Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.
Speaker 3: If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
not because I put my hand on a book and
made a.
Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: My fellow animal lovers. You ever wonder if it's it's
worth it? We know it is. I know it is.
But we pay a heavy price for love, don't we.
We had a traumatic moment, so you know cat right,
probably most famous for that drawing that I did at
the Recovering from Religion fundraiser, and I did this sort
of last second sharpie drawing that was done so quickly.
There's not even a tail on the cat. It just
came out funny and it became a thing. And then
Matt Delahunty said, if we raised this much for our
fr I will have this tattooed on my body, and
he did he's got cat or that drawing that I
did of cat on his calf. I just horrified by
the idea. I'd try to talk him out of it, dude,
you know, and he just thought it was funny. And
a bunch of people have asked me to put it
on T shirts. He stell T shirts of Cat. I
don't know. I might, I don't know, but he family.
He's my child, like Linus and Gracie are my children.
He's very Persian, and I guess I've been reading about it.
I guess this is a thing with the Persian breed
that they may not be quite as lovey. They they're
not lap cats quite as much as some of the
other I mean, I've had other cats my whole life,
and they would anytime you sit down, they're on your lap,
and they're just lovey, and some wanted to be held
and not Cat. He's never been that. He likes it.
He's grafted to me, and he's definitely become more lovey
and kind of snugly over the past four or five
years as he's gotten older. But I lay down, he's
got to be right here, kind of near my neck.
If I sit on a couch, he has to be
sitting on the arm, but he won't get any closer.
I'm allowed to pet him, but only in a very
specific way, so he doesn't like fingers on the fur,
anything near the hunt of the back or his Oh
hell no. He will give the immediate warning, don't touch
that again, or you will bleed. But I can take
the back of my hand and hold it up. I
just hold it and he walks past it and he
rubs himself on it. He's rubbing his scent. I'm sure
on me. It's a sense of belonging. I'm part of
his pride, and he will start to pur very loudly,
and he might allow me to scratch his head, neck
and shoulders for about eighteen seconds, and then he decides
he's done and he turns into satan. I get the warning.
It's a very shrill I mean, stop it. So he
goes from yes, yes, yes, yes, to stop it immediately.
If I continue to scratch him for another second and
a half, he will make me bleed. Right, he just
turns on me. So I've learned, and we haven't had
him turn on me for years. I know what the
Cat wants I get the boundaries, all right, but he
is totally bonded to me. I just got back from Knoxville, Tennessee.
I spoke for the Rationalist of East Tennessee. That his
speechs there on identity beliefs. I walked back in the house,
and of course the dogs are wagging and yipping and
jumping and barking, and we have a big reunion. But
Cat is right there, traumatized that I was gone for
two days, and he follows me around. He won't leave
me alone. So he's a good kittie boy. He's a
good key boy. And a couple of weeks ago, actually
a little longer, he developed a limp in his left paw.
We just noticed it, honey, Why is he limping hobbling
into the living room? Wait a minute, what happened to him?
So we gingerly grab him. Wasn't a fan of that,
but we grab him. When we kind of massage the
foot a little bit, the ankle, We check the shoulder.
He's not jumping, he's not wincing, he's not shrieking. It
doesn't look like there's a sharp pain, but there's something
going on. Well, maybe he tweaked it jumping off a chair, right,
So we decide, well, let's just keep an eye on him,
and we do days pass. He's still limping. He is
breaking my heart. I call the veterinarian, bracing myself because
here we go. You know they're going to do a radiograph.
That's two three hundred dollars before I get out of there.
But Kat's family, let's do the right thing. I could
go to some hole in the wall that right, Oh yeah,
we'll do it for fifty nine dollars. We can get
you in right away. And I'm not going to those
sketch places. I want someone that's reputable checking out cats.
So we go in, we do the X ray, and
the doc says bone spurs. I'm not sure. I buy it.
I'm sure there are bone spurs, and they say arthritist
is a thing for older cats. But there's something about
the way he's limping that makes me think it's a
tissue injury. So right now we're having the conversation about
whether to take him in for a cat scan to
check the tissues, and then I'm doing the math on that. Okay,
how much money is not going to cost? But at
the same time, it's not about money, it's about taking cares,
about doing the right thing right. So we're having that conversation.
He is lying here right next to me. He looks content,
he's comfortable. His paw is sort of up on the
cat bed. But anyway, we were sitting in the living room,
back to my traumatic event. We're sitting in the living
room and we're having a conversation. Natalie says, well, how
old is cat? So we started doing the math. Okay,
him in twenty eleven, and they said he was about
nine months old then, so it's twenty fourteen, almost twenty fifteen,
probably fourteen years old. Fourteen. So then I make this mistake,
and I'm sure I'm going to set off your echo
when I do this, But I called back. I said, Alexa,
how long do cats live? And she says, according to
I forget the website wikipediacats dot com or something, the
average lifespan of a house cat is fourteen years. And
that and I just looked at each other. Oh my god,
it's the beginning of the end. Cats live fourteen years.
