Timothy, Chapter two, Verse eleven. Let a woman learn quietly with all
submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over
a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was for
him first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived. But the woman
was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she shall be saved through child bearing
if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self control. Gross,
real, real, gross. Hey, if you think that this is the
good book, you should give us a call, because the show is starting
right now. Welcome to Talk Ethan. Today is May twenty eighth, in
the year of our Lord, two thousand and twenty three. I'm your host
foris Valkai, and I'm joined today for the very first time by Sophia.
How are you doing today, Hi, I'm doing all right. I'm nervous
and excited to be here. It's an exciting show. It's it's a great
time for everybody. Hey, really quick, I gotta let you guys know
that Talk Then is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin, which is
a five O one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism,
critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of church and government. Talk
Ethan is a live call in show, and we have open lines. You
can get your calls in using the number at the bottom of the screen right
now, or from your computer at tiny dot cc slash call call THH.
And with that, we already have callers on the line. But like I
would love to give Sophia a chance. Yes, you'll introduce yourself briefly,
tell us a little bit about who you are. Is that okay? Yeah,
I am Sophia Spina and I am somewhat of a baby atheist in some
ways. I'm newer to this whole thing, but I'm really excited to be
here. I love learning, I love logic, and I am sort of
a fangirl for as Valakai. Don't tell him, but yeah, so it's
it's nerve wracking and exciting and I'm so excited to hear what people have to
say. Yeah, it's gonna be a great show. And I also want
to thank very quickly. We are live in studio today and I'm super stoked
about that. I rarely get to be all the way down here in Austin,
but because I'm here. I want to take a time to shout out,
like the real cool people here and that's the audience, which are right
out there. Look at them, aren't They're wonderful. I like that one
the most. That one over there is my favorite, you know the one.
If you're ever in the Austin area and you want to come see us.
We are live in studio I believe, the last Sunday of every month,
So come see us here. It's it's a pretty cool place to be.
It's it's a small little area, so parking is just kind of wherever
you can find a legal spot hopefully. But the Free Thought Library is an
awesome resource for anybody in the Austin area who wants to learn a little bit
more about atheism, freethinking, whatever, or wants to watch one of our
ridiculous shows. So come on down and have some fun with us. And
with that, if it's a cool with you, I'm gonna jump right into
cales. Yeah, yeah, we do the Question of the Week real quick
first. Oh yeah, we do have a job to do as well.
I was just moving right on in. This is where they don't have me
down. I don't forget Question of the Week Okay, yeah, do you
want to go through it really quick? Because I oh, man, yeah,
you do that. Okay, Okay, I'm bad at all. Right,
So before we get started, we want to give you the results of
last week's talk Heathen to Me, which is just the sexiest name I can
think of. Last week we asked you, if God favors humans, why
are they so blank? And so here are the top three responses. Number
three is from Mark Allen, and it says, if God favors humans,
why are they so illogical most of the time? Of course, maybe God
does exist and just realizes that if we had better logic and critical thinking skills,
none of us would believe. So that's pretty great. Number two is
from Mike B Talk Heathen to Me. If God is on humanity's side,
why did he make humans so hard to convince of being wrong? That?
I mean, I'm never wrong, so I don't really relate to this question,
but you know fair enough. Number one is from x million. If
God favors humans, why are they so mostly damned to hell? That's such
a good one. Well, I always like to ask, is like people
like they say that you know, God knows everything already, God that it's
predetermined. So then certain humans were made to go to hell. That's their
job, because he already knows what's going to happen. He knows everything right,
so he knows they're not going to be convinced. He knows they're going
to go to hell. But he made them anyway. It was once explained
to me by a Calvinist classmate of mine that, well, you could just
spend your time being really grateful that God didn't condemn you to hell. Oh
yeah, no, that's yeah. He answers all the questions. Screw those
people. He's always the way to live, always all right, How do
you want to read the prompt? Sure? Yeah. The prop for next
week is what did the caller say to make secularity look like this? And
to your God, I didn't realize there'd be a thing. I thought we
were just going to make fun of him for how he is all the time.
I made a special face, a special face for us And to your
answer below the video and the comments next week, or view our favorite top
three answers. But let me ask you this, what do you think that
the caller said to make secularity look like that? You don't get it.
Secularity, They were baby dinosaurs on the arc, so it works. Yeah,
no, that would make me the same face. That's great. Uh
So now now we do the ship. I'm a professional, and I forgot
about the whole Introshey. Hey, it's making me feel better that it's my
first time. I'm like, all right, I'm bad every time. So
like, if you're good on the first time, you're already blown me out
of the water. Um okay, So now we will do the things that
I've I've I'm here to do, and that is starting with Charles and from
Pennsylvania and you know pronouns. I asked God to change my life and he
did. Charles, you're on Talk Heathen. How are you today? Oh?
I'm doing real good. I hope you are too. I've never had
a bad day in my life. Yeah. Let me let me first saying
that. Um, I've made a few atheists, and I think are really
smart people, really cordial, nice people. You know, some aren't big
for the most part atheists. They seem pretty smart and just easy to get
along with. And I don't think any of you are going to be thrown
into him or anything like it. I think, you know, God wants
different people in this world. So he was not bored because if everybody was
the same, he would I mean, everybody was pretty much the same,
it would be kind of boring. I guess, well, I appreciate that
I can say the same thing, for I've met a lot of Christians that
are are very cool people. I used to work for a Catholic who had
a PhD into tim molecular physics, and he was a charming dude. So
it's very very kind of you to start to call that Witch's what did you
want to talk about today? Well, to be blunt, um, I
random and found a photograph of my grandfather on eBay about six years ago when
I was sitting around board looking at So I'm gonna look at old cars on
eBay to pass the time. I'm sixty four years old and my grandfather was
a police officer in Manessa in Pennsylvania back in the nineteen twenties and thirties.
Anyway, Grandpap died when I was a four month old baby, and I
could get to later how I knew the picture to recognize it. But I
was sitting in a water trucket of gas well in West Virginia about six years
ago and we're sitting in line board. I saw me here a while.
I'm gonna look at old cars on eBay to pass the time. And I
like old sixty four fair Lane sports coups, so I looked at that on
eBay sometimes, and I put that on eBay fair Lane and the very first
one on the list was in nineteen fifty eight. I really don't like him.
Out my spider's board, I clicked it on, reading about nice old
car. I still wonder what else said guy's got for sell. I hit
the seller's other item list and m he had twenty six items there, and
one said four old police pictures for ten dollars. And I like him old
police pictures because of my grandfather. I think about him a lot, and
I just I'm like into them inor I guess that, um. So I
clicked that on four old police pictures for ten dollars on eBay, and one
of the pictures was my grandfather in nineteen thirty four. And I called the
guy up in Kentucky, Green Up, Kentucky. His name is Steve,
and I asked, how did you get a picture of my grandfather down there
like that? He said, he's a retired police officer down there. He
bought that about ten years ago on eBay and he's seventy four years old and
he's just reselling some things that he had laying around or what he said.
He actually had two original copies of my grandfather. It's a cool picture.
He's on a nineteen thirty four Hernie Davidson at the dealership in his uniform.
It's in a super cool picture. And he had, you know, he
sold me the other one. I made him some money. And the reason
I knew of that picture was about twelve years ago. I would go visit
my mother and dad's grave and belvern On, Pa. And I was still
am bad about my life. I was fifty two years old and my life
was really not good and I was having like some missues. And I've gone
there to feel better about my life, just contemplate things. And um,
so I see Grandpap's headstone there, and I thought, you know, I
never had no grandparents. My mom and dad were old or when they had
eight, so, um, I really needed my Grandpap. I just looked
at his headstone. I said, man, I wish I had Grandpap.
I started thinking about being a four month old baby in his arms when he
had done a pancreas cancer and he died and I never knew much about him.
You know, I caught my mind gets. I just want to ask,
like, I'm sorry, I don't want to cut you short, but
we've got a feel of the calls in a lot. I just want to
know, like, how does this relate back to God and changing your life?
Like where where's this go? Well, my my heart drew really heavy
and I believed in God. I never wanted to charge it and I cried
out to God to change my life and he sure did. I'm a really
good person. I don't know his shues and no problems and um I um
so let's dig into that. Then. How how did God change your life
to make you a good person? Well, yeah, issues with drugs and
um just immorality, I guess a little bit. And it just kind of
affected my life where I was alone and I really just my family was dead,
and I just think it affected my heart like a little bit. And
it's like almost like God drew me in. So would it be fair to
say you you were struggling with some things that you knew weren't the way you
wanted to live. You weren't. They weren't living the direction you wanted to
live, and you weren't living a lot of life you wanted to live.
And so you found something that gave you social structure and a sense of community,
and that helped you the support to get your life on the track that
you wanted in the first place. Is that a fair summary of what you're
saying. Yes, yeah, i'd say so cool. I think I might
throw in there too. It sounds like you had a mindset shift. You
know, you had a time when you knew you wanted things to change,
and you found a way that enabled you to make that shift within yourself.
