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Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,

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an idea.

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Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.

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Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I

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tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.

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Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a.

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Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.

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Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.

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Speaker 2: Truth, Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.

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Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the

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Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.

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Speaker 3: I know I had sociologists and secular studies professor doctor

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Phil Zuckerman on the show I think a couple of

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months ago, but I wanted to return to this. I

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was recently part of the Western Canadian Reason Conference in

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Calgary we can reason dot com and Phil Zuckerman gave

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the first presentation, and it was about this common accusation

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against non religious people that we are less moral or

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not at all moral. And Phil brought receipts and he

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laid it out in such a great way that I

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was happy that I was shooting video of the speech.

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So there is a video link in the description boxing

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go and watch Phil in action from the podium in Calgary,

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but this is the audio from that. The first section

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he's going to give kind of a precursor into set up.

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The middle section is all about the statistics morality in

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the religious and morality in the seculars, and then after

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that it's actually one of the more interesting parts of

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today's show is just the Q and A where people

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are asking questions and Phil is filling in the blanks

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and it was just really good. So I wanted to

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bring that to you this week, and here we go,

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doctor Phil Zuckerman. Are the religious more moral than secular people?

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Speaker 2: Thank you? Thank you so much. A couple things before

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I start. I am from the United States, forgive me,

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but my wife is a Canadian citizen, and I'm sorry

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if a lot of my references will be I don't know.

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Is it okay to say American? I never know? Or

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do I say like USA? And is okay I'm allowed

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to say? Okay? Awesome? All right, Well, let's get into it.

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I'm going to tell some stories. I have two arguments

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I'm gonna try to make, and it may be a

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little disjointed, but hopefully they'll come together nicely at the end,

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I hope. So the first one I just random stuff.

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You know, books get recommended. I put them on my

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list and they come in the mail or from the library.

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So I just happened to be reading a book on

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US history called These Truths. It was a New York

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Times bestseller about fifteen years ago, amazing history of the US.

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And I'm just really enjoying it, and I'm learning a

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lot that I hadn't learned. For example, I always knew

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that George Washington had bad teeth and dentures. What I

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didn't know was that his dentures were made from the

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pulled out teeth of his enslaved Africans, that they took

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their teeth to make histy things like that nifty trivia.

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I also learned something that was really relevant for this talk,

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and it goes like this. You had the Thirteen Colonies

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and they wanted to be independent from England. They formed

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the United you know, the early United States. They declared

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their independence, they won that war, and now they had

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to sit down and create a constitution. So these individuals

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met to crank out a blueprint for this new republic,

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and they do not include any reference to God in it.

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They do not include any reference to Jesus in it.

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They do not include any reference to the Bible in it.

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There is no reference at all to Christianity, the Bible,

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or anything of that nature. In fact, over the years,

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in the first one hundred years or so of this

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new republic, there were often groups who wanted to assert

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the Christianity of the US. They wanted to say, wait,

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we need to add a clause to this saying, you know,

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we're a christiannation. And that was always defeated in every attempt.

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It never got any steam. Fast forward to the eighteen sixties,

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the US goes to war over the issue of enslaving

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other human beings. The Southern States secede and they form

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the Confederate States of America the Confederacy. What I learned

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in this book, and it's really relevant for this talk,

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is that they draft their own constitution. And what do

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they feature or highlight in the wording of their constitution, God, Christianity,

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the Bible, Jesus. I think that illustrates a lot of

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what I'm going to get into today. The North not perfect,

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but at least was fighting to end the enslavement of

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other human beings kept religion out, kept Christianity out of

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their founding legislative documents the South, which was created simply

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to ensure the continued enslavement of other human beings forefronts

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their Christianness. Interesting stuff going on here. It leads me

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to something a little bit more recent. Like a close

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relative of mine. I won't say who, because this is

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being recorded. This relative of mine loves Trump and loves Jesus.

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I don't know how that works. Your free to love Jesus,

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your free to love Trump. How you can love both

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of them together? Talk about ambiguity anyway, This relative of mine

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is a modern incarnation of this tendency throughout US history.

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And just to give you a sense of how this

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relative thinks. And I'm going to say some pretty nasty

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stuff here, but it's reality, and we're all adults. I

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think I remember this relative talking to my daughter, and

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my daughter was confused as to how this relative could

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like Trump. Didn't seem to metch with my daughter's experience

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of this loving relative. And I heard from the down

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the hall the loving relative said, well, honey, can you

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imagine if you had to go to the hospital, And

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when we got there, there were a bunch of Mexicans

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there in line ahead of you. Would that be okay?

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Trump is trying to stop that from happening. Breakfast time, okay,

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dinner's ready, okay? Can you imagine that? Think about what

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that's happening there, The other ring, the not seeing fellow

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humans as fellow humans, healthcare as a re source that

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we have to fight each other over thanks to the USA,

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But I mean the idea. And this person again sees

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themselves as Christian, and that means something else. They also

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see themselves as moral right. They seem to go hand

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in hand. This person doesn't care about black lives, Palestinian lives,

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brown lives, and so on and so forth. And to me,

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this captures so much about the divide south of the

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border here among issues of empathy, compassion, human rights, and justice.

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And I want to unpack that a bit from the

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Civil War to my own home in southern California. What

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I have found. I'm a trained social scientist. I'm not

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a trained philosopher, per se. I read as much of

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it as I can now. But what prompted me was

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I was studying secular cultures, secular people, secular societies and

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The question that I always got from critics and religious

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people was about morality. They'd say, fine, Phil, that's all fine,

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but if you don't have God, how can you be moral.

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I don't know if Canadians get that as much as

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we do, but maybe in Alberta. And I was always

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a bit taken aback by that. So what I found is,

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obviously that's a pretty common thing. I mean, no one

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asks anymore. I never got someone saying to me, well, Phil,

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if there's no God, where DoD rainbows come from? I mean,

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that would have happened, you know that way back when.

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That would have been a pretty legitimate thing to say.

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You know, well, if there's no God, then how are

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you thinking right now? I mean, you know, if you know, all,

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God's job has gotten a lot smaller over the centuries, right,

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Like nobody says, well, who's raising the sun in the

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morning or you know, but now it's like, ah, morality,

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that seems to be the last trump card. And so

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I had to start thinking about that. And what I

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found was a lot of the social psychological research out there.

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Some of my colleagues are happy to say any of this,

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you just let me know, is that the number one

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stereotype that people have of atheists, agnostics and seculary humans

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is that we're immoral. It's not that we, you know,

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don't know how to dance, or we are bad cooks,

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or we pick our noses too much, you know. It's like,

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that's the thing, and that's kind of intriguing to me.

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Doesn't really track with my experience of life and all

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my non religious relatives and grandparents and parents and neighbors

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and friends. But it really stood out for me, and

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I had to ask myself, what's going on here? I

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think I have an answer, and I'll hold off on it. Well,

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maybe not. Let's just cut to the chase. I know

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Freud is not the most popular thinker anymore. I think

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he said a lot of crazy things and wacky things,

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and even some dangerous things, and some non falsifiable things

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and so on and so forth. But I do think

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he had a few nice gems in the mix, and

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one of them is his notion about projection in a nutshell.

