Speaker 1: As an atheist, folks often try to sell me on
Speaker 1: a watered down, gentler version of Christianity, sort of a
Speaker 1: moderate version of Christianity. And I have a couple questions
Speaker 1: of that about that. First, why what are we assuming
Speaker 1: I've never considered that, that I didn't look at that
Speaker 1: before leaving the faith, that I could never be moderated.
Speaker 1: It was fundamentalism or nothing. And second, isn't that still
Speaker 1: picking and choosing which aspects of a Christian faith you
Speaker 1: want to hold on to. It's still choosing to believe
Speaker 1: in the verses that make you feel good or that
Speaker 1: affirm your worldview. It's fundamentally lacking in curiosity, lacking in
Speaker 1: the intellectualism. And I don't really want to live a
Speaker 1: life lying to myself, even if it's a more moderate
Speaker 1: version of lying to myself. So if you find that
Speaker 1: upsetting or offensive, or you actually agree and are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: get rid of those moderates, come over to the atheist side,
Speaker 1: then call us. Because the show starts now. Yay, welcome everyone.
Speaker 1: Today is September fifteenth, twenty twenty four. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Sophia Spina and joining me as my co host. Objectively, Dan,
Speaker 1: what's up.
Speaker 2: How's it going, Sophia.
Speaker 1: It's going all right. How are you doing good?
Speaker 2: Doing good? I'm not hosting today. You're hosting today, which
Speaker 2: is a reversal of the last time we hosted together.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's nice. I get to sit back.
Speaker 2: I don't have to look at what's in the call
Speaker 2: screening notes or anything or the announcements. You know. So
Speaker 2: you you, you slay, queen, you take over, you got.
Speaker 1: I have all the reading, which yeah, yeah, yes, it's
Speaker 1: like a book club this for those behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to read. You've probably noticed, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so we get to test my like basic english skills
Speaker 1: pretty much.
Speaker 2: Doing great so far. I've understood every word you've said,
Speaker 2: so keep it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I bet my tongue the other day, so
Speaker 1: I am worried. I'm like, yeah, if I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 1: it's just a tongue bite. Man.
Speaker 2: In normal life it doesn't matter too much, but in
Speaker 2: podcasting it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: That's I know, I've been very self conscious. I've been
Speaker 1: gone for a couple of months and so I'm like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: like right before coming back, so yeah, I just had
Speaker 1: a baby. So that's why I was gone, and now
Speaker 1: we should.
Speaker 2: Talk about maybe that may you mentioned the fact that
Speaker 2: you are now a you know, a giver of life.
Speaker 1: Second time, second.
Speaker 2: Time, yep, yep. Rate Oh my god, no, no, oh god,
Speaker 2: let's not have that conversation on the show today. Please
Speaker 2: that I.
Speaker 1: Think I may have just invited it in. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: Oh no, oh no, yes, congratulations to that we missed it.
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to be able to see
Speaker 2: you in person at the backt weekend. I think you're still,
Speaker 2: you know, busy being a you know mom, So that worked,
Speaker 2: that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she ended up coming quite late, and so I
Speaker 1: was still kind of recovering because she just decided that
Speaker 1: she did not want to do not want to make
Speaker 1: the exit at all. So we had too a victor,
Speaker 1: which now has happened to me with two children.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well you're gone through it. So that's good.
Speaker 2: And yeah, everybody say congratulations to Sophia in the chat
Speaker 2: or for doing that, because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can talk about God's divine plan for childbirth
Speaker 1: and that's creating a doctor with a hook.
Speaker 2: Yeah you are, you are fulfilling God's divine plan, you know,
Speaker 2: for that, So that's good that's good, keeping the human
Speaker 2: race alive and all that.
Speaker 1: So for you correct them with my atheism.
Speaker 2: I can't do that. I don't have that power, which
Speaker 2: is great. I don't want that power. Just to be clear,
Speaker 2: I'm happy with the parts I've been given. I'll put
Speaker 2: it that way, so you know good. I'm all good,
Speaker 2: is what I'm trying to say. I don't know where
Speaker 2: I'm going with that, to be honest with you, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to make a small.
Speaker 1: Talk reaffirm that being child free is a great choice.
Speaker 1: And I know that some people get assume that that's
Speaker 1: not how I feel as I now have children. That's
Speaker 1: such a weird thing to say. When you move from
Speaker 1: having a kid a baby, so like you have children now,
Speaker 1: that feels very strange. But yeah, not having children to
Speaker 1: bring them into, you know, a world of chaos and
Speaker 1: whatever this is is totally fine and I fully support that.
Speaker 1: And I have a lot of siblings and family members
Speaker 1: who've made the similar choice and are being involved in
Speaker 1: my children's lives instead, which is not an obligation, but
Speaker 1: I appreciate it just so much. I'm like, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: more adults are focused on these little children, that improve
Speaker 1: their odds of survival so great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, my partner I've talked about adopting.
Speaker 2: That's something that we've talked a lot about. But we'll see,
Speaker 2: we're trying to get married first and then we'll do that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, versus me, it was pregnant at my wedding,
Speaker 1: so I just did it all at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you got it all done, you know, in
Speaker 2: a year or whatever. So that's that's pretty good, pretty efficient.
Speaker 1: I have an efficient womb. Yes, it's been said of me,
Speaker 1: but I think I was thirteen the first time my
Speaker 1: dad told me, you know, if we were living in
Speaker 1: a medieval era, then I could get such a good
Speaker 1: like bride price for you. And I was like, that's
Speaker 1: a weird thing to say to your teenage daughter.
Speaker 3: Day.
Speaker 2: Oh, if you have a dowry, costs wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: as great. I would kind of discount, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: really cool.
Speaker 1: So you know that's something I've held onto and choose
Speaker 1: to interpret as a compliment, because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the best way to do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure, I give.
Speaker 1: The impression of heartiness anyway, with all that talk. Heathen
Speaker 1: is a product of the atheist Community of Austin. If
Speaker 1: I have a one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to
Speaker 1: the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the
Speaker 1: separation of religion and government. Very exciting that we live
Speaker 1: in Texas for all of that Talk he That is
Speaker 1: a live Collin show and we have open lines, So
Speaker 1: get your calls in at five one two nine nine
Speaker 1: nine two four to two or from your computer you
Speaker 1: can call at tiny dot c C call t H.
Speaker 1: That's tiny dot cc slash C A L L t H.
Speaker 1: Like Talk Heathen, So we have a question of the week.
Speaker 1: Like every week in our Talk Heathen to Me segment,
Speaker 1: we get to present that last week we asked you
Speaker 1: to complete the sentence. Not even faith healers will attempt
Speaker 1: to heal. Fill in the blink and here are our
Speaker 1: top three answers. Do you want to give that a look, Dan?
Speaker 2: Or actually I don't have it open right.
Speaker 1: Never mind, I should imagine beforehand. I'm coming back. I'm
Speaker 1: figuring it out.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize you're going to ask me to do things.
Speaker 2: So that's sorry.
Speaker 1: Fine, as you're pulling it up, I'll go ahead and read
Speaker 1: number three. So it is from X million who said,
Speaker 1: no faith healers wanted to touch my hemorrhoids, just saying
Speaker 1: oh that, you know, if they were effective, I would
Speaker 1: hope that for you they they would do that. I
Speaker 1: appreciate the disclosure was quite a disclosure that you have had,
Speaker 1: you know, after just having fun pregnant. I feel for you.
Speaker 1: But that is amazing. You're right, they want to you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so why not get up in there? Come on?
Speaker 2: Why not? Why?
Speaker 1: Okay it's number two ready?
Speaker 2: Okay. Number two is from James West who says, not
Speaker 2: even faith healers will attempt to heal a lego foot injury,
Speaker 2: which is true, so true. Can't tell you how many
Speaker 2: times that happened to me?
Speaker 1: Well, and you could also feel like, couldn't they just
Speaker 1: help prevent the lego for injury? God helps people find
Speaker 1: their keys all the time, apparently, so why can't God
Speaker 1: just shift legos out of the way? You know?
Speaker 2: Oh no, when you're a kid, did you have like
Speaker 2: a gigantic bin of just all the legos, just all
Speaker 2: the pieces. That's what I had.
Speaker 1: I'm the second of four children, and so we would
Speaker 1: have like a whole society that included pokemon figurines, Fisher
Speaker 1: Price like castles. And then we always assigned the younger
Speaker 1: kids to have to be miners and sort out the
Speaker 1: legos because we were horrible exploitative older children capital n
Speaker 1: and so yeah, we had a whole society going on
Speaker 1: with our giant lego bin and the needs for organization.
Speaker 2: Wow, you're really feeling God's plan even at a young age.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Filling God's plan for power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unequal opportunity of work and unequal distribution of power.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Plaiting children, God for shaping children to your will.
Speaker 2: Uh, the children yearn for the mind, Sophia, They really do.
Speaker 2: So you know, don't take it too hard on yourself.
Speaker 1: They never complained. I mean, come on, so I never complained.
Speaker 1: How am I supposed to know?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, on that note, do you want to read
Speaker 1: number one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can do that. Number one is from Dan Johnson,
Speaker 2: who says not even a faith healer could put Humpty
Speaker 2: Dumpty back together again, which is very silly, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's funny. That's a good one. Thank you for setting
Speaker 2: those in. Thanks everybody for contributing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that one makes me think about the fact that
Speaker 1: it just was putting it out to me, like for
Speaker 1: the first time that Humpty Dumpty is never mentioned to
Speaker 1: be an egg.