And I definitely I don't think most atheists want to take anything away from anybody.
If that's something that you experience and find valuable, I'm curious, do
you are you calling in because you think that's sort of a more generalizable thing
that if people find God, this happens, or is it just to share
that that's what happened for you. Well, personally, I started reading about
religious stuff and I kind of believe that I was chosen him, I dare
to say, because I had a lot of really miraculous things happen you don't
have time to hear it. But I mean these are really bonafied. I
can what's the best one? People like, what's the most convincing miracle?
Because you're right, we don't have time for all of them, but like,
as an example, what's like the coolest miracle that you experienced? Well,
I made a lady in Bible study, and I tell her my story
and she said, told me happened to her. Her dad's name was David
Attarney and he died when in twenty sixteen. She said, two sisters.
They cried for six months over that, and they said one day, let's
go to the mountains in Maryland, in Deep Prick, Maryland and spend the
day together. Put this behind us. So she did, and they met
a couple up there would like to go bowling. They did too, and
they went to the bowling Alley in Oakland, Maryland, and coming home,
she told her sister they had a good time here. The sister googled the
bowling alley and the bowling alley was located on David Attorney Street in Oakland,
Maryland. And the lady's name is Dailey. She lives in bell Vernam,
PA. That's her dad named David Attarney. He went up there and they
just led to the bowling alley located on David Attarney Street in Oakland, Maryland.
And she said, there can't be that many David Attorney. So I
said, lady, I've never heard that name before. And I said,
I know through my miracles that you were led up there. And she's a
super nice lady. She works at the college in the admissions department as a
really nice thirty seven year old Bible state teacher. And she had no idea
that that bowling. She liked the bowl, you know, right. So
that's the thing. Like, my dad's name was Heinz and I miss him
terribly. Died about a decade ago. I don't get like the feeling that
I'm experiencing a sign every time I pick up a bottle of hinds ketch Up.
You know, it's just that's that's a name. And I just googled,
just for fun, I just looked up David Turney on Google, and
I've got here one of these find a Person websites that has one hundred and
eighty nine matches, and so like, yeah, that that you're right,
that is a coincidence, like, Wow, there's there's a street with this
guy's name. That's pretty cool. Um, But humans have this really bad
habit of seeking patterns and finding meaning in things that are relatively kind of meaningless,
maybe interesting and coincidential, but still not really meaningful. There's a apophemia
and paradelia patternicity, these these phenomena that we experience where we see shapes and
clouds and the stars and and and you know, meaning from meaningless data or
like when sorry, oh you're fine, okay. But when I first learned
that Sam Louis Obispo was a place and not just a funny sequence of sounds,
I started hearing about it everywhere, to the point when I actually started
thinking, is there's something in San Louis Obispo I'm supposed to be doing here?
Right? I think that these things, you know, we notice them,
and I think it's totally okay to be like, I'm grieving. Hey,
this reminds me of my this is the same name. What an interesting
coincidence, And again, give that meaning if you want to. But I
look at it and I just think that doesn't really mean anything to me,
or to perhaps other unbelievers, like I'm glad that they were healing experiences.
I don't see them as evidence of miracles though, when they can pretty easily
happen in completely mundane ways too. Does that make sense Charles, what we're
saying. Yeah, I can respect your thoughts on it, but I mean,
this happened to me several times. I mean it's really far fetched coincidences
that were really and I know that I prayed. I don't have to be
called pray. I kneeled down to my bed and I talked to God about
things. And I've had so many things, just unique things happened. That
I met a lady that my sister saved your life from drowning forty years ago.
Not long after I prayed about my little sister. She died about twelve
years ago, and I prayed about her. I needn't She's okay. And
I've seen my buddy the next day at the Dollar General store and he told
me that he woke up at five am and he thought about my sister Tracy.
He said that he heard the voice that she remember once he saved that
girl in Ohio Pile State Park. He said that was forty years ago.
Man, I prayed about her last night, and you woke up and I
said, you think that was gone? He said, he really did so.
And I went up in State Park and prayed a little bit, and
a month later I met that same lady that she randomly met her. Yeah,
she saved her life in the terrace. Um, so, Charles,
let me ask you just two brief questions. And because we got to move
onto the US call, but like, I just want to ask you two
things. Number one, how many times have you prayed and then not gotten
a miraculous result like this? Uh? Usually I just pray about money.
I don't get that m r to be able to have much stories now and
like publicly, you know that doesn't happen. I don't think God has it
in his time. So so you pray for some things and they don't happen,
and you pray for other things that are more related to like, you
know, community, because you live around people, right, You have families,
you have friends, you have extended friends. You you know, there's
millions of people that are connected to you. When we're another that kind of
thing, we get answers to prayer. But when it comes to like winning
the lottery or like you know, getting your name out there or whatever like
that, these very rare things. Prayers don't work very well on that.
Do you think maybe there's a bit of confirmation bias here where you're seeing things
that are maybe a little bit coincidential, but coincidence has happened all the time,
and you're looking for meaning and that meanwhile, all the things that you're
not getting from prayer, you're not attributing that to saying okay, so prayer
doesn't work in this way. It's just saying, okay, well God didn't
want to do it, but he did do these other things that having an
explanation, Like is thatnot kind of sit weird with you? Yeah, like
say things that he needs to really don't need anyway, money or whatever,
but from my heart, And that really grabs my heart. When I talked
to God, I said, this is like urging a little bit. I
trying to talk to him like, yeah, a little bit. And the
next day or two something really crazy happened. You know. I told that
picture of my grandfather to Staples about two years ago. I asked that,
lady, can you blow this something? Make me a couple of coffees.
Her name Samantha. The front of the manager. She said, yes,
she looked at it. She said, that's weird. I said, what
is that? She said, she wants to visit her sister out in Ohio
last Christmas, and her sister's boyfriend had that same picture hanging on their wall
in their bathroom, and they don't know who that is. I lets my
grandpa. I wasn't even surprise that, because I see, I have so
many crazy things happened that, you know, the photo manager or Samantha the
staple. She looked at that picture of my grandpa. She said, wants
to visit her sister on the Hio last Christmas, and her sister's boyfriend had
that same exact picture hanging on the wall in her bathroom. I mean,
that's the twinsidence. I guess I don't know. Sorry, sorry to interrupt
you again. And it is really interesting as a story. It reminds me
my grandfather lived in eastern Oregon for fifty years, and he's everywhere, and
my great grandparents are everywhere, and it's really cool to be able to go
and find pictures of them or something named after them. I don't think it's
necessarily evidence of God, which might offend my grandfather. He was a preacher.
But it makes me feel good and I love those stories. I don't
think it's really that shocking though, in an area with not that many people
necessarily or with the same families who've lived around for quite a while, that
we would see pictures of them. I also love old pictures. It's wonderful
stories to share. I still out. Maybe you're probably about done with me
here. But if you look on my tik TikTok channel, it's called Truis
Dog four Truith Dog four, and I made a video and it had a
picture my grandfather in it and a model that I found in the good Will
store the very next day after I framed that picture. There was a model
of the nineteen thirty four her Are you Day Listened? With a side car,
same thing, grandpapad But it was in the goodwill store the very next
day. And I actually went into good Will the day I got the frame.
Nothing was in her and I had the next day awful, I'm back
in the good world. There is a model of the nineteen thirty four Harley.
Yeah, with a side card, but look at my Trace Dog four.
I'm not gonna do that, but hey, Charles, I really really
quickly. The last thing that I want to ask you, and this is
where it really getting to the meat of it, because like we could sit
here all day and talk about like, well, this weird thing happened to
me and that was God, and then I'll tell you some weird shit that
happened to me and I don't believe it was God. You know what I
mean, We can be do that for a while. I guess the biggest
thing that that stuck out to me you said, and then we'll be done
after this is that you said that you know the reason why prayer doesn't work
for money, and the reason why prayer doesn't work for fame, but it
does work when this thing with your families, because these are things that are
really weighing on your heart and that it really matters to you, and you
ask God about those types of things. And like, I guess my question
is, why then isn't prayers very like one hundred percent reliable when like say,
for example, someone has a child with cancer that's dying in the hospital
and they pray about it. Why isn't God answering all of those prayers,
because surely those way on people's hearts and they're selfless prayers. They don't involve
money or fame, Like, why aren't those prayers working? But your prayer
to like see somebody who had a memory of your sister from a while ago.
That that's what God's interested in. Why why is that the case?
Yeah, I've been told to have a prophetic gift, and I did pray
about little children would having camps are laying there in the hawkspital bed dying,
and I've prayed about that, and God give me the thought that he took
their soul to heaven already that lay that little baby laying their dying child actually
has an angel in their body and they know how to mimic that little kid.