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Freud argued that we have have different things going on

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and are subconscious, and they're not always nice and sweet

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and lovely. Sometimes they're nasty and vicious and hostile and hateful,

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but we live in a society where those things are

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not okay, and in fact, we've internalized that so much

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that we even feel badly sometimes about those subconscious things.

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And we do what we need to do, or our

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mind does what it needs to do to keep those

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things either repressed or checked or sublimated into something else,

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but it doesn't always work. To the best of our abilities,

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we try to keep those urges, those antisocial, unpleasant parts

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of ourselves, you know, we try to keep the lid

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on it, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't,

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and when they start to ooze out despite our best efforts,

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our mind does things that play tricks on us in

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a sense, and one of those tricks it plays is

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called projection, and simply that is things about ourselves, urges, tendencies, traits,

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characteristics that are not eaten and sugary and that we

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don't like. We can't own it about ourselves. That would

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be too painful and too disruptive to our sense of self.

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But they're there, so we start to see them in others.

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It's almost like we project them like an old movie

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projector from when we were kids on a rainy day.

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We see it in others. It's really stemming from ourselves,

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but we see it in others, right. So classic examples

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would be you are in a loving relationship, but you're unhappy.

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You actually find yourself attracted to someone else. That makes

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you feel bad about yourself, so you start to obsessively

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think your spouse or your partner wants to cheat on you,

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and you become hyper sensitive to them not wanting to

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be with you, and in fact, deep inside, it's you

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that doesn't want to be with them, but that's a

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little bit too painful to acknowledge and own, right, So

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you start to become hyper obsessed about are they cheating

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on you? Are they attracted to someone else? Is something

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going on? When really it's you projecting that onto them.

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I tried to come up with a Canadian example. Somebody

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on the hockey team really really dislikes someone else and

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is a little bit threatened by them because they're a

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little bit better, but they start to believe that that

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teammate hates them and wants them off the team. Right.

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I hope that worked, okay. Or someone has an urge

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to steal things and that gets projected on others, so

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they're always scared someone's trying to steal from them, right,

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You get the idea projection seeing in others what's actually

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going on in yourself. That theory for Freud was an individual,

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personal thing, but I feel like it can be expanded

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as a sociologist, and sometimes it plays out at the

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societal level. What I've noticed is that the stereotypes that

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are often put on minority groups are often projections. So

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let me give some unpleasant examples. I don't know how

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it is in Canada, but in the United States, as

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the white Europeans were conquering and stealing and taking over

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and pillaging the land and the cultures here, the stereotype

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of Native Americans that was not again, oh, they like cats,

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or they can't cook, or they you know, they have

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a weird sense of time, or no. It was that

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they were savages. They were uncivilized, They didn't know how

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to act morally. They could they weren't full humans that

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could be civilized and live according to rules and laws.

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They were just savages. Why that? Why was that the stereotype?

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It could have been anything, but it was that, Well,

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that's exactly what the European conquerors were doing, irrespective of laws,

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human rights justice. They were stealing, taking, prilaging, murdering, plundering,

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sexually assaulting, and that was their agenda. But to own

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that about themselves, to be like, here we are, we

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are from England. We are the rapists of England. You know,

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we are the No, that's not gonna work. It's going on,

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but you projected onto your victim. Throughout US history, the

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number one, particularly leading up to the Civil War and

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after the Civil War, the number one stereotype that haunted

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African American communities, particularly African American men, was that they're

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sexual predators. They're out to rape our lily white women.

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This was the cause of justice, you know, this was

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you know, birth of a nation. D W. Griffith, was

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that his name. That's a film that showed in the

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White House of how the KKK is defending the honor

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of our white women against these black sexual predators. Why

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that stereotype, of all of all the things you could

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lay it, you know, put on a people, of all

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the awful stigmas you could label a person. Why that

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the sexual assault was happening systematically, day after day, night

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after night. It was white men sexually assaulting Black women

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from Thomas Jefferson on down. But to own that about themselves. Again,

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that doesn't comport with white You know, here we are

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the good white rapists of America. Like, no, that's not

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gonna work. It's there, so you projected onto your victim.

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And there's so many more. Right, Germans said that the

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Jews were out to take over the world, that there

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was a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to dominate the planet. Of course,

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that was the Nazis' agenda. Growing up in southern California

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where I lived, Mexicans were taught to we were told

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were lazy. That was their problem. You never mind that

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they were doing all the labor, they were building, all

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the buildings, raising all the children, working three jobs as

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bus boys in the back. But the white people had

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to see themselves, the wealthy white people, I should say,

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as hardworking, while these people who they're employing must be lazy.

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On one last one. When I was living in Oregon

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where the first modern anti gay rights bill was developed

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in the nineteen eighties by the Oregon Citizens Alliance. They

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drafted legislation to stop civil rights protections for gays and

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lesbians in the state of Oregon, and their signed their

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lawn sign said protect the children. That was their in

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Why that could it be that ninety eight percent of

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people arrested for child abuse are straight white men.

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Speaker 3: After the break is the section of Phil's speech that

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talks statistics. We have been studied in contrast to religious people.

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What do the numbers say about ethical behavior and non

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religious people? Next, continuing with the audio from doctor Phil Zuckerman,

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sociologist and Secular Studies professor on morality and non religious people.

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Speaker 2: Okay, we could go on and on. Now let's get

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back to secularism and morality. We're supposed to be immoral.

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Why that? Well, I think you can see where I'm going.

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I think this isn't This isn't another. I mean, maybe

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one thing. If they said, like those atheists, man, they're

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like cats too much, I'd kind of be like, maybe

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maybe that's true.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: If they were like, yeah, those atheists, man, they wear

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too many members only jackets, you know, I'm okay with that.

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But moral, so, I think this is a clear cut

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case of projection. If you base your morality on a magical,

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invisible deity who tortures people in hell, that's no basis

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for morality. If your morality is simply about obedience to authority,

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that's moral abdication. If your morality rests on saving your

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own ass, that's moral obscenity. We as secular humanists know

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on morality is based on empathy, compassion, intentions, and consequences.

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We seek reasons for our morality that are rational, contextual, pragmatic, humane,

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And the evidence is abundant. And now I'm going to

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walk you through that before we get started. Though, maybe

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you're thinking, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you keep using

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that word thank you. Sorry, I should have done this

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in the beginning. What do I mean by moral? Anytime

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someone brings this up to me or to you. Start

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there the minute said, when at that dinner party says

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to you, well, how do you get How can you

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be moral if you don't believe in God? Stop them

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say moral is an adjective. If I say Tom is

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such a moral person, or Tanya is so moral, it's

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a describer the same thing as if I would say

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that Tanya's so intelligent. Well, what does that mean? Tanya

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is so intelligent? Does that mean Tanya knows how to

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do a rubikscube really fast? Does that mean Tanya does

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really well? On an IQ test. Does that mean Tanya

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knows how to find the best coffee in Calgary or

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could survive in the rainforest. I mean, what does you

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know we have. We only know what intelligent means through context.

