallelujah,
you did the thing over here. Certainly you believe to some degree. Mm
hmmm yeah, So uh, why should I stop doing the awesome things that
make life so much fun, that make it so valuable to be around family.
I mean, just because you're not religious doesn't mean you can't have customs,
doesn't mean you can't engage in ritual or be part of tradition. You
know, we all have culture, no matter what that is. There are
there are cultures that exist out there that don't center around to God, but
then there are cultures that do, and then there are some in between.
Fortunately for us and people like you and me, we live in a society
where you can practice really all the awesome stuff and you don't have to take
everything. And so, you know, I don't mind being somebody that takes
the really good maybe remnants of an old tradition and leaving more of the nonsense
to the side. Right, I don't know how how you feel about that.
You know what, what was it in your journey? So so you
were once a believer, I take it. And then and then of course
along your journey you decided to stop certain things, right, but continue with
others. I suppose what was it for you? How did you differentiate?
You know, what you needed to kind of shed aside and what you were
comfortable moving forward, probably like ease of ease of just getting through the typical
events that you have to do as a culture. Right, Like I didn't
choose whether or not I was attending church until I was eighteen. It was
I turned eighteen, and that's I guess the time that you're allowed to sort
of make these decisions, or when you're living under someone else's roof that sort
of deal. I don't know. I don't know you examine on my I
guess a little bit at a time, every time it circles around. Actually,
you know what it's like with anything, because I recently, I've been
biking with my family for a while and it's just it's not it's difficult when
you got young kids and like you you have to go slow and all this
fun stuff. I'm like, what's a better way that I could get an
exercise? So I turned to rollerblading and I started research what rollerblades are.
I did it all the time when I was a kid, used to rollerblade
to school all the time. So I started doing my research. Six months
later. Right, I've got three pairs of rollerblades. I watch all these
Reddit channels with all these people. I'm constantly looking up. Oh, I
got to look at this new skate and this new skate. And I recognize
this is a long story, but it'll make a short point. There's a
band called crwing Bin Right, so jam band, three people, very good
experts at their craft, bass, guitar, drums, very simple but beautiful
music that they make. Look him up, folks, I don't know if
we're allowed to do that AnyWho I was. They don't typically sing, but
they had a live concert and the guy was talking and I noticed this Texas
accent on him, Like, I didn't think he was from Texas, So
I just googled it. I'm on Wikipedia and I'm reading. What I read
about him is that he is from Texas, so good, good job on
me. But he has a Fender Stratocaster. It's his only guitar. It's
the only guitar he has. I'm like, huh, do I need all
these skates? Do I need to have all of these different things and like
follow all these people? Or could I be like that dude that I don't
even know his name, but like I appreciate his music and just be an
expert at one thing, one part of my craft and shed some of this
time and energy and effort just like thinking about nonsense that doesn't matter. I'm
never going to buy those skates. I'm not going to learn that trick unless
I'm skating with the skates I have and practicing the tricks that I want to
learn. Long story short, like you can have those those parts of the
journey, like those Oh this isn't the first time I remember, like,
Hey, maybe I shouldn't just buy shit because I'm I think I'm interested in
it and like just in this world. But I find you could isolate that
to many things that people are passionate about. Do you have a similar passion
to to this gate? Well? Yeah, I mean that is that is
a really good analogy, uh, to kind of talk about, you know,
carrying this baggage that we carry around with us and and adapting you know,
kind of things that we're not even really sure why we do them.
Uh and and you know, trying to really come into modern times and and
develop our own our own personas you know, who we are, and and
kind of shedding some of that baggage. I would say that, yeah,
I think I did have I do have some something like that. I mean,
I I did Brazilian jiu jitsu for for a few years, right,
and I just always wanted to buy we wore GE's. It was called you
know a lot of people look at it and say it's a you know,
kimono, which isn't necessarily the wrong term. Just in jiu jitsu it's called
a gee. Man. I loved buying those. I love buying those.
Didn't make me any better, you know, I don't Just because I have
all of these things doesn't get me any any closer to where I want to
be. Right, And so if I wanted to take that analogy and kind
of ascribe it to my journey, I don't need really these these dogmas.
I don't really need these beliefs, these ideas that have been put put in
my head really, whether purposely or inadvertently, in order to be happy,
in order to find peace, in order to find meaning. You know,
I can do that just by being myself and knowing knowing who I am and
where I stand. And I think that my journey to becoming an atheist,
uh, you know, kind of exemplifies that. And that is why I
am here right because I tuned into the ACA a long time ago and I
saw people having conversations had or heard them having conversations that I didn't know was
completely normal to have. You know, where where I was coming from my
background, you know, we never talked about this stuff. Nobody could talk
about not believing in Jesus or or you know, just foregoing some of the
practices and ideologies that you're kind of ingrained with as you as you grow up.
So that's kind of where that's kind of where I got I, you
know, came how I came to where I am. So I do want
to kind of get to some calls. But before we do that, I
just want to remind everybody that talk Heathen, a product of the atheist community
of Austin, is a five toh one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the
promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion
and government. And we are a live call and show. We have open
lines, so get your calls in at five one two, nine to nine
to one, nine to two, four to two, or from your computer
at tiny dot c C forward slash call THH and Tom. This is the
point where we get to one of my favorite segments, talk Heathen to Me.
It's our question of the week and we are gonna get into our top
three answers. So last week we asked all of our viewers God's creation won't
be complete until it creates a bland. And so we have our number three
answer from Green at Jason Green three four three four. God's creation will not
be complete until it creates a good Christian banana argument. Man, that was
that's actually a pretty funny argument, you know. I I've never actually seen
somebody explain the banana argument with such great technicality. And yesterday it just kind
of happened to pop up on my TikTok. I was surfing through and there
was a priest or some kind of preacher not a priest it was definitely Protestant,
but pointed out the ridges on the banana. You know, the banana
kind of has these these squared off ends, and then kind of showed his
congregation that we have these ridges in our hands and they fit perfectly around the
banana, and oh, my goodness, shit, that is evidence of God.
If I've not heard any I almost went back, but you know,
it's not quite good enough. I don't know what are your thoughts on that
one. I'd never heard that before. It's amazing, but that's Hey,
you know what, though we were talking before a show, We're gonna be
kind and compassionate to people call in because we're really interested in genuine conversations and
we will genuinely share and behave honestly with the callers as long as you're the
same way with us. You like to thy good friends calling in having a
conversation in front of an audience here, which is I'm not saying, hey,
Jimmy, no, no, no, but like it's a instinctally yes,
this sounds very silly, and if you don't know, why, call
in and we'll explain it, because I agree it is a little silly here.
But yes, that's a good one. No, thank you for that,
you know. Uh yeah, real, Let's let's reel me back in
a little bit because I like to giggle and I like to point out silly
things. But there's nothing silly about yeah yeah, we're human, right,
uh and and there's nothing silly about kind of getting to the bottom of these
issues. But number two Ronda fifteen eighty seven. God's creation won't be complete
it's till it creates another great fish that will swallow all televangelists. Who oh
man, yeah, So I I don't know with Job a televangelist? Is
that is that what we're referencing here? Did he gets swallowed by the fish?
Yeah? Job, job but took a fish? Yeah? Yeah?
Am I huh right? Is that is that correct? Check? Yeah?
Somebody fact check me? Oh Johan, yeah, Johan, Jonah Jonah,
And ladies and gentlemen. I promise Joho, you're talking Toman were our fact
checker. We're gonna take a fact checker to the fact checker. That's fine.
Yeah yeah, yeah, all right, so uh not Job but Job.
You know, he withstood some some atrocities. Man, I feel for
the guy. Uh. Number one looks like Brince The Media, fourteen eleven.
God's creation won't be complete until the DVD logo hits the corner of the
screen. We are I don't know, are we living in a movie right
now? I mean, are is this all real? I don't know,
Tom? Are you there? Are you really there with me? I don't
know. It feels like you're just doing callbacks to all the previous shows that
I've been on. Where they're talking about is maybe we're in the matrix.
Last when I was on too, some was arguing about the whale right and
in the saying it's not it's a fish, not a whale, like that
makes it better. Well, I don't know. Well, you know what
they say, that's a deja vus and there must be a glitch happening right
now. Somebody screwed up. Yeah yeah, so uh Well that those are
some great answer, great questions or great answers to our question. I should
say we have a new prompt for next week, and that is make a
new holiday ritual that people should adopt. Enter your best answer below in the
video comments, and next week we will reveal the top three answers. But
let me ask you a new holiday ritual that people should adopt. I think
they should when there's family gatherings. Uh. And you just like need to
get the hell out of there, go up the chimney, right so uh,
you know, get out of there. Uh. And and you know,
make your escape the way Santa did, right he pops in, he
leaves gifts. Uh. And if there's a way out, a quick and
easy way out, you got to get get out of there quick. I
don't know what what do you think? What? What's you? What would
your be be your ritual? We're going to deal with a bunch of enraged
callers on your ideas that that won't work. Probably if you've ever tried to
crawl out of a chimneys, you've done chimney work. Have you've done chimney
work? I have. I did roofing for ten years. I've touched a
few chimneys in my day. Yeah. Well, if Santa could do it,
I just think why not me? But who knows? Well you should
know logistically why you can't. I don't know what you look like physically beyond
up here, but I imagine you're not tight enough to get through the chimney
on it up or down? Either way, it's the holiday season, so
I will show you my physique in the springtime. Okay, let me get
back, let me get let me fix all the damage I'm doing right now.