Mommy, mommy, I love you and all that. So it's just
giving that that parents a tremendous amount of grief and trauma. That's yeah,
the baby isn't hurting. It's just the parents that need to experience a tremendous
amount of grief and pain and suffering. That's that's the goal. They experience
a great amount of joy whenever they reach heaven and they see their little baby
there. I don't know that God, So if I, if I you
know, beat the crap out of somebody. Now, it's okay because they're
gonna feel happy later when they're not being beaten anymore. That's yeah. I
would also point out that there are quite a few people who lose their faith
in God because they go through something like that with a child. So the
idea that you have an imitation angel, it actually sounds like an Irish fairy
like this asserting him sounds very mythical. Torturing these parents by making them watch
their child go through something horrifying that they can't understand, and then that parent
loses their faith and they never see that baby in heaven. So all that
was accomplished is torment. That's horrifying. Maybe they were casted. I really
don't know why he does things. I know he's real, absolutely not,
because there's things have happened, many things in my life that are just That's
the thing, Charles, is that, like I, you know, I
don't know why Ted Bundy did the things that he did either. But I'm
not going to say that there might have been some positive outcome to it and
that maybe he was a good guy. You know. It's just I think
we're doing a lot of a lot of the legwork for this god by trying
to say, Okay, well, when he does good things, that's because
he's good, and when he does horrible things, that's because he's mysterious.
Like I. I'm sorry, it just it doesn't work that way for anybody
else. Anyway, We're going to move on to the next call. But
I really appreciate you calling it and b and so politeness a cordial with us.
I encourage you to call back in another time if you want to have
another conversation with us. Okay, I may do that. Thank you very
much. Thank you, Charles, take care, have a good day.
A genuinely nice guy. I know it seems like such as sweetie. So
before we move on to the next call, we have merch, y'all,
and this month is special. We're bringing back the top three designs as rated
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bit. There are in fact super chats. They here we go. We've
got ten dollars already from Greg Murkowski for ten dollars here. Thanks for the
show for us is fantastic, Thank you very much, and welcome Sophia.
Yeay for us. I heard that crabs have all done Earth more than once.
If that's true, does that mean that they're the best life form?
Is god crab? Yes? Yeah, just so this is actually this a
process. It's a thing called carconization where we see crabs evolving over and over,
and oftentimes this gets blown up in like pop culture, people like say
the crab is like the ultimate final form of all evolution. What they're missing
out on that is that crabs evolve repeatedly. In marine crustaceans specifically, there's
no swidz becoming crabs, right, there's no humans becoming crabs, but like
crabs or like the crab body type does evolve over and over and over and
over, and also there are some things that have evolved away from that body
type. It's all just you know, fitting in the best niche and crabs
are real, real, real good and fitting into obscure niches. And then
we've got George or sending in five dollars with no message from George, but
thank you anyway for the five dollars. I'm we're going to use all of
those five dollars to support this show, and I appreciate you sending that in.
With that, the lines are filling up like crazy. I really want
to take this guy here. We've got Dre from right here in Texas says
that atheists told him that God is just a guess than a scientific theory.
I believe we can help clear up that confusion. Dre. You're on talk
he than. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. How you
guys doing, I'm awesome? Man. Thank you, so expand a little
bit on what you're saying, Like what exactly is like the point of contention
here? Um so, so when I was having a discussion with the atheists,
I believe it was in the comment section of one of the shorts on
this channel, Okay yeah, um, so so basically I was I really
wonder and we understand that there's there's concepts that theory is. Basically, theory
is the agreement that there's not going to be a concrete not going to be
a concrete resolution to some things. Right, No, not really no,
no, what is what is theory? So? So, in in common
language, like when you and I are just speaking like people, um,
theory does mean like a gas or something that we're not able to test,
like I have a theory about where my sock wind in the dryer. I
have a theory about why my car won't start, you know whatever like that.
But in science, a theory is actually the highest level to which an
idea can be elevated. So a theory is a functional explanation for observed of
natural phenomena that's backed by all the best evidence that we have. It's something
that's been tested and checked and critiqued and rigorously like like gone over a million
different times. It's got to be predictive. We can use this theory to
make predictions on what's going to happen in the in the world and in nature.
It's also got to have you know, repeated experimentation from several different fields,
of different lines of evidence, all pointing to it. So a great
example of a theory is gravity. Gravity is a theory. Um, your
body being made of cells, that's a theory. Germs making you sick,
that's a theory. The shape of the planet is a theory. Um,
you know we relativity is a theory. We can go on and on and
on with these things. Um, my favorite theory is evolutions. What I
study for a limit And so this doesn't mean a guess. It means actually
something that is like the best explanation we have, backed by all the best
evidence we have. If you think that, you know, the crust of
the Earth is broken up into tectonic plates that move around and change the shape
of the surface of the Earth, that's called plate tectonic theory. That's my
favorite, and that's backed by a lot of it. And it's not just
a guess. And so like when you say, you know, we're using
the word theory to means something that's kind of unresolved or something we're not really
sure about. No. In common language, sure, but in science,
when we're talking about things that are real, no, that you can pretty
much usually replace the word theory with something that's true, and also just because
inevitably we will get comments about this. Theories and laws are completely different things.
Laws the theories don't become laws. Laws explain what's happening. Theories tell
you why it's happened. So like, for example, the law of gravity
is fs of G equals negative G times m one m two divided by our
square. That's the force of gravity is equal to a set gravitational constant,
which is derived by Newton a long time ago, multiplied by the mass of
the two objects being experienced gravitational attraction multiplied together divided by the distant between those
two objects squared. I can plug any numbers into that and come up with
an answer. I can figure out the gravity between the Earth and the Moon,
the gravity between the Milky Way and Andromeda, the gravity between Sofia and
I. At this moment, I can calculate the gravitational force between any two
objects by just plugging in numbers. The theory of gravity into general relativity,
the bending of space time to pull massive objects, or so like. These
are different things and and and they all matter and so anyway, I say
that not to be pedantic, but just because I know for sure we're gonna
have people in the comments like, no, if a theory was true,
it becomes a law. That's not how that works. So yeah, that's
that's the long and short of it. Man. That's why I'm sure this
person told you that God is not a scientific theory because for God to be
a theory, Um, we'd have to have evidence, and we don't have
that. Okay. So um, So basically that was un extraordinary exclamation.
I think that's a gooddition for me. Really, I appreciate that. Sorry
to just dump on you like this, it's something we encounter question. No,
no, Wow, that was a very extraordinary exclamation. So um,
I'm from the from the side of somebody that is a the is like,
what would you consider theology the study of God? What would you consider that
from um an intellectual standpoint of this, because I wouldn't. I want,
I wouldn't consider anything that's any thing to study intellectually a guest. So there's
so many ules that there are schools that study theology, Yes, very deeply,
wouldn't. Yeah, I wouldn't consider it a guest though. That's a
little bit that sounds a little bit condescending. Yeah you go first, Yeah,
totally can I um. When I was studying theology, I went to
a Christian university. I loved theology. I love doing biblical exe Jesus,
any of that. Like historical contextual criticism, theology is not necessarily I would
say, the study of God. It's a study of how we speak about
God about religious texts. I remember writing like this eight page paper offhand about
three verses in Isaiah ones. That's your studying theology or getting into the nitty
gritty of who actually wrote this, what did it mean at the time,
what did people take it to mean, and how has that evolved over time.
It's not a guess because we're not actually talking about God. Most of
the time, you are talking about what you do have evidence for, which
is how the cultures around you know, the culture of the authorship, things
like that. So it would be kind of ending to say theologians are just
guessing out in the wild. Some probably do, let's be real, but
there are some that are, you know, incredibly rigorous in their research and
are really thoughtful and don't make claims that are wild and don't have any backing.
But most of the time, uh, it's not really about God,
you know, it's about history. Yeah. I was going to say some
very simil I'm glad you brought that U, because I have some friends who
are a theologists, who are earth I suppo as you say, theologic,
because yeah, yeah, but I have some friends who study theology, um,
And like, that's that's exactly right. They're they're studying the history of
belief, the history of the language surrounding belief, the the history of the
interpretations and translations of religious texts. It's they're they're basically anthropologists in this way.
They're studying the history of this culture and this phenomenon that we call religion.
