Here the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol, an
idea. The population of atheist in this country is going through the rule,
rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I tell the truth,
it's because I tell the truth, not because I put my hand on
a book and made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness, truth, beauty,
and wisdom will come to you that way. Assume nothing, question everything,
and start thinking. This is the Thinking Atheist podcast, hosted by Seth
Andrews. I'll start the show with a little bit of a confashion. I
guess confessions not really the word, but and maybe you can relate. I
have just had a case of sadness lately. You ever feel just melancholy kind
of modeling sad and you can't really pinpoint why. And I want to be
careful here because you know, I really got to be careful. So there
are many, I think legitimate instances where people who feel sad or depressed or
overwhelmed about something and genuinely need support will reach out on whatever platform they can,
often social media, and they're looking for someone to kind of lift them
up. You know, Hey, we've all helped a friend through a difficult
time. I think that's totally legitimate, so I'm not trying to in any
way diminish that. But we also know people who are just still a little
bit too performative, and it happens a little bit too often, so you
log on. This is often known as vague booking, where they don't give
any specific details, but it sounds very Shakespearean. You know. I wish
certain people whom I will not name, would not be so toxic about issue
X, which I will not detail, and then go talk about you behind
your back to other people who I will not specify. Feeling sad, please
send good vibes. Okay. Well, on the surface, okay, But
when you see a lot of that stuff, it does two things, in
my humble opinion. The first thing is you become the boy who cried wolf
or the girl or whoever who cried wolf. Right, there's so much of
it that people stop listening. It becomes a car alarm that people tune out
and they're like, oh, well, that person happens to live at the
intersection of mellow and drama, right, Melo drama And the second thing it
does is I think it adds a burden to the lives of other people who
are going through their own struggles, and we don't often think about it in
that way. I've been working on it myself, where if you go and
you take the weight on your shoulders, sometimes I think it helps to have
that weight shared with loved ones, with people who care about you, But
sometimes it also adds the burden to them in their already burdened lives, and
I think we have to be a good steward of that. There's so many
gears in this machine, and I worry someone's going to harvest SoundBite. They're
going to quote mine and say that Seth doesn't care about people experiencing hardship who
reach out for help and support. Hell, that's probably what I'm doing right
now. If nothing else, I'm just venting expressing. But I've just been
going through a moment of melancholy. It might have something to do with the
change of the seasons. Do you feel that when you come out of wintertime
and head into spring. Is spring fever a legitimate thing? And I've heard
that like spring fever means that you feel more tired, you know your blood
is thickened because of the cold weather, is what we've always heard, and
it takes some time to navigate through that. I wake up, I've been
waking up three in the morning. I just stare at the ceiling and I've
just been overwhelmed at all of the craziness and the hate and the bigotry and
the divisiveness and the problems. And I don't know why. You know,
it's the difference, I think between reflection and rumination, because I think reflection
is critical. We have to be able to reflect on the good and the
bad. But then sometimes we slip into rumination. We're just wallowing, right,
We're wallowing in it, and that becomes really problematic. And I struggle
sometimes with that when I read the headlines and I see the actions of the
theocrats and the zealots, and the Christian nationalist and the white supremacists and the
people who so gleefully want to splinter us into these little tribes of bigotry,
when the truth is, we could all do so much if we just saw
the humanity in each other. I'm sitting across from some friends. I know
there's some who would be like, well, why would you be friends with
those people. But they are evangelical or at least casual Christian Republican conservative types.
They go to church. I know more about the Bible than they do
by far, but they are casual cultural Christians, and they vote are Republican
across the board. And they were talking about something I think, and there
may been a jab at the Libs or the liberals somewhere at the table,
and I, in that moment, had a tremendous feeling of isolation and a
loneness. I just look at them and I want the lightbulb of epiphany of
humanity to go off in their heads. There are some people who get so
mad at me when I talk about my values as a humanist and they're like,
well, are you host of the thinking atheist show? Or are you
host of the liberal show. It's all equally bad. It's all tainted.
I'm just going to make a false equivalence claim and walk out the door and
look down my nose from my superior perch at all the rest of you who
are just sheepl Now you participate in the process because you think it matters.
No. No, I am neither conservative nor liberal. I am I am
outside it all, well, aren't you special? I think that's just a
position of privilege or to cop out. Who in the world could look at
the two main political forces held the two main cultural forces in the United States
and decide that they're equal. Oh, you can do that. I'm sitting
across from people I care about, and I wrestle with the fact that I
love them, and I genuinely do, and I crave their friendship, and
we have a lot that we really enjoy. And then I think the jab
at the Democrats means you are what in opposition to so many of my values.
You don't just think differently, but you may be working to defeat the
very causes that I hold dear. Your party is working to co op the
whole country to make it church theocracy, not democracy, and everybody who's not
some flavor of christian becomes a second class citizen. That includes me. You're
at war with LGBT people talk about second class citizens. They can be denied
service based on your personal convictions, and you will find this the moral position
as you treat humans as in some ways in human. You're part of a
mechanism that treats the United States like it's better than the rest of the world,
as if we have a monopoly on goodness and freedom. What we're better
because we were born inside these subjectively drawn boarders. Fly the flag, handover
heart, say the pledge. In fact, you are forced to say the
pledge of allegiance in the name of freedom. I think children today should be
wired to say a freedom oath. People say this without any sense of irony.