It was just terrible. So we started looking at cat
like he's terminally ill. This is it. He's just gonna
fall over, he's gonna deteriorate. We're gonna wake up someday
and he's gonna be just dead on the bit. Totally
worst case scenario ourself immediately. And then I got smart
and I pulled out my phone and I went to
a reputable side. I went to the ASPCA website to
learn more about cats, and okay, they often live a
lot longer than fourteen. Some cats live to be sixteen seventeen.
There have been some who have reached twenty. It may
not be the beginning of the end, after all, but
I can help it. Now. When I look at him,
I think, how long do we have? How long do
we have?
Speaker 4: Shit?
Speaker 2: I'm doing it with Linus and Gracie. Oh long, Linus
is ten little dogs live? What fifteen? Sixteen seventeen? Okay,
I'll take that. I'll take it. It's a heavy price
we pay for love. It's worth it. It's worth it
every minute of every day. It's worth it. But it's
a heavy price we pay for love. Anyway, Maybe call
him the veterinarian again today to I don't know. I'm
just suspicious that this is some sort of a specific
injury beyond arthritis. I don't know. I'm not asking you
to email. I mean, I know a lot of people
have experience. If you want to share that, great, I'm
not trying to get diagnoses on social media that way
madness lies. It has been an interesting week. I early
voted for the first time in my life. I think,
if I'm going to be honest, there are two main reasons. One,
I just wanted to get it done because I'm apprehensive.
I saw a meme or a cartoon where there was
a dog and he had one of those vests on
that said thunder shirt, you know the things that are
supposed to make dogs feel safe and secure when storms come.
And then his owner is sitting in front of the
television set and he's wearing a vest and it says
election shirt to help keep him from having anxiety. I
have anxiety. So I think part of me wanted to
just go. But I don't have to think about it
for another week, and wonder are there going to be
huge lines? What if I don't make it through, you
know that kind of thing. And the second concern I have,
and I think this is legitimate, I'm worried about some
batshit crazy person driving through the parking lot shooting at
the crowd with an AR fifteen. I don't think that's unwarranted.
There are some nutbars out there. I think election violence,
I hate to say this, I think it's inevitable. I
think there are going to be outbreaks of violent pockets
of violence all over the place, and you never know where.
I think it's the agents of chaos are going to
go and sew chaos. They want obfuse scation. They want
to make sure that it's so jacked up and crazy
and chaotic that nobody knows what's up or down, or
true or false. And it's in that fog of war
that the bad people can cry foul and maneuver and
cheat and steal.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm terrified of that. So I thought, Okay, I
want to early vote for the first time in my life.
Natalie agreed, so we set out the morning. She decided
she was going to get into work late. She made
that arrangement she had to be in by ten thirty. Okay, well,
if we get in line at eight point fifteen, we
should be fine. I'm thinking a half an hour forty
minutes to get through and vote early. We show up
at the polling place, and the parking lots spilled out
of the parking lots into a grassy and dirt area,
cars everywhere. It looked like freaking woodstock. It was an
ocean of people coming out of the building. There was
a line and it wrapped all the way down to
the north and then it went around the building. And
as we walked around over there, that line went so
far I couldn't see the end of it. It wrapped
around some distant fence, and we thought, what in the
world are we going to be able to get through
this in time to get Natalie to work? How long
is it going to take? What's happening? So we went
ahead and hopped in two hours, two hours, edging forward
step by step until finally we did cast our votes,
and we have that sigh of relief. We got our
eye voted stickers. I don't know why I have such
a rush whenever I can get an eye voted sticker. Yay,
I voted. There are some people who say it doesn't
make a lick of difference, especially in a red state
like Oklahoma, and I understand why they think that it's
a pipe dream to think that Oklahoma is going to
turn blue, that it's not going to be Trump Land.
We've seen the politicians Governor Stitt, Ryan Walters, etc. But
but we are looking at Democratic candidates for mayor in
this city. The Republican mayor in Oklahoma City just published
a piece in the Oklahoma and saying he's been a Republican,
voted Republican his whole life. He feels like in order
to protect democracy he must vote for Kamala Harris. That
is massive. That is big news. That's a major shift.
Is it a reflection of what's happening overall in the
state of Oklahoma. I'm not expecting a blue wave. I'm
not a fan of that term. But are people getting
fed up. I've seen people who are on our tennis team,
in our relative social circle, in our neighborhood. I would
have never pegged them to vote Democrats and their Kamala.
They are ready loud and proud and passionate about stopping
the Trump train. Holy cow, is this a zeitgeist shift
in Oklahoma. I'm watching Texas Texas Ted Cruz, who is
pretty much without any redeeming quality. I just look at
Ted Cruz and I can hear him saying, you know,
this human suit is awfully uncomfortable. He is right there
on the bubble. Some poles have him losing his congressional seat.
Ted Cruz might lose. Wait a minute, is something happening?