Oh my god. So yeah, do you have a ritual though,
do you have a ritual? Tom? Something to jog you know, give
give some you know, inspiration to our viewers. Yeah. So for I
mean, I'm sorry to be serious here for a moment, but ours for
the kids and us is we're we're kind of like going through the spring cleaning,
but like purging and putting all of these things that the strategy of their
kids is what what gifts can we share with others now that we don't use
them as often. So about three months ago we started putting things in boxes
that weren't getting used, and then we take them out starting on December first,
we say, are any of these things things that we could get rid
of? And then we use that funds for you know, selecting a few
key items that might be good for the new year, continuing that pigan tradition.
Right, yeah, yeah, I brought up with Yeah, that's great,
that's great. I think you know, more of us need to do
that, and you know, more more of the people that maybe, and
I don't mean to be critical, but unfortunately I see a lot of big
spending by Christian organizations and and and other religious organizations, and uh, you
know, maybe some of that money can can just be used to help people
because this is a tough time of year for a lot of people. And
on that note, I would just like to remind everybody, you know,
make sure you're checking in on your people. You're checking in and your loved
ones, letting them know that you're there. But uh, yeah, great
answer, great answer, And I am anxious to see what our audience comes
up with. Remember in the comments section, give us your best answer,
and tune in next week when we reveal our top three. So before we
go, yeah, yeah, go ahead before just out of curiosity, what
sized skater you? Oh? I don't know. I've never gone skating.
What you mean rollerblades? Yeah? Yeah, I don't know. How does
that work with shoe size? Oh there's a bunch of different measurements. Do
you know how many centimeters your feet? We'll take this offline. Let's get
to the calls centimeters? What am i? Richard Gilliver, I I don't
what is this England over here? We wouldn't have that the kind of likes
of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh yeah. We're gonna jump
into calls. We do have open lines, folks, but we all have
we also have callers waiting. And before we do that, I have to
give credence to the wonderful crew. Let it. Let us cut to the
crew cam and take a look at all the people making this work all right,
Yeah, look at those lovely folks. Yeah, happy saturn Alia everybody
and great so so yeah. These uh, these folks working hard. Uh
you know, like I mentioned earlier, can't do it without them. And
I made so many great friends. I feel like this is my crew,
you know, like these are my people. You know, people ask me
about my friends and like the ACA pops up. You know, I've like
really taken to all the wonderful folks that are around here and just making this
happen and helping me, you know, kind of share my voice. But
speaking of voices, we do have a caller on the line that wants to
speak to us about the plastic reindeer rule. Well, I would like to
hear from Phil who goes by he him in Texas, and Phil, if
you're listening, you're on with Jimmy and Tom. How can we help you?
Him? I trust you gentlemen are both well. I'm I'm feeling pretty
pretty darn good. Tom is my first time hosting with him. He's got
some good energy. He's making me, making me feel all the love in
the room. And uh yeah, man, just uh just ready to have
a great call. What's up Phil? Cool? Well, this will be
a short call. First, I have to say I should have entered last
week because I think creation won't be complete until we get a ketchup packet.
We don't have to open with our teeth. Oh yeah, I mean we're
putting things in out of space. That's right. Yeah, we're putting things
in out of space, and we're still sporting ourselves with ketchup. So that's
a good point, right, exactly. Well, when I was in college,
I took a wonderful course called Church State Relationship in America, and it
was all about Supreme Court decisions that addressed the church state issues. And that
wonderful teacher a national authority, and he was a although he was an Ordained
Disciples minister, he was a strict separationist it came to church and state.
So in nineteen eighty four. The case was Lynch v. Donnelly and a
crash scene antivity scene had been put up. It was put up in a
private park. It wasn't like it was on the courthouse lawn. It was
put up in a private park. But they used taxpayer dollars to do it,
and of course got sued. So this was the I think this was
the Warren Burger Court and the nineteen eighty four this decision came down and they
said, you can do a nativity scene as long as you make it part
of the larger cultural symbology of Christmas. So there has to be a Santo
and Frosty and elves and reindeer and so on. And interestingly, it was
the first time the words kresh and Nativity scene were addressed. Those words were
used in a Supreme Court case. So it was a split decision. It
was five to four and they said you can do that as long as you
are inclusive of the of the other imagery that is important to Christmas. And
there were several cases since then, but that was the one that came to
be known as the plastic reindeer rule. Well, yeah, I mean,
I don't necessarily agree with that. I don't know what your thoughts are on
that fill. I mean, what do you think that putting a kind of
image of Christian folklore one that leads to, you know, the belief in
a god or deity? Do you think that is? You know, something
that is that is applicable to all folks, even if we start including all
these other things. I mean, I feel personally, you know, if
somebody said to me, I don't know, you can keep your Poseidon statue
here, if you put up pictures of you know, Odin and Jesus and
all that other stuff, it wouldn't make me feel any better about my belief.
In fact, I'd feel like I was being a little bit infringed on.
I don't know what are your thoughts there. Well, you know,
I could have gone either way on that, And as I say, it
was a five to four decision, so four of the justices were absolutely against
the whole thing, the whole idea of the Christian the image seen image is
part of the cultural tradition. It's not exclusively Christian, it's just something that's
associated with Christmas. So I could have gone either way on that one.
What was the fact part pattern of like determining what is part of the cultural
tradition. You know, you know, it's been forty years since I read
the opinions on that case. My understanding is they just said it had to
include other Christmas imagery, so it wasn't exclusively religious. Well I don't know,
you know, I don't know, I do know. I'm sorry,
go ahead, no, please, I have heard. I just found out
about this today. I have heard that Greg Abbott is fighting a court case
right now regarding this at lower Core. He has lost, but I'm sure
he'll pursue it. And I don't know the facts of that case, so
I shouldn't shouldn't even go into it, but I'm definitely going to look into
into that. So I just thought that was an interesting piece of Christmas trivia.
Important case, kind of interesting, and I particularly like the idea that
it came to be called the plastic reindeer rule. That's hysterical. So I
mean I kind of understand how, oh sorry, Phil, do you for
the folks at home, why the plastic reindeer rule? Is it? Because
what does a reindeer pass the test or not? Because it was a Nativity
scene, right, That's that's the whole idea as long as there are other
Christmas y images up there can be considered part of the umbrella of the cultural
notions of Christmas. Yeah, but I guess how do you stop? Where
do you stop? Right? What's the end of all these things? Because
I've got my Festivus whatever, I'm not dialed in on it that as I
should be, But I'm sure there's traditions in there to me allow that.
I think the interesting thing I think from the whole story is like, if
you're a fan of the establishment clause, generally I'm with you. But what
do we call people who, Jimmy, you're probably better at this? What
do we call people who view the constitutions like whatever it meant at the moment
that it was written by the literal language that was used, construction constructionalist?
Right, If we're going to be that way, that's fine, as long
as we're consistent. And it seems like there's a lot of God inserting himself
as we get past World War two versus how things started with the establishment clause.
You would think that if there was intended to be more Nativity scenes and
more christ in schools and like all that, we would have heard about it
a few hundred years ago versus a little bit more recently. Right, A
lot of these Supreme Court cases are tricky. They're fascinating, but they can
be very, very problematic because it's always a question of where do you draw
the line? Where's the line between endorsement and and repression? And sometimes that's
a very difficult line to draw. Where do you draw it? Me?
Yeah, I'm I'm like my professor, I'm a pretty strict separationist, you
know. Okay, here's here's another quick case. There were there was public
money being sent being given to students for bus fair to get to school.
Now, what about kids who go to religious school? Does giving them bus
fair, which is kind of non religious, does giving them bus fair count
as endorsement of religion? And I don't remember how this came out, but
a lot of these cases are like what do we do here? What?
What? How do how do we solve this? I mean, I'm no
lawyer, but you know it sounds like a distinction between a public policy and
a private policy. And you know, public funds are not not delegated out
or or yeah, delegated out to private institutions. I mean the private institution
wants to bust their children in. I think it's up to them to be
able to do that and not rely on public funding. That's just my you
know, bare bones knowledge of the distinction between you know, the public and
the private sector. You know, the schools have to be consistent across the
board with their students, regardless of race, or gender or religion. But
from what I understand, private schools don't necessarily fall within those same confines.