Speaker 2: No, No, it's not. I think it's I think it's
Speaker 2: one of the is that like one of those old
Speaker 2: tales where it's like, oh, it's actually supposed to represent
Speaker 2: like a political figure. I think it's one of those, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always assume it's a political figure or like
Speaker 1: a gruesome plague. Those are gonna be like my assumptions
Speaker 1: about things in the past like that. I just feel
Speaker 1: like it's really unfortunate to imagine a guy named Humpty Dumpty.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a flattering name.
Speaker 2: You know, everything isn't dumpty. I feel like a lot
Speaker 2: you could do with that that isn't great. But but
Speaker 2: but you know, you can't these. I mean like there
Speaker 2: might be somebody whose actual name is Humpty Dumpty out there.
Speaker 1: Right, that's true middle school because that would be tough.
Speaker 2: That will be tough, that will be tough, definitely, definitely
Speaker 2: definitely pumped for. Oh sorry, ahead, I see. That's the thing.
Speaker 2: I'm so used to running things, Sophia. Every I am.
Speaker 2: I am the host on every single freaking show I do,
Speaker 2: and now you know, I'm just letting you take the
Speaker 2: just go for it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to lean into that. I need to lean
Speaker 1: into God's design for my personal power. So right, the
Speaker 1: prompt for next week is what's the reason God created
Speaker 1: hell wrong? Answers only? So enter your best answer below
Speaker 1: the video in the comments, and next week we'll real
Speaker 1: the top three answers. So again, that is what is
Speaker 1: the reason God created hell wrong? Answers only? Objectively? Dan,
Speaker 1: do you have an answer for this?
Speaker 2: The cynical fedora wearing atheist in me came up with
Speaker 2: the answer of, oh, so we can hang out separately
Speaker 2: from the Christians. But you know, that's that's that's what
Speaker 2: that came up with. So but I'm one hundred percent
Speaker 2: sure you guys can come up with better answers. So
Speaker 2: I want to see what you guys come up with
Speaker 2: in the comments on this one.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a great answer. And also I love
Speaker 1: the idea of just you know, yeah, having a big
Speaker 1: atheist party for eternity. Why not, it'll be more interesting, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I always say that. And then it's definitely like
Speaker 2: not the classical depictions of how like it's definitely like
Speaker 2: a lot of torture, a lot of torment, definitely lost suffering.
Speaker 2: But there's always like this side in the community that's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's just all we just get to separate from them,
Speaker 2: that's just great. It's like that's a little more complicated
Speaker 2: than that. But okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1: It definitely it definitely is. And also I don't want
Speaker 1: to exist for all eternity. So there's that, But there's that.
Speaker 1: There's a great old timey song from a National Geographic
Speaker 1: record that they compiled in the seventies about it's all
Speaker 1: like Western songs and they were apparently historically actually sung
Speaker 1: and it's about God giving Satan Texas to create Hell
Speaker 1: and then eventually he decided he did too well and
Speaker 1: needs to go back and like create a different Hell
Speaker 1: because it's too hot in Texas and there's cacus and
Speaker 1: hants and all these things. It's a great song.
Speaker 2: So all right, all right, Well that's that's a vision.
Speaker 2: It's becoming. Texas is becoming more and more like Hell
Speaker 2: every day. I think that's true. But you know, we
Speaker 2: get to say that as Texans. I feel like there's
Speaker 2: no great talking about a geopolitical space then from the
Speaker 2: person coming from that space, I feel like that's the
Speaker 2: maximum level, right.
Speaker 1: I feel like, in particular, I know I can bring
Speaker 1: up the baby thing. It's sort of top of mind,
Speaker 1: you know, having just done that. I've given birth to
Speaker 1: two babies in Texas as they're rolling back women's medical rights,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, this is I feel like i
Speaker 1: can say a lot about that now. I feel like
Speaker 1: I've earned that right, like that badge of like, hey,
Speaker 1: I didn't die, and I was going to say a
Speaker 1: swear word, but I'm not sure if we're far enough
Speaker 1: into the show.
Speaker 2: I think we're good.
Speaker 1: Who are down with that?
Speaker 2: We got a super chat from Blindlimy who gave ten
Speaker 2: dollars and said, oh Lord, please heal my eyes. And
Speaker 2: while I'm asking for impossible things, please make me a
Speaker 2: wing commander in the RF so I can fly the Eurofighter.
Speaker 2: And I didn't see that last far before it went
Speaker 2: off the screen, and I don't see it in the chance,
Speaker 2: but it will. Maybe we'll read the rest. If a
Speaker 2: crew can put that in the chat for us, that
Speaker 2: w'd be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh yeah, that would that would be amazing.
Speaker 2: There you go, Yeah, what's our rate about childbirth mortality
Speaker 2: in this country? We're not We're not first I know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at we're up there, uh for industrialized nations or I'm.
Speaker 2: Saying in Texas and compared to other states.
Speaker 1: What's our what's actually that's a great question.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's not great. So you know, first
Speaker 2: of all country by the way, allegedly, so it's really cool,
Speaker 2: really awesome.
Speaker 1: So cool it anyway.
Speaker 2: I talked about this before, but I went to Amsterdam
Speaker 2: earlier this year and I thought Austin was cool, and
Speaker 2: I was like, holy shoot, we don't know what freedom
Speaker 2: actually is. Okay, because you can just like you can.
Speaker 2: I mean, granted they want you to do it inside
Speaker 2: and coffee shops. You can smoke weed pretty much on
Speaker 2: any street corner in any coffee shop in Amsterdam if
Speaker 2: you want. Of course, there's red light district and all
Speaker 2: this other stuff. It's just like, man, this is this
Speaker 2: is a place that knows how to live it up,
Speaker 2: is what I'm trying to say, Like they know what
Speaker 2: it's like to actually, you know, live in that whole
Speaker 2: you know, freedom thing, doing a freedom thing, which which
Speaker 2: we always talk about here, but I don't think we
Speaker 2: ever actually an action on that note.
Speaker 1: Like I took my last year when he was one,
Speaker 1: I took my son, just him and I. We went
Speaker 1: to Leiden, which is a little bit outside of Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: We love Lighten so much. We never actually made it
Speaker 1: to Amsterdam, so we Lighten and we have friends who
Speaker 1: lived there. It was so easy to have a baby there,
Speaker 1: like just we could walk everywhere and it felt like
Speaker 1: things were it just friendly, yeah, and like there were
Speaker 1: bikes and there were tons of kids in the park,
Speaker 1: and there were tons of parks and like all of
Speaker 1: these things that I understand that we were in like
Speaker 1: an urban area. So probably there isn't quite the same
Speaker 1: level of walkability in all places. But for a place
Speaker 1: that espouses family values like Texas does, it was easier
Speaker 1: for me to have a one year old in the
Speaker 1: Netherlands than having a one year old in Texas. So
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty interesting. And when we're thinking
Speaker 1: about freedom, we don't always understand or it doesn't come
Speaker 1: to mind, the idea that sometimes freedom is just the
Speaker 1: ability to go where you want to go without getting
Speaker 1: hit by a car. With that across traffic, Like, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of ways we can look at that, and
Speaker 1: I felt pretty free with my one year old also
Speaker 1: strapped into my chest and he took a nap and
Speaker 1: went to the pub, which was really great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we are. America is just kind of one
Speaker 2: giant car park, and like I feel like Texas is
Speaker 2: the worst about it, especially like Austin Dallas, you know,
Speaker 2: the whole I thirty five basically section. It's like, there's no,
Speaker 2: this is not Austin is not a walkable city. For
Speaker 2: the most part. You can do buses, but that's that's
Speaker 2: about as good as it gets. And uh yeah, a
Speaker 2: restaurant's got that figured out. Also, again the architecture and stuff, like,
Speaker 2: we think that we're religious, but then they got these amazing,
Speaker 2: awesome churches and stuff in half of them aren't even
Speaker 2: being used for services, like they're just don't know, they're
Speaker 2: just doing their own thing with it, which is great too,
Speaker 2: because again you see these like giant Austin buildings, and
Speaker 2: then across the street it's literally like the Weed Museum
Speaker 2: or whatever. So I don't know, that was that was
Speaker 2: pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, something in Liden, they really proud of their university
Speaker 1: and so there are paintings all around town of things
Speaker 1: that people discovered at that university. So like certain planets
Speaker 1: were discovered there and different like I believe X ray
Speaker 1: systems were discovered there too. There's a moment in Oppenheimer
Speaker 1: if you've seen that, where he's teaching at the university
Speaker 1: in Leiden. Actually, and so it's really cool to see
Speaker 1: this focus on scientific discovery and academia and intellectualism and
Speaker 1: just be walking around the city and see monuments to
Speaker 1: that as well as these churches. It's like, we can't
Speaker 1: evolve as a society and celebrate more than just the
Speaker 1: fact that in the past we built a really cool building,
Speaker 1: but a really big building, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like right, so it was really refreshing, It was awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was sort of a tangent from from.
Speaker 2: Our Yeah, let's just let's just show about how great
Speaker 2: Europe is. This entire show that's.
Speaker 1: Really entertaining and really good hard I love. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: to just remind you real quick before we move on,
Speaker 1: please enter your answers to what is the reason God created?
Speaker 1: How wrong? Answers only, and then we will read the
Speaker 1: top three next week. I really really quick before we
Speaker 1: take our first call, I want to go to the
Speaker 1: crew camp also and think the video there they are
Speaker 1: I look at those gorgeous peeps. Such a good beard.