Yeah, they must be mandated to say they love their country. This
almost sounds like the Christian Bible commanded to love God. How do you command
someone to experience and feel genuine love for someone or something else? How does
that work? Exactly? My buddy Dave Warnock, who runs the Dying Out
Loud websites, he continues to do what he does as an activist, knowing
that his body is on the decline. He has already been planning his own
exits, right, I mean he thinks in those terms. He says,
I have a ls there is no cure. What will the final days of
my life be? And the Republican Party believes that end of life decisions,
Well, that's God's thing. Only God can decide. My father died of
pulmonary fibrosis. The scar tissue in his lungs caused him to increasingly heave and
gasp and heave and gasp, And so they bring in the oxygen machine,
and when it can't keep up, they bring in a bigger oxygen machine,
and when that machine can't keep up, they jack him up with morphine so
at least he won't panic while he's writhing in his bed. This goes on
four days. He finally gives out at two o'clock in the morning, and
my family thanks Jesus that he died in the night as we prayed, as
if he had just sort of peacefully gone to be with the Lord. There
is no concept, there is no notion that my father had he wanted it,
and I know he didn't because he was a devout Christian, But you
know, he had the right to go with dignity. He knew there was
no way out. Imagine if he had opened his mind and heart to the
possibility that he could say goodbye at the moment of his choosing and he could
peacefully fall asleep before his body turned into a suffocating, writhing nightmare. And
who is standing against that right in the name of God. It's a political
party, and it's not the liberals. It's not the Democrats, it's those
bible banging ours who is in love with guns? Four hundred million guns in
this country And when I say how many more guns do you need for us
to be safe, they look at me and say, well, Seth is
anti gun. Well that's an oversimplification because I do have a couple of firearms
that I keep in a safe and occasionally target shoot. But my guns aren't
part of my identity. It was John Stewart on his television show. He
was doing an interview a few weeks back with Oklahoma State Senator Nathan Dom and
Nathan Dom, is, you know, ringing the bell about the Second Amendments
and how we need to deregulate access to guns in the name of protection and
freedom. And John Stewart looks at him and says, well, at what
point, you know, with four hundred more firearms than citizens in this country,
at what point do we pass that bar? When do we become safe?
Like? When did we get there? How many do you need?
And the guy totally vapor locks, you know, I mean, I got
people waving their guns in this town when they passed open carry in the state
of Oklahoma. I shit you not. There was a guy who packed on
a two gun holster, just like the Old West. He had a gun
on each hip, and just to show how free he was, started walking
around the courthouse buildings downtown. He has decided, I'm going to go show
everybody how damn free I am. Here's madou guns. I'm gonna go walk
around with my two barrels in full display and show everybody what freedom really is.
Which party sees more of that insanity? I think it's the Republicans,
don't you Who's dragging their bibles into school board meetings, who's trying to ban
the books because God? Who's infecting secular city council meetings by insisting that the
invocation slash prayers are all supposed to be Christian and nothing else. Who opposes
climate change science and clean energy policies or even proposals, because wouldn't it be
not used to build a better, cleaner, safer, less polluted world.
I mean, even if you didn't believe that climate change was an increasing problem,
just the notion that we would do better, that we would pollute less,
that we would contaminate less, that we would pursue the cleanest and most
efficient and most protective versions of what we do. I mean, how is
that even controversial? And who's against it? It's over here one particular party
talking about how it'll be a cold day in hell before I drive one of
them liberal cars. Part of that conversation includes the proliferation, or the rise,
at least of the electric vehicles. We can get into lithium battery technology
and disposal and waste. These are necessary and interesting conversations, but the whole
idea for them is black smoke coming out of the tailpipe of my truck is
a symbol of freedom. They lean into the Old Testament's eye for an eye,
versus to support the death penalty, which I've come to see as barbaric,
inappropriately applied, usually against people of color and the poor, those who
can't afford proper representation. We've seen so many instances of injustice reversals, new
evidence came to light. And beyond all of that, how about the economics
of it. It's actually more expensive to put somebody on death row than it
is to imprison them for life. You would think the capitalists would see that
and say, hm, that makes the latest dance no no, And you
know which party wants to kill the killers. It's the Republicans. Do not
tell me, it's not the Democrats on the Supreme Court that are planting their
dominionist flags in the uteruses of one hundred and sixty six million women. You'd
fold your arms all you want, and you can say, well, it's
all equally bad, all you want. None of that makes what you say
not bullshit. And here I am. I'm sitting at a table and Strawberry
Red, Oklahoma, once again, fully aware that I'm alone, almost alone
as far as my knowledge. I'm alone in my values and what I'm fighting
for. And am I sitting at the table with people who are working against
me? And how is that work? And do I draw the hard line?
Do I end the friendship? Do I pound on the table and say
what the hell is wrong with you people? Do I try to humanize my
own value system, my own person and position in an attempt to try to
bring their walls down so that we can have mind changing, opinion changing conversations
about the things that matter. All I know is, at the end of
the day, I leave and I just feel sad. I'm struck by how
much energy, gleeful energy is position towards not sharing the world equally with other
people, and often taking advantage of other people. How do we work the
system? If somebody's smart enough to work the system, maybe the system deserves
to be worked. And if you're taking advantage of well, you know,
that's kind of your problem for being so vulnerable. And here's yet another reason
why that is a sensitive nerve. I got a call from my CPA.
It is tax season in the United States, and isn't that always a joy?
Despite my occasional frustrations with the bureaucracy and inefficiency and waste that we have
all seen our tax dollars go to, I think, most recently the one
on my mind all the bank bailouts. Right, I get it. I'm
part of a society. My taxes fund the support structure for that society,
and I totally get that. So tax season comes around, I bite the
bullets, I write the check, and I get a call from my CPA
who says, well, I filed your taxes for twenty twenty two and those
taxes were rejected by the Internal Revenue Service. Wait a minute, why did
the IRS reject my taxes? Well, seth their record, say that you
have already filed. Well, what's that about, Seth. You have been
the victim of identity theft. By the way, I think this may be
the first time in history that anybody has ever purposefully wanted to be me.