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This is what I mean by intelligence. I mean, yeah,

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it does really well in algebra, or is an amazing

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analyst of data or whatever it is. Right, same thing

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with moral. If I say to you you need to

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act morally, like, unless I give you a context, what

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does that mean? So it's going to be different to

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different people. And I don't think there's an objective just

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like there's no objective definition of intelligent or an objective

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definition of beautiful. I don't think there's an active definition

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of moral, just how we employ it, how we use

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it in our in our lives, in our culture, in

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our society, in our day to day. So you have

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to define it for me, and you don't have to.

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I'm not saying this is the definition. This is just

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what I mean when I use the word moral or

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define someone is moral, I say someone who actively seeks

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to decrease unwanted suffering and injustice, or on the other hand,

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seeks to increase justice, fairness, and well being. That's what

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I mean by So if I describe someone as moral,

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like man, they're actively trying to decrease unwanted suffering in

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the world, or they're trying to increase fairness and justice

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and well being in the world or in their relationships.

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So I don't mean like they don't masturbate. Okay. So

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if that's what you mean by moral, okay. So to me,

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nobody likes crime, not even criminals. No one likes to

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be the victim of violent crime, not even violent criminals.

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So I think violent crime is the ultimate example, or

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forget even the word of crime, like you know, perpetuating

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violence on others. To me, unwarranted, unnecessary violence is a

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perfect example of the most immoral behavior out there. Let's

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talk about violent crime then, and we can talk about

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other things too. So the first thing I like to

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do is I like to say, well, okay, your thesis

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is that without God we can't be moral, or without

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if there's no religion, then society becomes immoral. That's kind

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of an interesting thesis. It's got an independent variable and

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a dependent variable. We can go out and look and check.

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There's many ways to do it, and I won't go

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through all of it, but I'll go through some of

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the biggies, the highlights. So the first thing I like

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to do is I say, well, let's look, let's compare countries,

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and we have to differentiate dictatorships from democracies, because right

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away we know that those are not going to work. Dictatorships,

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whether they're secular or religious, you can't do unfettered social science.

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In fact, I just reviewed a manuscript yesterday that was

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submitted to my book series at NYU Press on secularism

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in Iran. Side note, they compared to sources of data

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the World Values Survey data in Iran, where people went

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door to door and asked people what their religion was.

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Ninety eight percent said Muslim because they're in Iran. This

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same person who's writing this book, who is Persian, who

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is from Iran, found other sources of data where people

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where it was anonymous, and up to forty five percent

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of Iranians are secular, atheist, humanists, or none of the above,

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right when they're not in danger of you know, someone

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knocking on their door two in the morning. So I

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like to just look at democracies for the sake of

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it's just too hard to you can't. Really, we don't

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know what people are really thinking or feeling or even

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doing in dictatorships. So if we look at democracies, right,

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the least religious democracies on earth compared to the most

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religious democracies are how do I mean by religious rates

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of belief, rates of behavior, rates of belonging, you name it,

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belief in God, strength and belief in God, church attendance,

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baptism rates, prayer frequency, whatever, how people identify you name it.

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What we find is that the least religious or the

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most secular democracies have the lowest rates of violent crime

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and everything else too, by the way, not just violent crime,

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but poverty rates, elder care, child cares the best, you

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name it. And the first thing people will say to

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me is, ah, well, phil, that's not because of God

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or religion. That's because of a whole bunch of other factors.

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And I say exactly, And with that, I would like

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to think the na okay, yeah. And it's interesting because

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if you're really you know, if you're thinking about this,

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you know, if you're engaged with someone, you say, don't

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you think God is so super powerful like the most

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powerful thing? Yes? Do you think God is more powerful

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than I don't know, racism. Yes, do you think God

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is more powerful than near human economics? Yes? Do you

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think God is more powerful than politics? Yes? And yet

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as soon as you explain to them that, well, those

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societies that are the most religious have the most violent

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crime and other social pathologies, they say, well, those are

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for other reasons. You say, like what, well, economics, Wait,

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I thought god trump, those things, politics, race, you know,

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whatever they want to throw out, you cure. They're admitting

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that God sort of becomes less and less and less

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and less important than all these other this worldly reasons

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and factors, whether they be economic, political, historical, cultural, you

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name it. And then sometimes they s mean, well, well you

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can't really compare you know, Canada to the United States.

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They're just too different. Okay, you know you can't compare

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Japan to El salvad Or. They're just too different. Okay,

403
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So how about if you could compare I don't know,

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maybe is there a big country with hundreds of millions

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of people that is divided up into these little principalities

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I don't know, like fifty states. We can do the

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same correlations for the fifty states, and what do we

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find the least religious states with the lowest rates of

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turch attendants, the lowest rates of believing God, the highest

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rates of people identifying as secular humanist IDIO, and so

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have the lowest violent crime rates and the lowest social pathologies.

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With There is one exception, and that's Utah. Correlations are

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always that way, it's averages. But then the states that

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are the most religious, right from infant mortality to life

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expectancy to you name it, domestic abuse rates, whatever the

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social pathology, the secular states do a lot better than

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the most religious states. And again people will say that's

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still too weird because there's this history of slavery. I'm like, yeah,

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do you know about that? How about counties? Just compare counties.

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We divide up our states into counties in the United States,

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and we have county level data and you can find

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the state. Even if you just take the state of Louisiana,

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look at the counties in Louisiana, or just take the

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state of Oregon and look at the counties in Oregon,

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the correlation stays the same, and it's quite robust and

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it's quite strong. Another possibility is forget comparison. Just take

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a single country and look at it over the last

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two hundred and fifty years. We don't have really strong

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data beyond that for these questions. But you can look

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at city states like what Amsterdam used to be. You

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can look at London, you can look at Boston. You

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can look at and just compare religiosity rates to violent

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crime rates. And what do we find even in the

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same societies, as religiosity has gone down, so too has

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violent crime and other social pathologies. Now that may be correlation,

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it's not causation. They may both be caused by something else,

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like an influx of tea drinking. But that's again the point,

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it's something else. Religion is not the issue here. But

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someone will say to me, Phil, you keep talking about

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these societal comparisons at the country level, or the state level,

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or the county level. What really matters is at the

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individual level. Okay's a good point. Let's get even more

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granule granular. Are strongly religious Americans any more or less

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likely to be the victims of violent crime than secular Americans?

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Data says no. But here's the big question. Do secular

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Americans commit more violent crimes than religious Americans? Data says no.