Speaker 1: Thank you to all of the video and audio people, moderators,
Speaker 1: the people who take notes, make timestamps to do call screening,
Speaker 1: Like there's so much going on that I always feel
Speaker 1: like I'm a just a yapper and they're the ones
Speaker 1: who do the real work.
Speaker 2: A yapper. Well, yeah, that sounds like a nineteen twenties
Speaker 2: like slang for an adulterous woman or something like what
Speaker 2: is that?
Speaker 1: That's le just really it's just a talking like just
Speaker 1: a person who's an opinion have her and that's all
Speaker 1: they're really doing.
Speaker 2: Ye there and giving me the vapors. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think I'm gonna hold on to that. I
Speaker 1: just sort of think that out, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: be like, you know what, I'm gonna hold on to that,
Speaker 1: all right. So our first caller, we have Chloe she
Speaker 1: her who is from occupied Lenape Territory. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: I'm saying this incorrectly. If that's part of an indigenous tribe,
Speaker 1: I absolutely am sorry that I'm saying that not not correctly,
Speaker 1: but it's spelled l e n Ape for anyone who
Speaker 1: wants to like Uh, to look that up. That's cool
Speaker 1: that she specified that. Wow, I'm rambling anyway, She's going
Speaker 1: to be talking about evolutionary nature on spiritual experience and you,
Speaker 1: as an atheist, our perspective on experience. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I quite understand that. But we're gonna going to bring
Speaker 1: her on here. Hello, Chloe, So tell us your take.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a theist and.
Speaker 4: And I wasn't a theist for a long time. What
Speaker 4: finally convinced me was ultimately experienced itself. Having the experience
Speaker 4: changed me in a way that I cannot describe with words.
Speaker 4: And it's frustrating.
Speaker 2: Ye had a spiritual experience the question specifically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had many spiritual experiences.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, great, go ahead.
Speaker 4: And what I want to know is is that as
Speaker 4: much as I remained skeptical, as much as I hold
Speaker 4: on to my skepticism and I treasure it, I have
Speaker 4: to look at those experiences and wonder, why are we
Speaker 4: wired for those experiences? Is this just a quirk of
Speaker 4: the I mean, I'm actually happy with the answer of
Speaker 4: this is a quirker devolution, deal with it. But the
Speaker 4: nature of those experiences, given how personal they are, given
Speaker 4: that they've answered personal questions about my life and answered
Speaker 4: you know, and it really brought something to me. That's
Speaker 4: when I have to bring up the question, what's going
Speaker 4: on here? What's the deal? I don't think your license
Speaker 4: to get the sciential base, I will go into the
Speaker 4: what's deal? But yeah, that's just what's your perspective on
Speaker 4: all of that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to start d Dan, You look
Speaker 1: like you've got a sign.
Speaker 2: I just I think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right,
Speaker 2: I think about how we are beings that are capable
Speaker 2: of sensory experiences beyond our complete and total comprehension sometimes
Speaker 2: and our need for explanations sometimes overrides our need for
Speaker 2: things to make logical sense. Like I think we experience
Speaker 2: things before we fully logically understand them anyway, And so
Speaker 2: I think that kind of bias sometimes shapes our perspective.
Speaker 2: And I don't think that that's not always a healthy
Speaker 2: thing or a good thing. I think having a sense
Speaker 2: of life purpose and having a sense of uh, you know,
Speaker 2: place in the universe it can is a great thing,
Speaker 2: as everybody who talks about it seems to think the
Speaker 2: world of it. At the same time, though there are
Speaker 2: people that take advantage of that and abuse that. How
Speaker 2: many stories do we have to hear about people who
Speaker 2: felt so happy while they were in a cult, and
Speaker 2: then later after the cult they realized they were being abused. Right, Obviously,
Speaker 2: that's an extreme example, but the fact is that that's
Speaker 2: a thing that happens with humans and seems to be
Speaker 2: unique with humans. Right. Dogs don't really get into cults
Speaker 2: or cats as far as I'm aware, but you'll let
Speaker 2: to be seen. So yeah, I do think it's a
Speaker 2: quirk of evolution. I do think it's a quirk of
Speaker 2: just the human existence, our need to kind of fulfill ourselves,
Speaker 2: and sometimes we interpret our experiences in a spiritual way
Speaker 2: in order to do that. I don't think that necessarily
Speaker 2: lends credence to any particular ideology or way of thought
Speaker 2: process to be more correct than another in a religious sense.
Speaker 2: That being said, I haven't seen everything in the world.
Speaker 2: I haven't known everything, I haven't experienced everything, So I'm
Speaker 2: open to being wrong on that front. But when it
Speaker 2: comes to the contemporary spiritual experiences that most of us,
Speaker 2: particularly in the US, talk about, i e. Christianity, right, like,
Speaker 2: that seems to be pretty bunk. For the most part,
Speaker 2: I can't speak to global spiritual phenomenon. Though maybe some
Speaker 2: tribe somewhere has some access to some deity or some
Speaker 2: sort of you know, transcendent being that I don't, but
Speaker 2: I've yet to see any clear evidence of that. So
Speaker 2: there you go. That's my that's my take on that.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Sophia, Yeah, so I think a.
Speaker 1: Couple of things. One, we can easily start coming into
Speaker 1: sort of evolutionary psychology, which I think is a fun field,
Speaker 1: but there's not a lot that we can really say
Speaker 1: is evidently backed in there. We talk about like why
Speaker 1: do humans feel a particular way, We can theorize about
Speaker 1: how our brain's developed. My take with this is that
Speaker 1: as a social species, we have to empathize with each other.
Speaker 1: You know, our survival was benefited by the fact that
Speaker 1: we were able to work together, that we were able
Speaker 1: to empathize and view things from a different person's point
Speaker 1: of view. That requires imagination. And so the way that
Speaker 1: I look at it is that imagination is which I
Speaker 1: think that spiritual experiences can kind of be a component
Speaker 1: of not that you're sitting there imagining on purpose, but
Speaker 1: that your brain is capable of presenting us with things
Speaker 1: we have an experience in the physical world. Imagination is
Speaker 1: a byproduct of the ability to work together and to
Speaker 1: be compassionate to each other, and so I think that
Speaker 1: that's the way that I conceptualize it. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I don't have specific evidence for this, because that's a
Speaker 1: very murky area of science that's super interesting, but again,
Speaker 1: like doesn't provide a lot of really concrete, provable answers.
Speaker 1: I think it's more likely that that is the case
Speaker 1: though personally, than that we are endowed with godly visions.
Speaker 1: I think it's also when I look at it, we
Speaker 1: tend to have the spiritual experiences that we are somewhat
Speaker 1: primed to have. They tend to be fairly culturally specific,
Speaker 1: and to me, that would potentially affirm the fact that
Speaker 1: this is part of an outgrowth of us being a
Speaker 1: social species, is that even our or spiritual experiences tend
Speaker 1: to make sense to some degree with those around us,
Speaker 1: or to be similar to things that we've heard of
Speaker 1: happening before. I definitely don't want to speak for your
Speaker 1: personal experience, and I feel like I'm sounding a little
Speaker 1: bit like I'm doing that, And so that's how I
Speaker 1: would conceptualize a spiritual experience. I personally was religious for
Speaker 1: quite a while, and I didn't have as strong of
Speaker 1: spiritual experiences as some folks definitely report having. But I
Speaker 1: remember feeling everything that you're supposed to feel, you know,
Speaker 1: And I look at that now, and I was desiring
Speaker 1: of meaning and I was finding it there. At the time.
Speaker 1: I was primed for those experiences, and I was part
Speaker 1: of a group that I really wanted to be part of,
Speaker 1: and it developed that for me. So I think that
Speaker 1: quite a few spiritual experiences can also be explained that way,
Speaker 1: that we're opting into a part of ourselves that's open
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah. So all that to say, what do
Speaker 1: you think there, Chloe?
Speaker 4: What I think is unfortunately nothing. I have no idea
Speaker 4: what to make of it from my uh from from
Speaker 4: a lay perspective, because I don't know anything about neuros,
Speaker 4: and I don't know anything, you know, beyond what I needed,
Speaker 4: what I've needed to get by with my mental with
Speaker 4: my mental health. But when I feel really, you know,
Speaker 4: through meditation and through prayer, and when I pray to
Speaker 4: my gods, I'm Norse pagan and they tell me to
Speaker 4: go to therapy and take med like, what do I
Speaker 4: make of how do I make sense of those experiences?
Speaker 4: Like honest yeah, yeah, Like fundamentally, how do I how
Speaker 4: do I trust my experience?
Speaker 1: What I mean to say, that's a really interesting and
Speaker 1: kind of difficult question because when we're talking about spirituality,
Speaker 1: we are saying, or when I'm when I'm talking about
Speaker 1: it here is it's a byproduct of evolution. I am
Speaker 1: finally mentally saying, I realized, don't fully trust your experiences.
