Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol, an
idea. The population of atheists this country is going through the rule, rejecting
faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I tell the truth,
it's because I tell the truth, not because I put my hand on a
book and made a wish and working together for a more rational world. Take
the risk of thinking, feels so much more happiness. Truth Usian wisdom will
come to you that way. Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking.
This is the Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews. Hey, my
friends, I am unable to stream this out to Facebook directly because I have
been banned, well not banned, I don't know, every eighteen months or
so Facebook and I go around and I get some of this because with billions
of users, Facebook cannot review or see the context of everything that is posted.
And there's so much insanity and hate and discrimination and bigotry and misinformation.
How do you begin to keep up with it? You're going to have to
put the bots on it somehow. But the fact that Facebook does not or
cannot see context makes me crazy. I had posted something a refutation because some
apologist armchair apologist had found my page and they were talking about how well atheists
are responsible for the most heinous atrocities in the history of history. And you
know, they're going through all these dictators and tyrants and genocidal maniacs, and
of course they're all atheists. They're all atheists. And this is what atheistic
people do. They murder, They have no moral center. And you and
I rolling our eyes, going you gotta be shitting me. Some of the
most peaceful nations on earth are the most secular and the most warlike Middle East,
right, Gaza Hummas. I'm sorry, the most many of the most
warlike are highly religious. That somebody invoked Hitler, and you and I have
to dodge the Hitler grenade from time to time, and then we pick it
up when we throw it right back at him, and we say, actually,
no, Hitler was not an atheist, nor was he motivated by atheism.
Hitler was raised Catholic, embraced Christianity. He invoked God often, including
in mind come. He believed he was doing the work of the almighty Creator,
and in fact, I think he actually used the words almighty Creator.
And I posted a quote from mindcomf and it had an image of Adolf Hitler
speaking, which is probably what happened. I think some image recognizer saw Hitler
and thought uh uh, and I got a strike. This is a violation
of Facebook policy of I don't know, promoting hate. I forgot exactly what
the phrasing was. We do not allow this. Please take a look at
our guidelines for use. And I'm like, well, hang on just a
second. I'm not saying but I support what he said. I'm just laying
out a fact. This is what he said. Would you like to have
this submitted for review? Yes, I would like it submitted for review.
Click. Three minutes later it says, we have reviewed your post and stand
by our decision. If you do any more shit like this, your whole
page runs the risk of being unpublished. What what recourse do you have,
like the fact that context is not understood. Let's say that there was a
human being who was reviewing it at some point. If you are not looking
at context, if you're browsing a squillion of these posts a day, and
you just see a quote from mine comp under a picture of Adolph, yeah,
you might need jerk yourself into saying uh uh right, nazi bad,
click ban or restrict. In fact, my account is restricted somewhat. I
can't do this and I can't do that. I can't stream live, I
can't promote in certain ways. My reach is now limited. It's limited my
audience. These are punitive measures supposed to teach me a lesson. And the
whole time, I'm like, I am just stating a fact. I'm not
pro Hitler, I'm saying that, but I am convinced he was a sincere
believer. He was doing God's good work. Of course, he had weaponized
the name of God and religion, used his ties to the Catholic Church to
help consolidate power and excuse his atrocities. I'm not denying the political advantages of
saying that you are divinely appointed. And of course the Christians are all like,
well, he wasn't a real Christian, which is so convenient, isn't
it. Like all of the people who go out in their benevolent and generous
and charitable and kind and all these wonderful things, well, man, they're
good. They're the authentic, right, that's an authentic Christian. And you
go over here and to go like, oh, hang on, just a
second, so and so invoke the name of gods while they raped and tortured
and conquered and enslaved. Well nn, that wasn't true Christianity. They weren't.
That wasn't. In fact, I think they were a theist super pretending
to be Christian and they were imbued with Satan. How convenient is that?
I mean, there's no way to pin them down. The goalposts are always
moving. It's just so frustrating. Anyway, Thanks Facebook, there's like some
third party review thing that I was looking at. I can't I don't have
it pulled up right now, but apparently you can submit this to arbitration board
of some kind and they look at a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of
these protests and claims and they're supposed to get back with you within three months.
I am not holding my breath, and I honestly think one of these
days I may log onto the world and Facebook has fucking deleted the entire thinking
atheist online community. You know what I'm saying, How many hang on?
How many users? How many users would that affect? And I know people
don't you know, they don't log on every day and they don't get everything
in the feed. But let's just take a look. Okay, we have
two hundred and seventy four thousand followers, So two hundred and seventy four thousand
people. Any one of those people might log on and all of a sudden,
I'm just gone, just gone. I can't even log on to tell
you I'm gone, And then what, I don't know. It's frustrating.