So apparently this is a major majour, major problem, a scam that has
been going on increasingly since twenty fifteen. Somebody steals your social right, your
Social Security number, and they file taxes under your name, and they list
a ton of dependence and those dependents bring about a tax credit which produces a
refund check that that scammer receives at the false address that they put on the
form, and then they go and launder the money through bitcoin. This is
how it was explained to me, and the idea, I guess is is
that it's untraceable. This is a billions of dollars scam that I was just
made aware of because yeah, now it happened to me, and this is
fun. Turns out that it'll be six to nine months before the IRS even
opens the envelope containing my affidavit of identity theft and starts the case. So
the whole time I'm waiting on them to investigate, I remain unprotected for twenty
twenty three, meaning that the scammer might be able to do it again before
anyone notices. And lo and behold, I end up on a hamster wheel
that I may not get off of four years. So it's been that kind
of month. I guess it's all first world problems when you look at it,
but it's still frustrating, and I do I think, what if the
people who spend all this time scamming other people and trying to grift and take
advantage and work the system in these illegal and immoral ways, what if they
committed themselves to doing it right, playing by their rules, building, constructing,
helping, being good. Imagine what we might accomplish as a species,
say goodbye to corruption and abuse and war, and we could all hold hands
and advance and evolve as the human condition together. And of course you and
I know that as long as there is an opportunity, as long as there
is a scam, as long as there is easy money, and as long
as there are awful people, that dream will always remain a dream. And
I think it's just sad, and I sometimes feel overwhelmed by it. Do
you ever feel overwhelmed? You wonder sometimes are there more bad people than good
people? I don't think so, but I don't always feel so. And
I have to be cognizant of the difference. Right, Instead of ruminating,
I must objectively as best I can, reflect and be honest about what's really
going on. I don't know. That's a little window into my life.
I mean to burden you, but it's you know, some people I think
are interested in what informs the attitude of the host, and that's kind of
where I'm at. I'm interested in where you are at. My copywriter would
kill me for saying that sentence in that way, like ending with the preposition
where you are at? But I mean where you're at? Where are you
at right now? As we'd go to the phones to find out? Six?
One two? Hi? Who's this? Hi? This is Manuela,
Manuela. Did I say it right? Yes? You did? Thank you
so much for calling. What's on your mind? Well, forgive me a
bit nervous. English is not my first language, so forgive you for any
mistakes doing great. I'm from Europe and something that I noticed since I moved
to the United States is how much Americans seem to hate children. For example,
like you can't bring them public without people going like, k that thing
shut up with literally saying the thing and complaining about people bringing their children in
public, not like them going you know, climbing up the shelves and Walmart
or something, just normal kids who are making noise and people are losing their
little mind over it. And yeah, I was just wondering. For a
country that's so much about family values, it sounds like they hate children a
lot. Well, it's interesting. It has not been my experience. I
don't have any kids of my own, but usually in my experience, unless
they are unruly and banging around and screaming and carrying on, and somebody takes
them into a movie theater or you know, something like the library, I
haven't in my own life as an American scene that, but obviously it has
been your experience, and I'm sorry that it has been. Yeah, it
has literally people saying that you shouldn't bring children into a restaurant because they paid
to eat their dinner in peace and quiet. And if that thing can shut
up and leave it at home, well, I'm very sorry that that has
happened to you. Just know that there are some people, even those who
are child free like me, who you know, unless the kids banging my
seat on an airplane are screaming in my ear somewhere. I mean, I'm
easy, I'm good with it, so people like me exist, okay,
man willa, Okay. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that
there are some of us who do better and some who do not do better.
When it comes to a lot of noise created by children, I'm yeah,
I'm good, like I'm really fine. I think, you know,
family should be able to go out and spend family time together. I do
have a problem when unruly kids start to spoil the experience for other people.
I don't think that's what my collar was necessarily talking about. I am child
free, like I never had kids. Natalie's got a couple of grown children
who are beautiful. They are my family and I love them with all my
heart. But I myself never had that instinct, and in a highly religious
family, it's race a lot of people's eyebrows. I was twenty two when
I started my first marriage of eighteen years. I'm just a kid. I'm
twenty two, But at that moment I had no desire to be a parent,
and my then wife had no desire to be a parent. And we
said, so, we're not interested in having kids, and everybody around this
patted us on the head and said, oh, one day, one day,
you're gonna wake up and you're just gonna want to have a little bundle
of joy and you're gonna be ready to be a mother and father. Okay,
well, if that day comes, we'll let you know. So a
year passed, Oh one day, you're still young. Three years past,
five years past, seven years passed, and I noticed that everybody around me
started to get kind of quiet, and I felt it's nothing that they said.
I felt this attitude that they thought I was just selfish. You're just
all about yourself. Why don't you want to have kids? I mean,
what is that about? You just want to come and go as you please.
You're not interested in other people. And here's the fun one seth hate
children. I'm sorry, I hate children. Where did that come from?
So much of these attitudes, especially in religion, rooted in the Bible,
be fruitful and multiply, you're supposed to go and have children, And there's
this attitude that if you don't have kids, or something wrong with you.
And I fielded that for a long, long time, and even now I
sense it from some people who are just a little bit self conscious. I
don't know, maybe they secretly envy the fact that somebody calls me at the
last second because they need someone to fill in on a tennis match. I
can just leave, all right, I'll be there in twenty two minutes.