We're watching the Trump rallies dwindle, people leaving early. It
just looks like a deflated balloon. Kamala rallies look like
a rock concert, filled with joy and enthusiasm. They're charged
with like tricity. Is something happening and are these early voters?
Are they there early?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: I think I had read a statistic. I don't want
to misrepresent this, but that most early voters lean democratic,
they lean liberal? Is that true? We were watching the people.
You're not allowed to wear election clothing to a polling place,
that's illegal, But we were watching other markers. What do
they have? An American flag shirt and a camo hat.
That's probably Trump. We saw a lot of blue. Natalie
brought this to my attention, women wearing blue and pearls,
and I guess pearls are an indicator that you are
a Kamala voter and supporter. I didn't realize that. Then,
you know, there was somebody else who had an activist
type shirt about women or equality for women. I saw
are They just ran the gamut as far as ethnicities
beyond white people, we saw people of color across the board.
I saw people running from the age of twenty to eighty,
few people in wheelchairs and walkers. I mean it was wild.
It was a see in ocean of humanity there to
vote early. It felt I know this sounds like hyperbole,
but it just felt like history. It felt like history.
And even if and when Oklahoma gows for Trump, I
sure liked the idea of seeing the newscasters reporting statistics
to the maga types that you know, the temperature of
this state may be changing. Look at the rise of
those who are in opposition to Trump and trumpers. You
may not be in the monopoly very long. Your privilege
just might be temporary. You might be forced to share
this state equally with people who don't look like you,
sound like you, vote like you, worship like you, love
like you, and you better just get ready for it.
I really like that idea. Anyway. Just picture me, picture
my dog with the thundershirt, me with the election shirt on.
For Tuesday night, I'll probably be glued to the television.
High stress. It's stressful. Anyway, short break. I'll be right
back with more babblings and ramblings from your humble host
after this. My patrons get the broadcast early and commercial free.
If you would like to support me, go to patreon
dot com slash Seth Andrews and you have my thanks.
So there is somebody on my outer friends circle. We
would cross paths on the tennis courts ten twelve years
ago and we haven't spoken in years, and yet occasionally,
Elsie a post pop up on Facebook. You know you
have those relationships. I mean, you don't hang out with
hundreds of people, but you do have a connection in
some way. And I know she is an evangelical Conservative
and I saw a post of hers from a pastor
about state church separation. Now she is a Goden Country
Christian Nation conservative and she posted this thing from a
pastor in Tulsa. His church is called Bridge Church. His
name is Orlando Juarez. And I noticed that Karen shared
it with the words whatever you do watch this, which
is kind of what everybody's doing on Facebook and Twitter
these days. Stop whatever you're doing. If you watch one
clip today, what this? But if everybody's doing that, then
it becomes self canceling. Right, everybody says, this is the
one clip you have to see. If everybody's doing it,
then it loses its power. But I notice that the
video was about a minute long, and she's like, if
you don't understand state church separation, watch my pastor or
this pastor. I don't know if it's your church. Okay,
here's the clip.
Speaker 6: Did you know that the phrase separation of church of
state does not appear anywhere in the United States Constitution.
This idea of the separation of church and state doesn't
mean that the church should give up their duty to
be involved in the political process. It actually means that
the government can't impose a specific state instituted religion on
its citizen, ensuring all Americas have the freedom to express
their individual religious beliefs. Don't take this to mean that
the Church and the Christians should be absent from the
political p process. As citizens of both this nation and
God's Kingdom, we have a duty to be active, informed
citizen engaged in shaping policies that reflect Christian values.
Speaker 2: This guy, first of all, says that state church separation
isn't in the Constitution, which means he's never read the Constitution.
You and I need to sit him down and educate
him about the establishment clause. It won't take long, pastor
we'll just tell you what Congress shall make no law
respecting the Establishment of Religion actually means. Okay, we'll talk
about the Danbury Baptist and Thomas Jefferson's letter about the
Wall of Separation, John Adams, the Treaty of Kriply blah
blah blah. Okay, we'll tell him about that. Will educate me.
He says, we are a nation with Christians but a
whole lot of other people. So there he's sort of
acknowledging we are supposedly a pluralistic democracy. Well, that's refreshing.
But in the next breath he says, we as Christians
have an obligation the responsibility to become activists and inject
biblical values into our laws and policies. So I'm thinking,
on one side of his mouth, he's saying, we're not
a theocracy, and there's room for everybody, and if you
disagree with Christianity, you have that rights. You can be
of another faith or none. Okay, fine, And then on
the other side of his mouth you hear him say,
but we need the Bible to inform our laws and
policies over here, which we're not a theocracy, and then
he flips his face to say, by the way, we
want theocracy. I debated correcting the record. I know I'm
not going to change her mind with facts, and in fact,
the speech I did in Knoxville that's going to release
in a few days or a few weeks, we'll talk
about why people are a brick wall and why. I
doubt she's remotely interested in my correction. But I felt
it was necessary to correct the record, and so I
popped in and said, let me inform you about some
of the constitutional issues here and what it would do
to non Christians. And I did all that, and I
laid it all out God on the money and the pledge.