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I'm teach in a prison sometime one night a week,

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a prison, murderers, assaulters, you name it. Do you think

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atheism is the point of the realm there? Now? The

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vast majority of incarcerated individuals in the United States are

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quite religious and come from religious homes. Again, there's a

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lot going on there, but I just throw that out there,

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so then we can also just look at on the current.

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You know, most people don't commit violent crimes, so it's

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hard to get really robust data there. I thought, like,

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I can, you know, assemble all the people in America

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that commit violent crimes and correlate their strength and believe

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in God or whatnot, But I can't ask them questions

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about morality. And what do we find at the individual level,

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controlling for things like educational tainment, socioeconomic status, race, gender, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,

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what do we find Trump the Great Menace? Again, this

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is for the United States. The more secular Americans are

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the most opposed to trump Ism, and the more religious

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Americans are the most supportive of trump Ism. Relatives of

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mine included. This even holds again among people of color

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far and away. African Americans do not like Donald Trump.

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The ones that do strongly religious, more religious than their

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black brothers and sisters. Among Jews, the most consistent democratic

469
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,759
voting block after African Americans, there are a few Jews

470
00:27:28,799 --> 00:27:32,559
that like Trump. They're the most religious of Jews. So

471
00:27:32,599 --> 00:27:36,559
we see this correlation throughout the climate crisis. I'll spare

472
00:27:36,599 --> 00:27:39,359
you all the percentages, suffice it to say that I

473
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:41,960
can predict the more secular an American is, the more

474
00:27:42,039 --> 00:27:44,640
likely they are to accept the science behind the climate crisis,

475
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,519
and the more likely the art to support policies to

476
00:27:46,799 --> 00:27:50,079
address that climate crisis, and the more religious just the opposite.

477
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:51,759
They deny it's happening and they don't want to do

478
00:27:51,759 --> 00:27:55,759
anything about it. The Gaza killing fields, same correlation. The

479
00:27:55,759 --> 00:27:58,319
more religious the Americans are, the more supportive they are

480
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,920
of the bombs dropping, and the more secular they are,

481
00:28:01,039 --> 00:28:03,359
the most opposed they are. I'd like to use that

482
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:06,880
conflict also as an illustration. In the Israeli Palestinian conflict,

483
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,039
you see the same correlation. It is the strong religious

484
00:28:10,079 --> 00:28:14,279
on both sides who are the most rabidly violent. The

485
00:28:14,319 --> 00:28:17,119
most religious Palestinians and the most religious Israelis are the

486
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,519
most violent and wanting to exterminate the other. And it's

487
00:28:19,559 --> 00:28:22,279
the most secular Israelis and the most secular Palestinians who

488
00:28:22,279 --> 00:28:24,960
both want to find some kind of solution to states

489
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,079
solutions so on and so forth that want to stop

490
00:28:27,079 --> 00:28:30,480
the killing right American racism on every attempt to measure

491
00:28:30,519 --> 00:28:33,279
that among white people, the more religious you are, the

492
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:35,799
higher your rates of racism tend to show up, and

493
00:28:35,839 --> 00:28:38,039
the more secular you are, the less. Again, this isn't

494
00:28:38,079 --> 00:28:40,200
to say there aren't racist secular Americans and there aren't

495
00:28:40,279 --> 00:28:43,279
non racist religious Americans, but the correlations are quite strong.

496
00:28:43,599 --> 00:28:48,000
The way the averages, Okay, the COVID crisis in the

497
00:28:48,119 --> 00:28:50,400
United States, the more religious you were, the more likely

498
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,880
you were denied that COVID was a reality, the more

499
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,720
likely you were to not get inoculated, and the more

500
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,839
secular you were. Just the opposite. Women's bodily autonomy, who's

501
00:28:59,839 --> 00:29:03,400
the reports women's reproductive rights control over their own bodies.

502
00:29:03,599 --> 00:29:06,240
The more religious you are, the more you want women

503
00:29:06,319 --> 00:29:09,240
to be captive to the whims of men, And the

504
00:29:09,279 --> 00:29:11,680
more secular you are, the more likely you are to

505
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:16,559
support women's bodily autonomy, LGBTQ rights in all their manifestations.

506
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:18,680
The more secular you are, the more you feel like

507
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,359
LGBTQ people deserve the same rights as any citizens. And

508
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,759
the more religious you are, the less likely guns. You know,

509
00:29:26,799 --> 00:29:29,680
Americans love their guns, but the real Christians love them

510
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,599
the most, which is interesting, and the secular among the

511
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,359
least cruelty to animals. You see the same correlation support

512
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,559
for universal health care in the United States. You see

513
00:29:38,599 --> 00:29:42,680
the same correlations taking care for refugees and immigrants people suffering.

514
00:29:42,799 --> 00:29:49,440
You see the exact same correlations. Should we invade Canada.

515
00:29:51,319 --> 00:29:55,039
I have to say my wife's dad was from Canada.

516
00:29:55,519 --> 00:29:58,680
She didn't have her Canadian citizenship when Trump was first elected.

517
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,880
We worked so hard to get her Canadian citizenship and

518
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:04,000
it worked and I got a lawyer in Toronto. Yes,

519
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,839
thank you. Yeah, I was so proud, and I thought,

520
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,839
oh who, okay, we're good. We're safe. I hate to

521
00:30:11,839 --> 00:30:14,359
say it, but that's how we juice out think we're like,

522
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,000
where do we got to go when the ship gets

523
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,400
back there? And then Trump got reelected and I thought,

524
00:30:19,759 --> 00:30:24,720
oh shit, man, not you know, like my aunt left

525
00:30:24,759 --> 00:30:28,039
the Czech Republic or what was then Bohemia to Amsterdam

526
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:30,480
thinking you know, and she still ended up in Auschwitz.

527
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,480
So I'm like, this is Canada far enough. Now, who

528
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:39,680
supports the invasion of an occupation of Canada? The more religious,

529
00:30:39,799 --> 00:30:42,759
the more likely, the more secular, the least likely. The

530
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:48,599
taking of Greenland man oh Man, oh Man. So again,

531
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,359
I could be wrong. This is subjective. Maybe it is

532
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,960
moral to invade Canada, Maybe it is moral to take

533
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,519
over at Greenland. Maybe it is moral to deny LGBTQ

534
00:30:56,599 --> 00:30:59,359
people they're human rights. I mean, we can have that argument.

535
00:30:59,759 --> 00:31:03,039
But given my definition of morality, you can see why

536
00:31:03,079 --> 00:31:05,319
I'm making and the whole host of other issues, from

537
00:31:05,319 --> 00:31:09,880
prisoner reform, capital punishment, national drug legislation a rational I

538
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:13,480
should say drug legislation, you name it. So why the difference.

539
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,960
Secular people tend to base their morality on being empathetic

540
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,599
and compassionate. Secular people tend to be more rational and scientific.