I'm sorry. I'm just going on and on. Moving into the holiday season,
we're gonna have to do a show or at least take some calls talking
about family in the coming weeks. I'm gonna have a special guest, Marlene
Winnell, who has a great line that she had used in an article recently,
and the line was outgrowing your family or out growing your parents. And
I thought, oh, that's such a good line, because I think we
have to outgrow our parents in a great many ways. My mother had a
birthday lunch recently. My siblings reached out love to have you. Given that
my mother and I do not speak, you know, I say this has
cause and effect. After all this time, I set a boundary. I
said, if you violate this boundary, there will be consequences. She immediately
violated the boundary, the consequence kicked in. We do not speak, everything's
blocked. We are totally separate, and so they were like, would you
like to come and have a birthday lunch with your mother? And of course
I'm just looking at the text, going, I'm sorry, what's that even
look like? Well, you don't have to sit next to her? I'm
sorry, how do I celebrate that? Well, she's eighty five, you
don't know how many years we're gonna have left. And of course I'm made
to feel like the bad guy, and I'm just like, I just I
did not go. But you know, we've been having that conversation about family,
Like with Thanksgiving coming up, I don't know what's Thanksgiving gonna look like?
Do I go? I don't want to go Christmas? Can I just
do it here with my people my way? Do I have to worry about
going and being in the same room with somebody who's just been so toxic?
And then if we don't hang out, I'm in a different part of the
house, and then we're sort of avoiding each other that self consciously, and
if we do bump into each other, what do we even say? Oh,
anybody else go through that? Anybody else anyway, if you have an
opinion, a perspective on the upcoming holidays, how you're going to deal or
not deal, especially with people who have been boundary violators, I'd love to
hear from you. You can just call an event. I mean, even
if you don't want to give advice or a perspective, just let me have
it. Let me know what your situation looks like. I am looking.
We just crossed. I'm sorry, I'm just doing some laundry here at the
beginning, some laundry list. Rather, we just cross seven hundred thousand and
downloads on True Stories with Seth Andrews, my second podcast. We're up to
over two hundred shows and it's getting noticed slowly. It's not taking off quite
as quickly. It's this very slow, incremental thing, which I guess is
probably a healthier way to grow. Right If you immediately spike, maybe you're
a flash in the pan and you're gone. But I'm getting a lot of
good reviews on it. If you have not subscribed, I would ask that
you do go and subscribe. On all major podcast apps, five minute vignettes
about pretty much anything and everything that released three times a week. I'm going
to set up a Patreon for that. That's not it all required, but
I'd like to see it maybe produce some revenue for all the work that goes
into it, because to prepare true stories, it's not just knowing the story,
but it's getting the details and then you go fact check the details,
and you know, for those of us who feel like fact checking is important,
takes a long time. I am pretty much a staff of one,
so I'm doing all that. I am speaking in Springfield, Missouri, Wednesday
night, November fifteenth. I would love to see you there if you want
tickets and details Seth Andrews dot com slash Events. The link is right there.
It's a Wednesday night. We start at seven point thirty. We'll just
hang out. I've got a great presentation about why I think I would be
better than God as an intelligent designer. And this is a fun one,
but there's a lot of science in it. I'm standing on the shoulders of
a lot of experts and citing their research. But you know me, I
mean it's flashy and it's fun and you're gonna have a good time. Springfield,
Wednesday night, Seth Andrews dot com slash Events. Okay, so I
saw something online that cracked me up, and it had to do with those
Florida Man memes, I guess, or the idea. We always see the
hashtag Florida Man because for some reason it seems like Florida has some of the
most batshit headlines in the country. Somebody does some bizarre thing, you know,
Florida man tries to impress girlfriend by sticking head in alligator's mouth, dies
horribly, that kind of thing. Florida Man walks into traffic wearing a diaper
holding a Trump song. I mean, I don't know, it could be
anything. So there was a post and it said, my kid just said
a lot of Bible stories could double as Florida Man headlines. We've been laying
here thinking of the best. It's hilarious so far. The best was Florida
Man threatened to cut baby in half to stop two women from bickering. And
then come the comments. Floraida Man finds out wife is pregnant, she claims
the father is God. Florida Man summons bears tomall children who laughed at him
for being bald. Oh it's beautiful, that's beautiful. And so I was
thinking about some of my favorite Bible stories, and I have Florida manned them,
and they can be God, or they can be a character in scripture.
Just a few of my own offerings. Florida Man offers virgin daughters to
sex mob. Florida Man has long conversation with burning shrub. Florida Man splits
the ocean with massive sneeze. And you may not realize that, but if
you go to Exodus chapter fifteen and it talks about God parting the red seat,
he does so with blast of his nostrils. Florida Man splits ocean with
massive sneeze. Totally fits. Florida Man denies people with damaged testicles to enter
his house. Of course, we're talking about the Old Testament tabernacle. Remember
that's a whole series of requirements people who have a you know, like a
cleft palate, or you've got an amputation, or you know, I don't
know. There's all kinds of crazy stuff that if you have a physical blemish,
including damaged balls, you're not allowed to go into God's house. It's
just totally jacked up. Florida Man catches three hundred foxes, ties their tails
together and sets them on fire. That's a real Bible story Judges, Chapter
fifteen, the story of Samson, Florida man dismembers sex worker and mails the
parts to twelve different towns. Remember that guy cut up the prostitute and he
mailed pieces of her. He dismembered her and mailed pieces of her to the
twelve tribes of Israel. That's in Judges. Florida man lies on one side
for three hundred and ninety days and cooks food with his own feces. Oh,
it's a real story. Zdekil lies on one side for over a year
and uses his own excrement as fuel for the stove. So to speak.