I mean, I put it all out there, and after
three days there has been not one syllable of response.
I'm not going to hold my breath. But the Christian
Nation crowd, I don't know what constitution they're reading, but geez.
I had another guy chied me on Twitter because I
posted this meme and it said, have you ever wondered
what you would have done during the rise of fascism?
You're doing it right now. And he said, you know,
this hyperbole is not helping. We're not facing fashion. And
a Kasparian said as much on her page the other day,
and so I actually had to respond with the definition
of fashion. I just went to the basic definition Miriam
Webster's definition of fascism a populist political philosophy, movement or
regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual,
that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by
a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic
and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition. Oh yeah,
that's totally appropriate. America is for Americans only. MAGA is
infected with racist language and white supremacy. We've got a
centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader. He said,
I want to be dictator for a day. The guy
wants to weaponize the government against his enemies. He wants
to weaponize the military against everyday people. Who's that sound
like Trump loves totalitarian murderous tyrants, Putin's, Kim Jong un, etc. Jesus,
I mean, what else do you have to be to
be a fascist? But my critics are out there saying,
how dare you this hyperbole is not helpful. It ain't
all that bad, and I just disagree. I think it's
as plenty bad. Let us see what our listeners want
to talk about today, Charles at two one seven, what's
on your mind? What do you want to talk about.
Speaker 7: The reemergence of David Barton's foundation of America as a
Christian nation being sprouted by more and more people high
pop all people like Ben Carson. He specifically stated that
when they were at an end pass at the Cartinental
Convention that would formerate Constitution of the United States, they
marched in lockstep down to the Baptist church down the
road and got into prayer modes and was enlightened and
came back and formally it's the constitution.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, David Barton has been full of shit since
day one. He's the guy who wrote a biography on Jefferson.
I think it was him. And the biography of Jefferson
was so riddled with in accuracies that his own Christian publisher,
Thomas Kincaid Publishing, pulled the book from store shelves because
it was just so rife with errors. He's not a historian,
he has no degree as a historian. He is an ideologue,
He is a Christian nationalist, he is a history revisionist.
He is totally full of crap.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but it's beginning to become more and more of
the evangelicals. Are we citing that specific point that all
the founding fathers were all Evangelicals, And it's like it's
beginning to grow into the Christian naturalism and we're all
supporting Trump.
Speaker 2: When I was in Christian school, they sold us the
myth that it was a Christian nation. Founding fathers were
all Christian, and you know, they were all pretty much saints,
and you know, it was a whitewashing of history by
those in power. Is something, sadly that is not uncommon.
All we can do is correct the record as loudly
as we can. And I'm thankful to constitutional attorneys and
experts on our founding and our country, like Andrew Seidel
at Americans United for Separation of Church and States. They're
doing great work out there. I'm going to move on, Charles,
but thanks for the call very much. I appreciate you.
See you Okay, I've got arp Y. I want to
make sure I'm saying your name right on the switchboard.
How do I say that?
Speaker 5: This is arp arpy?
Speaker 2: What's on your mind? What do you want to talk about?
Speaker 5: The question I have is did Jesus take his own
life as in the sinful way that Christians usually see it?
Speaker 2: You mean, did Jesus commit suicide?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 5: I didn't know if you wanted that word thrown around
on the show.
Speaker 2: So let's just call it what it is. Just step
lightly Okay, no, no, no, you're good.
Speaker 8: Cool cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Jesus killed him. So Jesus as God is
the Holy Spirit, the triune deity of the Christian scriptures,
and he came to earth for the purpose of ritual suicide. Yeah,
he killed him. So that's what I think. What do
you think?
Speaker 8: I think so too.
Speaker 5: And I'm kind of workshopping this argument for my sister
who's just kind of holding onto her belief by a thread,
like she she's left the church that we attended as children,
and she's currently unaffiliated, doesn't go to church on Sunday.
And we've been having I think, pretty good talks over
the past couple of weeks, and I feel like this
could be something that could kind of get her to
flip that switch.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a pretty hot one is she that?
I mean, if you come at someone who is I
guess if she's deconstructing, maybe that's different. But if I
was to say to somebody who was even a casual Christian,
Jesus decided to off himself, I mean, that might put
him back on their heels for.
Speaker 5: A little contact. It's what got the ball rolling for me.
Speaker 8: My cousin took his life a decade and a half ago,
and just the way people were talking about it at
his service just didn't really sit right with me.
Speaker 5: The pastor basically said, well, we know what happens to
people who take their own life.
Speaker 8: He didn't directly say that is in hell now, but
he implied it, and that just made me sick.
Speaker 2: Wherever you see your way in, I think that's valid.
I mean, you can do it that better than I can.