Speaker 1: And I know that that's really tough and not the
Speaker 1: message that I necessarily want to give people, right, So
Speaker 1: how I would interpret that? And that's all I can
Speaker 1: tell That's really all I can tell you here is
Speaker 1: that there's a part of you that is giving you
Speaker 1: that information that this is like this belief in this
Speaker 1: instance is giving you information that I totally think is
Speaker 1: great going to therapy and like seeking mental health solutions,
Speaker 1: but it's a way for you to maybe clarify what
Speaker 1: it is you're really needing in that moment. Again, I
Speaker 1: don't I really don't want to come across as though
Speaker 1: I'm telling you what you need to believe about your
Speaker 1: own mental health and your own brain. But I think
Speaker 1: That's how I would think of it. Is that, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking your God's telling you that you need to do
Speaker 1: these things to be healthy is awesome and is also
Speaker 1: I think something you maybe know deep down inside and
Speaker 1: having it come from this external feeling voice maybe validating
Speaker 1: and giving you the oofs to go forward with it. Again,
Speaker 1: though I don't want to feel like I'm putting something
Speaker 1: on you here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would add that, you know, let's talk about
Speaker 2: experiences sans God or san spirituality. Okay, If i have
Speaker 2: a week at work where I'm getting really down to
Speaker 2: myself and I'm telling myself, Dan, you really I screwed
Speaker 2: up at work this week. I'm doing a terrible job.
Speaker 2: I really don't think I'm doing all that great and
Speaker 2: I'm letting my team down. That's a perspective I might have.
Speaker 2: But that might not be something like my co workers
Speaker 2: might have for example, right, or somebody else might have.
Speaker 2: And like you know, one could be true or one
Speaker 2: could not be true. But it's not healthy regardless right
Speaker 2: for me to have that perspective, even if I am
Speaker 2: making mistakes, even if the things that I am improved
Speaker 2: that I need to improve on, like, that's not a
Speaker 2: healthy place for me to be at, right, So like,
Speaker 2: sometimes your health is more important than whatever is like
Speaker 2: objectively true in that moment. Right, So like I in
Speaker 2: my experience, I would say, look, I would worry less
Speaker 2: about whether the whole is there a God that's telling
Speaker 2: me I need to do this thing is happening, versus
Speaker 2: I need to do this thing because this is what's
Speaker 2: best for me, right, So like that should be your
Speaker 2: most important thing. I think take care of yourself first,
Speaker 2: because think about this, if there is a God or
Speaker 2: God's they probably want you to be healthy if they
Speaker 2: want to have a relationship with you, right, So it's
Speaker 2: it's a good thing to do regardless.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: And if there's not, well, you should still want to
Speaker 2: be healthy, right because you want to live and maximize
Speaker 2: life to your full potential. So I think that's how
Speaker 2: you should approach it first, is like, hey, let me
Speaker 2: get into a place where I can be okay to
Speaker 2: even talk about these kinds of questions because that can
Speaker 2: be a really life upending thing, right figuring out Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't think this thing is real actually, or I
Speaker 2: do think this thing is real and I need to
Speaker 2: make some serious changes. So either way, like your health
Speaker 2: is probably the most important thing you should be looking
Speaker 2: at if that's if that's how you're approaching this.
Speaker 1: Right something out there in there as well.
Speaker 4: I mean, I just wanted to chime in that, you know,
Speaker 4: the experience of you know, my God's telling me to
Speaker 4: make sure anythink my meds go to therapy is just
Speaker 4: an example.
Speaker 2: You know. Well you gotta understand as as when we
Speaker 2: hear that, we have to address that, right Like, we
Speaker 2: can't let that on the table, so you know, we
Speaker 2: want to make sure you're doing okay first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely, but yeah, those kind of experiences
Speaker 4: where they just hold you in place and make you
Speaker 4: fel comfortable with yourself.
Speaker 3: Sorry if that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: But those are the No, it does in the sense
Speaker 1: that I think we can relate to that feeling, that experience.
Speaker 1: There's a really interesting existentialist psychologist that you might enjoy,
Speaker 1: Irving Yaalam or Irvin Yalom rather, and he created was
Speaker 1: a big hand in at least amplifying existentialist therapy. And
Speaker 1: he himself did not believe in a god, and so
Speaker 1: he talked a lot about his own death anxiety, but
Speaker 1: he did talk about the fundamental need before meaning. Another
Speaker 1: big name in existentialist psychologist Victor Frankel. They both focused
Speaker 1: quite a bit on meaning, and they didn't shy away
Speaker 1: from the fact that if they have someone that they're
Speaker 1: working with that is a person of faith and that
Speaker 1: is entirely fine, there's no virtue to convincing someone hey,
Speaker 1: actually all of your experiences are wrong provided because meaning
Speaker 1: is just such a huge component of life. So even
Speaker 1: if you have existential therapy, it's focused on how you
Speaker 1: develop meaning in your life. And I think a fundamental
Speaker 1: component of that is also feeling comfortable with yourself, feeling
Speaker 1: that you deserve meaning and deserve to live a full
Speaker 1: life based on the meaning. Sorry, I can rant about
Speaker 1: this sort of thing for a long time, but I
Speaker 1: feel like, moving aside from just a focus on being
Speaker 1: told to take your medic and go to therapy, the
Speaker 1: question of meaning is big for most people. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say oh, because maybe there's exceptions, But I think that
Speaker 1: being comfortable with yourself like that to me sounds like
Speaker 1: it's fulfilling a fundamental need of yours that I also have.
Speaker 1: I just fulfill it a different way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And as a I think it's solely valid, and
Speaker 4: I want to make sure that that's not a point
Speaker 4: of contention here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just part of how I would make sense
Speaker 1: of it for myself looking at it from an atheist perspective.
Speaker 4: Those are really the big questions that I had. I
Speaker 4: really don't have much else, not unless you've got questions
Speaker 4: for me as a theist.
Speaker 1: I think my big question for you, and this doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be something to answer right now. I'd
Speaker 1: be curious what you wanted to be told about this,
Speaker 1: because it looks like it's something that you're working through
Speaker 1: and you're thinking about, and you know you you called us,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate your perspective. I appreciate your call.
Speaker 1: What is it you want to what you wanted to hear?
Speaker 1: And I don't know that you have a perfect answer
Speaker 1: for that, but I wonder if inside you there's something
Speaker 1: that's like looking for a particular answer, and that's I'd
Speaker 1: be curious as to what that is, even if it
Speaker 1: might be too personal. Don't want to share in the
Speaker 1: air too. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: It does. Yeah. If I go into a place where
Speaker 4: where people agree with me on the whole nature of
Speaker 4: spiritual experience. What am I going to learn? What am
Speaker 4: I going to work towards? What am I going to
Speaker 4: what's base am I going to explore? So I just
Speaker 4: wanted to make sure that my understanding was correct and
Speaker 4: make sure that I wasn't coming up this the wrong way.
Speaker 4: There really wasn't anything I was expecting or wanting. It
Speaker 4: was just I don't know yet, So well.
Speaker 1: Thank you for calling Oh sorry, yeah, thank you for
Speaker 1: calling me in it. Go ahead and let you go.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that I appreciated that perspective, and I feel
Speaker 1: like that's something a lot of people are wreaking through
Speaker 1: who aren't part of organized religion anymore necessarily and who
Speaker 1: are still, you know, looking for something. Feel there's something
Speaker 1: I appreciate. Sounds odd, but I appreciate the uncertainty and
Speaker 1: the honesty about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think when I was a Christian, I did
Speaker 2: struggle with sense of life purpose, right. I thought I
Speaker 2: was waiting for God to tell me what he wanted
Speaker 2: me to do with my life, basically, And I regret
Speaker 2: that now because I felt like there was a lot
Speaker 2: of time I could have invested in myself in doing
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do versus what I thought God
Speaker 2: wanted me to do, because because you know, whatever conclusion
Speaker 2: I would have come to probably would have been some
Speaker 2: mix of both anyway, right, Like I don't think if
Speaker 2: you like hate animals, but then like I don't know,
Speaker 2: God says, oh you need to be a zoo keeper,
Speaker 2: I feel like you don't hear that story. I feel
Speaker 2: like it's always like, oh, God told me to do
Speaker 2: this thing, which happens to be the thing I love
Speaker 2: doing the most. Right, So, like, you know, I think
Speaker 2: you'll work that out usually, but you know, point is right,
Speaker 2: Like I don't need spiritual explanations or experiences to necessarily
Speaker 2: dictate how I should live my life. Right, And it's
Speaker 2: a harder way to live because I don't get the
Speaker 2: benefit of having a divine officer give me commands on
Speaker 2: what I need to do. I have to kind of
Speaker 2: figure it out for myself. But it's it's something that
Speaker 2: we all have to deal with, right. So there's pros
Speaker 2: and cons. The pro being you have an immense freedom,
Speaker 2: the con being what do you do with that freedom?
Speaker 2: It's a choice paralysis problem because now everything is open
Speaker 2: to you, and so what do you do with that?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: So that's that's how I interpret, you know, my own
Speaker 2: sense of finding identity and purpose now as an atheist
Speaker 2: is just I got to figure that shit out. For me.
Speaker 2: It's reading a lot of books and going to work
Speaker 2: and living life, and that's that's how I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: And it's working out okay so far. I'll tell you
Speaker 2: if that changes, if I need to go, you know,
Speaker 2: study with some Tibetan monks or something to figure out
Speaker 2: the next phase of my life. But it's working out
Speaker 2: okay right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it's funny that you bring up
Speaker 1: freedom because not to be such a wonk and a
Speaker 1: nerd right now, but Irvin yallam, like freedom and death
Speaker 1: are two of the things that he freedom, death, meaning
Speaker 1: those are like three of his big central tenants. There's
Speaker 1: a fourth one that I'm sure someone's yelling at their
Speaker 1: screen because they remember, but I don't right now.
Speaker 2: And Pejor Frankel's book is literally called Man's Search for Meeting.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's too.