Just bizarre, but it's a great Florida man story. Florida man asked to
leave town after pushing ranchers pigs over a cliff. Jesus drives the demons into
like two thousand pigs, I think, and this poor guy who owned the
pig, right the pig rancher, he's over there, probably going what the
hell? Because Christ, he doesn't just banish the demons back to Hell.
He doesn't kill the demons. No, no, no, I got to
go from the possessed man into like two thousand pigs and then he has to
drive them over the steep embankment. They go off into the ocean or river
or whatever it was, and they drown. And you know, the pig
ranchers going, thanks a whole lot for nothing. Jesus, how much freaking
money did you just cost me? Florida man commands children to eat him.
Communion. Florida man handles venomous snakes. Florida man drinks poison. Florida men
rise from their graves and parade through down Remember Matthew twenty seven, Jesus dies
on the Cross. The saints come up out of their graves and they parade
through Jerusalem, and no contemporary historian thought it was notable enough to document.
By the way, Florida man digs inside fish mouth for tax money that's in
Matthew. Go to the sea and cast a hook. Take the first fish
that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a coin.
I'm sorry, it's bizarre people read this show. I'm convinced a lot
of people just don't know it's in there. They're so busy reading John three
point sixteen in the Roman Road and the Love Chapter, and you know,
I just don't think they know this, they don't go They haven't gotten to
the seventeenth chapter of Matthew Florida. Woman cuts sons foreskin and throws on husband.
That's out of Exodus chapter four for some reason, and even the apologist
don't know why. But Moses is about to go on this amazing quest to
liberate the Israelites, right, but then it doesn't even say why. God
gets pissed at Moses. He's so mad he wants to kill him pre mission
like pre liberation of the Israelites. He decides, I'm gonna kill this mon.
And what does Moses's wife do to save him? She grabs her son,
she slices off his foreskin, and she throws the fleshy skin on Moses's
feet. And this, for some reason, appeases Yahweh's Oh wow, you're
gonna put penis skin on his feet. I guess I'm gonna change my mind.
It's good thinking. That's clever intervention, Missus Moses. I mean,
somebody explain it. Betty Bowers posted one Florida man celebrates his wife turning into
a kitchen condiment by having sex with both of his daughters. Leviticus has a
great when Florida man banishes wife for a week. During her period. There
was a guy on Twitter called outraged Academic. He said, Florida man murders
wait Florida man to murder son until voices say to stop. I'm amazed at
people who love the story of Abraham. They worship a I mean, they
practice an Abrahamic religion. That's how important he is to the faith. They
love Abraham. This guy heard voices, a voice, and for that reason
was going to go and drive a knife into the chest of his own son,
and only the angel staying his hand it from going down, kept him
from going through with it, saved the boy's life. People love the guy.
If you had read that headline Florida man headline man attempts to murder son,
has knife taken out of hand by I don't know, neighbor, stranger,
whatever, we would think that guy needs to be locked up for his
son's safety and perhaps four hours and his own. You read about it in
the Bible and people are like, it's a beautiful of obedience to God.
Oh. I will ask believers sometimes if God came to you and he asked
you to execute one of your sons, they don't like the word execute,
so I'll change it. If God came to you then and ask you to
sacrifice one of your sons as an act of obedience, would you do it?
And almost universally people say, hell, no, I wouldn't do it.
I'd rather be by God. And I always say, congratulations, you
are more moral than yahweh. And by the way, you just made a
moral judgment outside of the Bible, meaning you came to an ethical conclusion outside
of the book that people are telling us we must have to be ethical.
And then they tilt. Well, you know, it's complicated. It was
the Old Testament. It's context. It wasn't actually a sacrifice. Well,
Isaac would have gone to heaven. God would never ask us to do that
kind of thing. Today you can see them spinning themselves into oblivion. If
you have a Florida Man that you want to tie into a story in the
Bible, I would love to hear what you have to offer. Your calls
and more Florida Man coming up next. Just an extra broadcast here for the
month of November. Thank you so much for listening. I've got three zero
one is it Ray? Ray? Thanks for calling. Let's talk what's on
your mind. First, let's get the Florida man thing out of the way.
Florida man loses argument with Donkey. Of course, we're talking about Baalim
having a fight with an animal that speaks Hebrew in the Book of Genesis.
What a lovely story, good one. What else you got, Well,
I had not a Facebook experience, but a YouTube posting got canceled. There
was a debate going on between a spokesperson for GAZA and a spokesperson for Israeli
government or an NGO. I forgot which, and I posted a comment about
the debate where I said about the spokes Christon from Gaza, did the quote
from Islam about you kill one person's like killing all mankind able in persons,
like saving all of humanity. So I posted, well, there's a verse
after that that says if you mess around with Mohammed or Allah, you'll be
subject to crucifixion, dismemberment, death or exile. And I put in the
exact quote. So I wrote that maybe the Hamas terrorists we're looking at that
one, although they did some ad living with the immolation and right, because
that wasn't in there. And somebody complained, and I got a message from
YouTube saying I violated community rules, and they took it down, and I
said, well, I think it should be re evaluated because I was using
the language that they were using in a quote from the Corona. So I
put it back, but I took out the words hamas terrorists. I took
out any of my own commentary. I just left it as well, she's
got this quote, but it'd be just for clarity. You should look at
the following verse and they can plain they left it up. It is a
sort of an increasing level of restriction. At first, they're like, I
think, I, oh, you know what I did. I did a
series of reviews of the Thief in the Night series, thinking I could get
away with playing clips from the movie in an editorial sense, and so I
went through. There was I think I did three or four. It took
me forever, and I went through and did commentary on a Thief in the
Night, Distant Thunder, Image of the Beast, and I forget what The
fourth movie was, Prodigal Planet, I think, and I put all this
work into it with commentary, and within three weeks the producers found out.