Um. So, like I can totally understand how you would say that,
you know, calling God a guest or whatever like that would be you
know a little what condescending, and it kind of is. You're right,
um, But like I would argue that, like, theology can be theory
based, and theology can have facts behind it, and theology can be a
scientific endeavor. But when we're talking about the actual belief in God, we're
not talking about theology. We're talking about something very different. We're talking about
personal belief. We're talking about religion, and so religion and theology are are
are very much not the same thing, you know what I mean, Yes,
absolutely absolutely, And that's that was a very that was very sufficient answer
for me as well. So and then I just rode down by what I'm
saying, was saying that, Um, I understand, like I watched this
program a lot because I know when I'm listening to I'm listening to actual objective,
intellectual people speak to me as a theist, I understand that my theism
is faith based. It's not necessary scientific based, it's not necessary, and
it's faith based. It's a faith is the belief in things unseen. I
really can't have evidence for my faith besides me just believing this thing very deep
me. Yeah, it would go against what the Bible tells you to do
if you had evidence for it, because the Bible says you're supposed to believe
like a child and not not seek out evidence. So like, yeah,
I get that, yeah yeah, so so so basically, you know,
I feel like sometimes when not not not speaking on you guys, not to
speak on anyone necessarily on the channel, but I feel like someone sometimes when
I speak to atheists, it's like they come from automatic like, since I
have, since I do not believe in God, I am therefore better than
you. I totally get that end believes you're just so I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I just for a long time I didn't say I was an atheist
because I just didn't want to be like those dicks I was. I was
very religious in my past, and I remember sitting at a dinner table after
a sleepover with my friends atheist parents, and they were just grilling me over
what they you know, all of the things that they had issues with religion
about, some of which were valid, some of which I even look at
now and I'm like, that was actually just kind of a bizarre argumentum,
but it sucks so bad, and I honestly I fully get it. I
think there's also an era of atheism the Bill Maher, where people like that
we're really at the four where being snarky and horrible was kind of how you
you got some I don't know, atheist straight crad. I guess. So
I would say I think that's changing a little bit. I think that it's
becoming more normal to be nice as an atheist. But I would say,
like I both affirm and and validate that, and I want more atheists to
hear like, yeah, I mean it doesn't make you better. It means
that you, you know, thought about something and decided what you believe based
upon it. But you're not like a superior human because of that, just
like someone who's a believer is not a superior human because of what they believe
either, Right, Yeah, that's the one thing is like, you know,
atheism is one single position on one single question, do you believe there's
a God? And we say no? And in that you have a tremendous
diversity of people. You have, you know, a Republicans and democrat,
you have capitalists and communists, you have all sorts of different people from all
sorts of backgrounds also believe. The one thing you can say about us is
that as atheists, we don't believe there's a God. And so like,
yeah, you're absolutely right. There's there's gonna be a lot of dicks out
there that are gonna be jerks about it. I've interact with some of them
before. They're a lot of times when someone is like a freshly minted atheist,
when they're just starting to deconstruct their religion, they're pissed because they feel
like they've been lied to their whole lives and they want to go out there
and rattle the walls and shake everybody by their shoulders and be like this is
all bullshit and like it. You get people who are pretty insufferable. Sometimes.
There's there's a joke that I heard from some religious friends a long time
ago that you know, how do you how can you tell that somebody's an
atheist? Just wait, they'll tell you and like this kind of thing that
like it's sonabout of a troope. So yeah, you're you're gonna experience that.
Man, I'm sorry, it sucks. It's the same thing I can
tell you about horrible experiences I've had with religious people who think they're better than
me. Because we had a guy I think it was the last time I
was on a XP who started the conversation by saying, I just want to
let you guys know, if you don't believe in God, your life is
meaningless. And that's how we started the conversation. So like, that's just
man, that's just how people are. Um. But I appreciate you taking
the time to talk to us and to listen to us, and like like
call in and ask these are great questions you're asking right now, UM,
like that really matters. And as condescending as I know this will sound to
you, UM, I really hope that this helps along the line, maybe
to the maybe you'll question some of the things you believe in and ask,
like I know you just said, I know that my positions are faith based.
Maybe ask yourself, would you use that same kind of thinking for anything
else ever? And if not, why? And and maybe that'll be a
maybe you'll call in some day with some some questions about like, Okay,
maybe maybe I wasn't believing the right things. Maybe we would pick apart a
little bit, have some fun and just like chipping away at your faith a
little time, a little bit. I'm willing. I'm willing to do that,
glad to do that. Well, Thank you, Dre. I really
appreciate you calling in. You've been awesome. We're gonna move on the next
call, but please call back in anytime you want to ask about anything.
Absolutely, thank you for your time. Hey, take care, Dre,
have an awesome day after it's been so nice. I'm crazy. Just come
at me, guys, come on anything right now, because we got a
bunch of the car. But yeah, no, this is a phenomenal day
now, I'm a great cars there, wonderful. I like talk Ethan talking
in this a usual lot more chill. Um. Hey, you can support
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go there at tiny dot cc slash fb t h G. There's it's oh
my god, so many letters h. And also, in case you didn't
know, talk Ethan has a TikTok channel. I didn't even know that,
and we'll be going live there before the show is on Sunday, so go
subscribe. Um, you should say follow on TikTok um and join the pre
show on the Talk Ethan TikTok if you'll follow us over there as well and
get even more talky than content because I know that you're all at home,
just kitchen. Every time this show isn't on, you just need more content,
follow us on TikTok as well. We've got a ton of callers here.
Do you have any in particular that you were looking at? Because I
found a couple that I liked, I think just just give me whatever.
I'm pretty easy. I'm gonna go for Tommy. Tommy's an Oregon No pronouns
given. He wants to talk about the historical context of the infalliability of the
Bible. Tommy, You're on talk Ethan. How are you doing today?
Good? How are you guys doing pretty well? I'm excited to talk to
an Oregonian. Um. Yeah, So I just, um, quick quick
background. I'm I'm currently in school. I'm studying a psychology and religious studies.
Um. And in my free time, I'm I like to just study
theology and specifically Christianity. UM. So I saw the prompt in the common
for the insallibility of the Bible. Um okay, So, UM, I
guess where I want to start is I think that um, that kind of
that conversation. UM. I think a lot of people forget the you know,
I mean really the two thousand years, but especially the last thousand years
of history that has molded um American Christianity into what it is right. Um,
So, up until the Protestant Reformation, the authority in the faith was
not the Bible. It was the papal authority because no one could read m
Yeah. They also burned people at the stake for owning a Bible in the
language that they could read for a while. Yeah, right, and not
many people could read in general. So after Luther did his you know,
big public um scene and we got the split um, there was kind of
now a whole um for Protestant in their faith because they were like, well,
we can't we don't have the authority of the pope anymore or of the
church. So the Luther kind of bunkered down on this idea of well,
that's because the Scripture is the authority. We're not going to listen to man,
We're going to listen to God, and the best way we can do
that is through the Bible. And um throughout the next you know, up
till the twenty first century, and as we got all these new um branches
of Protestantism from Calvin with the Reformed theology and all the way to you know,
latter day's saints. Um. We got to this point where the Bible
became god. It basically like the Quran, UM, like it might as
well have fallen out of the sky. UM. And I think especially nowadays
with the twentieth century, UM, you know, good examples like the Scopes
Monkey trial, UM, where fundamentalists had to really start to um kind of
make a choice. And I think people started going to the extremes. And
I think that's why we now have this this issue of kind of this infallibility
part of American Christianity, which unfortunately I think. So to be clear,
you do not think that the Bible is infallible? No, okay, so
what is your Are you just sort of just giving a summary or do you
have a point of view on this? So UM. For me, with
my beliefs, I believe that, well maybe not believe, but I'm I
would consider myself a follower of Christ and I don't see the Bible as infallible.
But I think that it is a book packed full of information that is
one percent useful and if you can, if you can learn to kind of
diy sector and understand it properly, I think that it has a lot of
messages that are are very, very beneficial for humans, So what about the
messages that are definitely not very beneficial for humans? Because it has a lot
of those two. So like, how how should we then pick through this
and how should the layman, the average everyday person decide which parts they should
believe and follow and which parts have been corrupted through history and which parts shouldn't
have ever been there in the first place, And like, how how should
an average person deal with this book? Um? Yeah, so I think
that, UM, if if someone's looking to be a Christian and their ultimate
goal is to follow Jesus UM, starting with the Gospels, I'd probably say,
Mark is your you know, Mark or Luke, those are your going
to be your best bits and doing a bit of doing a bit of work
on trying to understand them, you know, anthropological historical context to those just
those accounts in the communities that they were being written to, UM, and
then kind of you can work through the New Testament. But in terms of
the Old TESTAMENTUM, I would say, find a find a good scholar um
that if you have those questions and if you want to explore that stuff,
you can kind of look at their work. I don't think it would be
fair to ask, um, every single person who wants to be a Christian
to you know, go through six years of academic study, right, But
like that, that's kind of what I'm getting at is, do you really
think it's reasonable for you know, average everyday people to put in this much
work to dissect the historical context and the translations and the this and the that
of this ancient you know, at this iron age age, you know,
sex manual or do you think that it's better that maybe we just kind of
do away with that and focus on things that, like the morality of our
culture today is not derived from the Bible. It's derived from logic and reason
and argumentation and the blending of cultures. So like, why not just encourage
people to be good people and participate in the society that they're in and adopt
universal principles of morality rather than saying, here's this book, and you should
explore this book because it'll make you a better person. Just don't read these
parts. And when you do read these parts, remember these certain things.