Speaker 1: Which I think I've referenced on this show before, which
Speaker 1: is pretty funny because I'm like, yeah, just going into
Speaker 1: existential or existential psychology, I suppose you kind of have
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: Kind of have to when you talk about meaning, because
Speaker 2: there was a time where people got through meeting from
Speaker 2: contemporary Western society got through meeting from God, and now
Speaker 2: we don't, at least some of us don't. So what
Speaker 2: do you do with that? That's the question. That's what
Speaker 2: everybody's trying to figure out. And I don't know. Some
Speaker 2: people turn to other religions. Most most folks I've talked
Speaker 2: to from the pagan communities we're a Christian at some point.
Speaker 2: It's very un new. There are some that we're kind
Speaker 2: of mostly atheists, But most of the time when I
Speaker 2: talk to it's folks who experienced spirituality in other mediums
Speaker 2: that weren't satisfying enough to them, and a lot of
Speaker 2: them find more satisfactory experience through through paganism. So that
Speaker 2: you know, that's that's that's like a shift in people's
Speaker 2: self identity in reflection of themselves to the world in
Speaker 2: the same way that we do. We figure out that
Speaker 2: we're no longer Christians, but we go the atheist way.
Speaker 2: We have to figure out our own ways of navigating that.
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm not saying that that makes paganism, uh.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously I believe that there are gods or anything.
Speaker 2: I just think that that's the way that people interpret
Speaker 2: their life experience.
Speaker 1: A lot of answers to it, and I think that
Speaker 1: when we're thinking about meaning, it's it's really hard to
Speaker 1: dictate how that should be answered for folks, right, And
Speaker 1: I definitely don't think that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, on that note, I'm going to give a
Speaker 1: few announcements before we take our next call do it so.
Speaker 1: We are excited to announce the return of our popular
Speaker 1: brick fundraiser. After the overwhelming success of our first round,
Speaker 1: we're opening up another opportunity for you to leave your
Speaker 1: mark with the ACA by purchasing an engraved brick. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like you guys have probably seen those little
Speaker 1: library or something. I feel like it's such a cool
Speaker 1: thing to see. You can contribute to the creation of
Speaker 1: beautiful patio. Look at those Look at those gorgeous bricks
Speaker 1: that showcases the heartfelt messages of our generous donor. Each
Speaker 1: brick will be inscribed to your personal text, making it
Speaker 1: a lasting tribute to your support. So join us in
Speaker 1: building a space that celebrates our community and the impact
Speaker 1: of your contributions. Look at all that work going in.
Speaker 1: That's gorgeous, amazing. Get your brick at tiny dot cc
Speaker 1: slash ACA Bricks. That's tiny dot cc slash ACA Bricks.
Speaker 1: And I'm actually really glad this has come back because
Speaker 1: I meant to get one the first time and I didn't,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I get to have. I know.
Speaker 2: To Tina, who is a member of our board and
Speaker 2: also is in that video, and she told me when
Speaker 2: we were at the backer she hates that video because
Speaker 2: she's like standing there in it and she's like not
Speaker 2: actually doing any brickwork stuff. But she's a very hard
Speaker 2: worker and does a lot of stuff in the ACA.
Speaker 2: So give it a shout out to Tina there because
Speaker 2: I just think that's funny.
Speaker 1: That justice for Tina. She she absolutely does hard. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: one hundercent. So next thing we want to call your
Speaker 1: attention to is that there are principal call in flyers
Speaker 1: at China dot cc slash ACA flyers. You can see
Speaker 1: them there on the screen, so you can post these
Speaker 1: with permission to community bulletin boards so people know they
Speaker 1: should call our show and defend their faith. If you
Speaker 1: do post any flyers, make sure it's not a picture
Speaker 1: of it in place and send it to TV at
Speaker 1: Atheist dash community dot org. It's TV at it's atheist,
Speaker 1: and then a little normal looking dash community dot org,
Speaker 1: and we may feature your photo on an upcoming show.
Speaker 1: Like these are really cool to get people to call
Speaker 1: in and have a chat with us, So that would
Speaker 1: be awesome. You can get those again at tiny dot
Speaker 1: cc slash ACA flyers. Yeah, you should also give a
Speaker 1: call to So I'm sorry, I'm going to restart that
Speaker 1: whole sentence. You should follow Talk Heathen on TikTok, which
Speaker 1: Richard works very hard on. We appreciate Richard so much
Speaker 1: at talk He then all one word Talk Heathen and
Speaker 1: join us for our pre show lives at the ACA.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so Atheist Community of Austin. Okay, So there's
Speaker 1: an Atheist Community of Boston TikTok and a Talk Keithen TikTok.
Speaker 2: That's right. That's awesome about the Talk Heathen TikTok is
Speaker 2: that Richard is always going live beforehand, and when he's live,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously like we're here trying to like get
Speaker 2: stuff ready for the show, he could absolutely be talking
Speaker 2: mad shit and we would never know because we have
Speaker 2: to get so ready for the show. And uh, I'm
Speaker 2: going back and looking at those lives I don't know about.
Speaker 2: So he could absolutely get away with it and we
Speaker 2: would we would be none the wiser.
Speaker 1: So I almost hope you.
Speaker 5: For us.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, let us know.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. He's just like Sophia can't read out
Speaker 1: loud today. That's very clear. Uh, that's what he's probably saying.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like right now. We also have merch, so
Speaker 1: get your talk Heathen merch at tiny dot cc slash
Speaker 1: slash merch a c A. That's tiny dot c c
Speaker 1: slash m e r c h a c A. There's
Speaker 1: new pins and backpacks, onesies. I needed a onesie real bad.
Speaker 1: I need it so much, and youth tease so you
Speaker 1: can outfit your whole family and talk Heathan Gear And
Speaker 1: I mean that sounds amazing. And please like this video
Speaker 1: and subscribe to the channel, enable notifications. Comment below on
Speaker 1: your favorite caller, on your opinions and violent reactions, whateverybody
Speaker 1: is that you want to you know your reaction to
Speaker 1: the show, so you know all the all the YouTube
Speaker 1: stuff that helps us out, that really does help us
Speaker 1: get seen, which helps more people call in helps more
Speaker 1: people think a little bit more harder about their beliefs,
Speaker 1: does all the good things the show does. You can
Speaker 1: help by just hitting like and subscribing and enabling notifications
Speaker 1: which is a little bell icon in case you didn't
Speaker 1: know that, and commending below. So with all of that,
Speaker 1: let's take another call. We have Marlin. He him from
Speaker 1: the Philippines. Shout out to the Philippines. I lived there
Speaker 1: for a bit, super cool. I would like to discuss
Speaker 1: about my paranormal experience and how it proves that spiritus
Speaker 1: spirits are real and documented. So Marlin, thank you for
Speaker 1: calling tell us, tell us your thoughts here on the
Speaker 1: spiritual experience you had and what that proves for you.
Speaker 5: Hello, guys, how are you hie?
Speaker 1: Do it all right? What's up? What's up with your
Speaker 1: your thought here? I'm curious that spirits are real and documented?
Speaker 1: About that?
Speaker 5: Well, well, it's because there has been an incident on
Speaker 5: a playground. This is located on a schooled a cemetery
Speaker 5: and then there are people walking by day they noticed
Speaker 5: the issuing on the playground. It never stops moving, it
Speaker 5: just keeps swinging back and forth and until the cups
Speaker 5: were called and even the police has has saw it.
Speaker 5: Even the police has been involved in the local news.
Speaker 5: They came in with the dogs and there were people
Speaker 5: that that's saw shadow figures over in that playground area
Speaker 5: of the school. So yeah, it has been documented.
Speaker 2: So to me that gives including me where where has
Speaker 2: this been documented? Is there a website for this?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 5: Or and the local local news?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 2: Is there paper? Is there? Is there a reference? We
Speaker 2: could look at this on the newspaper.
Speaker 5: Interness it's been told in GMA. I think GMA there
Speaker 5: was a program called kmgs.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think that the way of that I
Speaker 1: might view this. Though, Yeah, I feel like local papers
Speaker 1: do tend to report a lot of things that don't
Speaker 1: necessarily turn out to be super well substantiated, just because
Speaker 1: they're looking for news. But I would also say that
Speaker 1: this kind of sounds like an incident to me that
Speaker 1: could be a sort of like one person thought they
Speaker 1: saw something and then it became the suggestion that that's
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to see. And I know it's hard
Speaker 1: because in a way I'm saying like I doubt your
Speaker 1: personal experience, but I think that sometimes we're primed to
Speaker 1: see things. I think that if we go by and
Speaker 1: the there's a breeze or something happening, that it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible that that we see what we expect to see,
Speaker 1: that we're going to see a figure, see a shadow,
Speaker 1: and not look for natural explanations because we're ready to
Speaker 1: believe a spiritual explanation.
Speaker 5: The swing step nevers stop moving. It's nevers stopped moving.
Speaker 2: They tried to do.
Speaker 5: Anything they can intervene.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming it's stopped now, like it's not still going.
Speaker 5: Right, Yes, going for a couple of our Okay, well.
