Speaker 1: Psalms one five fifteen says touch my anointed, Touch not
Speaker 1: my anointed, rather, and do my profits no harm. Normally,
Speaker 1: this means that God's chosen people, particularly those who are
Speaker 1: serving as messengers of God's word, should not be harmed
Speaker 1: or mistreated. Does this mean even when they do harm
Speaker 1: and also mistreat Tracy has the story Tracy.
Speaker 2: In another horrifying series of events from religious institutions which
Speaker 2: we seem to never be in a shortage of recent finding,
Speaker 2: an Australian Russian Orthodox priest named Alexis rosen Tool has
Speaker 2: been found guilty of the sexual assault of two men
Speaker 2: and a child. Following the release of this information and
Speaker 2: in a press release which I read as a bit detached,
Speaker 2: the Russian Orthodox Church apologized, and on Sunday, July sixth,
Speaker 2: a high priest at the offender's former church warned his
Speaker 2: flock not to judge the priest, as sheep do not
Speaker 2: judge the shepherd, and to judge a priest is to
Speaker 2: judge their God himself. He uses his God as an
Speaker 2: instrument in fear, saying that to condemn is pride, and
Speaker 2: pride is one of the greatest sins. If condemnation is
Speaker 2: a sin, then their God must be the greatest sinner
Speaker 2: of all. This story is from the Friendly Atheist by
Speaker 2: Heaven't Metta on July ninth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: This is shit.
Speaker 1: Internet apologists say say, which is unfortunate. And I want
Speaker 1: to ask you, Tracy, if you can kind of go
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper into this particular story. If you can,
Speaker 1: you know well basically what led to set events and
Speaker 1: also to lead said priest to tell basically the sheep,
Speaker 1: which are the dumb congregants, because sheep are one of the.
Speaker 3: Most dumbest animals.
Speaker 1: That walk the face of this earth, to basically say
Speaker 1: nada about the prophet hints or the Shepherd even in
Speaker 1: his wrongdoing.
Speaker 2: So I don't really know what led up to them
Speaker 2: finding out about all this. I understand that there were
Speaker 2: some documents found about a former conclavor or project that
Speaker 2: he had been in the Holy Transfiguration Monastery of Bambala,
Speaker 2: and he had this really messed up list of rules
Speaker 2: and regulations and mission statements for it. I can pull
Speaker 2: up a couple examples here. Fear the Abbot as your
Speaker 2: lord and love him as your father. When you are
Speaker 2: abuse to be quiet, offend no one. And when you
Speaker 2: are offended, Barrett patiently put no hope in vain plans
Speaker 2: and dreams. And then it goes on like this massive
Speaker 2: rant about how women are evil and will suck away
Speaker 2: your virtue with their venom, and it's really quite insane.
Speaker 2: I'm not one hundred percent, but I believe that this
Speaker 2: that made was it that the turning up of this
Speaker 2: document was what had caused them just to turn against
Speaker 2: him in the first place, or am I just off
Speaker 2: base entirely there?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: I think the condemnation of the of the priests was
Speaker 4: what they were talking about the congregation, and that's when
Speaker 4: the priest officiating that they said, do not judge him
Speaker 4: because he was one of our party. Sure, he was
Speaker 4: the priest at this congregation at the time. And then
Speaker 4: the the article talks about this other congregation that Rose
Speaker 4: and Tool created between the time of the events he
Speaker 4: was child for and the time he was charged. So
Speaker 4: all this is on the span of almost twenty years.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you mentioned the passage about women. I'd like
Speaker 4: to read it to you because it's quite entertaining. Well
Speaker 4: in a way, it says, and I quote, the gaze
Speaker 4: of a woman is like a poison arrow, wounding, wounding
Speaker 4: the soul and to death. It is better to jump
Speaker 4: into a raging fire than to draw near to a
Speaker 4: young woman, especially when you are young. Avoid discourse with
Speaker 4: women if you hope to curb your body lusts. The
Speaker 4: beautiful face is more destructive than thunder and lightning. So
Speaker 4: that's what happens when Yeah, yeah, that's that's what happens.
Speaker 4: When when when you prevent men from having a normal sexuality,
Speaker 4: then they developed an abnormal one.
Speaker 3: And that's what I don't know, Cindy.