If she's already at the point where she's starting to
tap on the glass, then probably anything's fair game. I
would just recommend that in all points she feels safe
and that you know you're you're not pushing it. But deconstruction,
I mean, I think once the dominoes start to fall
for a lot of people, it's inevitable and I hope
she ends up going all the way to an authentic
life free of dogma and superstition. In fact, if those
conversations go well, or even if they don't, you should
call back some time and give us the update. Okay,
all right, sounds good, All right, take care, We'll see
you later.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like the Atonement sacrifices in the Old Testament, right,
they're like, there is sin in the land among our tribe,
Bring me two goats, and they take one goat and
they slash the poor thing's throat and bleed it out,
and then they put the sins of the tribe on
a second goat, and then they send it off to
starve in the wilderness. That second goat was called the
escape goat, which is where we get the word scapegat.
But I mean, how primitive is that. But Jesus was
for us the Atonement sacrifice. So all the sin goes
on him, and then he dies hashtag dies, right, and
he takes a three day hiatus before he reappears, and
he has become the Atonement goat. But it's accurate to
say that he killed himself. He offed himself ritual suicide.
Jesus Christ I will die on this hill, even as
he died of suicide. Nancy at seven oh two. Are
you there, Hi, Seth?
Speaker 4: Can you hear me?
Speaker 3: I can?
Speaker 2: Indeed, What do you want to talk about? What's on
your mind?
Speaker 4: Well, I just want to say that I was on
your show a long time ago. It was probably twenty seventeen,
and it was the what are you afraid of? And
I was the one that was afraid of needles? And
I have made Lebowski as my little icon picture. So
I've been a big fan for a long time.
Speaker 2: Nancy, you got to explain mode Lebowski for those who
aren't big Lebowski fans.
Speaker 4: Oh, so, there's a fantastic movie called The Big Lebowski
by the Cohen Brothers, and Jeff Bridges is Lebowski and
Maud Lebowski is Julianne Moore and it's just it's a
wacky fun movie. Actually, I live in northern Utah and
we are getting ready to have our annual Lebowski Fest
coming up soon.
Speaker 2: I wish we were neighbors. Did you know that I'm
a dudist priest. There's a Church of the Latter Day Dude,
there's an actual religion that came up around the dude,
which is Lebowski, and I went and signed up. So
I'm an ordained dudist priest. So if you ever need
someone to marry someone, there'll be an officiant. That's just
one of the I'm also a monk. I went online
and became a monk, and I'm an officiate with the
Universal Christ Church. So I'm sorry I totally hijacked that.
But when I heard Maud Lebowski, I went crazy. Go ahead,
continue what you were saying. You called in fear of
needles A.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and I was on your show and we
had a nice little talk and it was just a
thrill to be on your show. But yeah, come on
down for November ninth to north of Salt Lake City.
We're doing our Lebowski Fest. They have a costume contest.
It's a great time. I love going every year. But
the main thing I've been wanting to get a hold
of you and say thank you. So back in the
midst of the pandemic in twenty twenty, I had emergency
life saving surgery. My appendix wanted attention and had to
have that done. But I spent a lot of time
recovering in bed, and I listened to several episodes of
your podcast, So I just wanted to say thank you,
thank you for keeping me company while I was recuperating.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Well, it means a lot.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: There are millions and millions of shows out there, and
I've been around so long I keep waiting for the
day I've become obsolete and everybody replaces me. So the
fact that you are still with me and that it
made a difference in your life and became a companion
that keeps me going as well. And that's a huge
amount of encouragement. So you'd be safe out there and
have a hand the Halloween you as well.
Speaker 4: But also super quick. Yeah, if you want to come
do the vow renewal theeremy for me and my husband
next year. Next year it'll be twenty five years for us,
so we could have a dudist wedding officient that would
be amazing for our now renewal.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm around, If I'm around, If you guys get serious,
just drop me an email and have your people contact
my people and we'll do the thing.
Speaker 4: Okay, definitely, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Stuff.
Speaker 4: I appreciate this.
Speaker 2: It's an honor to talk to you. We'll see you later.
Happy Halloween, you too, We'll see you actually pulled up
the latter day Dude page. I wrote about this in
my book Sacred Cows Too. I wrote about Dudaism and
the Church of the Jedi Order. I think is that
what it's called. It's a Jedi church based on Star Wars.
Let's see Dudaism dot com. While Dudism in its official
form has been organized as a religion only recently, it
has existed down through the ages in one form or another.
Probably the earliest form of Dudism was the original form
of Chinese down before it went all weird with magic
tricks and body fluids. The originator of Daoism, Lao Zoo,
basically said smoke them if you got them, and mellow
out man. Although he said this in ancient Chinese, so
something may have been lost in the translation. Down through
the ages, this rebel shrug has fortified many successful creeds, Buddhism, Christianity,
Wow Sufism, Sufism, John Leninism, and fo Shizzle my Nizzlism.