Speaker 2: Again, I'm desperately trying to google stuff here that I
Speaker 2: think in the future. And this is for anybody that
Speaker 2: calls in. If you have a specific experience and you
Speaker 2: say this is documented publicly, you should be ready to
Speaker 2: provide that source to us so that we can take
Speaker 2: a look, because otherwise it's going to be your word
Speaker 2: versus our world, right, Marlin, Like, I can't verify that
Speaker 2: what you're saying is true without having a source to
Speaker 2: look at it, right, Otherwise we have to just blindly
Speaker 2: speculate based on what you're telling us, And that's not
Speaker 2: a super great way for us to figure out if
Speaker 2: something's true or not right, Like, we have to be
Speaker 2: able to kind of look at the facts of a
Speaker 2: situation and see what's actually going on here, because maybe
Speaker 2: it was going on for hours, maybe it was just
Speaker 2: for a little bit. Maybe maybe it wasn't actually reported
Speaker 2: on the paper, maybe it was reported on a forum somewhere. Right,
Speaker 2: there could be some differences here that we're not going
Speaker 2: to be able to verify unless we have that information handy.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense, Yes, I understand.
Speaker 1: De Yeah, I think that that's pretty important because we
Speaker 1: kind of just are, like I guess that might have happened.
Speaker 1: We don't necessarily have anything to look at here. I
Speaker 1: would also I would be interested to know your thoughts
Speaker 1: on a particular TV show. So have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of Paranormal Home Inspectors.
Speaker 2: I've seen that shit, it's been great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I if it's available, I highly recommend it. I
Speaker 1: actually can't've been looking for like, because I think it
Speaker 1: aired initially in Canada, so I can't in America see
Speaker 1: exactly where I can watch it. But it's super fun
Speaker 1: because they take a psychic and a paranormal researcher and
Speaker 1: a certified home inspector into the home of someone who
Speaker 1: believes they're being haunted, and the people who live there
Speaker 1: and the site it will usually have experiences that they
Speaker 1: feel they can't explain, experiences that they feel are very
Speaker 1: concrete evidence of what's going on. And then the home
Speaker 1: inspector inspects the house, and almost every single time has
Speaker 1: quite a few explanations for, oh, this actually is drafty
Speaker 1: and you might not realize it, but that's what's causing
Speaker 1: this noise up here, and so these things are connected
Speaker 1: and we can actually fix that. It's a problem with
Speaker 1: the house. It's not necessarily something that it is paranormal,
Speaker 1: as much as that's how people experience it. So I
Speaker 1: would be curious if you can, you know, watch that
Speaker 1: TV show, because there are a lot of little incidents
Speaker 1: that sound very similar to something like a swing continuing
Speaker 1: to move when people try to stop it, and there
Speaker 1: is a natural explanation the vast majority of the time,
Speaker 1: at least, So I would say, you know, I'm certainly
Speaker 1: skeptical of this being proof of anything, partially because I am,
Speaker 1: like you know, I think that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: times a natural explanation without actually having the news story.
Speaker 1: We can't speak too specifically to it. But I think
Speaker 1: that's my take.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I've talked about calling about this to you guys,
Speaker 5: because I have a big deal and a couple of
Speaker 5: both those of a shadow figure like cut on my phone.
Speaker 1: You know, honestly, I would say, send that to the email.
Speaker 2: Yeah, turned to the email wanted truth, wanted what we'll
Speaker 2: want to hear it. We'll want to hear it on there.
Speaker 2: But here's what I'll say. And I think we'll probably
Speaker 2: let you go after this, Marlin. But you know, the
Speaker 2: Philippines in particular, extremely Catholic country. Right, every time we
Speaker 2: get a call from the Philippines, it's always about demon
Speaker 2: possessions or shadow people. I don't know if the Philippines
Speaker 2: got something going on that the rest of us don't
Speaker 2: have it. But I think the lens of a cultural
Speaker 2: experience might reinterpret some facts of a particular matter that
Speaker 2: we that we could see here, and I wouldn't I
Speaker 2: wouldn't even doubt that even if a local paper is
Speaker 2: reporting on a phenomenon, that there may be some things,
Speaker 2: again where a cultural bias might be a play as
Speaker 2: to the particular facts of a phenomenon. I think you
Speaker 2: have to evaluate in your own mind which is more
Speaker 2: likely that people are misremembering, mishearing, or misinterpreting an event
Speaker 2: that's happening. Or there's demon figures that are hanging out
Speaker 2: at a playground swinging a swing for a couple hours
Speaker 2: for apparently no reason whatsoever. Right, Like, you have to
Speaker 2: think about, you know, what's going to be more likely
Speaker 2: in this case from what I'm hearing you right now,
Speaker 2: I'm going with the former, which is just I think
Speaker 2: there's a misinterpretation of events that's happening here. I think
Speaker 2: maybe there's some telephone going on. If there is some
Speaker 2: documentation of this, I'd love to see it, but for
Speaker 2: now I don't have that. So that's the that's the
Speaker 2: conclusion I'm left with. Does that make sense?
Speaker 5: That's also the same case with miracles, you know, like
Speaker 5: religious miracles.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's I'm going to go ahead and say
Speaker 1: goodbye to you because we actually have another call coming
Speaker 1: up that I feel like speaks a little bit to
Speaker 1: you know, the what they say is religious phenomenology, and
Speaker 1: so I feel like this is kind of paired with that.
Speaker 1: We could go on all day about somebody saw a
Speaker 1: miracle or experience a particular thing, and that there's you know,
Speaker 1: not a lot to substantiate it, but they very firmly
Speaker 1: and very earnestly believe in it. So I think that
Speaker 1: that's maybe what we have going on here. After living
Speaker 1: in the Philippines for a bit. Yes, it is a
Speaker 1: country where there's quite a bit of discussions of demons.
Speaker 1: There's quite a bit of it's sort of referred to
Speaker 1: as folk Catholicism in one textbook I read about it.
Speaker 1: I think that every place adapts the faith to their
Speaker 1: local culture, right, and I think that this can be
Speaker 1: a part of it. It's also it's fun and exciting
Speaker 1: to think that there's a spirit there, you know, it's
Speaker 1: always exciting to be like, maybe it's a demon.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But Marlin, if you're still listening, to answer your
Speaker 2: question directly, yes, I do think this applies to pretty
Speaker 2: much every miracle that's ever been recorded ever, even modern times.
Speaker 2: In the Catholic Church, when they talk about miracles, which
Speaker 2: they do have committees for which they allegedly, you know,
Speaker 2: go through a rigorous process for determining whether something's a
Speaker 2: miracle or not ninety nine percent of the time, and
Speaker 2: in modern times, those miracles are going to be medical
Speaker 2: phenomenon that we don't have a full understanding of, like
Speaker 2: a remission of cancer and stuff. Right, but then when
Speaker 2: you go back like five hundred years, it's like they
Speaker 2: put her head back on her head and she was
Speaker 2: walking around town, and it's like, Okay, well I haven't
Speaker 2: seen that, but cool, if it happened, I guess, so
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would also, you know, emphasize that even if
Speaker 1: we don't have a perfect explanation for it, it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that it's a spirit. And as you were
Speaker 1: kind of mentioning that, like, the less we understand about
Speaker 1: the natural world looking back in history, the more we're emphasizing.
Speaker 1: You know, people thought it was a spirit. People literally
Speaker 1: believed Jack Frost existed and painted frost on your windows.
Speaker 1: That's it wasn't like a myth. It was a thing
Speaker 1: they really thought was happening. And we know now that
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily true. So yeah, even if our answer
Speaker 1: was to shrug and say, like that does seem weird,
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually lend itself to believing that it's a spirit.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really prove anything in that vein, which again
Speaker 1: is can be hard. If it's an earnest belief. But
Speaker 1: I think that's my take on that one for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: On that note, let's I feel like this call dovetails
Speaker 1: really well into what we were just talking about. So
Speaker 1: we have Jackie. He him from Mississippi. This is really funny.
Speaker 1: By the way, I lived in the Philippines and I
Speaker 1: also lived in Mississippi for a bit. So we're just
Speaker 1: having like the places that I have lived call in today,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. The case for religious phenomenology. All right,
Speaker 1: so Jackie, give us the case for religious phenomenology.
Speaker 3: Okay, first of all, before Makas, I just want to
Speaker 3: check on how have you been after giving birth.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so sweet of you. I've been doing all right.
Speaker 1: Everything's you know, recovering as it should. The baby is
Speaker 1: super cool and she, you know, she actually doesn't cry
Speaker 1: as much as I almost feel like she should. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting because this is totally silly, right, but I
Speaker 1: was thinking that, you know, psychopaths, the parents of psychopaths
Speaker 1: and sociopaths always say that their babies didn't cry very much,
Speaker 1: and so I'm kind of like you could cry more. Actually,
Speaker 1: like she's too easy of a baby, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's that's a specific lens to view that
Speaker 2: sofia that I feel only you would have.
Speaker 1: My brain is a very strange place.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's extrap away like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. I just am yeah, I
Speaker 1: just am being a little silly about it. It's been
Speaker 1: really exciting to watch my son become an older brother
Speaker 1: also and have he's very cute with the baby and
Speaker 1: that's really great. So yeah, I've been really enjoying it.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly suit of you to ask, so thank you.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I basically wanted to present the case for
Speaker 3: religious phenomenology because so are you guys familiar with the
Speaker 3: term continental philosophy.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm not. Actually you want to go ahead and
Speaker 1: give us a summary of that one.
Speaker 3: So basically, continental philosophy is philosophy from mainland Europe, so Europe, Uzerdan,
Speaker 3: UK and Ireland. And basically I tend to notice a
Speaker 3: lot of atheists who are publicly advocate for atheism are
Speaker 3: not generally familiar with it, where most people don't have
Speaker 3: that type of mindset. So it includes things like phenomenology, existentialism,
Speaker 3: German idealism, psychoanalysis and other movements.