I mean, if they're a Catholic school, then they can do Catholic things,
and and you know, if you go to that school, well that's
part of the agreement. You know, you've signed up, and so you're
gonna do Catholic things with them. But you know, they can't come into
the public sector and say, hey, time for Catholic things. And so
so goes the debate. So that's how we end up with these these cases
where we are trying to tell people, look, you can't put the Ten
Commandments in a public building, you can't put a manger a Jesus scene in
a public area. And so that is not the only case, the one
that you mentioned. I read a case this morning, and it's a little
bit of an older case, and I don't remember the specifics, but basically
the ruling on that was, because the manger scene is cultural and not religious,
it can stay. They didn't have to add reindeer elves. And I
was pretty shocked because I I would say that a major scene of Jesus uh
is absolutely not cultural and applicable across a variety a variety of worldviews, philosophies,
religions, et cetera. It is strictly confined to Christianity. And so
you say, Jimmy to like those folks who would say, it's it's it
uh, it's intertwined with the culture that the Christian Judeo principles. Right,
you don't like the murder people, not because of some some belief system that
you have that you've in mentioned on your own, but because you were born
in a country that has Christian Judeo principles and values, and that's what we're
being consistent on. How would how would you push back against that? I
I mean, I would push back with the fact that I am I am
not Judeo nor Christian uh, and you know, I am guaranteed rights to
not have to uh practice those things. And so I'm choosing not to practice
them. And then I would also uh kind of state that, uh,
while what what we are versus what we c to be maybe different. Right.
So, uh, we started off as a group of colonies that were
certainly Christian, right, but made a document that clearly states we're not going
to sponsor religion. I would go with the strict constructionist of that, you
know, the strict constructionist in me says, look, we have this document
that culturally we are aligned with. While you think that we're aligned culturally through
Jesus, I say, we're aligned culturally through the Constitution. Uh. And
it might not be part of a religious culture that binds us, but it's
certainly one that's administrative. Uh and one that is uh you know, governmental
and legal. And so that's whether whether people recognize it or not a cultural
guideline. Uh. And so yeah, Phil, you you are a repeat
caller, are you not? Oh? Yes, yeah, yeah. Uh
So tell me about what happened last week you called in and what was that
conversation? Like, oh my god, yeah, yeah. Well I'll make
a real short A few months ago I revisited my Church of Origin, which
is a very liberal, progressive Disciples of Christ church and I a few weeks
later I joined that church because wonderful people, you know, just just a
great, a great environment. It's a it's community, it's a nexus for
doing public good like distributing food and clothing and so on to people who need
it. And it's an opportunity to learn and to teach, you know.
And as a former religion major and an atheist, and they know I'm an
atheist, I can bring some stuff into the church that they might not hear
any place else. And oh my god, the hate veil I got in
the comments, how dare you you don't call yourself an atheist and go to
church? Well, what business is that of yours. I'm not saying you
should go. I'm just saying I'm going and liking it. But third atheists
really took exception to that. Yeah, it's interesting. Did you go?
Did you come up with that idea of like, hey, I'm just going
to go because I'm searching for a community and something like that, or they're
like, hey, come to our church again, come back with you know,
it's not all Jesus y. We just like people. We liked doing
helping out. The folks were unhoused. Well this is you know, these
are these are people I went to school with a couple of my former school
teachers. Go there. I just kind of wanted to see what was going
on and if the church had changed any and it's we just know. We
just a few weeks ago got the got the badge for for whatever organization does
that of being lgbt Q welcoming and friendly. And in fact, the minister,
the pastor, our new pastor a month or two ago, said if
you're a skeptic and atheist as secular humanist, come on in. You're fine
here. And nobody has tried to recruit me or proselytize me. There have
been no arguments and there's been nothing like that. It's just a bunch of
really good people who I enjoy being around. What what kind of Vieway's like,
Oh well here's what they talk about. We did, Yeah, several
weeks in a row, Pastor Russell did positive messages in Disney animated films.
So it's it's pretty secular. It's a pretty secular. There's no hell roomstone,
there's no what kind of churches this I'm sorry, go ahead, yeah,
yeah, what kind of churches? Of Christ. Okay, well,
Disciples of Christ is is we split off from the Church of Christ a long
time ago. We kind of with Alexander Campbell and can't remember the other guy's
name, and we went liberal and they went conservative. So this is if
you're familiar with with Texas Christian University, that's a Disciples university. Well,
very very well, do you very liberal? In fact? Go ahead,
please continue, Please continue, Phil We have a little bit of a delay,
so I keep thinking that you're done and I start talking, but I'm
gonna give it to you. You have the mic. Well, some years
ago, forty years ago, fifty years ago, when I was a teenager,
the church split. We had some fundagelicals come in and kind of take
over, and it crippled the church for years, for years, And sadly,
I was a teenager and I was on the wrong side of that fight.
But I quickly woke up and came to my senses and realized, I'm
just believing this stuff because somebody told it to me, you know, and
I'm a science buff, so I didn't I didn't buy the flood or you
know, anything like that. Even back then. But at that point of
Christian minister I think his name is wad Dale said the disciples are such that
if you want to go there and you want to believe Jesus Christ is Son
of God, my savior, that's fine. If you also want to believe
Jesus Christ was a cool guy, he's my personal hero, that's fine too.
Well. So I know what it's like to get I don't want to
say eviscerated in the comments, but I am. I am checked by some
callers from time to time, and you know, I had an experience of
my own not too long ago. But why and I'll get into that a
little while, But Phil, why do you think that you're getting so much
pushback? What is it that people have a problem with you going to church?
Because, in my opinion, with the trends in church attendance lately,
I would say that you should probably be welcome. I would I would imagine
that any clergy member would be happy to have a new member of the congregation
congregation, excuse me. And for for some followers to kind of push back
on the idea that somebody knew wants to maybe come in and I don't hear
the word be part of things? Donate? Uh? Is a little bit
shocking to me. We are seeing concessions, concessions be made kind of across
uh Christian organizations. You know, the Pope in recent months has come out
and started, uh maybe professing we could be wrong. We've seen other churches
that take a little bit more of a liberal stance also become affiliated with the
LGBTQ community, becoming more welcome, uh even hosting weddings between same sex couples,
which I think is a great thing. Uh. So that's all all
that to say, you know, we see the church making changes. I
would say that they're making these changes because, well, they need to reach
more people. They have to just adapt to the time. And I feel
like your your purpose, your uh you know, integration might fit along that
line. So why do you think that, you know, people have a
problem with that. It's it's a symptom of binary thinking. There's there's every
point on the spectrum represented by religious and non religious belief a thousand there's a
thousand different stories, but people tend to think in binary all Christians bad,
all non Christians good, And it's simply not that simple. Yeah, yeah,
well I will tell you so. Well, first of all, was
it your church members that were that were angry or was it just like did
you get that from church? Did you feel welcome? Or were they just
as angry as some of the people in the comments. I got this from
atheists. The atheists were telling me, oh, you're a trader. You
you don't know what you're doing. You know, why do you why would
you bother? Et cetera. City thought I explained that pretty well, we're
not very good, very good at that. You know. It's like it's
we're talking before the show. It's really difficult to have like a real cohesive
unit when you're like, all right, what are our values? We don't
believe the one thing? What about everything else? It's like all over the
board. Now there is no like atheists and a lot of people look at
it as just one religion. And you could look at the angry atheists and
say that's how they are. In fact, some of the folks here might
know are are call Manuel. I've been talking to a manual, and I
think a manual probably has a similar view that others do, which is like
a man atheists think this way about this thing that because I've heard one say
that, and we do the same thing. Christians think this way about this
sing Oh no, I don't believe in the freaking boat and all that stuff.
I believe in the cross and all that stuff. Like I know that
there are so many different on the spectrum of belief. It's all over the
place. And that's why shows like this are important and conversations like this are
important. Be like, what do you specifically believe about that thing? And
how did you get there? And if we can understand that and maybe get
some aha moments for ourselves, That's what I'm all after here. We can
do it for the listener. That's great too. Yeah, no, Phil,
I want to at this small church, a small come, sorry,
go ahead, Nope, nope, flows your at this small church. And
this is only you know, typically on a Sunday morning, we'll have one
hundred people, and I go to Sunday school as well, and not one
person has given me any grief about my non theism. In fact, they
listen to me because I have valuable information I was a religion, So they're
respectful. There's been no arguments, there's been no challenging. We're getting a
long great and I think it's important. I think it's significant that a skeptic
and an atheist is available to them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And
it's strange too, I mean because like Jimmy, we were talking about the
war on the War on Christmas. You could conceivably put all of the things
that you talked about at the beginning as like, oh, it's a war
on Christmas, and I see no difference between you his reporting historical facts and
like just having a conversation about it. Why do we have to do that?
That's why this i'd call this positive aggressive. Jimmy and I were nice,
kind, gentle people with you. Phil. Hopefully you feel the same
way, but we're also going to be aggressive and ask you why, how,
what, where? How are you getting there? Help us understand?
And if we can't get it, well, then that's maybe not something that
we're going to carry forward as far as our own thinking. Yeah, Phil,
I really appreciate that you were a religion major, because this my my
religion really fell apart when I took as a as a rushman in college my
Bible literature class. I mean, I'd never read the Bible before, and
then I read the whole thing front, front to back, which I should
probably do it again because it's been about I don't know twenty years or so,
seventeen, but you know, just getting in and examining what that is,
you know, it kind of made me start really questioning, even though
I kind of had some you know, tendencies to think it doesn't really add
up to me. Was that kind of what you experienced, like, you
know, your religion major. Did you go in did you go into this
thing like I'm going to learn about what it is I believe and then you
started learning and you realized, oh crap, like somebody missed something somewhere and
you had to kind of you had to kind of reattack it. What do
you think by the time I got into college as a religion major, I
didn't start as religion major. I quickly changed after I took this wonderful professor.