I don't know what that is. The idea is this
life is short and complicated, and nobody knows what to
do about it, So don't do anything about it. Just
take it easy, Stop worrying so much whether you'll make
it into the finals, kickback with some friends and some
oat soda, and whether your role strikes or gutters. Do
your best to be true to yourself and others, that
is to say, abide. Incidentally, the term dude is commonly
agreed to refer to all genders. Most linguists contend that
the diminutive dude abt is not in keeping with the
parlance of our times. Now littered in here is a
bunch of language that relates to the movie They're on
a bowling team parlance of our times. As a line
from the movie all of those I love. People either
love or hate The Big Lebowski. I think not only
is it awesome, it's one of the more quotable films.
It's also impossible to describe to anybody who hasn't seen it.
Daan at five seven four, are you.
Speaker 3: There, Yes, sir, thanks for taking my call, set.
Speaker 2: Thanks for calling. What's on your mind?
Speaker 3: Well number one, I'm also a returning caller. I was
on the Our Atheist Leading People to Doom episode and
you asked me if I was dissatisfied with church and
with Christianity, and I'm happy to report I still am okay.
So that's number one.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, you're distified, meaning that you're are you
religious or non.
Speaker 3: Or I walked my way out soon well, just before
that that episode, just before that call, and have been
out ever since and doing better than I've ever been
in pretty much every metric of my life. So I'm
very grateful for you and people like you that are
creating content to help kind of grease the wheels of
that exit. So number one, thank.
Speaker 2: You, Thank you well, you did all the hard work, man,
and so props to you. What else is on your mind?
Speaker 3: Well, so if you were talking about your cat, and
I'm working from home today, I'm working in my home office,
I've got my cat by me, it's it's spooky season,
it's Halloween, and the election's coming up, and all those
things are on my mind. Brother, So I figured i'd
give a call in, and I really want to talk
about the hysteria that is already surrounding this election and
Shirley Tuesday could be a nightmare. So what I'm stuck
on is two of the principles that you definitely espouse
would be the humanism aspect and skepticism. So I'm trying
to apply that equally to both candidates, and I guess
it just it bothers me like a lot of the
Nazi comparisons to Trump, because while there is similarity, I
don't think it's the same. And if we're going to
be skeptical and we're going to be empathetic, you know,
fifty percent roughly of the country is conservative, and so
my question, I guess, is how do we lower the
temperature as opposed to, you know, just try to win,
because that's clearly the game he's playing is just trying
to win. How do we introduce empathy into the political process.
I mean that maybe a full errand, but I was
curious to see if you had thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: I think, to be clear, who was it who said
even if Trump wasn't a Nazi, the Nazis think he's
a Nazi. There was that recent boat parade and the
guy show up and they're waiving Trump and Nazi flags.
I think he is a white supremacist. I think he
has a history of white supremacy. I think there is
white supremacy as a cancer within MAGA culture. So I
take that stand, and I'm genuinely concerned this is a
largely white and white supremacist movement. However, I also know
that we are in a country of three hundred and
sixty plus million people, and there are a lot of
folks who are not racists, who are somehow sucked into
Trump cult, who either they vote solely on the abortion issue,
or they still buy into the outsider business genius narrative,
or there's something else going on and they're disconnected from
the problems regarding race, etc. I'm not excusing it. I'm
not saying that they don't have a responsibility to know
this stuff. Ignorance is not an excuse. But I agree
with what you're saying. And a speech that I am
releasing in a few weeks talk talks about how we
want to put everybody in a box and crush the box. Right.
Everybody who is a Republican is a Nazi is just
a nonsensical It's a false statement. It's just wrongheaded. It's reductive,
it's binary, and we as rationalists need to be better
than that. And I know Nuance is dead in the
Twitter verse, but that's no excuse either Republican equals Nazi
simply doesn't fly. Am I saying there aren't Nazis in
the Republican Party? Hell no, I'm not saying that whatsoever.
And the only thing I know to do is to
try to lead by example and to engage my interlocutors
as human beings first, to try to determine what is
their motivation, who are they, what's their background, how have
they been conditioned? Have they been brainwashed the way I
was brainwashed when I was a Fox News Christian And
leading by example and trying to de escalate with my
language at the front end. That's my first line of defense.
And it also me in check because I can be
biased and knee jerky and nasty and all those I
could be wrong, and I have to be aware of that.
I have to try to force myself into intellectual humility.
How would you approach this complex issue?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean a lot of what you said I
agree with. I mean, most of my family is pretty conservative.
I don't know that they would that they're super gung
ho about MAGA, but they're probably voting for Trump on Tuesday.
And yeah, I mean, honestly, since my deconstruction deconversion, I
I've not been super open with it, and I don't
really know how those conversations would go, but overall our
relationship hasn't suffered. You know, these are people that in
many cases raised me, people I respect, people I love,
And I guess my thing is, you know, Okay, we
disagree on politics, so you know, and I don't mean
to be flipping about that. There's certainly there's certainly consequences
to elections, and we need to be careful.
Speaker 2: I don't know if we can say let's just agree
to disagree. We can, I think to a point. But
if I am in a room, I'm thinking about my
own family, Dane, I can think of one person on
my immediate family tree who is I mean, I call
a racist. Just there is some.