They filed a copyright complaint and YouTube came after me and said, you screwed
up, and here's a strike, and if you do it again, we
may delete your channel. So they kind of incrementally do it. I still
think it should fall under editorial, right, I'm giving a review and a
but whatever. You know what, educational, It was educational. But I
do admire the fact that you've got the reaction from the producers instead of just
a Willie Millie person on Facebook complaining. I think you've made an accomplishment there.
Do you think that a lot of it is just a mob mentality.
It's not the algorithm. But you find a lot of sort of tissue skinned
religious people who are like, oh, yeah, we'll show this atheist and
then they just go and I hate the word false flag, but you know
what I mean, you think that happens a lot. Yeah, yeah,
I think it's reactionary. I think the algorithm helps the reactionary response by the
way, the seeking of the attention of the people who respond. Well.
I appreciate the Florida Man input, and you know, I'm sorry for your
troubles on YouTube. I guess this is the nature of the beast on social
media. It's all first world problems. I just I hate the idea that,
you know, a page that's been around for I think fourteen years is
being said, Well, if you screw up again and we subjectively decide you
may show up one day and the whole damn thing is gone. That's a
little terrifying, So Matt, and there's no way to communicate with them in
a meaningful way. Yeah, okay, bro, hang in there. Appreciate
you. Yes, what would you? I mean, if you had a
social media platform that had that many users, how would you manage them?
I think Facebook has two billion accounts. Let mean look that up. Hang
on? How many Facebook users worldwide? Three billion? According to Statista,
that's almost half of the globe. So I get it. How would you
manage? How would you monitor? I don't know. It still pisses me
off. Jenny at two zero nine, are you there? Yes, I'm
here. You were talking about the holidays, and I just wanted to let
you know that there are alternatives that you could make your holidays much more enjoyable.
There were things dysfunctional within my family, so I decided to do a
Christmas brecky, which I invited to friends that I wanted to have over,
and I'd make a nice breakfast, and I have my kids here and we'd
do mimosas and everybody would, you know, have a nice chat in the
morning and have some nice food, and then by two o'clock in the afternoon,
everybody's gone to do their Christmas dinner and you can enjoy the rest of
the day. That sounds nice. I've had people here for four or five
hours and then they will go. Or if I wanted to do a special
dinner, I would have something like premate or whatever and just have a couple
of people wanting to game or something like that, you know, later in
the day, so we could do something fun. Sounds pretty good. Thanks
for the suggestion, and hang in there. You're welcome and keep going there,
Seth, Thank you much. We'll see you. Of course, the
Christmas holiday has to bring on some more Florida Man headlines wrapped around the Jesus
myth. Florida man blames girlfriend's pregnancy on ghost. Florida man becomes midwife in
horsebarn. Jesus born in a manger or in the stable, and there's disagreement
on that. Theologian still can't decide was he born in a stable or a
barn or was it the house of a peasant or somewhere else. This is
comical. The experts can't even decide how the start of the Christ story begins.
Florida man hunts babies. Of course we're talking about Herod. Florida man
spends thirty years preparing for suicide by making furniture. Christ is born, big
production. There's the announcement and the Angel, and there's the wise men,
and there's whether it's the manger or the house, and there's lights and harp
lisses and confetti falling from the sky, and it's also beautiful. And then
the Gospels decide to say nothing about Jesus for almost three decades of his life.
There's just nothing. So I'm thinking, well, he was going to
be a carpenter, so he's just making ottomans and shit, ah, Mom
needs a stair railing. I guess. Before I spend just a few years
preaching here and there and a tiny, tiny, tiny little blip of the
planet, before I'm turned into a bloody meat puppet to rescue people from the
hell that I created, I'm going to go build a lazy Susan for Mom's
mini bar in the corner of the hut, you know. I mean,
I'm a carpenter. I'm gonna go carpeent until I am until my destiny kicks
in. Florida man plans own kidnapping. Florida man uses body holes as party
trick. Jesus shows up and he shows him the nail holes. Hey,
everybody check it out, pulls out his cell phone, sticks it on one
side so you can see the light coming through his palms. That's nifty.
I don't know, sorry, Florida Man back to the phones. Five six
' one. Hi? Who's this? Paul Krueger? Hi? Paul?
What's on your mind? Brother? Hey? Pretty good? I had the
same exact situation you're going through. Happened to me and my political group.
What happened? I was on Facebook and we had it up there and my
account was deleted for seven years. I just got it back. How did
you get it back? Did you have to sign up with a different email,
completely different email? Yeah? I actually got my political group back,
which was the Progressive Network, just now, maybe two months ago. Once
you were deleted seven years ago, did you attempt to create a new account
with a different email straight away? Not at that point, because it was
all gone I was wiped out after the election from running that political organization.