I was pretty much halfway out the door at that point, you know,
after seeing what the what the fundamentalist takeover did to my church. And
this was before conservative religion had become so political. Know, it changed dramatically
over the last forty five years, But no, I was. I was
already mostly a skeptic and then of course I discovered James Randy and you know,
Gardner and all those great guys and Carl sig And and I realized,
uh, this is a lot of this is bullshit. I need to go
ahead and be a skeptic. Yeah, no, I was, you know.
And that's the thing. This was a very liberal This was a liberal
college. So there was no preaching going on in class. This was a
this was serious history and study in the in the and we talked about a
lot of world religions. You know, it wasn't just Christianity. We talked
about Buddhism, Hinduism and cults and sex and it was just a really good,
a really good overview. But no, I was out there. I
was pretty much out the door by the time I was Yeah, I was
already on the way to being an atheist, right right. And that's what
I'm saying, Like, you know, you're out the door, and then
you get that little nudge from actually being put in a position where you have
to question, uh, question the things that you know you've been told all
these years, and uh, it just really helps you along. We always
say, you know, the best way to becoming an atheist, uh is
to actually read the Bible or you know, in the case for for non
Christians to kind of uh you know, maybe read through some of the things
that they've been taught all their lives. So anyway, uh, I you
know, want to kind of move on to some other callers, Phil,
I really appreciate your call. Uh, and UH keep calling in Glad you
called two weeks in a row, and UH, great conversation, great experience,
and uh you know, I hope uh, I hope your trip back
to uh back to church. Uh, you know, it is a worthwhile
one. Uh. And don't worry about the people in the commons. So
you know, Tom, actually we were talking earlier and I had my own
experience uh in the you do uh am guilt. You did something. I
messed up, all right, I messed up and it came forward. So
uh, we were having a conversation a couple of weeks ago. I was
on a show. Uh. I was on a show with uh with the
great Christy Powell, who, by the way, has had some success also
speaking with a manual. So glad to see that Emmanuel is kind of you
know, gauging other people and and really having these questions in you know,
multiple going down multiple roads talking to people like you Christy. But you know,
we had a call a call in and say, you know, all
men hunted and all women gathered, or at least that was his question,
right in our foraging societies kind of pre domestication before the agricultural revolution and things
like that, right, And so I incorrectly stated that women didn't hunt,
right, So I think I deserve a little bit more credit, although I
did, I did admit guilt, but what I said was, Look,
it wasn't that all men hunted and all women gathered, right, The whole
society was hunter gathered. However, to the extent that men were both hunter
gatherer, women didn't necessarily hunt, although that was nuanced, right, And
and I did know. You know, I have come across in my studies
as a history major and a political science major, study and cross cultural competencies
and things like that, I have the foundation for understanding that human societies is
incredibly nuanced. And nobody throughout history, throughout prehistory, did we ever do
the same things from different societies and different regions. Everything was very different.
But I think the overall, the overarching point I was trying to make is
that with the male dominated patriarchical or patriarchal societies the way things were structured.
We saw the development of gender roles come through that, and then of course
the rise of religion that kind of made things worse for women, right And
so anyway, I had a caller or excuse me, somebody in the comments
call me a flip flopper and tell me that I didn't know anything about what
I was talking about, maybe not in those exact terms. And you know,
after engaging engaging the individual, we had a very nice conversation, you
know, and I was glad that it turned out that way, but you
know, he was right. He was right me saying things like, hey,
no, women like you can't just speak in broad terms like that.
You know, you can't just paint everybody with the same brush. And you
know, I had to come out. I made it TikTok video about it
and said, look, I said something incorrect. Actually. Uh. The
following week, Forrest was on with Christy Uh and uh and Jamie Boone a
great show. But Forrest, you know, who's an expert in this area,
started talking about, you know, the same things. It was like,
well, there's tons of evidence that women women, uh, you know,
that women were hunters. And I said, you know, man,
I really got to go back and look at what I said. Uh.
So yeah, I'm glad that I was able to have an engagement with a
caller where I could say, look, you know what, I wasn'correct in
the way that I that I fashioned that statement. I should know better,
uh, and you know it should be it should be, you know,
something that we're comfortable doing. Uh when we go back and kind of re
examine, you know, the mistakes or or we take criticism when we say,
huh, you know, I'm looking at that incorrectly and I need to
kind of reassess. And so I don't know, I don't know how you
uh, how you feel about all that time. I know that was kind
of a long, a long recap. Not trying to make excuses for myself.
What I'm really trying to allude to is that, you know, like
I've said before in the show, people are wrong all the time, and
that uh, you know that includes me, and I'm happy to happy to
have these discussions. So I don't know what are your what are your thoughts
on that? I know what we we said, we'd talk about that a
little bit today, So I wanted to kind of just relay that to you.
I want to tell you on behalf of the listeners, thank you for
your honesty, thank you for your growth and taking ownership over your mistakes.
Like I mean, like everybody knows that of course if you if you make
a mistake on something, you want to take responsibility and get better and grow.
How do you do that doing what you just freaking did? Like,
like, we're not superheroes. We don't pretend to be. I'm not an
expert in anything you said before. I'm passionate about these things, I'm not
an expert. Yeah. Absolutely, So we're gonna make mistakes as we talk
here, we'll say we'll say uh there. Here's a good example from last
week Arman and J Mike Right. A caller came in said, hey,
Arman, in your book, you said there's no evidence of God. However,
I've seen evidence for God, and Armand's like, okay, I'm I'm
talking colloquially. No evidence also means no good evidence or insufficient evidence. Does
that work for you? And they're like, but you said no evidence And
he's like, yo, no, I'm clarifying for you because you're not getting
it. I meant insufficient or bad just like if you accuse me and you're
like of murder and you have nothing to go on other than I think he
did it, that's evidence. It's not good, right, And I don't
think that there was like a through line through it with that caller, which
is okay, But thank you for making the through line here. You took
the critical feedback, you did your research. You're like, oh my goodness,
And I think I had a similar experience with that same thing, either
listening to the forest thing or something else. But was it that there is
evidence that women were hunters or is that there's no evidence that it was women
are hunters? Or sorry, men are hunters and women are gatherers exclusively.
Oh no, so there's evidence that women are hunters, right. I think
the fact that we have to go find that or that came up secondarily speaks
to the nature of the fact that, you know, broadly speaking, of
course, men were more often hunters, right, But that doesn't mean that
women didn't hunt. And in some societies it was it was an equal division
of labor. Women were expected to hunt. You know, you have different
societies that I maybe more reliant on big game, and then some societies that
are not and then you know, you have larger societies where division of labor
is a little bit more, a little bit more obvious, where you may
in another area, you may have a small society where people are expected to
do more. It all just depends, really, and that's uh, that's
kind of the uh, the the answer that you know, we get.
I'm in the military, of course, and I spent some years as a
military intelligence analyst, and I always told people, well, you know,
the answer is it depends. And I always hate giving that, but you
know what, the the the plethora of possibility that's out there when we talk
about the origins of humanity, you know, really is extremely nuanced, and
there's not just one way things happened. So plenty of evidence that women were
hunters, plenty of evidence that women were warriors. Uh. One of my
best, my favorite courses I took was called Women in Europe from my undergraduate
history degree. Uh, and and studying about Viking women and and women from
warrior societies that were expected to kind of defend and fight. I always found
that so fascinating. And so yeah, I would say that, you know,
my original claim, you know, speaking to the to maybe not acknowledging
the evidence where I could have uh was was kind of a fault of mine.
But yeah, I am glad that we have experts on the show from
a variety of different fields. I mean, we've got we've got legal experts
and biological experts and philosophers and the like. But you know, we've kind
of beat this up, and I want to make sure that our listeners know
that we have exciting ways for them to contribute to the ACA. Uh It's
it's a big ask sometimes to have people call in. Although we would love
for you to call in, we do have other ways you could support us,
and one of those is by buying an engraved brick and becoming part of
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We've said it routinely. We've talked about, you know, different interactions that
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So please email us at TV at Atheist hyphencommunity dot org and let us know.
I had somebody Tom emailed me last week and I had a great conversation
with this person. You know, so a few weeks ago, I likened
a story about Hercules to one about, you know, the birth of Jesus
and the story of Jesus. Right, so broadly speaking, Hercules was born
a woman who was impregnated by Zeus against her own free will. Hercules traveled
to the underworld and came back, and so pretty interesting how we have all
of these kind of societies kind of across our history that kind of share and
borrow from each other. Right, And so that's what I had a conversation
with that caller about. He was receptive because his question was, you know,
don't you think that all these similarities kind of lead to some proof that
maybe all of it's true, maybe that there's some god that's out there that's
giving us the same message, but we're screwing it up. And you know,
I kind of I don't know what what what? How would you answer
that question? What do you think could be? Yeah, for sure,
could be. It seems unlikely though, Yeah, like as far as like
the plausibility of that theory, I would put The next one is like,
hey, maybe all humans are born with these conditions where one, we're born
into a society generally, and we need to cooperate with one another too.