Speaker 1: I think this kind of like leads to like some
Speaker 1: in cells that we see like on the intrawebs, like
Speaker 1: you know, because they talk like this, right and And
Speaker 1: I don't know, Cindy, when you last looked at yourself
Speaker 1: in the mirror, did you think of nothing but destructive
Speaker 1: thundering and lightning? I wish me too, I tell you,
Speaker 1: I tell you, I think that we would get our
Speaker 1: way with like all the time if we're like, you know, what,
Speaker 1: if you don't pay us equally, guess what thundering and lightning?
Speaker 3: Bitch?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know, but the city.
Speaker 1: I did want to ask you because, like you mentioned
Speaker 1: in your notes about this article actually containing two parts.
Speaker 3: Can you explain what you meant about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah. The first of the first part of the elt
Speaker 4: is the let's let me put it back. So the
Speaker 4: archbishop uh what's.
Speaker 3: His name, George Sefer, Yes, that's him.
Speaker 4: Uh. And the the he so he's officiating after the
Speaker 4: conviction of Alexei Rosenthal, who was a member of this parish,
Speaker 4: and he says, do not judge him because your sheep,
Speaker 4: and he's a he's a shepherd. And so Alan Metta
Speaker 4: he worked, he researched Alexei Rosenthal to know more about him,
Speaker 4: and that's where the second part of the article comes,
Speaker 4: and the the information about his congregation where he was
Speaker 4: the leader and there were only women uh in there.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's the two parts of them of the article.
Speaker 4: Rosenthul was sentenced to ten months in prison for raping
Speaker 4: two men and a child. So I'm just putting this,
Speaker 4: uh ten just in month, Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ten months, because that speaks justice. Ten months actually
Speaker 1: doing you know, certain things to particular.
Speaker 2: People, see the instances of sexual battery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well you know should we
Speaker 3: say that?
Speaker 1: Well, I guess because of the way that they looked
Speaker 1: at women that's the reason why they did it to
Speaker 1: two men and a child instead.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's let me go, let me grab my thoughts here
Speaker 1: because I have so many. But before I actually go
Speaker 1: into all of that, Tracy, I want you.
Speaker 3: To if you could just answer this question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are the dangers of equating criticisms of clergy
Speaker 1: with blasphemy? And how does that believe silence victims and
Speaker 1: enable the actual perpetriggers.
Speaker 2: I think you can see very clearly the dangers of
Speaker 2: questioning your clergy and equating questioning your clergy with blasphemy.
Speaker 2: In the story of history, as we've seen it over
Speaker 2: and over again, the divine right of kings led to
Speaker 2: some very very horrible situations. War's horrible living situations, and
Speaker 2: laws and society set up this you know, Uh, the
Speaker 2: entire feudal system as a whole largely came from like
Speaker 2: this divine right, this thing that I will not be
Speaker 2: questioned because my will is the will of God, if
Speaker 2: you allow. I mean the the the old adage, of course,
Speaker 2: will always ring true that absolute power corrupts absolutely and
Speaker 2: and and it will happen like that as clearly happened.
Speaker 2: This man was handed an amount of power that he
Speaker 2: clearly could not control, clearly did not have the ability
Speaker 2: to to to to use well, and he used it
Speaker 2: to harm others. This is one of the most obvious
Speaker 2: ways we can see that conflating those two things is
Speaker 2: extremely dangerous and one of the and it's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that I find religious thinking to be so dangerous,
Speaker 2: because it isn't too long ago that and it is
Speaker 2: still kind of the case in some places that questioning
Speaker 2: even just your preacher is tantamount to blasphemy, and it's
Speaker 2: it's a very dangerous thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I can think of so many different
Speaker 1: instances when I was attached to a more strict church
Speaker 1: institution where basically the leader, the pastor the prophet, the apostle,
Speaker 1: the Angel of the house as you know, whatever type
Speaker 1: of you know, moniker you want to assign, was basically
Speaker 1: giving you know, absolution like the pope, regardless of what
Speaker 1: they said they did or you know, or even like
Speaker 1: whatever type of possible harm that they could cause out
Speaker 1: another person. Now, you know, I can't really say in
Speaker 1: my personal experience that I knew specifically of pastors, ministers,
Speaker 1: or even priests when I was part of you know,
Speaker 1: a more Roman Catholic or even like Little Sea Catholic.