I was like, well, I guess I'm just off the Internet. I
was wiped out, including all my communication, family, photos, everything.
Yeah, that's an interesting angle for those of us like I don't have I'm
trying to think of. I have folders with photos, but I'm terrible at
archiving them. I feel horrible for anybody would ever have to organize them.
And I think that the most comprehensive database or archive or album I have for
my entire life is Facebook. So if Facebook dumped me, how much of
the record of my life would disappear? That's an interesting angle I hadn't really
thought of. Yes, it's not even really that, it's all the other
accounts to that are hooked to your Facebook because they're doing that social integration log
in. So he didn't just hit me there, hit me on like every
other site that I couldn't log into. Suddenly, Now, are you also
saving all your photos to a local folder? Yeah? Well, now that
I've gotten back in there, I've sort of rebuilding everything, But I mean
a lot was gone. Luckily those groups shockingly stayed up. Well, I'm
glad you're back. Glad your page is still up and I'm glad you call.
Thanks very much. Keep man Florida. Man assembles web militia declares war
on coherent sentences eight five zero. Hi. Who's this? Hi? This
is Susie. Nice Susie, thank you for what do you want to talk
about? Well, I'm a humanist and atheist and there's a story recently that
came out and it really broke my heart. Did you hear about the guy
that was a pastor as well as a mayor in a small town. Tell
everybody what happened. There are going to be some people listening who aren't familiar
with this story. So do you want do you want to lay it out
or would you prefer me to do it? What do you want? Well,
you go ahead and do it, and then I've got some things to
say about the paper that released the information. Okay, this guy, pastor
al Baba Copeland, he was pastor of the first Baptist Church of Phoenix City
and that's Phoenix phe Nix, Phoenix City, Alabama. Forty nine year old
father of three and on the side, unbeknownst at the time to his own
congregation and to anybody other than his wife. He like to dress up in
his wife's clothing or women's clothing and put on makeup. And he had this
online persona. This is something that he did as a personal expression. He
did it to the stress. He wasn't hurting anybody. But eighteen nineteen News
found out about it, and they published the story and a series of photos
that he'd posted under his alternate persona on Instagram or whatever. Now, his
pastor was not trans, He wasn't seeking to be trands. He just liked
to dress up in women's clothing and makeup. Okay. So the Alabama Babtist
State Convention and the Alabama Babtist State Board of Missions came forward and said,
oh, oh, this guy is acting unbiblically. We are certainly very concerned
praying for the leaders of the church family as we seek to determine the truth
of these accusations. And this pastor actually took to the pulpits the Wednesday after
the story broke and he said, look, you know, I'm being attacked
on the internet. They're coming after me. This is not who or what
I am. I didn't mean to embarrass anybody. My life's not going to
change I'm still devoted to my family. This is just an expression something that
I do. And this guy was well liked. He was a public servant,
his congregation loved him. He was reelected as mayor in twenty twenty.
But the public pressure and shaming was so intense that he recently killed himself.
His life is over, and in the wake of that, these Bible banging
moralists who pretty much ruined his life are offering condolences and thoughts and prayers to
the family during a difficult time. Yes, he liked to dress and drag
in the privacy of his own home. And I think he was in the
social group online of other drag queens and shared photos and whatever. And his
wife knew of that that he did that, you know, So this Christian
newspaper they outed him and he called. He knew it was about to come
out, and he called him and asked him not to do it, and
they did it anyway. And then when he killed himself, the cops had
pulled him over because his wife had filed a missing person you know, could
be in danger. And the police pulled him over on the interstate and he
got out of his truck and he shot himself right there in front of the
cops. But what makes me so mad is that this Christian paper eighteen nineteen,
they didn't apologize afterwards. They sent his family and his congregation in his
victims thoughts and prayers, and they said and victim. He didn't victimize anybody.
He was not in his church criticizing LGBTQ community, So he wasn't a
hypocrite like many creatures. And I'm a soft hearted person, and the cruelty
and judgment of that eighteen nineteen rag of a Christian paper to be so cruel
to one of their own. I would like to be a fly on the
wall to hear some internal conversations on that side, like is there anybody there
who was like, we killed this man? Or are they well he was
in rebellion against God and couldn't live with the guilt once it was known,
and it was his sin and rebellion that killed him. I would be curious
to see if there's anybody there kind of a no shit moment. Yeah,
I'd have to hear and believe it and see that if they quit the rag
they work for, you know, because I'm sure they're saying, oh,
well, good he's gone, you know, I mean, oh, thanks
for bringing the story up, because I think it provides a tragic example of
how these sort of purisan police, this moral panic, drives people out,
It shames them into deep depression, makes them feel like in many cases they
have no options. And it's honestly, it's unconscionable, but it needs to
be talked about, and I appreciate you bringing it up here. Okay,
thank you, Sam. People have good work. Thank you, see you.
You and I both just get so exasperated at those people who cruelty is
their crusade. I've seen a split among many American Christians, another split beyond
the thousands of denominations that all disagree on the basics of their faith. But
over here there's like a humanistic, progressive Jesus would never hate you or judge
you. Jesus would never make hell. Jesus loves everybody as they are.