Speaker 4: And I tend to notice that.
Speaker 3: In the debates about religion, a lot of it goes
Speaker 3: on to like propositional logic and with more the analytics
Speaker 3: style flasia philosophy from America and Europe. And I think
Speaker 3: that's the flaw because it is a major part of
Speaker 3: philosophical component that I don't think it's talked about enough,
Speaker 3: but anyway, that it's sort of condentally related to the point,
Speaker 3: So are either of you guys familiar with the cognitive
Speaker 3: scientist John Vervaiki.
Speaker 2: I was just going out that analytic traditions and continental
Speaker 2: traditions are both Western. I don't know why you'd make
Speaker 2: the distinction between them being like one particular parts in
Speaker 2: America and different parts in Europe, but yeah, they're definitely
Speaker 2: both Western traditions of philosophy and a categorically flawed understanding
Speaker 2: are categorically flawed sort of way in which to view philosophy,
Speaker 2: but they can be broadly useful. But yeah, I can
Speaker 2: concede to your point that, yeah, there is a particular
Speaker 2: lens in which some atheists will look at the structure
Speaker 2: of arguments that may be problematic under some views of philosophy.
Speaker 2: But to your other question, no, I'm not familiar.
Speaker 3: So basically, John Traviki is a cognitive scientist in Canada
Speaker 3: identifies as a non deist, which I disagree with, But
Speaker 3: he basically talks about the case for the problem with
Speaker 3: atheism lacking debility to recognize spiritual and religiousness things ontology, mysticism,
Speaker 3: mysticism being properly construed, not as some new age wlu
Speaker 3: wu stuff, but a genuine ontology, and how participatory engagement
Speaker 3: spirituality in a religious sense transforms people. Or are you
Speaker 3: of you guys familiar with Jordan people.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think we can start maybe with the point
Speaker 1: you just made. Actually, if that's all right, because so
Speaker 1: the premise there, if I'm understanding e correctly, is that
Speaker 1: atheists are not addressing the fact that religious experience changes people.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: Maybe? But it's more kind of a novosimplication. I think
Speaker 3: a better way to say it is they don't seem
Speaker 3: to engage with the more essential aspects of the relation
Speaker 3: between cognition and transcendence, if that makes sense, Like what
Speaker 3: like how how relation to the transcendence or influences people's
Speaker 3: decision making, How the transcendence it effects are subconscious or
Speaker 3: psyche or collective unconscious using Choreung's terms, and how participation
Speaker 3: in these reenactments of virtual experiences allows us to tap
Speaker 3: into that ourselves.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't so what is this a guy's
Speaker 2: opinion or is this research that he's done that says, oh,
Speaker 2: atheists don't do this, Because it sounds like this is
Speaker 2: some guy's opinion. If this is some guy's opinion, I'm
Speaker 2: happy to shay that. Yeah. I recognize that people's understanding
Speaker 2: of their beliefs and their system of beliefs affect their
Speaker 2: social framework, affect their identity. I mean, we were just
Speaker 2: talking about that in our previous call. It definitely affects
Speaker 2: their worldview and how they operate in the world. I
Speaker 2: don't know why me as an atheist means I lack
Speaker 2: an understanding of that.
Speaker 1: I'm curious specifically, Like I mean, I'm not I don't
Speaker 1: go ahead, Oh sorry, I'm curious specifically because I'm kind
Speaker 1: of still trying to get my brain a little bit
Speaker 1: around what it is I'm supposed to be answering here.
Speaker 1: I think, uh, sometimes we get a little lost in jargon,
Speaker 1: and I think that might have happened here to me.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at the you said essential aspect between cognition,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like kind of a more spiritual experience
Speaker 1: and the ability to have like a subconscious and the
Speaker 1: other components of our.
Speaker 3: Brain, so our either of you guys generally familiar with
Speaker 3: phenomenology like Martin heideger Maurice M. Ponti, Carl Jasper's or
Speaker 3: the other ones.
Speaker 2: Yes, German phenomenology with Highdeger Yes later stuff not as
Speaker 2: much but mostly Yeah.
Speaker 3: The way I would say, it's sort of like Jordan
Speaker 3: Pierson talks about like this, when you see a cup,
Speaker 3: why do you see a cop? Well, because that cup
Speaker 3: provides you water?
Speaker 4: And what does that?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 4: Why is that water valuable?
Speaker 3: Because it helps you live? Why is living valuable? And
Speaker 3: you can go on and on with an infinite regress
Speaker 3: of perception and so basically the phenomenological interpretation of meaning
Speaker 3: in a religious sense, that whatever sits at the pinnacle
Speaker 3: of the infinite regress of reasoning for living and for
Speaker 3: motivation is in the you could say, religious phenomenological domain.
Speaker 3: And I would also argue, using Jordan Pearson talks about
Speaker 3: using Core Jung's that analytics psychology, that there's aspects of
Speaker 3: our subconsciousness, a priori archetypes that we motivate to as
Speaker 3: a human needing. Yes, described in religious language.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, Jackie, do you think ninety nine percent of
Speaker 2: Christians understand their relationship with God that way? I mean,
Speaker 2: what do you mean about ninety five percent or ninety percent?
Speaker 2: Do you think any of them are using that language
Speaker 2: to describe their relationship with God or their relationship with
Speaker 2: Christianity as a theological system, right? I don't think. I
Speaker 2: don't think most people are, is my point. I think
Speaker 2: these are particular people who study phenomenology and who write
Speaker 2: papers about this stuff. I don't think that's the world
Speaker 2: I grew up in as a Christian, and I don't
Speaker 2: think most people grew up as so. To be honest,
Speaker 2: I don't really care. Right, Like, what I'm interested in
Speaker 2: is mostly the power dynamics that Christianity brings, but also
Speaker 2: like the real world experience that Christianity brings. I mean,
Speaker 2: we can talk about it in this in this grand
Speaker 2: philosophical sense of the regress of perception and what have you,
Speaker 2: But why does that meaningful to me? It's not like
Speaker 2: I can engage in this conversation all day. But like,
Speaker 2: like what's the point. What am I going to get
Speaker 2: and what are most Christians going to get out of that?
Speaker 3: Even well, the meaningfulness here is the question is arder
Speaker 3: meta narratives and orders meda narratives, what we were described
Speaker 3: as religious or eternal So, like say Nietzsche.
Speaker 2: That's a separate question from everything you've just described.
Speaker 3: To explain just I'm getting down, please, Okay. The way
Speaker 3: the reason it can the overlap here is some of
Speaker 3: the existentialists, like Nietzsche, John Poulsart, we're talking about, Okay,
Speaker 3: existence precedes us. We are not born with a priority
Speaker 3: values and we have to make meaning in our life
Speaker 3: and we should also the thing which between chist right,
Speaker 3: I don't think they were the same, but essentially it's
Speaker 3: rejection of eternal abuse. The reason this is fundamentally wrong.
Speaker 2: Is that's well, I have a critique of your interpretation
Speaker 2: of Nietzsche and Sartro, but yeah, go ahead and keep going.
Speaker 4: And we are born with.
Speaker 3: A priority values in our consciousness and how we perceive
Speaker 3: the world. Right, And I would say, you know, so
Speaker 3: analyze religion in his read books. When people construct meta narratives,
Speaker 3: it's not to oppress people, sort of like a deluge
Speaker 3: or talks about postmodernism, right, power structures are pressed. No,
Speaker 3: the meta narrative there is not one of assortation. You
Speaker 3: need a meta narrative in order to live and have motivation.
Speaker 3: But that meta narrative is not internal. It's a relational,
Speaker 3: and the relational is between your cognition and how you
Speaker 3: experience the world around you in a social compaent.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to pause you there because yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we've reached back to the idea of phenomenology, which
Speaker 1: I think, Okay, we've we've made this circle. I think
Speaker 1: actually you want to start, Dan, I'm going to clarify
Speaker 1: my thoughts real quick.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, yeah, So yeah, do losing folk call talk
Speaker 2: about post Their postmodern understanding of power dynamics can involve
Speaker 2: a different understanding of meta narratives. Actually, they're the ones
Speaker 2: that are interested in meta narratives. I don't think really,
Speaker 2: sorry to or Nietzsche talk about meta narratives. So I
Speaker 2: don't you know, you've thrown a lot of the stuff
Speaker 2: around here. Well let me let me look. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't think that they're super related, and I'm kind of
Speaker 2: using track of what point we're trying to get out here,
Speaker 2: I can engage in all of these ideas. I don't
Speaker 2: know what is the point? What am I missing here?
Speaker 2: One am I as an atheist sort of not getting
Speaker 2: at because I don't recognize that there's a contextual relationship
Speaker 2: with the transcendental with religious people that I somehow don't have.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, So I'm going to jump in right there
Speaker 1: real quick, because to address meta narratives, I think we've
Speaker 1: started with a fundamental what I would say is a
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of the idea of a meta narrative. They don't
Speaker 1: It is not my belief in this and how we
Speaker 1: discuss this that they start as a top down thing,
Speaker 1: like we're given a meta narrative from an authority and
Speaker 1: then we just go forward. I believe, and I think
Speaker 1: that if this is fairly well born out, that meta
Speaker 1: narratives are the product of culture. And so even the
Speaker 1: phrase that they're not constructed to oppress, well, they're not
Speaker 1: really constructed consciously. There's something that arise organically out of
Speaker 1: cultures around them. When you're talking about phenomenology, and I've
Speaker 1: been looking it up kind of as we're talking. That's
Speaker 1: referring I'm going to finish what I'm saying. That's referring
Speaker 1: to how we interpret the experience that we're having, right like,
Speaker 1: our understanding of the phenomena that we are experiencing, and
Speaker 1: so meta narratives would impact our understanding of the phenomena
Speaker 1: that we're experiencing. I can see that connection that I
Speaker 1: feel like you're trying to make. In an odd way, though,
Speaker 1: I would argue that this is almost making an argument
Speaker 1: for atheism or for lack of need for a god
Speaker 1: to interpret these things for us, If we're thinking about
Speaker 1: how we experience the world and that comes from a
Speaker 1: meta narrative that really is more culturally dependent, then why
Speaker 1: would we need something to tell us what our value?