Is like the societies evolve over time when they get these different technologies, whether
the technology is like a politics or government or ways of doing market, you
know, farming technology, Like all these things have an impact on how the
society works together. Perhaps it's worth digging into that and see if that might
be a more plausible explanation explanation. Yeah, let's be fantastic. And like
the fact that you're engaging with folks, that's that's what we're all here to
do. I do want to call it. We here at the ACA,
the only five oh one c three nonprofit call in show uh that we're atheists
talking to theists. And other atheists and everybody. But we talk about these
ideas listeners sponsored by your brick uh and volunteer powered. We are here of
our own free will because we are we are passionate about these topics and talking
to others about it. So thank you. Yeah, yeah, no,
great, Uh yeah I am. I am so excited that I'm kind of
developing these relationships with people. I want to give a special shout out.
I had somebody, a wonderful, wonderful viewer shoot me a message on Twitter
or make a post on Twitter the other day? Or should I say X
right? Are we switching to X? Now? Are we calling it X?
Uh? You don't like it? You keep it Twitter? Yeah?
Yeah, you know, we're all speaking the same language here. We know
what's going on. But I want to speak to Sarah and Company or or
Sarah and Co. But she made a post, Hey, Jimmy, my
girlfriends and I watch talk Ethen every Sunday religiously like what you did there.
But we're all atheists and we love some of the theist calls. Keep up
the good work. Yeah, I really appreciate that love. I know that
She went on to share our the time and date for the show, encouraging
people to call in and see what's going on. So I appreciate the followership,
appreciate you being part of our community, and let's keep it up.
So Sarah mentioned how much she and her friends love watching us. I'm pretty
sure she's out there. They're in their pajamas, cuddled up right now,
just watching us. Shout them out. So I also want to shout out
Pastor Alex. Pastor Alex, he's a hilarious dude, told people do not
watch our show, absolutely don't watch it, which I found pretty funny because
I'm sure that was an attempt at re psychology, but I don't think it's
working because we do have other calls. In any case, we appreciate the
free publicity. So Tom, I want to get to some other calls we
have on the line. From Canada goes by him and he wants to know
how does secular humanism fit into objective morality? So Serge, happy to take
your call, and you are on with Tom and Jimmy. Go ahead.
What's your question? The question of the states? How do the secular humans
affinity objective morality? I had a conversation recently with the Theist about how objective
morality stemps solely from his book, he believed in the biblical biblical God and
the epithemic God, and so it stopped me from what I understand objective morality
well as defined as a universal understanding of what's good and what's not. But
I already knew all that given before I even read the book, and I
used to be a theist myself. So what I'm trying to understand is how
it's secular assament doesn't fit into it because I understand it at a very very
basic level, but I cannot express it to UH expect it to U.
How do I explain it? Now? We got you? No? No,
I think I think we got your question, and I'm gonna I'm gonna
kick it over to Tom, our wonderful UH co host for today and see
see what he wants to to dig up on that. For sure, I'll
kick it back over to Surge. When you say objective morality, I think
we know what you mean, But how do you how do you define that?
Uh? It's as I read it is? Uh crap. I had
the definition in front of me a little while ago. But objective morality,
as I've read and understood is a global understanding and a universal understanding of morality
of what's good and bad. If I understand the definition correctly, Okay,
very good. So it's a it's a global understanding of morality that we all
share, or that we could all share. Because it's objective, right,
it's based on some other things. So I guess how how would taking one
book and saying that that's the objective way that we're going to do it,
how would that relate to if I say, no, it's this book over
here, this one's the objective one. Oh, because that's what the person
who with whom I was conversation believed. He said, Oh, the Bible
is all. The book is all. It is the fallible word of God's
through that came into existence through the sallible word of man. But it is
what it is infallible to begin with. Right. But so let's see absolutely.
Yeah. So I guess like if I were to just say, that's
great, you have that book over there, mine says the same thing.
It says, my God's infallible. How are we going to sort this out?
Then we would be having argument got the better gods? Right? So
there's got to be a different way, Right, We can't just go on
the books and say this book says that and therefore it's true. Correct.
If your book says it's true, but my book is different but it says
it's true, then either both books are true simultaneously, which is a logical
fallacy, or our fault. Yeah, shoot darn it. So, like,
what do we do next? So? I guess you're you're kind of
calling. I know you're calling, like on behalf of Hey, I had
this conversation. Is your question? Like, how do I how do I
take it to that next step? Here? Yeah? Like, what's as
I understand? Second, a humanism is understanding that we have no need for
a high power to have morals. But this person tells me, well,
we do need a high power to have morals because our book said so,
and it has for the last two thousands years or so. Yeah, maybe
it's but yeah maybe so. I guess I just have like two instincts.
One is to say, like, oh, shoot darn it, my book
says the same thing. How are we going to figure this out? And
it would probably be all right. We had to put both of these to
the side and come to some sort of way of the how we get to
the truth behind objective morality if we can even agree that that's a thing,
that there is an objective morality to have in here. The second I'm curious
your thoughts on this, Jimmy, would be to just like, let's go
into the book though, and validate that this fits our objective moral framework.
Here. Do we believe that slavery is good or bad? Yes or no?
Right based on the book? What does the book say? And then
how does that feel to us instinctively right if we think about being objectively moral
even though we're being subjective in that moment. Jimmy, what do you think?
How do you address this this common challenge? Yeah, so I agree
that the comparison for different claims or excuse me, the same claims made by
different people or different books, if you will, is a good way to
kind of initially investigate. But it's very seldom that somebody who is claiming that
their religion or their beliefs are moral actually know what all of those beliefs in
religion are, and experience tells us that. And so I do like Tom's
idea of kind of you know, all right, well, you have determined
right to the other person the person on the other end of the conversation.
Okay, you have determined that morality is based solely on the message that you
have, the message that you're trying to give. So now let's go through
that message, and then we have to really judge the veracity of this person's
claims based on the fact of whether or not they can adequately make those claims.
Describe those claims that or or those beliefs that support that claim. I
would say, though, getting back to Sergei's initial question, real quick,
I want to just plug this before it, you know, falls off the
old iceberg. Too many penguins on the iceberg, as they say, But
I don't wanna lose this, so I would say that, I would say
secular humanism is the thing that we do to try and get to an objective
morality, even though the objective morality, from what we can tell isn't exist.
Doesn't exist. Excuse me, because morality is incredibly objective subjective, right.
Depending on who you ask what's moral what's not, you might get a
different answer. You might get some different beliefs and practices traditions that all can
conflict with each other. I think though, that we generally as people have
the same basic needs, the same basic instincts, and the need or love
of life they want to survive or need to survive, that can we can
really examine to try and find, all, right, what is it that
we all have in common that binds us together. Certainly it's not religion,
right, So in that point, I would say objective morality is off the
table when it comes to religion, because our religious messages are just not lining
up. If anything, they're canceling each other out. But we have to
kind of look at all right, let's go the secular humanist route. Let's
take religion off the table. What is it that's important to you? What
is it that's important to me. Not that consensus really defines what's objective,
but it kind of brings us closer together in determining how we can live together,
share this tiny space and get all get along. And so that's where
I think secular humanism fits into. Objective morality. Doesn't solve the problem,
but it's the alternative to these morality claims that don't seem to add up.
But yeah, like I've said before, and something that I believe in passionately,
you know, you don't have to point to somebody and say, here's
why what you believe is wrong, right you. You don't have to add
maybe emotion to that thing as much as you can just show why it just
doesn't work. Right. So Tom talked about slavery, and a lot of
people will try and justify slavery in the Bible. But you don't have to
say, well, you know you're stupid or or you're wrong because X.
You can just say would you enjoy being a slave? Right? And that
is kind of a different question. That is kind of pointing out something different
rather than judging the person, or you know, kind of characterizing their thoughts
for them, you know, pointing pointing to the fact instead of describing the
fact to them. If that makes sense. I don't know, Serge,
how how are we looking so far? I hope I didn't lose you there.
I know you haven't lost me so far. I've trying to rattle this
in my brain, and I think you've come to a try to explain to
me that the objective morality is the finish line, but check that humanism is
the pathway to that finish line. Gets the book The Bible says, oh,
we're already have the finish line. We don't need the we don't need
the journey. That is a great, great synopsis. That is a great
synopsis for what I just said. And I will caveat that with that is
what I'm saying, right, But I don't speak for all atheists, right.
I can just give you my best perspective, and and I think that
morality may very well be a little bit more objective than we give it credit
for. But we kind of got to remove those confines that pull us into
thinking our way is the right way instead of looking for and instead look for
a universal right way. But I, hey, great question, great synopsis.
Sounds like uh, sounds like you know you're prepared for the next conversation.