Hey, do you feel like going out tonight? Let's just leave and go
do that. Would you like to spend a weekend with your brother in Kansas
City. It's Friday afternoon. We could be there by nine. Let's grab
the dogs, hop in the car. We got nothing else to do.
That kind of freedom. I do wonder if some people, the self conscious
people, maybe secretly envy that. But I'll admit there are certain joys in
my life that I know I will never get. I'll never experience the birth
of a baby in the delivery room. I'll never experience the joy of watching
that child grow. I'll never be there for the first steps, the first
day at school, being involved in sports or band or the arts or whatever,
and being that parents in the audience cheering on my child, the graduation,
seeing the child grow to become an adult and start a family of their
own, and then grandchildren. I understand there are certain types of love,
there are certain experiences, beautiful experiences that I myself will never get. But
while other people lament that, for me, I simply want to look them
in the eye and say it's okay. I've come to terms with it,
because for me, the parental gene has just never been there. And I
just don't think you have kids because you're supposed to, because the Bible tells
you too, because mom and Dad want grandchildren, or because you're worried that
person X is gonna think you're selfish, Like your expectations really should have no
effect on whether or not I decide to bring a human being into the world
and make a lifelong commitment to that person. I just I just never had
it. Yeah, I just never got there. I don't hate kids.
I'm not anti family, and I'm not one of those Americans that this caller
experienced who thinks everything in public should be an adult's only experience. I mean,
and you know, unless it's a rare designated spot, you know,
if you're at Applebee's, I don't know. I'm just rambling. I've got
nine one nine. Tell me your name? Donovan, Donovan what's on your
mind? That's kind of wanted to talk a little bit about autism and assism
because one of those things that I can discovered in my own discovery over the
last year has been the autistic has an increased chance of being an atheist.
Is it the filtering of emotion in different ways that someone autistic might experience has
made them less susceptible to the be oeriential Personally from my own perspective of an
autistic person myself, I think it's having a more analytical mind giving me the
question even when I was raised as a Christian. Well, it's interesting.
I don't know either way. It's highly possible that somebody who is more analytical
will reject more to be experiential and add two plus two and come up with
four. I mean, it's very possible, certainly. Yeah. Part of
the reason why the kind of comes up to my mind as well as like
both being autistic and being awesome asis kind of been an intersection that I've been
trying to figure out on how they interact with each other because for both of
them, or I'm normal passing to most people, So it makes me wonder,
like, especially like with me taking on a social devience class of semester,
like how does that affect my role in society? Are questions that are
beyond me. Once again, I'm not an expert in mental health or autism.
But what you've done is is I think you've given those of us who
are listening to your story something to talk about, to be able to exchange
ideas on the subject. And I would encourage our listeners to do so if
maybe you've made that connection, or you have a mental health resource, or
you you've done the homework on it's the common section is all yours, and
we'll come back and review and see what you've come up with. I appreciate
the call very much. Thanks for giving us something that you want to both
today. All right, see your learning Emily at seven five seven Are you
there? Yeah? Well, first I wanted to say thank you for talking
about childless childlessness by choice. I think it's something that I'm really glad that
we're finally talking about. So the reason that I called was I wanted to
from your perspective, see does it ever change when someone or that feeling that
you have inside when someone that you've known from the former you says, oh,
I hear that you have a church problem or a God problem, and
that you know that your family kind of have a distance. There this feeling
of wanting to just have defensiveness kind of ever dissipate. Well, I think
that's specific to you. You know, I can't tell you how you would
feel about someone who is offering up a kind of I don't know a rationalization
as to why you reject their faith. You must be the one to determine
how you feel, what you feel, are those feelings valid? What do
you do about those feelings? So I can't really speak to that. I
do know that perceptions can change. I think relationships are always in a state
of evolution or de evolution. And I think you know you've set your boundaries
and decide how much you're willing to put up with and if someone's love is
conditional, that's information you can use to make the decision. Okay, okay,
thanks Emily, hang in there. I think Kevin at eight five zero
high are you there? Seth good afternoon or a good morning, whatever it
is in your neck of the whatever. I don't even have a clock in
my office. Just what's on your mind? Brother? Well, first and
foremost, I just wanted to pay a compliment and just tell you you're just
such a pro my friend. You really are. Thank you. Yeah,
I mean, you know, your heart and you're just how genuine you are
comes across in spade and everything that you do, and I just wanted to
give you a heads up on that on how I feel. No, thank
you, man, I appreciate the kind words means a lot, and just
in general, you know, I it's kind of an interesting experience to be
talking to you because you're one of the guys that because I guess it is
about three years now that I don't know if you call it deconversion or whatever,
I claimed to be a Christian, and you know, I was driving
I lived in a van for three and a half years, and I was
driving down the road listening to you Tube and stumbled upon a Christopher Hitchens video
I think it was he was debating Frank Turik, and I went into that,
I think it was an hour and a half and I went into listening
to that with a bias that the theist was going to kick the atheist ass.
And at the end of it, I said, oh my gosh,
I have a terrible problem on you know, I because I was always really
uncomfortable with so much, so many of the components of faith and belief and
all that. I mean, it just never made sense to me that I
was taken care of and that there were so many people that, you know,
their basic crime was being born in the wrong place, you know,
and they were you know, kids starving to death. And here was this
knucklehead like me being supposedly taken care of by something out there that loves me
more than I could possibly imagine. When I really I didn't feel like I
deserve it, you know, there was nothing special about me in that sense.