541
00:31:22,799 --> 00:31:25,759
Secular people tend to be less tribalistic and ethnocentric. Again,

542
00:31:25,799 --> 00:31:28,359
these are just tendencies. I'm not saying we're perfect. Secular

543
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:32,440
people tend to be less authoritarian. We thus tend to

544
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,960
be more attuned to the suffering of others and wanting

545
00:31:36,039 --> 00:31:38,920
to make the world a more just place and those

546
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:43,480
who call us immoral a clear cut case of projection.

547
00:31:44,039 --> 00:31:44,880
Thank you very much.

548
00:31:48,279 --> 00:31:50,119
Speaker 3: When I come back, I'm going to play for you

549
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:54,799
a pretty substantive section of Phil's speech where people in

550
00:31:54,839 --> 00:31:58,559
the audience offer up some really good questions, and i'll

551
00:31:58,599 --> 00:32:07,720
play it next. Thank you so much to my patrons

552
00:32:07,799 --> 00:32:10,359
or your support if you're not a patron, makes a

553
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,960
huge difference, makes a huge difference and helps to support

554
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:19,880
what I do. And the website is patreon dot com

555
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:24,839
slash Seth Andrews with my thanks. Okay, the Q and

556
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:29,640
a portion of Phil Zuckerman's speech. Now, the questions came

557
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,960
from the audience. They were not miked directly. They're hard

558
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,200
to hear. To make sure everybody knows what the questions are,

559
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:40,440
I restate them in the final segments of the show.

560
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,079
Speaker 2: First of all, before to these questions, I'm pretty sure.

561
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,039
Speaker 3: You said that Utah was the exception. Yeah, So does

562
00:32:47,079 --> 00:32:51,680
that mean that the Mormons have been writing all more? Okay,

563
00:32:51,839 --> 00:32:53,880
just in case you could not hear that. The question

564
00:32:54,039 --> 00:32:56,960
which was being read out by Jenie Morris, she had

565
00:32:57,039 --> 00:33:00,559
like people texting questions. The question was when it comes

566
00:33:00,599 --> 00:33:03,559
to violent crime and other statistics, if the Mormons are

567
00:33:03,599 --> 00:33:06,839
an exception, does this validate the Mormons.

568
00:33:07,039 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: So in social science we always deal with averages and

569
00:33:10,799 --> 00:33:13,960
percentages and correlations. That's why we're a soft science. So

570
00:33:14,039 --> 00:33:16,880
there are exceptions. I didn't mention, for example, that African

571
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,880
Americans tend to be quite religious and also hate Trump

572
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,599
and actually also line up on the more progressive side

573
00:33:22,599 --> 00:33:25,640
of these things. Forgive me for not mentioning that other exception.

574
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,319
Not always, but it's very strong in the case of Utah,

575
00:33:29,799 --> 00:33:34,039
low crime rates, low poverty rates, low homelessness rates. So

576
00:33:34,519 --> 00:33:39,680
I think the Mormons are extremely wrong about Joseph Smith's claims.

577
00:33:40,519 --> 00:33:43,039
But they do do a good job of keeping their

578
00:33:43,119 --> 00:33:47,079
cities clean, their children cared for. They donate ten percent

579
00:33:47,079 --> 00:33:49,759
of their income to the church, which makes the church

580
00:33:49,799 --> 00:33:51,960
extremely wealthy. But they are there for each other when

581
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:54,920
there's a catastrophe. They're even there for others. My friend

582
00:33:55,039 --> 00:33:58,480
Brian's house was messed up by a mud slide and

583
00:33:58,599 --> 00:34:01,400
the Mormons came and cleaned up his house for him.

584
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,960
So they are right about their attention to charity. The

585
00:34:06,039 --> 00:34:08,280
difference is in the United States. I don't know how

586
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:10,079
this plays out in Canada, but the United States is,

587
00:34:10,519 --> 00:34:14,679
do you want individuals digging into their pockets and donating

588
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,320
in a charitable context, or do you want a structured

589
00:34:17,599 --> 00:34:20,960
institutional approach to solving these issues? In other words, do

590
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:26,159
you want tax subsidized, bureaucratic, structured ways of dealing with homelessness, hunger,

591
00:34:26,199 --> 00:34:28,840
health care, and so forth. The more progressive would prefer

592
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:31,800
a more scan the Navian model where the government does

593
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,159
an excellent job of tending to these social maladies. The

594
00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:37,920
more religious want it to be about through their church

595
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,320
giving donations. So in the case of the Mormons, they

596
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,320
do do that, but it's their own deal and it's

597
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:46,679
uh and yeah, it's also kind of boring in Utah.

598
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,559
But they also, I don't know, they also have the

599
00:34:50,599 --> 00:34:53,280
highest rates of paying for internet porn, not that there's

600
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:57,119
anything wrong with that, And they also have a high rates,

601
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,119
very high rates of antidepressants, not that there's anything wrong

602
00:35:00,159 --> 00:35:01,320
with that. You got to do what you gotta do.

603
00:35:01,559 --> 00:35:04,480
But yes, Utah is the one exception on the on

604
00:35:04,519 --> 00:35:08,440
the social pathologies, and Trump is all officially diagnosed as

605
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:09,599
a reliant narcissist.

606
00:35:10,199 --> 00:35:12,599
Speaker 3: I feel that description can be expanded to America.

607
00:35:13,159 --> 00:35:17,719
Speaker 1: Purchase of society inward focused transactional when you's thinking other

608
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,000
ing of everyone else's Do you have thoughts?

609
00:35:20,199 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 3: Again restating the question for you, I've got these in

610
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,039
caption form on the video version of Phil's speech. When

611
00:35:27,119 --> 00:35:30,840
it comes to Trump and the United States, the culture

612
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:36,519
seems to be inward focused, myopic, transactional. Is Trump and

613
00:35:36,599 --> 00:35:41,679
perhaps by association, the United States guilty of malignant narcissism.

614
00:35:42,039 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 2: I think that's an accurate description. I think Americans worship,

615
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,079
you know, money above all else. I think it's the

616
00:35:49,119 --> 00:35:52,800
supreme American value. It doesn't matter how you got it.

617
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,519
If you got it, you are a winner. I think

618
00:35:55,599 --> 00:35:59,480
the United States has always had that spirit. In many ways,

619
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,480
it has the US in that it has propelled people

620
00:36:02,519 --> 00:36:06,400
to be more inventive and more competitive, which creates all

621
00:36:06,519 --> 00:36:10,480
kinds of dynamic inventions and technologies. On the other hand,

622
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,840
it's a vacuous, empty, unethical way to live, and the

623
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,440
consequences will destroy the planet. So yeah, I always felt

624
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,280
like Trump was the ultimate embodiment of the American ideal.