I don't know, Tom, Do you have anything to add, Yes,
Sergey, let me give you one other, one other thing to use.
And this is something that didn't come to mind until after Jimmy you were
talking. So there's a there's a book by a doctor named Jacob Apple.
Apple I think is what it is. It's called it Who Says You're Dead?
Who Says You're Dead? And that's one of the stories in the book.
But it's basically what's that. Sorry, could you look at the name
of the doctor on the will the name right now and have a look,
Yeah, Jacob Apple. And I'm not saying that I'm sponsoring this book or
that the podcast here sponsors it. But the book's called Who Says You're Dead?
And it's a collection of these medical ethical dilemmas and let me give you
let me give you one that you can check out there, but like you
can read all of them. It's the most disorienting book you'll ever read,
because it's like three pages of a story with at the end going like,
here's some thoughts on this side, here's some thoughts on that side. Whatever.
Right, There's no answers in it. It's just here are these situations.
So one of them. There's two conjoined twins, right, and they
unlike the ones you see in the TV shows, they don't like each other,
not one bit. In fact, they hate each other. And they
have very different beliefs about what it means to lead a meaningful life as conjoin
twins. One of them wants to get separated and go on her own way.
The other one very much does not. There is a medical risk in
the separation procedure. They know that some significant percentage of people who go through
this will die. Based on the Bible, what is the objectively moral choice
for the doctors and the patients to make? Here? Wow? Objective a
moral ways for the doctors? Yeah, shit right, I don't know the
Bible is going to be their best resource to reason through this sort of thing.
But like, is that not a moral question? Somebody could die?
There's risks involved, and this is about life. Like, if there's any
one thing that we could consider sacred, it is our own Linds. Is
this thing that we're experiencing through our heads right now? So how do we
make the right decision there? How does the Bible help us inform it?
I don't know that it's it's been situated or is the right manual that I
would use to reason through something as complicated as that? And good Heavens,
I'm glad that I'm not in the situation where I have to. Yeah,
Bible fails a lot of tests, so do a lot of other religious books.
Go ahead, Sergey, I'll give you give you a time to close
us out. Go ahead, shut up, I'm your announces. We can
join twins. You might be looking at what is the greater good in the
end, what is the most benefit at least laws Sure, and I would
guess those two twins would have different answers about it, right, and it
doesn't solve the problem for them. But yeah, again, look, you
cannot be objective, and sure one would have its on benefits as losses.
You're kind of looking at a sort of a seesaw of morality going up and
down. Don't know this, I don't know this. Yeah, wow,
I'm something. I'm going to read this book and I'm definitely going to get
through this. It is a collection of those where you will end every single
one probably with the same thing going like huh, well that's unresolved, and
then you move to the next one. So I'm interested in those sorts of
things and for like the insights behind how do you think about that? What
makes one more right than the other? And in that case, I don't
know, I don't know, I don't know, and I don't want to,
right, I just don't want to think about that. All right,
Well, I hope, I hope that is helpful. I mean, I
think we had a great conversation. Uh, we are gonna let you go
and move on to some more callers, but continue to call in and uh,
you know, I really appreciate hearing from you, and uh yeah,
I hope, I hope this helps for for the future. So, uh,
you know, Tom, we have to get to something that's that's very
important. Right. We have our top five patriots and uh it's your duty
as our guest today to read those out and to to acknowledge these folks that
uh, you know, are are sticking with us week after week. So
what do you say, can you do the top five? Me? Yeah,
yeah, absolutely, to see we have to see how you do with
pronouncing them. It's a it's something that we all have to do. Oh
right, it's up there. Okay. First, of course, the famous
infamous some might even say which you never get to choose. You just get
to take one or the other. Dingle Berry Jackson. That's right, dingle
Berry Jackson. Thank you so much for your donations. Yeah, these are
some familiar names, but you know what, that's gotta be a healthy competition
out there for the listener because oops, all singularity period. Our second top
patron thank you for your patronage. DeVore Vlgian Belgian, davore Valgian, thank
you so much for your donations Kalevi Helveti. I think I made the comment
last time about it. It's like, uh, Klevlar, who's that lucky
number? Seleven? Great flick and then left in the leaves, left in
the leaves, oh double meaning there for the person, not for me because
I don't understand it. And our honorable mention Mark Laguster Laguskar, Mark Laguskar.
That's a great name. What you did? Hey, Tom, you
nailed that. You know. I love what you did with Kleevi Helvetti that.
Uh can you do that one more time? How did you do that
again? I don't know what I did kelle Helvenni. We're gonna have to
go back and look because that might be the new pronunciation, you know.
Doctor Ben and I, uh fight back and forth on devor Valgin because I
say Davo Valgean, Uh, you did pretty pretty well, but he says
Devor Valgin and uh, you know, our beef continues. We were asked,
have we ever asked a hair or I don't know. I don't think
we really want to know. I don't really think we want to know.
We kind of just want it to be a mystery. And you know,
let's do it. We'll just let it die there. We got we got
somebody else though. Miranda Rensburger sends five dollars. Thank you very much,
Miranda. I am always happy to see your name pop up every time I'm
on week after week Miranda's there. She misses crew Cat and sends love to
his grieving family. That's right, we lost Crew Cat unfortunately, So shout
out to our guy Vern you know, and I hope you hope you're doing
all right. But thank you very much, Miranda. And we want to
talk about more ways that you can get involved with the ACA and available on
tiny dot c c forward slash ACA flyers or printable call in flyers. Post
these with permission to community bulletin boards so people know they should call our show
and defend their faith. If you do post any flyers, just make sure
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in our community, and for that we've got an updated website, so head
to www. That Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org and you can learn about the organization,
uh it's policies and how you can get involved. So, uh,
with that being said, we've got some more callers on the line, and
I want to get to Truth six sixty six from Maryland goes by she her
and she's skeptical that Phil is an atheist. So I'm gonna premise this with
the fact that you know, we love Phil. We're not calling Phil a
liar, We're not saying anything negative. This is not malicious, but I
do want to hear your skepticism, and you know, maybe Phil can can
can step to his defense in the in the comments, or he can call
back next week and talk about his level excuse me of theism slash atheism.
But I think he's laid it out pretty clear. You know, Uh,
he is an atheist and likes the community of his shirt. So Truth six
sixty six kindly please present your argument and let's go over that. Hey,
hey there, this is so strange to call into an atheist show an atheist
by the hey Richard's Sake said, call in, we are happy to have
you. You are happy to have you. So I've got my computer clothes,
I'm not looking at the chat. So leave that up because I want
to concentrate on the college. So I'm not even focused anyway. Anyway,
and I want to say to learn too. I'm also sorry about Crew Cat,
so I know how hard it do to lose an animal. So I'm
sorry to say that. But anyway, back back to Phil. Okay,
Now, I listened to your show every Sunday, sure, so people can
tell the chat thing there so and you know a lot of times I can
tell there were pea callers and sometimes I oh, you know, oh,
but I remember Phil's first call when he called in and he said he was
an atheist that went to a I think was the Unitarian Church at a liberal
type of church, the Church of Christ, and he the Church of Christ.
Okay, Church of Christ. So I'm not familiar with the Church of
Christ. Church. Is that a a more that's more of a liberal type
of church, right, according according to Phil, And I have to I
have to take his word on that. But Phil is a former believer stepped
away from the church who's been an atheist for about twenty years. I think
he said. I don't know, maybe maybe the tony is inaccurate, but
in any case, uh, yeah, he's been an atheist for a long
time and decided the sense of community, you know, is really what pulled
him in. And because the church has been so opening and welcoming, excuse
me, open and welcoming, you know, he feels feels at home there.
So, uh, you know what is what's your gripe about that?
If you have one, well, well, I don't really have a gripe.
I have a skepticism as to why an atheist would fill the need to
go to a church for the sense of community. Because I get the sense
of community. I get where you there's the atheist community, there's not that
type of the same type of community as a in the theist community. I
get that. I lived in a state where I used to live in Utah.
From Utah and moved to Maryland, you know, red state to blue
state. So I grew up in a state like that. It was it's
hard to be secular in Utah, no matter you tried as hard as you
can, but you were still so immersed in that Mormon the Mormon culture,
because everyone knows Utah. I've lived in Marylands for twenty three years, so
it's maybe been a little less read. But back when I lived there,
I grew up there. I was born there by nineteen sixty so, oh,
no, I gave away my age so I lived there. The truth
forty truth? Are you? Are you a theist? I'm sorry? Are
you a theist or an atheist? I'm I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh
I'm an atheist. I I should have said up so, but being secular
in Utah was so I knew. I didn't believe in the Mormon God,
didn't believe in more. But I believe in God. Okay, don't know
why, but I'm moved to Maryland and still held that I believed in God.
And then for some reason, I stumbled onto a experience twenty years ago.
I was watching Athey's experience and talks and atheist shows for twenty three years
now. Excellent, excellent, excellent. So I just my mind just has
gone from and to and I got to the point where, no, I
do not have said this is I lack a belief in any God. I
want to be very clear, because atheist if so, there's so many definitions
of an atheist, and we can you know, you can hear theists make
so it's just I lack. I did not come to the point where I
lack a belief in any god. But so I don't so since that journey.