So I became an atheist. You know, I prefer a nonbeliever,
but I just you know, I just and my life has improved exponentially as
a result. I was a happy guy before. I'm happier now because I
feel like I'm being honest with myself and with the people around me. And
it's guys like you that have helped me do that. Thank you man.
Hey. By the way, if you want a lesson in daily madness,
follow Frank Turk on Twitter. It's like a daily dose of empty calorie platitude
nothingness. I mean, just illogic that comes out of his pages. I
followed for a few days and I had to go and just unfollow and close
my eyes and block my ears because the apologists to see them play that game
of twister to excuse the inexcusable, and then they look down their noses at
the rest of us as if they're supposed to be making sense. Frank Turk,
no wonder, Christopher Hitchins kicked his ass right he was a minnow swimming
among the sharks. Yeah, I, you know, I try to avoid
a lot of conversations anymore. I just kind of debtail on what you've opened
your live stream with being melancholy and whatnot, and you know, looking at
the events of the world, and now talking about Twitter, I don't have
any social media. I don't watch I know basically what's going on in the
world, but not the details, you know. I honestly, I just
feel like I, since I don't have any way to truly affect them on
a macro level, I don't pay attention to them on that level. And
I, you know, I still have basic struggles, but for the most
part, I feel like that that's a better policy for me. Maybe it's
a cop out, but man, I just can't pay attention. You know,
well, I don't think. I don't think managing how much bullshit gets
thrown in your face is the same as sticking your head in the sand.
I would assume you're relatively informed about what's going on in the world. But
I also think, you know, we can establish some filters to try to
limit the madness. I think that's totally valid. Brother, You hit the
nail on the head. You know, I do have a general sense of
what's going on in the world. Part of the reason that I don't pay
as much as the attention that I used to is because I'm proud to say
I'm a former expert on everything. I mean, a decade ago, I
could have told you what was going on in Ukraine and why Silicon Velly Bank
crashed and all this other stuff. I don't know. I really don't know.
You know. It's sort of like the same thing as being a non
believer. How can you know so many of the things that people claim that
they do. So, yeah, I just I just my own business.
But I guess I'll just kind of try to end with this, and that's
that. I'm also a member of Alcoholics Anonymous I've been an AA for a
long time and having become a non believer, it's been interesting. It with
a hyower model. Yeah, yeah, the higher power thing, and you
know, people just invent their own god, and you know, mine does
this, and then mine does that, and again kind of going back to
my own personal journey. None of that ever made sense to me. And
so when I was finally able to just be honest with myself and the rest
of the people around me, it just felt better. You know, it
just felt better. And you know, I use the idea put forth by
Marcus Aurelius. If there are gods and they are just, then they won't
care how devout that I've been. If there are gods and they are not
just, well I don't want to worship them. And if there are no
gods, well I have lived a good life and hopefully I'll be remembered for
a little while by a few people. That's it. You speak wisdom,
Kevin. I appreciate the kind words and the call hang in there to my
brother. Hey, I wish I was going to be able to go to
Phoenix, but I ain't got the cash. Bro. I got you,
I got you the speech that I'm giving will eventually post online, probably closer
to summertime, once I'm done with this. I hate to say after I'm
done touring with it because I'm trying to sound like the Rolling Stones, which
I'm not. But it will eventually go to YouTube, so you'll be able
to see it soon. Okay, Yeah, all ranks, brother to you
had a great day. It's funny. Yeah, he's right. Especially when
I think you're in a fundamentalist culture, you have this weird confidence about how
much you know. It's like I was a graduate with honors from Dunning Krueger.
You. I mean, I was an expert on so much that I
knew nothing about, and that I would be smug about all the answers that
I had. And then you escape that culture and you start to look around
and you start to know how much you don't know. And beyond that,
the liberation of being able to say those words, and some cultures I don't
know is considered an expression of weakness. How could you not know? You
don't know? Well, you should know, I know, But the truth
is it's the answers and times it's an honest answer. I don't know.
How did the universe begin? Where did the first cell come from? Or
whatever? I don't know. I have no idea. Of course, I'm
thinking to myself, you don't know either. Sometimes I'll say that out loud.
You can bang the Book of Genesis all you want. Trust me,
you don't know how the universe started. You got a story, you got
you gotta claim that needs to meet a burden to prove. But you I
don't know, and neither do you. More of whatever it is you want
to talk about in just a second, hang on. Thank you so much
to all of my supporters on Patreon who get this show early and commercial free.
But most importantly, they help me to do what I do. If
I can be candid, I know that COVID the last few years have been
kind of hard on people who have been supported by Patreon dollars, and I
totally get it. I mean, the economy was in the tank, and
everybody's job situation had changed, and they were scrounging for every penny, and
so a lot of us saw many of our patrons have to go and take
care of business in their own circles. But it does mean that some of
us are trying to make up that lost ground. So if you enjoyed the
show and you want to support it for I don't know one, four or
five bucks a month or whatever. It does make a difference. It's huge
for podcasters like me. You can go to Patreon dot com slash Seth Andrews
and thank you so much for your support. Joseph at two one five,
thanks for waiting. Are you there? This is me, This is you.
What's on your mind? Oh? Okay, well beliefs. Then I
didn't hear you say my name? It's Joseph and Joselphia. Joseph. I'm
glad I'm not the only one on the show today with a biblical names.
That's refreshing. Yeah, I've thought about changing it. I've been in this
journey at this point about four years. I initially, well, first of
all, I'm gay, and I'm married to a man and his sister is
gay and married to a woman. And I was going to a Catholic church
seven days a week, serving at the altar. And the week before John
and I got married, they had a service. All the readings were about
marriage, and I said, what am I doing here? The Catholic Church
does not accept me. They would never ever let me go in there and
be married in a Catholic church. I said, why am I doing this?