625
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,039
You know, people like how could they Electroump. I'm like,

626
00:36:23,119 --> 00:36:27,639
he's everything Americans aspired to. You know, he's fat, he's wealthy,

627
00:36:28,199 --> 00:36:32,119
he has a zillion wives he marries, you know, model

628
00:36:32,159 --> 00:36:35,239
like it's this, he's a celebrity, he's I mean, he's

629
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:38,960
I remember, I'll give you an anecdote. Another relative, who

630
00:36:39,039 --> 00:36:42,480
shall I won't say, which wanted. I remember Bill Clinton

631
00:36:42,679 --> 00:36:45,960
was president, this is way back when, and a general,

632
00:36:46,039 --> 00:36:49,519
a conservative general, said something like, well, if he flies

633
00:36:49,559 --> 00:36:52,199
down here to South Carolina, someone's going to take him out.

634
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:54,719
A general said this, and Bill Clinton fired that general

635
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:56,880
because you're not allowed to threaten the life of a president.

636
00:36:57,519 --> 00:37:00,280
So at the dinner gathering of this relative, I said,

637
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:02,800
can you believe that? And this this individual said, I

638
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,280
think Clinton should be shot And I said, what, why

639
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,800
do you hate him so much? And he said, because

640
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:15,760
he thinks he's smarter than me. And my wife said,

641
00:37:16,039 --> 00:37:18,519
don't you want your president to be smarter than you?

642
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:23,239
And he said, I didn't say that, said he thinks.

643
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:28,280
So there's a there's there's a hostility towards intellectualism, there's

644
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,639
a hostility towards expertise. So the fact that Trump is

645
00:37:31,679 --> 00:37:36,199
this bumbling draft dodging, you know, the University of Pennsylvania cheating,

646
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,440
it kind of speaks to a lot of people's inner

647
00:37:38,599 --> 00:37:41,800
child and they like it. That's the best I can say,

648
00:37:42,039 --> 00:37:44,880
and then you just sugarcoat it with this veneer of

649
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:49,800
Christianity and you're golden. It's astonishing the pretty much everyone

650
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:51,760
in the room seas to agree on so many issues.

651
00:37:52,119 --> 00:37:53,639
Speaker 3: Was there any topic where.

652
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 2: The correlation went the other way?

653
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,599
Speaker 1: So where the religious we're on average more quote unquote moral.

654
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:02,199
Speaker 3: Again, the question, is there an example of a reverse

655
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:07,000
correlation where the religious were more moral than seculars ooh.

656
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 2: That's a good one. Okay. I didn't mention guns, but

657
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,440
that's probably the weakest. Actually, it's not as strong as

658
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,760
the others. So in the United States, a lot of

659
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:20,519
secular Americans like their guns too. The one I saw

660
00:38:20,639 --> 00:38:24,119
last week thanks to Ryan Burge who's at Washington University.

661
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:29,440
There's one area where religious and secular and Democrat and

662
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:34,840
Republicans completely agree on, and that is do you consider

663
00:38:35,079 --> 00:38:39,239
your pet a part of your family? Seventy eight percent

664
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:42,599
in all say yes to that, so we do agree

665
00:38:42,599 --> 00:38:47,800
on that. I'd like to know what they feed their dogs?

666
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:53,480
Was that last night? Okay? Okay, yeah, I would say

667
00:38:53,559 --> 00:38:55,719
I mentioned this earlier, and a lot of secular people

668
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:57,480
don't like a lot of second Americans get up said

669
00:38:57,519 --> 00:39:02,519
about this, but there's no question that religiously involved individuals,

670
00:39:02,519 --> 00:39:05,559
So it's not about belief, it's about belonging donate more

671
00:39:05,639 --> 00:39:08,280
to charity. In the United States in terms of time

672
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,480
and money. They just do. Now, there's a lot of

673
00:39:10,519 --> 00:39:13,920
reasons for that, like more opportunities, the social connections, And

674
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,639
what we find, by the way, is that strong believers

675
00:39:16,679 --> 00:39:20,159
who are not embedded in religious communities do not, and

676
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:24,400
secular Americans who are embedded in humanist communities donate time

677
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,320
and money just at the same level. So it's really

678
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,239
the it's the congregating and being embedded in community that

679
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,599
is the secret sauce. But on that level, person by person,

680
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:35,480
religious Americans are more likely to give to charities. Again,

681
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,719
the secular are more likely to say tax me for that.

682
00:39:39,079 --> 00:39:41,199
I would rather be taxed, But on a day to

683
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,039
day basis, Yeah, that's the one that comes to mind. Also,

684
00:39:44,599 --> 00:39:46,360
religious people, I don't know if you can see there's

685
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,760
more or not, but their marriages tend to last longer

686
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:53,119
than second on average. It's not that extreme, but it's

687
00:39:53,119 --> 00:39:58,159
pretty strong. Conversely, secular women are far more likely to

688
00:39:58,199 --> 00:40:07,039
receive oral sex than religious women. Swelling at balances out. Okay,

689
00:40:07,519 --> 00:40:13,280
next question, it's true.

690
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 3: Can you speak to their connection between education levels in

691
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:23,320
religion and crime and morality? The question, is there a

692
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:28,440
connection in religion between education levels and crime and morality?

693
00:40:28,679 --> 00:40:31,679
Speaker 2: Ooh yeah. Education is a big factor there, And it

694
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,519
also depends who you're studying and who you're measuring, because

695
00:40:34,559 --> 00:40:36,719
in the United States, there's a difference between none of

696
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:40,400
the aboves who are a growing, growing portion. They simply

697
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,920
don't identify with religion, and because their numbers are swelling

698
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:46,960
so much, they're starting to look like the general population

699
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:53,000
at large, compared to secular Americans who self identify as atheist, agnostic, secular,

700
00:40:53,079 --> 00:40:56,440
or humanist. Those are a different population there. They have

701
00:40:56,679 --> 00:40:59,519
higher educational levels and so on and so forth. But

702
00:40:59,519 --> 00:41:02,159
the sort of none of the aboves tend to average

703
00:41:02,159 --> 00:41:05,880
out just like rest of Americans. I would say overall,

704
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:11,440
educational attainment tends to be a secularizing influence throughout history

705
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:13,960
and throughout society. If I had to ask how have

706
00:41:14,039 --> 00:41:18,719
these democracies become so secular? Educational attainment literacy has been

707
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:21,119
a huge factor over the last three century, is no

708
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:25,159
question about that. But specifically, if you're asking me how

709
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:29,239
education impacts those others. I haven't had enough coffee to

710
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:31,280
tease that out, but that's the best I can do.

711
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:36,119
Right now, Do the religious donate more to charity if

712
00:41:36,159 --> 00:41:36,920
you don't.

713
00:41:36,679 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 3: Count to the church. Okay, I think you got that one.

714
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,400
But for the record, do the religious give more to

715
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:46,360
charity if you take church and the organizations of church

716
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:47,599
giving out of the equation?