I you know, the reason I don't believe in a god is because
of all the stuff that's tied to believing in a god, in a god.
So truth a six six before. So I want to address these things
because you, First of all, you're doing great. I mean, you
were nervous to call in, and I think you're doing wonderful. So just
keep that in mind. But yeah, I also want to tell you though,
though you know, just because so according to your experience, right,
you could never go back right atheism. Atheism is who you are now,
and it's in many facets, many forms, and there are just some things
you can't do. But we have been saying all along, and I think,
I think after twenty three years of your viewership, which by the way,
I'm incredibly grateful for. You know, not all atheists are the same,
and just because you can't do something doesn't mean that another atheist doesn't feel
comfortable doing that thing, or even shouldn't. You know, even though we
have taken our beliefs and we've put them behind us, there's still very much
a part of who we are I would not be here without Lutheranism. Without
Lutheranism, and the Great, the Great Phoebe, who is a frequent nonprofit
and has been on some other shows, continues to wear her Star of David.
I think is the correct terminology. Uh remember that? Yeah? Yeah,
And she's no longer a practicing Hebrew or practicing Jew. I think I
can say that. But but in any case, you know, she still
wears that symbology, right because it's a part of who she is. It's
a part of where she comes from. And I, you know, I
don't have an issue with that. I still keep a little Lutheran like kind
of pendant in a shoebox in my closet. I could throw it out,
but you know, I kind of I don't know. I have my Bible
that I got when I was confirmed at age what was I thirteen? I
think, But you know, I I still hold on to it, you
know, and it's one that I referenced quite frequently. But you know,
I don't know that I would. I would take the step, you know,
to to call Phil, you know, to to be skeptical about Phil
and and maybe he does have some questions that he's still trying to get answers
to I don't know. I kind of want to just posit that on.
You don't want to take over your whole uh, your your whole intro there,
Tom, Do you have anything No, No, I say no.
I understand exactly where you're coming from. I understand you perspective and how you
hold onto things from your past because they mean something to you. Just can't
throw everything away from your religious past. You can't do that. That's not
that would be you would be like as a psychopath or sociopath, if you
just didn't have any feelings or any empathy for anything, that would be crazy.
Of course you wouldn't want to do that. I understand I've got things,
you know that I still hold on too because the culture, some of
my deep things inside of me just because of they have meaning to me.
So I haven't you know that's understandable. Yes, But the reason I'm skeptical
about the church going to they just going to churches because doctrine is doctrine is
doctrine. Churches, I'll have that doctrine. The doctrine I feel preaches hate,
hate making people others. Doctrine is still the doctrine. Has a church
changed their doctoral beliefs. Have they stopped believing in these bad things? They
stopped just because they pant it way way down and they try to brush over
it with a layer of frosting. You get out of the frosting, it's
still a rotten pape. Well, you know, I think gyptical. So
that's not why I think that. I just I just think that, Yes,
an atheist, an atheist, I guess an atheist. If an atheist
can get past the doctrine and go to church, then that's on them.
That's why I'm skeptical though. But an atheist that can just put a layer
of frosting on hate and pretend that's not there when they walk into the church,
Hey, my hat's off to them. Truth. It sounds like,
and I have a lot of empathy. It sounds like there's been you know,
some trauma and in your experience with the church and the doctrine, and
that's like completely understandable. Like a good parallel to this too, is like
maybe some of the the listeners have heard me or see me on this before,
and I like, breeze past it. I used to be Catholic and
I don't do this stuff. But like I think part of my holding on
to this thing is like say, I didn't have it as bad as others
had it, probably didn't have it as bad as you truth, So I'm
like trying to breeze past that. And that's like an whole Catholic guilt thing,
you know, like that, So I'm like simultaneously breezing past it and
keeping on it. We really recommend that you try recovering from religion, which
I'm sure you've heard us talk about and all that fun stuff if you want
to walk past it, but like this is a logical, understandable feeling for
you to have here at the same time, you know, with religion,
there's three bees the belief, belonging, and behavior. People are always somewhere
on different elements of that spectrum, including the churches, right of like what
we actually believe in, what we don't, what we're subscribing to, and
what we don't And I can't imagine that in Phil's church, they're they're like,
no, we don't care for Jesus, you know, like it's like
we're not talking about any of the teachings or anything like that. But it
sounds like Phil is not necessarily involved in the same sort of of doctrinal behavior
as yours, or at least as recognizing it, maybe trying to influence it
from the inside. Trojan horse in it. Phil, that's fantastic, or
there's or there's some other reason for him doing it. It sounds like he's
looking for communities, looking for his friends and hanging out with them, and
also doing it in his place where he feels emotionally safe to maybe share his
counterpoints on these things, and these folks are receptive to it. So I'd
rather take that audience. I'd rather have the conversation than shut it off and
say, you know, you can't be part of the club. Not that
that's what you're doing, but just that that's how I'd looked at it.
Yeah, absolutely so, So Tom, that is a good segue to truth.
I just wanted to take Tom's comments and use that as a segue to
kind of get into what my thoughts are on that, and that is,
you know, you you see that the church doctrine as being monolithic, and
granted you should because for several thousand years it has been across tens of thousands
of miles and across time, but we do see changes. We do see
you know, Phil even saying that his church is actually welcoming to the l
GBTQ community, and that is not something that we had fifty years ago,
you know, not something we had fifteen hundred years ago, and it's something
that we're having now. And these engagements, these conversations, and in a
way, what Tom and I are doing here and having a conversation with you
may be the very same thing that Phil is doing when he attends some of
these services, you know, just being there, telling about who he is,
what's important to him. That opens the door to possibilities to some of
this doctrine maybe getting watered down or even ultimately disappearing, which is what we
can hope for. If it's if it's a hateful doctrine, and I do
agree that it's a hateful doctrine and put in the wrong hands, it is
proven to be devastating to humanity. But you know, it seems like there
may be some opportunity for it to be changed. And I get where you're
coming from. You know. A wonderful contributor, a friend of the show,
a nonprofit, Jason Friedman feels that all LGBTQ people should never never touch
religion, never go into a church, right, And I get it.
I get it. I understand where he's coming from. Right, and you're
welcome and entitled to that hard line approach. On the flip side, you
know, we don't, we don't do. We don't gain any ground I
think by remaining inact. And so that's where I'm gonna leave off my comments.
What are your thoughts on that truth? Well, I agree with the
person that said what was the name that said a gay person to never go
into the really, oh, I tell you that, Jason Freeman. Wonderful,
wonderful guy. Yeah. I don't understand how they can get past that
and walk into a church either. I'm I'm with him. I don't even
My oldest son is gay. I mean I don't even. I mean I
look at him and I think, what is the doctrine that the church that
Phil walks into holds, and what that doctrine says about my son. I
can never do what Phil did because I know what the doctrine says. So
I couldn't do. I can't even need a Chick fil A, Okay,
So I mean I can't because I can't get past So that is one of
the things the doctrine, and I know Phil's church probably holds says about people
like my son. What do you want? I know that I guess like
truth, like the way I like to think about things like how to make
how to make these decisions, like I don't care if Phil does, that's
him. I'm just skeptical. You know that an atheist, that is an
atheist, And there's you know, how an atheist can allow a walk into
church to hold that doctrine. So, you know, an atheist is many
people have different We're not all going to ever agree on it. You know,
it's just an atheist. And get to the point of being atheist.
You've examined, you've gone through, you've seen things, done things. You
get to a point. I guess there's a line that you know you will
not cross a red line, you know, come to me, you won't
cross that line. And so I guess us you know Phil's red line is
different. Well, you know, truth, I your son, your son
has a great mother. Really honestly, you know, I can hear the
passion in your voice and for you to be nervous and still call and advocate
for your son and people like him. Uh, you know, I think
is commendable. What I don't want to do, though, is kind of
adopt this idea that atheists need to be the same, because you know what,
that turns into a religion, right, and that's the very thing,
that's the very thing that uh, you know, we wanna we want to
avoid. Uh. And I'm not calling you a theist by any means.
I'm just saying, you know, uh, we hear you, We hear
your critique. I'm sure Phil hears the critique as well. I mean we
we already know he does. But I just want to say that that you
know, we've we've heard you. We're with you, uh, and you
know, we hope that you and your son continue to have a great life
and and can kind of not have to deal with some of the things that
you may have dealt with. So I want to thank you very much for
calling, and we are going to move on and get to some other callers,
and we are gonna talk with Joshua, who's been waiting a while,
and we appreciate you, Joshua. Joshua he him call from South Carolina.
Does he think or excuse me, he asks, do we think that an
anti natalist position is a good position to hold. All right, So Joshua,
you are on with Tom and Jimmy, and how can we help you
today? Hello Tom, Hello Jimmy. I so yeah, I'm an atheist.