And so my first getting out of Christianity was deism and that didn't last
long because you go on YouTube and the other videos that come up are atheist
videos, and so I started listening to you in a few others and I
said, this makes more sense to me. But the reason I called is
my husband had some physical problems within the hospital, and of course his sister
has to talk to me to find out how he's doing. She knows I
do not believe. She is a very nominal, cafeteria Catholic. Well,
I believe in God and you know that. So we just won't talk about
that, okay. But she's also one hundred percent like some kind of raiky
master, which I think is sort of odd compared to Catholicism. And we're
talking about John's condition, and then we get on other subjects, and I
said, you know, I've called our congressman and our senators to try and
get them to propose a bill to change the motto of the United States back
to the original motto E pure. But I can't say it epure. I
can't say no, no, no, e pluribus unum. It means out
of many, thank you. And yeah, it was the motto before in
God We trust was added later on in like nineteen fifty six because of the
Red scare. YEA. And she said, Joseph, I don't want to
talk about that. I said, I'm not making fun of your religion or
anything. I'm talking about the motto of the United States. She said,
Joseph, I don't want to talk about that. If you keep talking about
that, I'm going to hang up on you. And I said, okay.
And it's like I'm talking about politics. I'm talking about the motto of
the United States. And the biggest problem is I'm still an angry atheist.
But you've caught me down a little bit. Oh I'm angry too, I
trust me. I I was at a dinner table with a bunch of people
the other night, this would just last week, and politics came up,
and I'm having that whole cost benefit discussion, right do I really I did
not come here to get into it about politics, but at the same time,
it is important. And somebody said, well, you know, I
really like Ron DeSantis for president in twenty twenty four, and I almost crawled
out of my skin, climbed over the table and grabbed them by the throat.
I didn't do it, but I had that inclination. So I get
angry, just like you do when I think anger is the appropriate response.
But as far as the sister is concerned, I mean, if she's not
ramming her first, I've never heard Catholicism and raiki in the same room together.
That's a that's a weird convergence of belief system. You know. I
got the Catholic Church and raiky healing energies, chockris and shit like that.
That's weird. Yeah, that's pretty weird. And she she asked me to
tell John. She said, tell John, I'm sending reiki to him.
She lives in guess where, Florida, and she hates the santis. We
can agree on that. Okay, How do you send to someone? I
thought raiki was a practice. I think you'd stand over someone and your hands.
You believe you can send it long distance like or does AT and T
charge extra for that? Do you need fiber Do you need fiber optics for
raiki to go through the landline? I have questions about long distance raiki.
Um. I'm sorry for that for your partner's troubles um anything I mean,
okay, I mean I was gonna say, he's anything we can do,
right, No, but she you know, and and I do because of
you. I said to John, your sister Rose is praying for you and
sending reiki to you. And I did it against my better judgment. I'd
think it's silly, but I told him that, and he said, well,
that's nice. But I just don't understand why she can't talk about the
motto of the United States. Well she thinks it's somehow an attack against God
or religion. Well, we're talking about a belief link to her identity,
right. She lives in a confirmation bubble, and anything that disconfirms her pre
established notions about the world, she's going to feel like this is a virus
that's entering her healthy body and she has to inoculate herself. And why would
she want to live in a world where her deeply held beliefs are challenged by
those pesky data points and facts in the history of the United States. No,
No, I don't even want to hear it. I've been in conversations
with people and they will tell me outright, seth, I don't care what
you say. I don't care what facts you present, I don't care what
the evidence says. You will never change my mind. And I'm so struck
by that because it's a proud declaration that you will never improve your perspective when
you get better information. And that's the frustration you're feeling, right, Joseph,
Yeah, it's like, I mean, I've had thoughts of, well,
gee, I just don't even want to talk to her. But she's
not strict. I mean, she's not like some fundamental as Catholic. She's
a lesbian. I wouldn't sweat that. I wouldn't know the Catholic churches for
your sanity's sake. I wouldn't spend too much time trying to change her mind.
I think, you know, it's healthy for her to be not confronted,
but to experience conflicting point of view, you know, a disagreeing perspective.
We certainly don't want to feel like we're bubble wrapping ourselves to keep her
comfortable, but changing her mind is that's probably a long game. I would
focus more on you being true to you, taking care of your husband's you
know, living your own values, and you know who knows. Maybe someday
she'll actually, you know, maybe there'll be that how did how was that
said? David McRaney called it the crack that lets in the light. Maybe
one day that crack will sort of hit the verneer and she'll be able.
Did I say verneer? Oh my god, that's a total Oklahoma, it
snuck out. I said the word verner. I'm sorry. Anyway, we're
hopefully one day she'll maybe tap you on the shoulder and you guys can have
the conversation where she feels more safe. But I wouldn't beat yourself up because
she's not going to bend. It's just I think it's the nature of the
beast. Okay, Yeah, it's just frustrating because it was just a conversation.
It wasn't I wasn't trying to affect her own belief system. I was
talking about the country and the fact that Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson and Adams were
commissioned to create a seal of the United States and the only thing that they
came up with, and they came up with some weird ideas was eplurbusunum.
It's stuck. Joseph I appreciate you and e pluribus unum. I'm sending that
down the fiber optic right out of men. I'm sending the motto of the
United States instead of raiki to you. That's more grounded and you'd be safe
and take care of yourself. Okay, okay, thank you, see you
later. I'm sending you raiki. I've never I've just never heard it phrase
like that. I guess it's possible. I mean if like I was talking
to Susan Gerbick on the The Grief Vampires podcast and they were talking about doing
psychic readings on zoom. So I guess if you can read someone's you know
they're psyche and talk to their dad's mother or grandmother or whoever, and you
can do so on the internet, I suppose you know. But do you
need I mean, can you do high speed? Do you need an ethernets?