Speaker 1: That's what the episcopals were as far as like you know,
Speaker 1: doing abuse. But of course, like you know, being part
Speaker 1: of this particular institution of the ACA and talking about
Speaker 1: these stories we talk about, you know, essay a lot
Speaker 1: when it comes to the church, and it's not just
Speaker 1: a Catholic church, right, And unfortunately there's this idea that's
Speaker 1: not just in the Catholic Church obviously, that the leadership
Speaker 1: should not be held accountable for some of the horrible
Speaker 1: things did they do to the more vulnerable populations of
Speaker 1: their congregation. And it's always in some particular cases children
Speaker 1: or young people like I. I don't know how old
Speaker 1: the two men were who were assaulted, but if someone
Speaker 1: can actually find in an article, that'd be great. But
Speaker 1: you know, okay, but but you know, but we do
Speaker 1: know that it was a child. And and unfortunately, and unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we have way too many, too many cases where children
Speaker 1: are the victims of people who are in authority that
Speaker 1: we're supposed to look up to to be infallible and
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be anointed men of God or whatever
Speaker 1: that we're supposed to look at them and feel and
Speaker 1: and and should feel some type of safety, but unfortunately
Speaker 1: that's not the case. I remember, guys, my seventh and
Speaker 1: eighth grade teacher from my parochial school, Roman Catholic Parochial
Speaker 1: School unfriended me on Facebook because I put up a
Speaker 1: meme that said that more children were harmed in church
Speaker 1: than at drag queen shows. And he decided to scold
Speaker 1: me because I decided to do.
Speaker 3: It on Holy Week, right before Easter.
Speaker 1: And then I only replied to him one sentence that
Speaker 1: was a question.
Speaker 3: I said to my teacher, where's the lie?
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know that I was unfriended, But you know,
Speaker 1: but that's the thing, like, you know, we constantly are
Speaker 1: covering these stories, and we're constantly covering children and men
Speaker 1: and women and victims after victim after victim when it
Speaker 1: comes to and then we're supposed to keep silence about this,
Speaker 1: like you know, the congregation can't talk about it, People
Speaker 1: on the outside should not talk about it, and you know,
Speaker 1: but we want to demonize and you know, scapegoat to
Speaker 1: the queer community as as far as like they're being predators,
Speaker 1: but they're not the predators.
Speaker 3: They're not they're they're not the predators. I'm not and
Speaker 3: they're not. They're not, They're not the predators.
Speaker 2: It's the same thing that bad guys have been I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: but it's the same thing that bad guys in politics
Speaker 2: have been doing forever. Is just pointing at a small
Speaker 2: group of people and saying, you see those people over there,
Speaker 2: they're doing everything that you're afraid people are doing.
Speaker 3: And it's well living.
Speaker 1: Your life and not necessarily having to ask permission in
Speaker 1: order for you to be happy, for you to be
Speaker 1: able to actually, you know, live.
Speaker 3: The truth of who you are to you, you.
Speaker 1: Know, I mean, like and again it just goes back
Speaker 1: to this, to this whole thing about like if you
Speaker 1: want to see control, this is how what the control
Speaker 1: looks like, Cindy, you know, talk about evidence, Like, if
Speaker 1: you want evidence about religion, what's that look like?
Speaker 4: You know, there's what I was listening to you. There's
Speaker 4: something that I've been trying to to explain for for
Speaker 4: a little while. And we talked about teaching critical thinking
Speaker 4: in school. And so when we are children, we are
Speaker 4: wired to to listen to authority, to our parents, right,
Speaker 4: and religion relies heavily on this that's why they teach
Speaker 4: religion to kids because they they they mistake this, uh,
Speaker 4: this religious authority to parental authority to children the same.
Speaker 4: So on the other hand, when when when we talk
Speaker 4: about science, uh, we we rely on the words and
Speaker 4: and and the and the studies and and all that
Speaker 4: from people and we use them as a source of knowledge.