Actually, I want to preface that so it doesn't seem like I'm accusing
anyone is anything. But I feel like I have noticed a lot more anti
natalism sentiments just generally, and it also kind of seems like they're more prevalent
in the atheist community. I was wondering, first, am I crazy?
Or have you? Do you agree or do you disagree? Have you noticed
the same thing or or not at all? Go ahead, Tom, I
haven't of you don't think so? I mean, I I don't know a
whole lot of open atheists, to be honest with you, you know,
in my in the community that I'm in, I think religion is like something
that's pretty taboo to talk about, and I don't talk about a lot.
I I feel like, I mean, I know some atheists that have children.
They've adopted to to uh, to same sex married couple that has children.
And you know, while some people may think that it's better to not
have children, or maybe it's not for them, I don't think that that's
an indicator of where they stand religiously. I've never actually, I don't think
I'm familiar with. I don't think i've ever actually heard the two be tied
together. Can you shed a little bit more light on what you're talking about,
Joshua? Sure, Yeah, I know. I wouldn't say, you
know, one necessarily indicates the other. I'm just I don't know, maybe
I'm maybe I'm way off the mark, but I it seems like there's a
pattern of you know, like my much more religious family members have way more
kids. If you think of like the Dugger family for example, like there's
a whole ideology, what do they call it? Quiverfull that you just have
as many kids as possible. I don't. I mean, I'm not criticizing
one way or the other. I guess I should put that out there.
You know, if if someone wants kids, they should have them. If
they don't, then they shouldn't. Yeah, it's there, right, I
mean that we don't. I don't need to know what the reason is.
I don't, you know. I mean, live your life the way you
want to live it, you know. I guess we're not as atheists,
we're not getting the have kids, so we can spread the good atheist word
again, Like we're not that good about being congruent on all the things besides
the one which is not the god up there, or at least not believe
in it. Yeah, I mean, should we have more kids spread the
good atheist word? Hey, we're here right now, you're calling in this
is it right? Let's have children? Yeah? I'll have kids. And
you know, my my perspective is like I want my kids to do better
than I did. You know, I want them to affect the world positively.
Uh. The species is gonna carry on if I can have a positive
impact by giving my children the things that I didn't have, whether it be
you know, stuff, or whether it be uh, you know, an
ideology, a means of thinking, teaching them how to think and not what
to think. Uh. I think that that's a win. I think it's
a win for humanity if we can all just get on that page. And
so I felt, you know, I feel pretty good about having kids.
And I also feel good for people who decide I don't want to bring any
children into this world. I can Hey, I get it, you know,
Or they just want to travel save their money, because let me tell
you something, kids will, kids will take some things away from me.
It's a sacrifice. So uh but yeah, man, I mean I'm all
about uh, you know, live and let live do your thing as long
as you're not harming anyone and don't harm yourself either. But you know that's
that's your decision. I guess. Anyway, I don't know what what do
you think, Tom, I mean, as do you think there's some specific
thing Joshua about about atheists where we're getting the hey, knock it off with
the kids type of doctrine handed down from anybody or anything. I mean,
maybe it's just the uh, I guess as a reaction to that that other
doctrine that some religious people seem to be subscribed to. I mean, I
guess that makes sense, right, Yeah, I think too. Maybe maybe
you're you're noticing a congruency between cohorts of people, you know, if if
you're I don't know if there's anything to back this uption mean, they we're
going to get a lot of hate mail, but I would expect that if
you're like really investigating the the God question, one of the best methods to
do that is science, and if you adopt that for that question. Perhaps
it makes sense to adopt that for other questions of you know, what's going
on in the world, because once you lose God, then it's not like
you don't have the question still there, right, It's just that's not the
avenue. That's not the way I'm going to go try to answer it.
And again like science can't answer all the questions, but they can't answer some
questions, and then we're working on other ones. And that's the verb science
being used to do that thing. Obviously scientists isn't you know, it's not
the equivalent of a priest in our world here, that's not how it works
again, spectrum of belief, spectrum of experience and why we have challenges as
atheists, all coming together on stuff from time to time. But I guess
on on, you know, to do the kids thing. I don't know
what if I think about myself and I think about you, Jimmy, like
why we did actually do that? Maybe maybe it was the stuff that was
beaten into us as kids growing up religiously, but I don't think so none
of that hit me. But the hey, I want the opportunity to do
better that. I think there are animal instincts too, of like, you
know, the things involved to get to those kids to begin with, and
then what you want to do once they're here, because it's transformational, at
least it was for me. Of like, all right, there was this
old Tom and now there's this new Tom that has these responsibilities and you know,
instincts that were than before. I don't know, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I agree. I mean I feel feel the kind of love for
my children that I can't equate to anything. Uh. And it is a
very human experience to have, and me being a human uh and wanting to
have positive experiences, you know, I think it fits. I didn't think
that I would ever get married, got married pretty late in life, met
my wife, loved her, still love her. I love my wife,
you know more, and felt something for another human being that I didn't think
i'd ever feel, you know, and then we took this journey together.
Uh and uh, you know, it's just been a blast. Man,
it's been a blast. And uh I can I you know, I have
no no opinion one way or the other. I think people should just do
what they want. But if you want a dad's opinion, man, do
I love my kids, so I think uh, I think that's what we
got for you, Joshua. I really appreciate your call and uh, you
know, make sure you keep listening in call us back. Uh and uh
yeah, thanks for being a viewer. And and when it comes to thank
you, so, I want to thank all of our callers today. You
know, I think we had some really great conversations. I think we talked
about a lot of important topics, and I think we had some some you
know, a nice, very nice super chat. We have some shoutouts.
We're really we're really making connections out there. Want to thank our top five
patrons. I want to thank everybody that donates to us on Patreon, and
if you want to hear your name, then please consider supporting us at tiny
dot cc, forward slash, Patreon, uh, patreon thh and So I
think that's going to do it for us today. Folks. Remember, uh,
we did give you a prompt for next week, so you know,
don't let that go by without answering it. What is the new holiday ritual
that people should adopt? You get to make your own, so reply in
the comments and tune in at the beginning of next week's episode to hear what
those top three answers are, maybe you'll end up there. So Tom,
you know, how can more people find out about you? I know you're
active out there on your own, doing your own thing. Why don't you,
you know, tell us a little bit about that before we get going.
For sure, you can find me on our podcast on the website ww
dot whoever we got here dot com or www dot however we go there dot
com. We got both domains and they both work. So find Morris about
more about us there, jimmy yourself. How do the folks get you or
are they just gonna You're gonna slide into their dms on Twitter and start,
yeah, you know agreeing, Hey, yeah, I was off on that
comment I made And here's my video. Yeah, I'm very sneaky. I'm
very sneaky, folks. So if you call me names in the comments,
you're gonna hear from me. So, but don't call me names. That's
not an invitation, uh to put me down? Okay, Uh, but
you know I I frequently I do a talk hethan once or twice a month.
You know, I do a nonprofits once a month, maybe twice sometimes.
But uh, you know, I'm I'm gonna stay active with the ACA
I'm gonna keep doing my thing. I'm gonna keep trying to get better.
You know, I wanna I want to take pointers from people. I want
to be around the greats. Uh. You know I got people like you,
Tom who Uh Man, what a great experience today, what a great
show? You know. Uh. I think you bring a lot to the
table and I'm happy I finally got a chance to work with you. And
you know, this is just this is a this is a worthwhile thing to
do with my time and I'm gonna be here so people, people just keep
tuning in. Uh. You might be able to find me on X I'm
Jimmy Underscore Junior Underscore and Y for New York and we can have some conversations
there. But you know, I'm creeping around the comments. Man, I
want to know what people thought about us, So, uh, you will
be hearing from me. Tom. I hope we get a chance to work
together again. I'm sure that we will. And uh, you know,
before we go, I want to give out some lover rings. So I'm
giving lover rings out, giving lover rings out to all of our callers today.
That's who my lover rings are going to. Tom, who are you
sending the lover rings out to I'll do it for everybody who was listening to
the calls and felt like our caller Truth six sixty six, and it was
like, I don't know if I want to call her, do it?
Do it, you'll feel better, get it out, release it. Talk
to us. We want to hear from you, so please, that's what
this community is all about. You don't have to be an atheist, you
don't have to be a theist, you don't have to be anyst You can
just call us and have a conversation. Yeah, that's right, and you
can also stick around after the show or or join us on discord. I
should say, because myself, Tom, I don't know if you're joining us.
Did you say you were waiting for me to answer that. Yeah,
I'll be there. The Great Richard Gilliver will be there, Kelly LOFLTT will
be there. I mean, we got you know, those are two faces
that belong to the ACA Mount Rushmore, and I'm glad that we're gonna do
a discord with them. So we will see you there in just a few
moments, folks. And remember, uh, if you don't believe, then
this is your community and we appreciate you being here, but if you do
believe, we don't hate you, Tom, we don't we love you.
We're just not convinced. We're just not convinced. So uh, just all
right, great, We want the truth, So watch Truth Wanted Live Friday
at seven pm Central. Visit tiny dot cc slash y t tw and call
into the show at five one two nine nine one nine two four two,
or connect to the show online at tiny dot cc slash call tw