LGBT or if you want a dress in drag or whatever your color or culture,
if you take the Bible literally or don't blah blah blah that Jesus he's
here. He's awesome, right, and I'll take it. If you read
the Bible that's not the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus is well. He
did not come to bring peace but a sword. He came to pit families
against each other. He told them, you got to be prepared to hate
your mother and father and siblings for my sake, because this is a popularity
contest. And that is the flip side of the other culture. That's a
hard line war on the evil ones culture. And everybody apparently is evil everybody.
You got to be shitting me. In a world where real dangers exist.
These Bible banging hatemongers are going after drag queens. You're threatened by a
skirt and earrings and heels and makeup. This is the evil that has come
to your children. Meanwhile, we just had another headline in my home city
of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a guy accused of two counts of sexual assault.
Oh look a pastor. October two, Tulsa police arrested Matthew Martinez after an
investigation revealed three years of inappropriate behavior with a young girl, starting when she
was fifteen. He sexually abused, kissed, and groped her, and then
threatened her not to tell anybody. Don't look me in the eye and tell
me that the drag queens are the danger, and stop trying to construct this
one note homogeneous, bland, little relieve vanilla culture where everybody validates you so
you never feel uncomfortable. Give me a choice between that and Pastor Copeland,
who honestly didn't appear to be hurting anybody anywhere. I'll take Pastor Copeland speaking
of the moralists, and I think the hypocrites. This new speaker of the
House that we're stuck with, Mike Johnson, isn't he a piece of work,
the darling of Bible banging moralists and Christian nationalists. I mean, the
first thing he does once he becomes speaker is he and some other guys kneel
in front of the podium there in the Congressional hall, and they say a
Christian prayer because they are so holy. And you and I are thinking about
that verse in Matthew. And when you pray, do not be like the
hypocrites, or they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street
corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have
received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room,
close the door, and pray to your father who is unseen. This
is performance, it's not prayer. They're marking territory anyway. Once he became
speaker, Internet sleuth's began to dig into his past. Who is he,
what does he think? What has he been preaching? Turns out his wife
had either written a blog or preached a sermon which was on their website saying
that LGBT people were essentially like those who participate in Best Reality. And that's
been scrubbed from the website. Fortunately, the Internet never forgets and it's in
the archive. Mike Johnson he had uncovered and I think he tried to delete
this a sermon where he was telling his congregation or the audience about how he
stays morally pure when it comes to porn. He and his son both use
this program called Covenant Eyes. We talked about this one on the Nanny Software
show a while back, and he was telling everybody, Okay, we keep
each other in check, we keep each other accountable. So if you know
I was to look at porn, my son's app goes ing. Dad is
watching porn. And if my son watches porn, my phone goes off.
I know my son is watching porn and you and I are thinking the same
thing. Is this a problem for you? Like, is this a temptation?
Is this something that you think about so much that you need a paid
service like I think Covenant Eyes is what one hundred and fifty bucks a year,
something like that. Oh, I have come to the point when I
see somebody who is preaching over and over and over about a specific carnality or
sin, I watch that pastor very closely because there's a real good chance that
they are doing the shit they're telling everybody else to avoid. Oh no,
Now I think Mike Johnson is secretly poaching the egg. He's polishing the banister,
he is lone rangering, he is finding nemo, chucking the corn,
badgering the witness, defragging his drive. That's what I think he's doing.
I would be surprised if it doesn't come out. You'll pardon the expression Florida
man performs with pant puppet. Pant puppet just makes me, just makes me
smile. I'm sorry being based my fault. Jennifer at seven to seven zero,
Are you with me? Yes? I am. What's on your mind?
So I was talking to my boyfriend the other night and he brought up
the term new atheists, which I actually hadn't heard of. Basically, he
described it as the atheist like Richard Dawkins or Peter vas Bill Maher, the
ones who aren't just atheist but are really more anti theists, of trying to
take religion out of the mainstream and just make people basically calm down with their
faith. And I kind of told him, well, yeah, who'd you
think you fell in love with? But the difference is is his family was
religious, but they were good. They took care of his friends from school,
things like that. Meanwhile, I grew up in the Deep South where
religion was used as a justification for beating children and just disrespecting women. And
we even had a city council member that was an open member of the clan.
So how do I get forth that? I think the more a whole
atheist like me, we're bred by seeing the ugly underbelly of religion versus the
oh community helping one another. We saw the really gross part of it.
So how do I go about explaining that that? Look, you may think
we're the jerks, but I think it's kind of justified. Well, the
new atheists and I'm not a fan of the term, but they're talking about
a period of time around two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
two thousand and nine, when we saw a surge in conversations about atheism,
anti theism, the criticisms of religion. We did see Hitchens and Sam Harris
and Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins. They were kind of adopted as the four
horsemen. They never anointed themselves or appointed themselves that way, but they were
the people who were on everybody's lips. They were the ones people talk about.
Those were the books that were being read and the videos being watched.