Speaker 4: And so people, most people don't understand the difference between
Speaker 4: the two. And teaching critical thinking is crucial because we
Speaker 4: need to be able to live in society where we
Speaker 4: can make the difference between the two. Because this week
Speaker 4: while we're recording this, there's a big issue on the
Speaker 4: US government with this Epstein client list. Does it exist,
Speaker 4: does it not? You shouldn't listen to it, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 4: And because so many people listen to one man in
Speaker 4: position of authority and believe what he said and didn't
Speaker 4: apply critical thinking. And now I don't know, I don't
Speaker 4: know how to how to explain this difference to people.
Speaker 4: But someone needs to.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, because like here in the style Innidos
Speaker 1: and in other places where you know religion or even
Speaker 1: like you know, when you when you have regimes over
Speaker 1: you that do not allow or discourage critical thinking and skepticism. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you have a vast array of misinformation in misdirection to
Speaker 1: happen to get into the frame, you know, and people
Speaker 1: start to who happen to be you know, the in
Speaker 1: the electorate are you know, propagandized to death and to
Speaker 1: the point where we're at the area of you know,
Speaker 1: between not necessarily knowing what is fact and what is
Speaker 1: not because we're basically being told that, hey, this whole
Speaker 1: thing right here where the evidence looks like that this
Speaker 1: is actually thing, we're propagandized to say this is not
Speaker 1: a thing. Right. And unfortunately, we had a very long
Speaker 1: history due to you know, religion being such so intertwined
Speaker 1: with how our society has grown. Even though that you know,
Speaker 1: the United States is not.
Speaker 3: An old country. We're like what two hundred and forty
Speaker 3: nine years old, you know.
Speaker 1: And I mean even though the founders, like you know,
Speaker 1: made it a point when in the very first Amendment
Speaker 1: to do the Establishment Cause to separate church and state,
Speaker 1: religion and government because they saw in Europe how when
Speaker 1: you know, church gets involved with government, all types of
Speaker 1: you know, bad crap happens. Right, But unfortunately, we still
Speaker 1: had people who ended up getting into the government who
Speaker 1: don't want that right we had. We have sitting Congress
Speaker 1: people now saying they don't believe in the separation of
Speaker 1: religion and government. Crap, you know, coming out of their
Speaker 1: mouths as they are talking to other you know, religious
Speaker 1: and religion institutions, right, And this is what we're fighting
Speaker 1: against now.
Speaker 3: So when we are.
Speaker 1: Looking at instances like this story where people are clearly
Speaker 1: being harmed and you know, and just to go on
Speaker 1: like a small rant. One of the things that really
Speaker 1: grinds my gears is when I am talking to you know,
Speaker 1: Christians specifically, who will confront you as a person who
Speaker 1: happens to be secular, non believer or agnostic, atheist, whatever
Speaker 1: you decide you're going to call yourself. And you mentioned
Speaker 1: a instance or several instances where there was actual harm
Speaker 1: that came from the top down from a religious institution,
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, you left because a church hurt,
Speaker 1: and you're not supposed to lead because a church heart,
Speaker 1: because you're supposed to look at God and not the band.
Speaker 1: I said, well, baby girl, how in the hell am
Speaker 1: I supposed to separate to if I am taught that
Speaker 1: the man that's standing in front of me is a
Speaker 1: representation of God.
Speaker 3: Make that make sense. So now we.
Speaker 1: Are here at these crossroads, and we are constantly being
Speaker 1: bombarded with looking over there at the bush even though
Speaker 1: it's on fire.
Speaker 3: Oh no, don't look at the bushes on fire. Look
Speaker 3: over here. Okay, I mean, like, what do you want
Speaker 3: us to do? Okay?
Speaker 1: It has to be to the point where we are saying, listen,
Speaker 1: we cannot allow ourselves to keep silent when we are
Speaker 1: seeing people doing harm to the least of us. We
Speaker 1: cannot allow just because a person happens to have a
Speaker 1: religious leadership position to get away without being accountable when
Speaker 1: they are doing harm to people. And you cannot continuously
Speaker 1: gaslight people into if there are leaving religion and they're
Speaker 1: leaving these institutions, and they're leaving belief systems and they're
Speaker 1: wanting to lean more to skepticism and critical thinking and
Speaker 1: actually gaining knowledge through using empirical evidence rather than wishful thinking.
Speaker 1: Not to demonize them because that's what they decide to do,
Speaker 1: because it's obvious that we've been doing this belief faith
Speaker 1: crap all this time and it's not working for us.
Speaker 4: It's not amen at all.