And when you get to this section, you needed to go find a Bible
scholar and he's going to tell you what to do with it, Like,
don't you think it's at easier just to you know, do away with this
outdated technology. Um. So I'm I think if if someone's not interested in
a spiritual component to their life and they're simply looking for a simple like moral
code to live by, there's yeah, there are some great philosophical viewpoints even
if they even wanted to go a step further than just like you know,
figuring out for themselves. There's some great philosophers, um, from history that
have come up with some great ways to live. Um. But I think
if you're talking about spirituality, which um, you know, having a spiritual
point into your life in any former fashion is very beneficial, um, then
I would I would debate that with you, but I'm not gonna go down
that rabbit trail. Please finish what you're saying. If Jesus is somebody that
you want to follow spiritually, then then I would say the Bible is still
very important. I mean, I guess I'm a little curious because you're mentioning,
Yeah, I guess if you want to follow Jesus, the Bible probably
matters. But it's sort of like saying, if you want to follow Jesus
then read about Jesus like, Okay, great, why is this better than
any other kind of spirituality? If you want one? You kind of threw
a passing reference into the Kuran. But I don't really see why studying the
Bible and being a Christian as somehow superior, at least from anything you've said.
You've basically said, the Bible's useful. A lot of things can be
useful. They're not necessarily good things. If I break my ankle, it
can be useful because then I start working out and all of my joint muscles
become better after that to rehab my ankle sack that I broke my ankle,
though, So I don't know that. I guess I have two questions,
one being why is the superior to any other kind of spirituality? And the
other being you're you've said this is useful? Why how is it uniquely useful?
Okay? So? Um, and you know I'll preface this with,
uh, you know, I'm I'm still learning, um, you know,
and and I so I through my studies. Um. There Uh, there's
a um. There's a French polymath. His name is Nay Gerard. Have
you heard of Have you guys heard of him. It sounds familiar, but
I couldn't tell you anything about it from here on this show. I don't
have anything in front of me. I do love you drop in the word
polymath though. That's a good way. That's very good. Yeah. Um
so he he uh. In the late twentieth century, UM he was working
on this this UM idea that he coined memetic theory, and out of it
he kind of built this theory of religion UM, which focused on UM violence
of humans in communities and specifically sacrificial violence UM and kind of how that built
religion and UM he he kind of he outlines this idea that when communities are
in conflict, UM, they the way that they resolve that conflict and unify
is UM is creating escape in the community, and killing them is a way
to appease that kind of appease the conflict. And so he went back and
he's seeing that this theory or this kind of outline is all across myth and
stories of across human history, and that he got to the Bible and specifically
the Passion narrative, and in all of the myths leading up to this,
it's always either there was two victims that he saw there was the kind of
just the sacrificial victim, one who's convinced that they deserve this, and so
they are they willingly go, um, you know, think of like kind
of I'm normal, one hundred percent sure this is fact? What all this
us? Example? Because I've heard it, um, like how people would
line up um to be sacrificed in uh um an ancient uh South American communities.
Um. And then the other type of victim was the retributed victim,
which we see in Judaism right where it's no, I don't deserve this,
and in fact, you guys are the ones that deserve um to be to
be sacrificed or to be killed um, and they demand justice and retribution.
And when we get to Jesus, he breaks that all down when he's on
the cross. And okay, so forgives his enemies. Is the premise here
then that Christianity is uniquely useful because the scapegoat was a perfect person. Is
that kind of the idea here that he was the first he was the forgiving
victim. Okay, but so that he breaks the cycle of violence, and
but he kind of sorry to interrupts, I just he can't really say that
Christianity broke a cycle of violence or broke a need for scapegoats and sacrificial victims.
It was only in believe it was the nineteen seventies with Vatkin too,
that the Catholic Church finally said we don't blame all Jewish people for the crucifixion
of Jesus. It kind of feels like, if we look at this historically,
which I think we should, that he doesn't break down the cycle of
violence, he just provides a different kind of justification. Yeah. I also
want to throw out there, like you mentioned that, like this is unique
because Jesus sacrificed himself, He's not unique in doing that. I just googled
list of gods that sacrificed themselves and the first one here is in Aztec mythology,
Nanahwatson sacrificed himself. He is the most humble of all gods who sacrificed
himself and fire so the earth would continue to have the sun, and then
he became the sun god in doing so. And then here's a Reddit thread
that mentions Prometheus, which is one of my favorite literary characters, and right
away he was Rometheus was crucified and tortured for all eternity because he gave people
hope and fire and things like this, and so like like it's not a
unique doctrine to say, you know, okay, this guy sacrifices himself versus
this person was sacrifice it. And now here's this person giving himself and he
becomes a god and doing so like all these are yes, themes of sacrifice
do surround religious tradition, sure, but like the Jesus story at face value
is not unique at all. And also it's not necessary anymore because we no
longer have that mindset that we used to have when we were hunter gatherers or
early civilization. We're like, well, I have to give all this stuff,
sacrifice this stuff in order to get the Sunda rise tomorrow. Now we
can like function in more civilized ways. So like, I just I don't
think that your narrative here about like the uniqueness or the specialness or whatever of
this passion model are either useful for society or give any credibility to the religion
at all. I guess also on that um, sorry, oh you can
go in just on the theme of self sacrifice. Moms throughout history have sacrificed
quite a bit, even to just reproduce the first time. All of these
examples are male, which is, you know, history is what it is.
But putting it out there, the idea of being self sacrificial. Um,
so just female existence in there of course, yeah, of course,
and and yeah, I'm not I'm not claiming that self sacrifice is what the
idea of self sacrifice was created with Jesus's death. Um. Obviously self sacrifice
has probably been going on since humans, uh, you know, since we
transitioned in the Homo sapience. But I don't even there's other species to do
it too, or yeah, other species even I'm sure, yes, Um.
And so I think what it's it's more specific than just self sacrifice.
UM. I think the context of um kind of leading up to Jesus's death,
who people or who the Depending on what costfully you read, I guess
it varies a bit. But um, kind of who people saw him as,
who he eluded or claimed to be, who and and and what he
was teaching m all of that taking place in Jewish community and the conflicts of
their beliefs. Um. It's it's much more about the fact that Jesus is
breaking down these walls of religious violence that permanent communities all throughout history and still
do. Like you said, yes, Christianity is no different. And that's
the ironic part, right, is that when the Way Right became institutionalized into
a religion, it the same thing that religion has done across the world forever.
And so Tommy, really quickly, we've been going for about sixteen minutes
now and we've got a few other callers. I want to move on,
but I do want to ask you very quickly before, which is without I
don't think this requires a history context, is just just asking you personally.
Over the course of this call, we've mentioned the fact that the Bible is
corrupted and fallible and has a whole bunch of bad stuff in it. We've
mentioned the fact that Christianity as a whole is corrupted and fallible and has a
whole bunch of bad stuff in it. We've mentioned that humans are humans,
and that we do good and bad things, and that no part of this
doctrine is unique. I've been trying to press over and over about like what
is the actual usefulness of this whole thing? And so that's kind of where
I'd like to land now at the very end of the call is just to
ask, like, the whole point of society moving forward is that we do
way with things that aren't useful anymore, things that are outdated, things that
are getting in the way of progress. Even if they have a little bit
of good to them, maybe we can save it a little bit of that
good. There's not a single thing that a religious person Christian, Muslim,
whatever, can do or can say that is good that an atheist also couldn't
do or say that's good. But I can give you a laundry list of
things that religious people have done and would do that are evil that an atheist
would never do for these reasons. So like at the end of the call,
I just want to know, like, again, why do we need
this? Why is this useful? If it isn't true, then shouldn't it
be done away with? And if you think it is true, if you
think that the story of Jesus is a real thing, still, why do
we need this particular doctrine, this particular structure, this particular way of life,
this particular religion. Why is this thing right here the actual only way
to do it? So I would say that the example that Jesus sets in
the Gospels and the teachings that he gives us of forgiving our enemies or loving
our enemies, and forgiveness and compassion and not having these imaginary borders between people,
that we're all brothers and sisters, and we're all children of the Father.
That idea is something I think is very profound, and I think it's
something that's missing from the world, especially right now. But isn't there a
way to teach those kinds of information, those kind of ideals without the baggage
of Christianity. Like Sophia and I are good people. I like to think
we work pretty hard to make the world a better place. I can speak
from myself. I dedicate my entire career to try and to make the world
a little bit less shitty than it was when I got here. Donate a
lot to charity, raise a lot of money, try to help people where
I can give a sandwich to a homeless guy. Like can't and I don't
believe in any of this, So can't we all adopt those ideals without the
additional baggage of Christianity. Isn't that possible or useful? I mean, flip,
dude, Santa Claus teaches all the same things that you just taught.