But honestly, there was nothing new about what they were saying. Mark Twain
had been saying it, George Bernard Shaw had been saying it, Robert Ingers
had been saying it back in the eighteen hundreds. So this idea that it's
new, I think they're just talking about the fact that it was in the
public consciousness. They were certainly, you know, they were pretty hard edged.
Maybe not Denett, but I myself, I don't think you are going
to change the world by being a jerk. Yeah, I mean, I'm
already like you know, because his parents are still religious I'm good about that,
but I see just constantly every day these people being dicks about it with
their religion, and I just I can't help but not be frustrated about it.
And when he starts insulting like anti theists and things like, hey,
now come on, that's you know, that's my people, I can't help
but be a bit more extreme than him. And I think it is just
whenever we see that stuff, when we see the extremes, it's kind of
hard to not be extreme. But yeah, I had never heard that title
before either. I'm angry that the injustice is done. I'm angry. I
feel angry that you were damaged, that you were targeted, that you you
carry those scars and maybe open wounds with you. And I think that's valid.
I mean, I think what you're feeling, the anger is justifiable.
Yeah, And that's I guess that's the core question is how to deal with
that kind of resentment towards religion, towards you know, the people that are
using it to make horrible decisions and ruining other people's lives. How does one
deal with that kind of resentment. It's hard to not be an asshole about
it, and I would never tell you who to be. I mean,
that's not I'd just give you a perspective because I'm I was pissed off and
angry for three four years coming out of my faith. I'd wasted time.
I was being shamed and targeted and everybody's point of finger and my you know,
my circle O. Poor Seth. He's going through midlife and he's uh,
you know, he's the prodigal we need to bring him back. He's
broke and he just wants attention whatever. And I, you know, I
was sure. I was pissed off about all the anti science I was taught
and all the bigotry that was programmed into me. Resentment is I think it's
natural, it's understandable. But after a few years I realized that as much
as I was lashing out, I was really starting to die inside. My
heart was becoming scar tissue. I wasn't gaining any ground, and so I
still feel that resentment. I've got a speaker of the house right now as
a Christian nationalist who has promoted conversion therapy and thinks that my gay best friend
might as well be having sex with animals and wants to turn the entire country
into fucking Gilead. Yeah, I resent that, I'm angry about it,
but I'm not driving out. Yeah. I mean, do I want to
go up to his house and scream into the windows. Yes. Have I
come to a point where I think, you know, right now, I'm
going to play a little bit more of a strategic game and be a little
less about volume and more about content. That is where I've come. I
don't have a perfect answer for you. If the goal is prote asked,
if it's therapeutic, if you need to get it out, I mean,
a raised voice may be appropriate. If the goal is to engage people,
I'm not convinced asshole is going to accomplish anything productive. That's just me.
All right, Well, thank you so much. You have a good day
and a happy Thanksgiving? All right, see you later. Take care.
And I'd never want to tell somebody else how they should feel about their own
journey. That's a very personal thing. I don't want to be that guy.
I have been accused in the past of tone policing. That comes from
my own opinions about how we should approach other people if we want to be
effective. And I'd like to think after all these years and after all the
hundreds of shows and the conversations I've had and the experiences as an activist,
I've got a little bit of equity to be able to render an opinion.
You can take it or leave it. When I came out of the faith,
I was coiled up like a spring. I would see the first stupid
thing on social media and I would just jump right in and just say that's
stupid. Was I incorrect? Nope? Did I gain anything except venting in
the moment. And maybe that's all you need at the time. Maybe that's
all people are trying to do, is just release pressure. But I didn't
change any minds. Everybody squabbled and argued and escalated and blocked and carried on.
Relationships were ruined. It was just, you know, and I wore
myself out. I was just miserable, and it took me four or five
years to finally just de escalate and calm down. There's some activist right now
online and I had to unfollow or mute their pages. They are obviously justifiably
angry at the injustices going on in the world, and we share that we
have this in common. We are outraged at all of what is outrageous,
and we want to speak to that and advocate for the marginalized. We want
to debunk the bunk we share that. But our approaches are so different,
and I'm not convinced that saying fuck you, you moron is a good look.
Hey, dipshit, if they put your brain on the end of a
razor blade, it looked like a baby rolling down a four lane highway.
Ah come on, really, I get the anger. I'm not convinced the
approach is healthy for anybody, including ourselves. That's just me, Okay.
I want to do some more Florida Man headlines before we go back to the
switchboard. We continue next hang on. If you are not a patron,
please consider supporting me and this show as I'm kind of rebuilding in the two
years after COVID. I know COVID is not over, it's still out there,
but the temperature of the whole thing has changed a little bit, and
I think the podcast versus getting back in the groove and I'm included in that.
If you would like to support me, it makes a difference. Patreon
dot com slash Seth Andrews More of my Florida Man headlines as filtered through the
Bible. I'm guessing you could probably come up with a ton of creative ones
that are better than mine, but just a few more that I came up
with based on stories and characters in scripture. Florida man scene raging at figgs.
Florida man threatens government with frog rain. Florida man fathers his own grandchildren,
And of course that's the story of Lot right, the righteous man who
was saved from calamity, and then his daughters take turns on him because they
don't want to have to walk all the way to town to get pregnant.