717
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 2: Oh right, and that's a good one too. People will say, well,

718
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,800
just so you can, we can tease that out, the

719
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:59,840
egendogamous or exogamous charity giving. So yes, most people in

720
00:42:00,039 --> 00:42:02,400
religions tend to give to their own church. But even

721
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,519
when you can control for that, so and again, all

722
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,679
it works like this. The church simply says, hey, everybody,

723
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:10,639
you know, if you're going to church on a regular basis,

724
00:42:10,679 --> 00:42:12,679
you're gonna hear things like this on a regular basis.

725
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,599
Hey don't forget we have that soup kitchen this Sunday,

726
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,519
Please donate. Hey don't forget we're doing a blood drive

727
00:42:18,639 --> 00:42:21,039
next week. Please don't forget to show up. It's those

728
00:42:21,119 --> 00:42:24,400
so there's just more opportunities, and those are I mean,

729
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,880
if someone's going down to a blood bank, we don't

730
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,679
consider that donating just to the church. So it is

731
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,360
true they give more to their own organization, as do

732
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,039
most people. But even when you can control for that,

733
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,719
they do tend to open their wallets more when ask

734
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,159
because again they're presented with the opportunity more. And too,

735
00:42:41,199 --> 00:42:43,960
they're embedded in a social community that rewards that kind

736
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:48,000
of behavior, and it's increased social capital. Oh that's another one.

737
00:42:48,159 --> 00:42:52,599
We are more individualistic secular. I don't know about Canadians,

738
00:42:52,599 --> 00:42:54,639
but in the US we tend to be more individualistic.

739
00:42:54,679 --> 00:42:57,400
We tend to have we don't value being in groups

740
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,480
of like minded people, whereas religious people do value that

741
00:43:00,519 --> 00:43:02,440
and tend to have high rates of social capital. Meaning

742
00:43:02,599 --> 00:43:05,679
in a US context, religious people can have more people

743
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,440
they can rely on when their wife gets cancer or

744
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,119
when their child's in a car accident than secular Americans.

745
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:14,159
So there's another one where we don't do as well

746
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:26,159
hurting cats. But did I mention oral sex? Okay? Do

747
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,360
secular people condmit fewer crimes or are they better at

748
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:30,679
not getting caught in picted?

749
00:43:31,039 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 3: Okay? The question do secular people commit fewer crimes or

750
00:43:35,519 --> 00:43:37,800
are we just better at not getting caught?

751
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:41,440
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, that's a really good question, actually, because a

752
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,199
lot of the data we have on crime is based

753
00:43:44,199 --> 00:43:46,920
on who is convicted and who you know, and are

754
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:48,519
they in the system and are they noted. So if

755
00:43:48,559 --> 00:43:50,920
you if you, if you don't ever get arrested at all,

756
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,599
that doesn't mean you're not committing crimes. If you can

757
00:43:53,599 --> 00:43:57,119
get arrested and not get charged, you can get charged

758
00:43:57,119 --> 00:43:58,840
and make a plea deal. So it is true that

759
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,639
there's problems by looking at those who ended up charged

760
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,679
and convicted, and they are often more likely to be

761
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,000
from poor backgrounds, they're more likely to be people of color.

762
00:44:09,079 --> 00:44:12,280
There's all these factors at play. What I would argue is,

763
00:44:13,039 --> 00:44:15,880
I don't know, don't I don't know if secular people

764
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,079
are just really good at stealing shit and they're just

765
00:44:18,119 --> 00:44:20,880
better at covering it up, or they're just really good at,

766
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,639
you know, whacking old people on the head and stealing

767
00:44:23,679 --> 00:44:26,199
their stuff, and I just don't know. It's possible. I

768
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:30,800
doubt it, but yeah, that would be my best answer there.

769
00:44:31,159 --> 00:44:34,119
I think poverty is a much more strongly determinant of

770
00:44:34,159 --> 00:44:36,960
whether you're going to get convicted than anything else, religious

771
00:44:37,039 --> 00:44:39,000
or secular. Can you afford a good lawyer?

772
00:44:39,559 --> 00:44:43,679
Speaker 1: Is there enough data say about homeschooled individuals.

773
00:44:43,039 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 3: To make incurs Okay, the question about data on homeschooled individuals.

774
00:44:48,119 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 2: Ooh, not that I know of that is knowable. That's

775
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,960
an empirical question that we could find out how homeschooling

776
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:56,480
correlates with all these outcomes. All I know is that

777
00:44:56,519 --> 00:45:01,000
in the United States, homeschooled children are overwhelmingly going to

778
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,119
be coming from strongly religious homes whose parents think that

779
00:45:04,159 --> 00:45:08,360
the local school is too secularized. There are some secular

780
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:11,639
folks that It's interesting. One of my research I contacted

781
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:15,880
secular humanists in the Bible Belt who homeschooled their kids

782
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:20,840
because the school, the public school, was too religious. Fascinating

783
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:29,239
stuff that say it again? Families, yeah, oh exactly. There

784
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:31,719
were quite a few, and they had organized thanks to

785
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:33,960
the Internet. They found each other and actually they schooled

786
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,920
their children together, you know, because the stories were always

787
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:39,920
the same. They sent their kids to public school and

788
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:43,159
their children were shamed for not being church members. Their children.

789
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,719
The principals told the parents, get your kid in church.

790
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:48,119
If they're getting bullied on the schoolyard, the best solution

791
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:49,880
is to get right with God. I mean, they just

792
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:53,440
had horror story after horror story. One woman's mom was

793
00:45:53,559 --> 00:45:56,760
dying at the old age home and the school wouldn't

794
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,960
release the children because they knew that they were secular

795
00:46:00,199 --> 00:46:02,760
and decided to just make an example. I mean, it's

796
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,920
really crazy, but they are the exceptions. The vast majority

797
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,599
of homeschooling in the United States is by ultra strongly

798
00:46:08,599 --> 00:46:10,920
religious people. But that's all I know. I don't know

799
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,480
then what the outcomes are. There is there a concertain

800
00:46:14,639 --> 00:46:17,400
secular reminded be able to become biased against religious people

801
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:19,599
and dismiss their views as tokwards or privative.

802
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:24,639
Speaker 3: This question about seculars being biased against religious people because

803
00:46:24,679 --> 00:46:29,000
we perceive them as primitive and backward, that never happens.

804
00:46:31,519 --> 00:46:34,119
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think one of the one of the dangerous

805
00:46:34,119 --> 00:46:36,079
even of this talk is that it's very easy for

806
00:46:36,159 --> 00:46:38,280
us to puff off our chefs and think, wow, look

807
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:40,639
how great we are, and look how backward those those

808
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:44,000
religious people are. That is a bias we have to

809
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:47,119
be conscious of. I suffer from it, as my kids

810
00:46:47,159 --> 00:46:50,559
constantly remind me. The way I deal with it is

811
00:46:50,599 --> 00:46:52,480
I just try to think of the people I know

812
00:46:52,559 --> 00:46:55,920
in my life who I really like and respect and

813
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,800
think are moral and many religious people immediately pop up.