Be good, be kind, we're all brothers and sisters, of course it
is and and and you know, I think there are a lot of people
in this world that are a lot more Christian than a lot of Christians are.
Think that, yeah, if if if someone like I said, and
towards the beginning of the coal, um, if someone's not interested in a
spiritual component to their life, and and really they're not looking to kind of
tie this into maybe some bigger picture that um, well, yeah, only
be really subjective and in their own head, that I would still say,
sure, an atheist living by the principles of forgiveness and compassion and not making
enemies and self sacrifice is uh will be awesome. I feel like we're kind
of going around in circles here because we're like, why is it unique to
this? Why not drop all of the other things that come with what has
become this what we all agree as a corrupt religion and just just live this
way. And you're like, yeah, but then also spirituality, and really
you can get spirituality from somewhere else. And then we kind of keep going
into this. We're having the same conversations that are over and over. UM,
I would really encourage you. I used to be whoop hit and stuff.
I used to be very really Um. I ran a Bible study at
my school. I was like, I thought I was going to be a
missionary. All this stuff right, and for me it was really helpful in
these sorts of discussions to write my premise out first and test that. I
feel like you have a lot of sort of premises here. Things you can
say, Okay, the Bible is a uniquely good way to accomplish these goals.
Test that theory. That's something you can do, you know, like
Google or like I just called you Google, like for us, just did
you know with a Google? All right, yes, mister Google here.
Um, you know it's something that you can kind of do on your own.
And not to say that we wouldn't want to talk to you again,
because absolutely we would. I feel like you're on this really interesting intellectual journey.
I feel like you're really smart, um, and I do want to
know where this goes for you. But I also feel like some of this,
I think you can push your own thinking here, and I'm excited to
see where that would lead you. If you just start testing your own ideas
a little bit. Definitely. Okay, yeah, and I appreciate you guys
talking. Hey, thanks so much to thanks for calling. I've an awesome
rested day. Man. Take care. So before we go on, we
have the top five Patrons announcement, which yay patrons. Um, I might
say all of these things. All of your name's terribly wrong. You should
do it on purpose. Um, all right, why not? So?
Um we have let's see our number one, uh, top patron is See
this one's so easy to say, but I'm going to try to do it
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This one I might just say wrong on accident. I am a I
am a anime. You are what I am. I get it. I'm
so slow on puns. It's like my super weakness. Um. Yeah,
if I were a superhero, my weakness would be not getting puns. It
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what you thought was effective, what you think we could do better,
any comments, questions, concerns, feedback, you can email us at TV
at Atheist hyphen Community dot org and let us know. We're always interested in
what you guys think we were. We are a community organization and you are
part of the community. So right in to TV at Atheist hyphen Community dot
org and get involved. We've got like twenty five minutes left. I think
we can squeeze in like maybe two more callers that we try to do.
It's squeeze Forest. I'm all into it. We've got Alex pronouns he him
from Michigan, wants to talk about the start of the universe. Alex,
you're on talk Heathan, how are you doing today? Hey, I'm doing
great, awesome. So what so what I've got here on the call screen
is a little bit confusing to me, and I want to make sure I'm
understanding it right, So we please tell me a little bit about what you're
calling about. This is a thing I've been thinking about the past few weeks,
and it's always difficult to explain. But if everything is cause and effect.
If everything is affected by some other cause, there really is only one
cause, being whatever start of the universe. This is right. So the
question really is do we have free will? Where's everything just a reaction to
the thing that happened before it. This is an ongoing debate with all sorts
of people, and I'm definitely in the camp that we have a lot less
free will than we think we do. And that's simply because you can trace
any action. You know, whatever I do in any moment, you can
trace it back to what neurons we're firing at that moment to cause that.
Okay, well, what were my blood sugar levels like for the past hour
that would have kind of brought that? What kind of mood have I been
in for the past six hours that brought me up to that kind of decision?
What has my week been like I've been really stressed at work or something
like that. How has the last five years of my life gone? What
kind of mindset am I in right now? Was my emotional intellectual journey going
to be? Like? How was I raised as a child, what principles
were I taught? How were my parents raised? What culture did we come
from? Five thousand years ago that led to the kind of ideals that we
have today, all the way back to the evolution of Homo erectus, And
I like, what what stone tool was made that made me make this decision
to day? You know? So like in terms of that, I'm definitely
on the significantly reduced free will camp. I've yet to really sit down and
really hash out whether I'm a full on proponent of like zero free will whatsoever.
However, i will say that people that I respect intellectually and are way
smarter than I'll ever be, are on both sides of the aisle on this
issue, and I've heard them both speak about it so like it's it's a
good question. I don't have a great answer for you, but it's a
good question and people should think about it. I also have a bad answer.
I've been thinking about this actually a good amount recently. Have you read
Victor Frankel and Menser tre Meaning or familiar with him at all? No?
Not at all. So he was a Holocaust survivor who started he was a
psychologist, neurologist, philosopher, And I'm not just complaining those two things.
He's actually both. So he was talking about the idea of free will being
fundamentally not a very useful one because we feel like we have it, we
are affected by all of those things that fres just mentioned. But what he
points out was that in his experience surviving Nazi death camps, you can argue
against free will as Freud did, saying that if you were to starve people
and mass then they would all behave the same way. What Victor Frankel points
out is that that is not true. That everything that you are becomes more
exaggerated in those situations. And so maybe you're going to see honorable people behave
honorably in extreme situations than they were predestined to do that, or there was
a they didn't have the free will to choose. Maybe you'll see people be
horrible and evil. But ultimately, you don't know how any given person will
respond to stimulus, no matter how much information you have. So the way
that I look at the question of free will, and this is probably a
terribly unsatisfying answer, is that I feel like I have it, So that's
all I can that's all I can really work with, because ultimately I don't
think we can answer that question, and I find more value and philosophy here
for myself. Oh my gosh, I need to stop hitting on microphone than
I do in maybe you strict science and what's provable, because here nothing really
is. Yeah, I like that I'm kind of on the same vein where
like I know that the decisions that I make and the way that I navigate
my way through my life is completely determined by like the experiences that I have,
like the tools of my tool belt. What experiences have I had,
What philosophies and ideologies have I been exposed to? What things have I studied
in order to give me the arsenal that I need to attack the world around
me literally to deal with the problems that I'm exposed to every day. And
the more experiences that I have and the more that I learn, and the
more that I'm exposed to new ideas, and the more that I debate and
talk and think, the more tools I have in my tool belt. In
that way, and so like I can kind of reason my way into a
free will argument there where it's like, yeah, I'm making the choice to
learn the thing to allow me to make better choices. And that's still you
still have the deterministic side of that that I'm only able to make the choices
that I've been exposed to, but also I'm taking control of that. But
then a determinus would also come along and say, yeah, but like what
happened to you to learn that to then know to make that kind of decision
to now give you the so called choices that you're making. So like,
it's it's one of those things where like, um, you kind of get
stuck in a logic loop. Who bullied you in third grain? What do
they smell like? And are you responding to the smell in this situation that
you chose tapioca putting today exactly? You know, it's so specific. So
yeah, this is this is something, as I said at the beginning,
like there are way smarter people than I will ever be on both sides of
this issue. I disagree I'm the smartest person, but I still don't know
what it's. Yeah, so like, yeah, I appreciate you bringing it
up, but I don't think either one of us are going to be able
to give you a satisfactory answer at this moment. That's your answer right now?
Yeah, what are you feeling? I don't think any of us have
free will, But I also think that on a universal, on such a
vast scale, that things actually happen, giant rock smashing into each other,
and Son's exploding that our concept of even doing anything, it like, what
are the like we make choices that in millions of years will be irrelevant upon
her like like the most irrelevant you can get. So really it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter if we don't have free will, because you know,
none cares. Yeah, I mean, you're you're getting into my territory now
because I'm a big fan of cosmic nihilism and like, yeah, at the
end of the day, you know, if the entire Earth was destroyed this
moment, nothing changes on Andromeda, nobody cares, you know what I mean.
So like it's it's, yeah, I'm the same way in that van,
I just take a different like moral arm. On the end of that,
I encourage you to check out. There's a really cool neurobiologists to I
shout out all the times. He's one of my favorite authors. He's got
named Robert Sapolski. He's a neurobiologist at Stanford and he doesn't have any social
media presence, but he writes some great books and he's done a ton of
cool interviews. And I saw him on a podcast a little while ago with
another Standford neuroscientists, and he was talking about this exact thing, and he
said, when you really really really take this to its extreme, because he
believes we have no free Willy, he's on that camp, and he was
saying, you know, when you really really take this to his logical extreme
and you really think about it from a neuroscience perspective, you come to the
conclusion that really you can never fault anybody or praise anybody for anything. Humans
are completely blameless in everything forever. And like he's like, when I really
meditate and try to focus on it, I can have a few seconds where
I really just am completely at peace with everybody forever. And that's wild.