Can you do it over the standard phone lines? I mean, I
have questions. I have questions about sending down the raiki. Let's see Chris
at seven zero six. Are you there? I am, Thanks for calling.
What do you want to talk about? You know, I'm pretty well
into my journey of coming out of religion. I was raised in a very
Southern Baptist sweating and spitting in the pulpit kind of church, and I've left
home. I you know, I'm actual duty military, and I've just completely
fallen out of kinds of stuff I was raised in. And as of now,
my little sister, who still lives in that area, is the only
one who really knows other than my wife. And I wanted to see if
you had any nuggets of wisdom about how to handle bringing up to my parents,
who are still very much religious. They've left kind of the more extreme
version that we were in when I was younger. They're more and more that
kind more progressive kind of first Aptist church now that still hold on to that
very strongly. And my thoughts have been to not push the issue, let
it come up naturally so that they don't feel too blindsided about it. But
do you have any little pieces of wisdom? Oh, you're talking to somebody
who has been bitching on the podcast for thirteen fourteen years about his own failures
with his family. So but I can do this for you. I can't
tell you the approach that will create a positive response from your mother and father.
What I can do is to encourage you that whatever you do needs to
not be about them as much as it is about you. I do think
walking in with data points and trying to dissect the Bible and convince them,
you know, to try to valid because I think we all want to do
that. Here are the legitimate concerns I have about religion. Did you note
that this is wrong and this is contradictory? And God said this, and
he commanded rape in the Bible, and he wants the silence women, and
there was genocide of a half a million people in blah blah. And so
you go in and you're trying to be heard and saying, as a moral
creature, as someone who wants to be about the truth, these are the
reasons. And I think that's a temptation that many of us have. But
I've become more and more convinced that this does not change minds and usually only
creates problems, at least at the front end. I think you don't walk
in with data points. I think you walk in and you say, look,
I wanted to share with you that I have been on a journey and
I have been navigating some questions and concerns about some things, and I have
come to a position here that's you know, I'm not convinced. Right,
this is language that is sort of softer, but I don't think it's weaker.
I'm not convinced. I've got some real problems with this, and I
just wanted you to know that I'm on this journey and that whatever is true,
I'm making a commitment to you that that's what I want. And if
God shows up, then I want to know that. You know, I
think they're reassurance that life is a journey. You're taking your own on your
own terms, and whatever is true, you want that to be a part
of your journey as well. I would keep the first conversation short. Right
short, you are going to they are going to throw the hooks out,
They're going to want to suck you into a long form conversation. Then things
are going to become frustrated, probably heated. Someone's going to leave, pissed
off or whatever. I would try to avoid that at all costs. The
first conversation is merely putting it on their radar in a soft way. This
is my journey. Here's where I'm at. I just I don't want to
talk through it at the moment, but I feel like I wanted you to
know that I'm kind of here, and you know, let's we can talk
more about it down the way, right. Then you'll let that sink in,
and then the rest of those conversations I think can come afterward. But
at the end of the day, your job will not be to convince them.
Never walk in saying I'm going to fix them or convince them that I
am right or that I have a point. We would love for that to
happen, but I don't think that's the goal. The goal is for you
to go in and say, this is my journey. I'm taking it on
my terms. There are some boundaries I've established that I'm going to ask you
to observe, and I commit to you that I want to live a truthful
life. I think that's the goal. It's really more about you than it's
about them. Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, it does,
it does. I cannot reiterate this enough that first conversation. Trust me,
you will go in and you'll want to make it ten minutes and they
are going to want to suck you win to a ninety minute prayer meeting or
a debate club. Do not take that bait right, skip out of that
conversation, draw a hard line on that conversation, but that first one,
keep it short, and that's my advice to you. Okay, thank you,
And before I'll let you go, I actually found your channel a little
later into my deconstruction and deconversion actually through the video you did with Forrest and
Erica, who both of them were people that I learned a lot from very
early on. People like them and Dapperdno and R and Raw. Apologies.
So all of you guys doing what you do. It makes a big difference
in a lot of people's lives and I'm very appreciative of it. Oh,
it means a lot. And I'll pass the word on when I bump into
those folks on the road. So good luck with your family, and you
know, if something happens that is notable, feel free to call back give
us the update. Okay, absolutely, thank you, all right, Well,
see you later. I remember when I was having lunch with my sister
and a friend of hers, both devoutly religious, and her friend said,
well, can you tell me why you're no longer a Christian? This was
years ago, before i'd evolved my own thinking and I just went to Genesis,
chapter one, verse one, and I started, Did you know there
are two conflicting versions of the Genesis story? Did you know that the geologic
column totally disproves the biblical claim that there was a global flood? Did you
know that there are four conflicting versions of the empty tomb story with Jesus,
and that the Nativity story changes from book to book between Matthew and Luke.
Did you know that the Jesus went to different places? After the sermon on
the mountain, I was throwing all the data points, and you should have
seen her face. She just glazed over and finally interrupted me, no,
no, no, I ask you why you are no longer a Christian?
Right? She wasn't hearing the data points. In fact, she doubled down
and bristled, and it's like her skin got thicker to resist the facts that
I was presenting. She was operating from a different frequency. And I wish
I had used a different tactic with her. I wish I had used more
of an introductory methods. I went back to the Bible, and I began
to look at it more objectively, and I had some real concerns, and
so I've been on this journey, and you know, I've come to the
point now where I'm I'm just not convinced, and I'm still a good person
and I'm a pursuer of truth. You know, I'm still the same guy
you've always known. But for my part, I don't find this convincing.