814
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:01,360
I mean I know, so I would say the vast

815
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,800
majority of people I know are good, I mean most humans.

816
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,679
Because of our evolutionary history. We don't like to see

817
00:47:07,679 --> 00:47:10,639
others suffer. We don't like violence, we like to see

818
00:47:10,679 --> 00:47:12,840
others doing well. We like to treat people the way

819
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:14,159
we want to be treated. I mean, these are This

820
00:47:14,199 --> 00:47:17,400
is hardwired into us through our social evolution. So secular

821
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:20,320
or religious, most of us most of the time want

822
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,000
to get along and treat you other people well. So

823
00:47:23,079 --> 00:47:25,679
we do need to counter that. But what I would

824
00:47:25,679 --> 00:47:29,360
say is, as long as we are constantly being bombarded

825
00:47:29,519 --> 00:47:33,800
with your immoral trope, we have to fight back. And

826
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,159
so every time there's a school shooting in the United States,

827
00:47:37,199 --> 00:47:41,960
so basically every week, the leading politicians say it's because

828
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:43,880
we've abandoned God. I mean that to me, this is

829
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:47,199
an atrocity. To blame school shootings on a lack of

830
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,400
religious faith is not only just a grave lie, but

831
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,039
it's a lie that has real consequences. So we have

832
00:47:53,079 --> 00:47:54,880
to stand up and say, hey, we're not the ones

833
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:58,920
that are immoral. You know you are. But that said, yes,

834
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,800
we mustn't be just as bigoted against our religious brothers

835
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,719
and sisters, especially those who we share so much in

836
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:09,039
common with. There's so many religious people, progressive religious people

837
00:48:09,159 --> 00:48:12,480
who agree with us on all these issues because they've

838
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:18,920
become quite secularized in their religiosity. Okay, how do you

839
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,320
account for those who might lie about the religious identification

840
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:26,360
in prisons? For example, plating religion often gets access to programs.

841
00:48:26,599 --> 00:48:31,039
Speaker 3: Rule this question about the stats on prison inmates, incarcerated

842
00:48:31,079 --> 00:48:34,480
people who might lie about their faith, their Christianity or

843
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,599
whatever because they're trying to get favor from the system,

844
00:48:37,639 --> 00:48:39,079
including the parole board.

845
00:48:39,559 --> 00:48:43,760
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's that's always the case. Yeah, when I

846
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:47,079
go into the prisons, it's me and the Jehovah's witnesses

847
00:48:47,519 --> 00:48:51,079
and the Muslim clerics and the Pentecostals. Like I'm the

848
00:48:51,119 --> 00:48:54,679
only secular person. By the way, I've been sneaking in

849
00:48:54,800 --> 00:49:00,679
food too. Oh but I brought McDonald's. Weren't checking my

850
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:03,639
bag and I finally said enough, it is enough. And

851
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:05,880
there was a McDonald's across the highway and I had

852
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,239
nine guys this semester, who I shouldn't be saying this

853
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:12,039
because it's being recorded, but well anyway, but I got

854
00:49:12,119 --> 00:49:14,760
nine double cheeseburgers, and I wrapped them in a Trader

855
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:17,119
Joe's bag. I put them in my backpack, I mean,

856
00:49:17,199 --> 00:49:19,559
my briefcase, and I got past the guard and I

857
00:49:19,639 --> 00:49:22,159
got through the gate. And when I got to class,

858
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:24,280
these guys had meeting McDonald's in like twelve years, some

859
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:26,400
of these guys fourteen years. One guy's been in for

860
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,440
eighteen years. It was a really joyous time. So I

861
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,039
felt like, well, I contributed to global warming, but I

862
00:49:32,079 --> 00:49:38,000
made these nine guys really happy. Okay, what was the question? Yes? Oh, yes,

863
00:49:38,119 --> 00:49:41,000
so in prison. Absolutely, There's all kinds of ways you

864
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,920
can lower your you know, get reduction in days and

865
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:46,519
weeks and months, and being religious is certainly one of them.

866
00:49:46,599 --> 00:49:50,000
So yes, there is an incentive to feign religiosity, there's

867
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:52,440
no question about that. On the other hand, the guys

868
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:54,960
that I know don't seem to be faking it. Again,

869
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:57,519
a small sample, Well, you know, you usually have nine

870
00:49:57,599 --> 00:49:58,960
or ten in a class. I've been teaching for a

871
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:02,320
few years there, so does it happen, probably, But uh

872
00:50:03,119 --> 00:50:06,519
can I do I have time for one anecdote? They

873
00:50:06,559 --> 00:50:09,360
also didn't check what I was assigning for reading at

874
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:14,119
this prison, so I brought in some pretty interesting stuff.

875
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:18,880
I brought in the trial of Galileo, who you know,

876
00:50:19,079 --> 00:50:22,320
understood about our universe. And then the Catholic Church said

877
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,199
if you don't recan't you know, we're gonna kill you.

878
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,400
So you can read the transcripts of that trial. So

879
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:30,840
we were all reading this and here, you know, we're

880
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:33,679
reading about Galileo and how awful the Catholic Church is

881
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,079
and what a shame this is. And it gets to

882
00:50:36,119 --> 00:50:38,159
the point where they're like, do you renounce this is

883
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:40,760
not true? You know the worth does it revolve around

884
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:42,840
the sun? And Galileo was thinking like, well, do I

885
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:45,480
want to die or not? So Galileo says, yes, I

886
00:50:45,559 --> 00:50:48,440
renounced that I was mistaken. And one of my inmates says,

887
00:50:48,599 --> 00:50:53,960
what a pussy And I'm like what And he's like

888
00:50:54,039 --> 00:50:55,719
what the hell. I'm like, what do you mean he

889
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:57,639
was gonna be killed? He's like, dude, if you're right,

890
00:50:57,639 --> 00:50:59,400
you're right, you stand up for what you believe. And

891
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,079
I was like, uh, Galileo, He's like, I wouldn't recount that.

892
00:51:03,119 --> 00:51:05,239
This is my wife. Someone comes up to me and says,

893
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:08,360
you know, recount all sh shoot me. Then I'm like, oh, man,

894
00:51:08,599 --> 00:51:12,960
Galileo the Pussy. I never thought of that. Are we good?

895
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:17,199
All right? Whenast one which says thanks Phil, will you

896
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:24,440
please run for president? Oh Man, thank you, thank you,

897
00:51:24,679 --> 00:51:25,360
I'd love you.

898
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,360
Speaker 3: And that is the audio of Phil's speech. The video

899
00:51:31,519 --> 00:51:35,239
so good as well. It is linked in the description box.

900
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:38,400
Thank you so much for listening, and I will see

901
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:39,519
you back here next time.

902
00:51:40,079 --> 00:51:43,639
Speaker 1: Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a

903
00:51:43,679 --> 00:51:47,320
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904
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:51,000
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905
00:51:51,039 --> 00:51:54,719
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906
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