But like even he says, he can't know, you can't keep that up,
even though he's a proponent of this. So it's an interesting thing to
think about. Man, it's really really cool. Anyway, if you had
anything else you wanted to add, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise we're
gonna jump on the nice calls me en try to sweez somebody else in.
I think I think he's already he's done with us. Well, thank you
for calling in, Alex. It was a really thought provoking conversation. We
hope people out there play with this and and and have some fun with it.
Um, we've got to oh, hey, look at that the super
chats. Yeah, you know what I just poked for as the thing reminded
me to do super chats. And you know what's funny, Greg, Literally
the last two calls, I've had the super chats open and I'm like,
I gotta remember to do this, and then I get so distracted by hanging
up the call that I don't I am. He could have blamed me job.
I do this for a living and I have no idea what I'm doing.
M Yeah. We got all sorts of super chats, all sorts of
people writing in things that they want us to say, and I'm ignoring them.
We got James Call, who's been a Channel member for a year,
sending in ten dollars. Nice to meet is Sophia, thank you kind of
writing that's so sweet. If crabs are prevalent, um, if crabs are
so prevalent and eating shellfish as a sin, does the devil evolve crabs?
That's the only explanation that's the only explanation. One more reason to love him.
Um we got Joema nineteen seventy seven. A. A. I'm sure
there's some context there, but Joma numbers are sent in four dollars and ninety
nine cents to say, Happy Sunday. Keep on doing the good work of
influencing the world to be more educated and be better critical thinkers. Thank you
very much. We appreciate you sending that in. Mark Fern sent in five
and I've said that wrong. Sent in five dollars to say Forest Henry,
four years old wants to know why eyeballs are squishy. So the long and
short of it is that your eyeball is full of goo. It's full of
fluid. And that's because the very back of the inside of your eyeball has
what we call photosensitive cells. It's this tissue called your retina, and that's
how you're able to see things. These This tissue back here absorbs the light
and so if your eyeballs were hard, then the light wouldn't be able to
pass through there. Effectively, they need to be able to squish and move
around a little bit to make sure light gets through there. And you have
all sorts of really cool parts in the front of your eye, the colorful
part that you can see. Um, this is called your iris. And
you've got this like lensy thing in the front called a coronea, and you
have like a little magnifying last right behind that that's actually just called lens.
And you have these little muscles that squeeze and stretch that to move the light
around. But the light has to pass through the goo to get to the
part of your eye that can actually see stuff. So that's why your eyeballs
are squishy. It's just to make sure that you can see things effectively through
the gou. You always have to go through the gou. Hope, I'm
not the only person who just wants to poke my eyeballs. Now I want
to do it. There's a spy. It's exciting, yo. I got
lasic a little while. Look, I've heard that's like quite a freaking cool
dude, because they slice your cornea off a little bit, and then they
do some laser they reshape the structure of the front of your eye. They
basically carve your eyeball into a contact. Well, now we know Flores's idea
of a good time, Yo, I'm not even joking. If I could
do it again, I would. It was a ton of fun because they
flop your cornea off and the whole world's all grainy and it looks all crazy
as you did different. It's ah, it was so much fun bro learning
about the eyeball as it's being dissected. There's a lot of diversity in the
atheist community. Some people like having their eyebrows but gauged out for funds.
Some people are normal like me, so you know that's you know what.
I would make a comment, but honestly, biologists, we are not normal.
Not a million stories about that. Um. We've got eleven dollars from
Zachary Martin. Oh, I'm gonna say this, so weird by forest ya,
Hummy, I heard you being awesome and smart, and I gotta say
that's something worth noticing. You maybe a uney hume, but you got to
brains. It's atheist crumping time, well crumping, Zachary Martin. I'm married,
but I appreciate the offer. That's very kind of you. Um,
that's uh. They we got two dollars from Emory King. Dre was a
receptive caller. I hope he calls back I hope so as well. Um.
Joshua Joshua Billinghurst aka Flynn sends in three dollars to say thanks guys,
Thank you Flynn. Um, I miss so many super chats y'all, dm
MX and two twenty five dollars from greetings from Mexico. I love Forest,
smile. I never stopped doing it. Um uh dre W sends in two
dollars. Um, Zachary Martin's what what is this? What? What?
Oh? Zachary Martin's is a Warhammer reference? Someone just sent me and let
me know what was going. Okay, So I'm not cool enough to play
Warhammer. Yeah, I don't know what it is. I've played Age of
Siegmar on the Oculus and it was a nightmare of a game, awful,
and I've never been into it since. I did feel my brother's Warhammer figures
when I was like hey, and I got mad at him. So that's
as much as I know about Hammer. You know that people are emotionally attached
enough to it to warm them by taking their figurines away. I know when
you're saying we're good people, I'm like, it's us evil atheists, eaten
babies and stealing warhammer figurines. Okay, so we got a bunch of other
people here. Um, and I think I'm gonna go with Steve and pronounce
him in Arizona lives in a very conservative area and wants some advice. Stephen,
You're on Talk Evan. How are you doing today? Um? Well,
how are you? Awesome? Man? Really really great. So it
says you're you live in a conservative area and you're looking for advice. What
exactly are you looking for? Well, I live in a suit wall say,
a pseudo pseudo conservative area. I've you know, as an atheist,
you're always surrounded. And I actually live in a very Mormon neighborhood, and
my Mormon neighbors are lovely. But you know, when I go to work,
it's a very ethnically and religiously diverse community, including atheists. I've actually
performed atheist weddings, and everywhere that I've ever lived, there's been a lot
of diversity. And I'm about to move to a crazy place that is where
my partner wants to live. I'm moving from Arizona to Pennsylvania, And in
advance of going there, I looked up some demographics and some politics, and
it's like ninety eight percent Republican, ninety nine percent white, which means any
person of color is probably the only one in town who they are. I
am LGBT. My partner is straight and emerging out of the Catholic experience.
But we're getting married, so I'm explaining to him that it's going to make
him LGBT by association by marrying me. So I'm wondering what it's going to
be like to go into Forest. I know that you're from Oklahoma, or
at least you live there, Sophia. You're lovely. I don't know where
you're from, but it's but it's this. I've never lived somewhere this monolithic,
this conservative, this much of a place where I know I'm going to
be very alone. And that isn't to say that I won't find other atheists
eventually and so forth. I'm sure that's going to happen, but going into
it, I feel like I have to be very quiet and somewhat defensive.
And I just wondered if you could give me some advice if I'm approaching this
the right way or what I can expect, because this is this is going
to be bananas. I've never lived somewhere this rural. I've never lived somewhere
this conservative um or this white for that matter, which is going to be
hard to get used to, which means sounds strange, does but I'm used
to people of color being around me, and there won't be. We're all
going to be the same color. I mean, I actually in my new
property, we're going to have something. They call it a crick, which
I an what they were actually saying, So you know, it's it's that
kind of a thing. And it's not that I'm not still excited to go
and this new chapter of my life and it's all going to be wonderful,
but there's this other part of it where I'm like, what the hell am
I doing? So I wonder what your thoughts were and if you had any
advice for me? By gun, I mean honestly, all right, well
we're gonna side step for I live in Oklahoma. I live in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. There are and always have been double digit churches within walking distance of
my house. Um, you know there there we have very tiny racial diversity
in our town. Um. I grew up in a town just outside of
Tulsa called Broken Arrow. My po box is still out there. Um,
and uh, you're like, yeah no, that was actually started as a
white flight town. Um, and so like, I totally get your coming
from dude, I understand it, and it does absolutely suck. There's different
camps, there's different lines of thinking. Um, you know, my wife
is very cautious to make sure we don't have anything in our yard that we
don't put bumper stickers in the car or anything like that, because people will
follow us home where we're from if they don't like what you have to say,
because they have the majority and they feel comfortable and empowered in doing so.
Um, I'm an idiot and I love to go out in the street
corner with signs and scream at people and yell from a megaphone about my ideas
and so like literally and so yeah, no, I I I'm all about
the getting the death threats. I don't mind one bit. So it's it
really is just how much does the community matter to you? Do you want
to fit in? Do you want to have a community exp arians or do
you not mind being a homebody by way of ostracization, because that it can
happen in any case. I would always just recommend if I had my way
in the world, and I understand this is difficult and dangerous and scary,
and so nope, shame if you don't do this. I would always say,
be aggressively and unapologetically yourself all the time, and if people don't like
it, they can fuck right off. And if that will get you in
trouble, it absolutely will. But I would rather be that way myself than
any whales. And I say that with all the confidence of a cis gender,
mostly heterosexual white man. I think that, yeah, I mean as
a fellow white person, there's there is some level of like, yeah,
I mean speaking from that perspective as well. I was way more okay with
idea of death threats until I had a kid, and I'm like, I'm
it's a little more risky. But I think the first thing that I would
really want to say is you don't owe anybody anything. You do not owe
them being the token like LGBTQ per person. You don't owe them listening to
a bullshit idea if they're going to be offensive and disgusting, like just to
reaffirm that, because there's going to be people who try to make you feel
like you do the school of just asking questions or you can't even talk anymore.