It's not right for me anyway, and I certainly respect the freedom of someone
else to be religious, but I also you know, I'm not an opponent
of religion. I'm simply an opponent to have religious privilege, people telling other
people what to think, how to behave, what to do, who to
be. I'm an opponent of that. But if you believe in God,
you know, I wish you a truthful journey and an honest journey, and
whatever's true, let's do that. I mean, I would have said something
along those lines because I think it would have done a better job of keeping
them off the defensive. Wasn't condescending, And I don't know. That's just
my perspective, and I may be totally totally wrong. Terry at two four
eights, are you there? I am here, Seth. Thanks for taking
my call. Lo you are with us always, Terry, what's on your
mind, Lo, I am with you. Well, you know, a
week or so ago, I was watching some clips on the internet and I
saw this guy named Sean McDowell. I don't know if you know of him.
He's an apologist from Biola Universe, and he he was at a Christian
university pretending to be an atheist and taking questions from the crowd. He didn't
speak very long before he started digging questions and was actually had some good responses
to the student's questions, and then admitted that he was not an atheist but
was an apologist to a professor at Biola University. And if you've ever heard
of him, and if you've ever seen his clips or wanted to debate him
or anything like that, I've heard of Josh McDowell. I'm suspicious this may
be Josh's son. A lot of these things are dynasties. It's almost like
Jerry Folwell Junior and Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham. That would
be my suspicion. More interestingly, i've heard you go out and you talk
to either Christians or atheists under if not false pretenses. Is it's more of
a lab experiment trying to expose how the atheists think and to somehow prove the
facts of Christianity. I'm not too impressed by that kind of stuff. When
you saw him playing the atheist that he sounded like the rest of us.
He had a lot of the same points to make. But one of his
that I thought was a little strange was when he was talking about whether the
universe always existed or whether it had a beginning, and he went down the
path of a multiverse and use that to justify that is why he thought that
the universe always existed. It just seemed like a very odd tact to try
to take, and that's why I started to question it at first. And
then when he said he was an apologist, then it kind of all came
together for me. But he was making some good points at a student's questions.
It's funny, I'm not a cosmologist. Does a multiverse require that the
universe had no beginning? I don't. I think that is maybe a non
sequitor. I don't know. That doesn't really ring for me. I do
hear the how did it all start? Or One of my favorites is when
I'm talking about how the Genesis origin story for all of you know, the
universe is totally unproven. In fact, it's been debunked. And they say,
well, something started all of this, And I just look at him
in the iron and say, ombous you and I agree, right, something
happened. I mean, I think that's pretty basic, don't you. Yeah,
I think I think so too, you know, And maybe a few
of them should read Lawrence Cross's book Something from Nothing. I'm interested in the
singularity, in measuring the universe as it expands, and then it's supposed to
one day start contracting. And I read earlier that the Milky Way is going
to collide with another galaxy in a certain measure of time, not in our
lifetimes, not even in the immediate future, like millions of years. But
they're saying that our galaxy is going to smash into another galaxy, and won't
that be fun? All this is really really interesting. But beyond that,
when someone says I'm a believer, but I'm either acting like an atheist or
I'm representing the atheist or whatever, almost always they totally get it wrong.
A great example is when they talk about the origins of the universe. Atheism
doesn't make a claim about how the universe began. Atheism is simply a lack
of belief in God. I am not convinced. I do not believe in
a God. It doesn't say anything necessarily about anything else. And so the
fact that he's walking in with questions about the origins of all things that,
to me is not something that an atheist would necessarily lead with. Yes,
as soon as he made the announcement that he was an apologist, I knew
he was going to start going into his explanations of his playing an atheist response,
and I just kind of hit stop. It just sounds like it sounds
like he went to straw Man City, right. He just sets things up,
and he misrepresents what's being unconvinced in God claims is, knocks him over,
pats himself on the back, and then goes and makes a YouTube video
about it. And this is a common apologist tactic out there. But you
know, beyond all of that, the questions and answers, why would God
entrust this guy Sean McDowell, Why wouldn't God come down and talk to the
college students one on one? I don't get that exactly. That would have
been a hell of a speech if that way, I'd be there for the
tickets for that. Right, I'm an atheist. And if if Jesus olah
thor Wotan whoever he wants to come down and be a god and I want
to have that conversation, I'll buy. Right, I'll take you to cough.
Let's do that. And that's one thing that many believers don't allow that
atheists really do want is truth. And if there is a God, I
would want to know that. And then the next questions are are you a
good God, a bad God, a worthy God, a God worth following?
You know, There's a whole other series of questions that come after that.
But that's another example of the apologists doing apologetics things. Terry, thanks
so much for Colin. Be safe out there, Okay, thanks, take
care, soul. All right, we'll see you later. I wrote a
chapter in my latest book, Christianity made Me talk like an idiot that gets
into many of the apologists, just the pathetic ways that they represents the rest
of us or try to defend the indefensible. And the apologist can't agree with
each other on the basic stuff. You see, you know what I'm saying,
And the whole concept is God looks down and says, hey, Sean
McDowell, go defend me on you too. What is that if not arrogance?
That's all I got today. I hope you have a wonderful week.
I'm gonna go and start kind of nibble away and tweak the speech for American
Atheist Convention in Phoenix. Scrap some coffee, pet the dogs, and I
will see you back here next time. Take care. Follow The Thinking Atheist
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