Speaker 3: Race, there is bigot with it.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's bigotry, right, There is bigotry based on ethnicity,
skin color, xenophobic, that kind of thing, right, and very
much a trumpery. And then there's somebody within like one
degree of them on the family tree, and they are
the most generous hearted person that I know, and they
are voting pretty much completely on the abortion issue because
they believe that a human life begins at conception, and
that abortion is murder and that millions of babies were murdered.
So even if they have to vote against, you know,
for somebody they consider to be a toxic person, we're
talking about life and death and the babies need us,
and that's how they've rationalized it. Well, you don't fit
that it's the priority of it. But I do think
agreed to disagree works for a little while, and then
it doesn't. If you are generally an awful person and
you are bigoted against the people that I care about,
I'm not sure I want a relationship with that. That
seems a little reductive to me. Am I wrong?
Speaker 8: Dan?
Speaker 3: Well, you know this is a journey, so I really
I can't speak yes or no on that one.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't mean to put you on the spot.
Speaker 3: Principally, No, Principally, I think you're correct. If someone's showing
those types of tendencies, yeah, I don't want to be
around that person either.
Speaker 2: It's situational, and I think it's complicated. There is a
point I think of a critical mass where someone is
so awful what they think in many ways is who
they are. So can we divide that line? Can we
be charitable? Empathetic. See that as victims of bad ideas,
try to wedge our way in. Sure, but I think
it's okay to hit a point where you're like, nah,
you know, I don't want anything to do with this,
And a lot of people have gotten there, and I
don't want to deny them the validation that they.
Speaker 3: Oh I hope that's not what you heard me say. No,
that's a decision someone wants to make. I would support them,
but that's just not the decision I've made, and you know,
maybe that's coming. So we don't know. No, Yeah, no
judgment if you've had to draw a hard.
Speaker 2: Line, Dane, be safe out there and keep spreading kindness
where you can and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 3: Okay, doing my best, Thank you, sir, see you later.
Speaker 2: Already people are like, you know what if you're this,
I want nothing to do with you. You big it you nazee.
I don't know. I'm just weary of it. It just
wears me out. We want everybody everything, every circumstance. We want,
our responses. We want. We wanted to go into a
tiny box and we crushed the box. It just do
some work that way. Oh LOOKI we got more callers
in the queue. We will get to them next. Thank
you so much for listening. We're doing kind of a
po Peri show. As we get set to wrap up
the month of October and we go back to the phones,
AJ is making a web call. Are you there?
Speaker 9: Aj I said, yes, I'm here.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show. What do you want to talk about?
Speaker 9: Thank you. I absolutely met you in Houston at the
Houston Oasis. I don't know if you remember me, Jim
were a woman with the cochlear implant.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, aj came up to my table and my
father was deaf and he had cochlear implant surgery which
opened his ears to the world. It was remarkable and
when I met AJ, I thought, wow, you know your speech,
your diction is just amazing. For some I do it
had long term hearing loss, and so I was just
we had that moment where we were speaking about it.
But I'm so glad you're here today. What's on your mind?
Speaker 1: Think you?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 9: The fact that I'm able to call on your show, yeah,
shows how far technology has come, and I'm am amazed.
Speaker 4: Anyways, so I've noticed that.
Speaker 9: You really enjoy ghost stories and you know, spooky stuff
and I always wondering, did you when you were a believer,
did you believe in ghosts as being the same as
the spirit.
Speaker 2: I believed in spirits and spiritual warfare. I saw, you know,
light and darkness. I wasn't crazy about it. There were
some people who everywhere they looked there was a potential
demonic force. You know, there's an a literal angel on
their shoulder. I mean, I've met some extreme people like that.
I wasn't that, but I worried about the Ouiji board.
Oh god, you heard about some person and they pulled
a Wigi board out of the box and for you know,
they were their lives were impacted in some way by
spiritual forces. And it was not in a direct way
as much as I thought about it in the abstract.
But I did believe that there were spirits, call them ghosts,
call them whatever, some living things influential in the physical
world that somehow lived beyond it. Did you ever believe
in ghosts?
Speaker 9: I did? Actually, you know, I was raised as an atheist,
and then when I was putnant with my kid, that's
when I got into religion because he had a hard condition,
so vulnerable young mother to be. So I fell into
Christianity web. But yeah, so I was going to tell
you a little story when my father in law passed away.
It was all that time when you know, started going
to church and getting deep into religion. So unfortunately, my
father in law passed away at that time, and the
same day of his funeral, we were coming into his home.
Speaker 3: And keep in.
Speaker 9: Mind, this was before I had my coclear implant, only
it was the human aid at the time. And so
we were walking into the house and I heard him
speak to me and he said something that he would
often say, you know. It was like something like, hey,
how are you guys doing, or something short like that,
But I heard the clearest day. And for many years
I told this story as my father in love spoke
to me from the great beyond, that sort of thing.
But as I became an atheist, then I started to
consider like the implications of my own claims, and I
began to sort of get into a lot of a
neural biology stuff. I love all stuff brain related, and
realized that this was more than likely just a mixture
of grief and maybe a memory that we played in
my mind.