Florida man gives dad golden hemorrhoids. That one's in First Samuel, by the
Way. Florida man calls wife's boobs the two Fawns Song of Solomon. Florida
man loses sword inside fat man. And if you haven't read the story of
Ehud and the King in Judges chapter three, the king's body goes and sucks
up the sword. I am not making this up. Florida man seeks revenge,
hires flying prostage. That's the horror of Babylon. Florida man survives on
diet of falling sky bread. Florida man buys bride with penis flesh, David
and King Saul Dowery of two hundred foreskins. I just think it's funnier if
you say penis flesh. I mean, and that's what it is. The
Old Testament. God especially has a fascination, a fetish with the foreskin.
He is totally focused on penis flesh, and I do not understand why anyway,
Mark seven seven three, are you there? I am, Thanks for
calling. Mark. Let's talk what's on your mind? So a couple preliminary
questions. I've been an atheist, admitted to myself for twenty five years.
Now, how long have you it'd been an atheist. I first said the
word out loud, admitted it out loud in two thousand and eight, so
we're talking a decade and a half. Okay, So just over this amount
of time, I've noticed myself going through several stages of my development as an
atheist. And I think some of this is really germane to some of the
previous discussions and arguments that we've heard, and aside from those like yourself that
make a living or activist in the field, like those from the Freedom from
Religion Foundation and such I was wondering if i'd get your thought on these stages
of a development of an atheist. The first stage that I've got is a
firebrand, and I also call that like the born again atheist, where it's
just like every waking moment and every single thing like they've just come out of
the matrix. They're attacking everything, and everything was a conspiracy before, but
now they see the lights. And then they move on to the philosophical nit
picker, and those are the people that discover the rules of logic, and
I call that that I know how to argue stage, and then after a
while you're doing that, and then you move on to the you're all idiot
stage, and these people are just burned out and they just don't have it
anymore, which leads to stage four. I'm not talking to anyone about this
anymore, and those are what I call the Trappist monk atheists, and stage
five, which is not the last stage, but this is where I'm at.
This is the show me the money stage, or the show me the
evidence, the Sherlock Home stage, Like I'm done with semantics, I'm done
with philosophy, show me evidence or shut up. And then I hope to
get to this last stage sometime, which is stage six, Like, please
allow me to let you argue yourself into a corner, my friend or the
Jedi atheist? Are you asking what my thoughts are on these six stages?
Yeah? And am I missing anything? I don't know that everybody is going
to have. It's like the stages of grief. Everybody grieves differently, people
process things differently. Here I'm looking at my own life trying to think of
what I would call that. I came out of religion and I was I
was just enraged that I was mad at myself. Why hadn't I figured this
out sooner? Why didn't I go and actually read Darwin's on the Origin of
species instead of just knowing he was wrong? What's that about, Seth?
You should know better, not stupid? Right, You're not an unintelligent guy.
Why would it take you so long? I beat myself up for being
so late to the party. I was angry that everybody around me was blaming
me for asking questions and in wanting real, reasonable, logical answers. I
was frustrated to my core with apologists who kept telling me different reasons why it's
true and so I was just, you know, I was so pissed off,
and that took a while to get through. I began to calm down.
I started integrating more of the Socratic method. I began to not go
zero to crazy in conversations, and that took some work. I've gone through
despair periods, and I'm sort of in that moment right now. If I'm
going to be totally honest, where I look all around. It's not like
I'm giving up, but I I'm becoming I look at the world and I
look at the state of things, and I'm not sure it's fixable. I
don't know else to say it. I just I just don't, you know,
I don't think it's fixable in my lifetime. And I sometimes I just
want to shut everything off and go sit in the corner and weed baskets and
sing Yanni music, you know, because I don't know what else to do.
And then I have other times when I engage with people who have gotten
out and they're breathing the free air and they have become liberated, and I'm
reminded that even though the world is on fire, the world, for many
individuals, their whole world is being liberated by encouragers like you and me,
who say it's okay to ask questions. You're not broken, you're not just
looking for attention. It's just fine to want things to make sense. Keep
digging. It's okay not to know all those things. And that encourages me
and I oscillate. But the short answer is, I don't think there are
specific stages that people go into, nor do I think the journey ever ends.
I think we're all evolving creatures. I find your six stages interesting,
though, you know, I'll keep my eyes open for them out there.
Okay, okay, but I just one last thing, and this is just
to you. I realize that, you know, we all study history,
and you know, we see that people are ignoring it and they're trying to
repeat history. I know it's a biblical thing, but this too shall pass.
You know. We go through these stages over and over again. Unfortunately
we're not learning our lessons, but we go through them over and over again,
and we will get through this. So don't despair. There is hope.
There are wonderful people out there, and we will get through all of
this. See, you're an encourager, and that's what we need. We
need some humanity and hope injected into these conversations. And for that, I
thank you Mark, and thanks for calling, and thank you bye. All
right, see you. I'm guilty of being on the pendulum back and forth.
One side there is hope, the other side is we are totally doomed.
Back and forth. Maybe you know what that's like. But again,
you're just a shot in the arm that this atheist host needs. Been fun
talking about the Florida man, this Oklahoma man. We'll see you back here
next time. Be safe, take care. Follow the Thinking Atheist on Facebook
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