Throw that shit out. You don't know that, you don't need to
spend the time on that. And it's totally okay to be like, hey,
I'm just not interested in having this conversation with you. It's going to
offend people, but just know your boundaries and also know that they can change
day to day. That it's okay if you're like, yeah, today we
can have this conversation, and then other days just be like, I can't
take that load on, you know. And so I currently this is not
exactly the same, but I mean from Seattle to Texas and then became an
atheist in Texas. So good planning there, right, And I now go
to a Christian university, And so I didn't tell people for a while that
I was an atheist. I already have enough that sort of makes me stick
out a little there until eventually I couched it. In the sense that I
am nervous about how people will respond to this. There are things that if
I have an obligation, I'll say, Hey, I have an obligation.
I won't tell them it's for the atheist community, but I will say stuff
like, you know, here are things I've heard from Christians before. Here
are things I've heard said or had said to me or that I find really
offensive. I'll open it that way instead of just doing it, We're gonna
have a free wheeling conversation. I'll actually be like, yeah, here's my
emotional state here, and it's not from nothing, Like there are reasons that
I think it's valid for me to be nervous and for me to be to
feel defensive. Yeah, I mean that doesn't really help with a lot of
what's you're going to encounter so many microaggressions. The other thing I think you're
probably going to encounter that I just put to you to like, maybe think
about how you're going to handle this. If you are part of the majority,
then they're going to be people who say shit to you that you don't
want to co sign right, that are going to say racist shit or whatever
it might be. And I think just putting some thought into how you're going
to you know, shut that down or move on or for your safety,
I would never say, like, you know, do something that would make
you feel unsafe, but um, you know, I get a lot of
mileage about saying I don't agree with that and just you know, it's sort
of a moderate tone and you're not making an argument, but you're just like,
I'm not gonna gonna cosign that one. Um. Varying levels of intensity
for sure, But yeah, I don't think that there's one size fits all
advice. But I think protect yourself and know that you deserve that. I
think that's where I would start. Yeah, I would. I would just
parrot um what Sofia just said, because I am also an antagonistic little shit
and when when I am, you know, in Oklahoma, lots and lots
of people around me like to fly the loser flag, like the Confederate flag,
and they, you know, there's this whole heritage, not hate,
a heritage of being a fucking loser, right, cool, whatever, But
like they they this is a very popular symbol, and because they live in
this majority, they rarely, if ever experienced any pushback on that. And
so for you to just kind of be even just a gentle little bit as
like, oh that sucks. Wow. I like the winning side personally.
I like the side that didn't want the slaves, you know what I mean,
That's just that's just me. I actually like America, So I don't
root for the traders that that you know, committed terrorist attacks on American soldiers.
You know, I don't like that. I'm kind of patriotic that way.
You know that that little bit of pushback it's often quite jarring, um
for these people because they've never, ever, ever had to deal with that
before. And so if you are like us, and you are are instigative
and provocative and enjoy causing some trouble, these are great ways to do it
with a smile on your face. UM. Might not be for everybody,
though, Yeah. I've always been I mean, my partner being Catholic and
everything. I've actually been very impressed with his because I haven't been pushing him
and he's sort of he's deconverting and he's sort of generalized Christian right now after
being very devout. But his parents are like SOX news watchers. So we
have conversations about what all of this is going to mean. Um. But
and you know, and he did say to me very recently, you know,
he's like, it's very white here, Like, well, okay,
I don't know what that means. And he's like, well, there's like
one person of color and they live three doors down. And I know they're
the only one or the only family, and it's like, holy crap.
You know, I've never I've lived I've lived in cities and I've lived in
other places, you know. But I also I console myself because of the
region. It's Pennsylvania Dutch Country, so there's going to be a lot of
handmade furniture and stuff like that. And yes, but but you know,
you can kind of the easy thing about that because Pennsylvania Dutch or or some
of the other I don't know how to refer to them as a group,
but you all know what I mean. They don't know how to dress,
and they were you know, bland colors and are very into woodworking and farming.
But they you can kind of look at them as being other and separate
that. It doesn't feel like they're is influential and they're not. But it's
you know, when you walk away from that and you see people who are
are dressed more normally, you start to feel a little safer and to realize
I'm not necessarily going to be I think is what I'm I'm wrestling with,
you know, and I hear everything you're saying. It is it is tricky.
I will have the more militant, aggressive conversation. And I like to
just be myself. So if I'm going to wear something that says hi,
I'm I'm celebrating pride. You know, you can like it or not.
And you know, and I'm I'm old. I don't have to put up
with too much at this point in my life, or at least that's how
I feel about it. So it's it's just navigating it. I've just never
lived anywhere like this, so I'm just wondering what it will be like.
And you guys are from parts of the country that reflect that better. So
thank you for your input. I appreciate it. Any worries and and you
know, don't don't be I don't think you are, but like, don't
let us make you too cynical either. There's there's good people everwhere, And
like I think people surprise you. I think the thing I would also put
out home. I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt anybody. You surprised
me, Yeah, the Mormons here really surprised me. They protect me as
an LGBT person, they protect me as a democrat. They watch my house
when I go on vacation. You know, they're they're just they're really nice
and I'm actually going to miss this sort of nineteen fifties kind of neighborhood that
I'm in because of that. So it's you know, I'm trying to tell
myself there'll be people like this there, and I'm sorry, Sophia, please
go ahead. No, absolutely, I think the thing that I would throw
out there is that you might end up becoming this this guardian angel protector type
for folks who live in that community. If you're wearing a Pride shirt,
you know, they're always looking. The number of people who will secretly,
you know, come up and tell me things at the school that I go
to be like, oh, I'm not religious either. You know, they
don't want to say it, but yeah, they will will take the cover
that you provide, and that's really amazing too. But remember to take vacations,
give yourself a break, because that is insane to stay in that position
for too long. Oh yeah, we're already planning, you know, Mediterranean
cruises and things every so often. So yeah, there's there's stuff. But
well, again, thank you very much. I know we're coming up to
the end here, so thank you very much. I appreciate you take my
call and very lovely. Take care. Well, I don't think we had
a single seriously negative I know everyone's so friendly. Worst views of any show
on this one isn't nothing controversial confrontation. I mean, I'm adorable, so
I bet it'll be fine. Stephen working in there somehow. Um, so
really quick, Just a reminder, the prompt for this week is what did
the caller say to make Secular Rarity look like this? I'm gonna hold it
there. Reply in the comments and tune in the beginning of next week's show
to hear the top three answers. Um really quickly before we wrap everything up.
Sofia, where can people find more stuff about you? Um? They
can't right now. I'm sorry here. You just have to keep what you
have to You have to watch this, okay, Well, really quickly.
Then I ask you a different question. I've been trying to catch a glimpse
of your forearm tattooed for a minute. I thought it was a cross.
Is different ones, This is oh my gosh, oh yes, this is
the shart of Narsil is the sword that is reformed for our going and lord
of the rings um. And then the other one is a pencil and they're
done in matching ways. They will be filled in so they'll be bright and
colorful. They're brand new. I was a whimp about it. I was
told by one of the tattoo artists that I was being annoying. Um,
that's confidence building, that's good, I know. But I'm like, all
right, well, that's so cool, that's that's great. I just want
I thought it was a cross. I'm like, oh my god, God
sometimes in her past that she's trying to get over. Now, let's got
to be hard to live with that. But like, no, that's just
dope shit. That's awesome. Well, thank you. It is my goal
to be dope shit. Really quick recap for anybody who missed it, Please
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at tanny dot cc slash y t n P. Shout out to the crew.
Put them up there as well, Thrust. You can't look at that.
That cat works so hard he's exhausted. And also can we give another
shout out to the audience. Can we show them as well? Because they're
fantastic and I love having them here. Bring the audience up on the screen,
don't No, they don't want to. Also, because this is talking
than they do something that we don't do on l any of the shows,
and that's love rings. Have you seen the Love Rings recently? I'm shocked
by it. Every time it happens, it's it's less weird than it sounds.
Okay, do this do this? What is this? Ready? Oh?
Yeah, it's literally magic. I feel done that. I didn't know
that was going to happen. But also either the last time I was down
here and I watched this show. It's very Powerpuff Girls. It's what I
get like. Thanks so much for our viewers. Thanks so much for our
production crew, Thanks much of our cale screeners and our moderators. Thanks much
to the audience. Thanks as much to you for tuning into this show.
I'm Forrest Valkai. This is Sophia. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Have an awesome day and never stopped learning. And don't forget We as
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