Speaker 2: I love the rationalist brain. You're literally dissecting what might
be going on in your mind, whether it's sensory stuff,
memory bias, desire, will, environmental triggers, other things. You did
some science on your own perception of ghosts. That's fascinating.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's one of the reasons why I've started thinking
more and more about neurology and paying science. And it's
something that I really really enjoyed doing. I was hoping
maybe one day we can do a video today at
about healing loss and all of that story.
Speaker 2: It's something I'm interested in, especially knowing that Dad was
dragged into church after church as a young man. You know,
he stopped submitting himself to it, but he was dragged
into all these healing services. Or he'd walk into a
new church and they'd see the hearing aid and they
go come forward, and everybody would lay their hands on
him and pray and call down God's divine restoration power,
and then he would leave as death as he was
in the first place. And then it was science. It
was science that became the miracle in his life. He died,
I think before he ever saw the irony in that.
But I am thankful that he was able to in
that way here the world and I feel the same
about you, and you continue to speak beautifully. And I'm
so glad you called. And I hope you have a
safe and wonderful Halloween.
Speaker 9: Okay, thank you to have fun, see you later.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you were to tell people half a
century ago, yeah, we're going to actually kind of drill
a hole in your skull and we're going to put
wires in here. We're going to attach them to I
forget how it's all attached. Is it to the ear
DRUMA is there another part of the canal that it
attaches to, And we are artificially going to send sound
into an ear that no longer hears sound. When Dad
had his put in, they had an option where all right, well,
would you like a separate wireless microphone that your wife
can clip onto her shirt so if you want to
hear her directly, even if she's across the other side
of the house, she could speak into the mic and
it would go right into your head. And he said,
hell no, I don't blame him. I don't think anybody
wants that. Like you really want to be spoken to
in any room anywhere you are, I don't think nobody
wants that. But it was an option for him, And
I thought, if you'd have told people in the mid
twentieth century that was even possible through science, they'd been like, wow,
you know, it would have been like going to the
far far future. It's crazy. Bill on the web, Thanks
for calling, Thanks for waiting. What's on your mind, my friend?
Speaker 10: Oh? The political polls?
Speaker 2: Do you want to talk about polls? Okay, fine? What
do you think?
Speaker 10: I think that Trump is in the lead because women
are scared to object to their Their husband says they're
voting for Trump, and the woman says she's voting for
Trump just because her husband does, and she's afraid of
reciprocations that are bad when she votes for says she's
voting for Harris. What do you take on that?
Speaker 2: You bring up something interesting. Let me see if I
can find this tweets.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: It is Dale Partridge. He is a Christian nationalist. I
think he's a pastor. He runs a ministry and he's popular.
He has a lot of followers, and he tweeted October
twenty ninth, nine oh six in the morning quote in
a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her
husband's direction. He is the head and they are one
unity extends to politics. This is not controversial. So his
take is, woman submit, follow the man's lead, let him
do the thinking, because apparently he thinks it's the year
eleven CE. And I've heard some other people say that
maybe a lot of wives and female partners they don't
want to go through the shit storm at home, so
they're going to keep their Kamala vote under wraps, keep
it a secret, maybe even lie about it. And I
think the larger message there is that you have women
tramped in relationships where they are not able to be
authentic and might even be unsafe. I think that's even
the larger headline. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 10: I agree? I mean that's straight out of the Bible.
I've been an atheist since nineteen sixty five, but I've
got the skeptic salitated Bible right here on my desk,
and it says the same thing. Straight out of the Bible.
Women are supposed to subside pitter men. And I think
that's a lot of what's happening in the poll.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe there is an underground in hardline funding evangelical
cultures of women who are yearning to see the misogynist
predator defeated. And they will secretly cast a vote and
help to weigh Kamala Harris's victory. That's an interesting take.
I'd be curious to see what the comments are about
that in the comments section. Anything else Bill, you know
that about?
Speaker 10: Do it?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 10: Let me say happy birthday to me.
Speaker 2: Today is your birthday?
Speaker 4: Bill?
Speaker 10: Yes, sir seventy one?
Speaker 2: Well, happy birthday. That's a lot of candles, small forest
fire dude. We get to when I got to forty,
we just stopped buying the individual candles, and you buy
the numbers. You buy a big four and a big zero,
and I think after that everybody has to otherwise it's
a fire marshal special. But I hope your day is special.
I won't sing to you, but I will say happy birthday, Bill. Okay,
all right, thank you, all right, be safe, I'll catch you.
All right, We'll see you. I will call it and
wrap it up and release this bonus podcast to everyone.
I am so thankful for you. Let us you know,
if I was in the faith that I said, let's
all keep our praying hands together for insanity and decency
and compassion empathy to win the day. But we're not
going to pray. I think we need to We need
to be humanists, which means human effort, human intervention to
find human solutions. You are much appreciated. Be safe, Happy Halloween.
I'll catch you later.
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