Speaker 1: Why would we need a prescribed meta narrative. I think
Speaker 1: it makes a lot more sense to think that, yes,
Speaker 1: our culture in our context determines what we see. Going
Speaker 1: back to the Jordan Peterson example about the cup, that's
Speaker 1: sort of a bizarre one to start with as an
Speaker 1: example of phenomenology, he says we see the cup because
Speaker 1: we drink out of it. I would say we see
Speaker 1: the cup because it's advantageous for us to be able
Speaker 1: to see the cup that our eyes which developed over
Speaker 1: millions and millions of years, are able to perceive food
Speaker 1: sources because that was advantageous for us over time, and
Speaker 1: water sources and all of that. It's not to interpret
Speaker 1: that as divorce from I would say here evolution and
Speaker 1: the evolution of our species would be to misinterpret it.
Speaker 1: We don't see the cup because we feel like a
Speaker 1: cup should be there because we want water. We see
Speaker 1: the cup because it's advantageous for us to be able
Speaker 1: to see that cup. So applying that to religion, if
Speaker 1: we're thinking about a meta narrative, if we're thinking about
Speaker 1: these stories that we live by that come from our culture,
Speaker 1: we see a god maybe because we need to see
Speaker 1: a god, because we want to see a god because
Speaker 1: it makes us feel better. Nothing in anything I've heard
Speaker 1: makes an argument for anything eternal other than the assertion
Speaker 1: that something eternal is there. Does any of that make sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think maybe you're just gonna sort of my
Speaker 3: point about postmonderism. My point was the sort of atheistic
Speaker 3: postmodern view is that power meta narratives are constructed in
Speaker 3: power relations to oppress or that I and I said.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true at all. So at least
Speaker 1: it's not.
Speaker 2: That's what de los in folk all that you talking about?
Speaker 2: Do talk about that? Yes? I don't know me Yeah,
Speaker 2: the regular average Joe atheist. I think that's for postmodern
Speaker 2: schools of thought.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so are you wanting me to argue on
Speaker 1: behalf of fuco?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know this too, Like what do you want from us?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What what are we what are we lacking here that
Speaker 2: we need to understand?
Speaker 6: Well, the main thing is so the claim.
Speaker 3: It's is it is a meta narrative constructed or not constructive?
Speaker 3: Is it developed? You could say? Is it processed culturally? Well,
Speaker 3: you can say when a meta narrative is adopted, you
Speaker 3: can say that you make a choice to adopt it.
Speaker 3: But there are certainly some meta narratives which are more
Speaker 3: true than other meta narratives. And the reason you know
Speaker 3: some meta narratives are true more than other meta narratives
Speaker 3: is because the prescription for modality of being have in
Speaker 3: certain circumstances been more advantageous than others.
Speaker 4: Black.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'm always saying this, dude, Absolutely, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: always saying this. Yeah, one hundred percent. Sorry, I'm not
Speaker 2: being to be dismissive, but what the fuck are we
Speaker 2: talking about here? Like, Okay, I'm not arguing that more
Speaker 2: meta narratives are truer than other narrative. First of all,
Speaker 2: I don't agree with that, but also like why why
Speaker 2: does this pertain to us? Like what are we are?
Speaker 2: What do you argue? What is the position that we
Speaker 2: allegedly hold that you say that we hold, like you
Speaker 2: seem to work under some sort of assumption that we're
Speaker 2: operating under. And I'd be curious because maybe you read
Speaker 2: our minds or maybe you've heard Sophia's you know, thesis
Speaker 2: on fou cult and power dynamics that I know that
Speaker 2: she's written about and I talk extensively about on talk
Speaker 2: hethan before, Like what are we talking about here?
Speaker 3: Are you saying that if that the Judeo Christian meda
Speaker 3: natives that I would say probably influenced the collective psyche
Speaker 3: of the West is more true than other meta natives,
Speaker 3: right because oh.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, there we go. Awesome, awesome, awesome. See well,
Speaker 2: I disagree with the take that some meta narratives are
Speaker 2: truer than other met meta narratives because that would just
Speaker 2: kind of derail everything that postmodernism is ever done. Right,
Speaker 2: Like One of the broader themes of postmodernism is that
Speaker 2: there is no one true meta narrative, right, Like, I
Speaker 2: don't know if you're ever going to see them ever saying, oh, well,
Speaker 2: there's some that are more true than others, Like that's
Speaker 2: definitely not a take that's ever happened, but I think,
Speaker 2: of course. But yeah, but like, why the hell would
Speaker 2: you say that Judeo Christianity is somehow more true than
Speaker 2: other Christianities? Like how does that? How does the meta
Speaker 2: narrative become more true? I would love to hear that part.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Postmodern is wrong essentially by rejecting men notatives. And the
Speaker 3: reason for this is because the essential canon of the
Speaker 3: Judeo Christians metaphysical substrate is individual respect for the vinity
Speaker 3: of the individual, the idea that the individual's creating the
Speaker 3: image of God reproduction, which.
Speaker 1: Is sorry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna interrupt you,
Speaker 1: simply because it is important that you actually answer that question.
Speaker 1: You're saying why postmodernism is wrong. You are asked why
Speaker 1: your view is correct? Why is it true that christ
Speaker 1: Judeo Christian No, you're not start with the question. You're
Speaker 1: asked for you, I am.
Speaker 3: I'm telling telling you the Judeo Christian meta notatives says,
Speaker 3: for example, reproduction is virtue. Well, clearly that's a beneficial cultural.
Speaker 2: Okay, Again, it doesn't always say reproduction is a virtue.
Speaker 2: It's not a thing I would love for you to
Speaker 2: find in the Bible where it says that all people
Speaker 2: on all earth should be able to reproduce. No, it's
Speaker 2: God's chosen people. For first of all, it's a specific race.
Speaker 2: So let's let's start with that first off. But again,
Speaker 2: we're talking about just a lot of things here. Just
Speaker 2: because one religious idea, one ideology says a thing is
Speaker 2: good and you agree with that doesn't mean it makes
Speaker 2: it more like true than other people's ideologies. That's just
Speaker 2: not how ideologies work, right, Like, you can't just say, oh,
Speaker 2: the entire the Western Christianity is actually super dope, you guys,
Speaker 2: because it has some things that I think are awesome. Like,
Speaker 2: that's not a good argument.
Speaker 3: You're not letting me finish, so please, Okay, No.
Speaker 1: We're not good.
Speaker 2: You have to make a good argument.
Speaker 1: So here I think that I might go ahead and
Speaker 1: and moderate. Here we have another collar I'd love to
Speaker 1: get to and we have some other things. But so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna drop here because we've descended into bickering,
Speaker 1: which is not a good use of our time. And
Speaker 1: so I think that really quick, I'm going to mention
Speaker 1: this system that it feels like we're following, which is
Speaker 1: blank is good. Meta narrative says blank is good, and
Speaker 1: so it is correct. That is really tough because you
Speaker 1: have to actually give an example of what is good
Speaker 1: or what is you have to define that somehow. That's
Speaker 1: a really tough thing to define. Globally, it's a really
Speaker 1: tough thing to define at all. I think in this
Speaker 1: conversation we got really lost in jargon at the beginning.
Speaker 1: I would say this is one of those instances where
Speaker 1: maybe it would be beneficial for the caller if you're
Speaker 1: still listening, I'm sorry if you're frustrated, to restate things
Speaker 1: in your own argument as discinctly as possible, because I
Speaker 1: think that would maybe help in making some of these points.
Speaker 1: We're kind of in a strange place here where it
Speaker 1: was frustrating, to be honest, to get to the meat
Speaker 1: of what we were trying to say, and I feel
Speaker 1: like we were trying I think that they were trying
Speaker 1: for the most part, and yet with all of the
Speaker 1: kind of dragon like let's say at fifth grade level, guys.
Speaker 2: You know the Thank God, there's so much wrong with this.
Speaker 2: This is I'm sorry, I'm going to say this, and
Speaker 2: it's going to trigger some people. This is what happens
Speaker 2: when you like people like Jordan Peterson take over your
Speaker 2: thought process in your life. You come to really dumb
Speaker 2: conclusions by really throwing out a lot of words and
Speaker 2: thinking that you're the smartest kid in the room. Okay,
Speaker 2: Judeo Christianity is not a thing. That's a thing that's
Speaker 2: made up. Okay, there's no through line between Judaism and
Speaker 2: Christianity unless what the Christians say it is. Okay, just
Speaker 2: because you think that that's really awesome and it's really
Speaker 2: cool and everybody else should follow the way that I
Speaker 2: do thinks doesn't mean that it's more true than other things.
Speaker 2: Which this is just a really complicated argument for essentially
Speaker 2: what asserts to fascism, right, this idea that look, we
Speaker 2: have to follow these moral codes and these principles because
Speaker 2: not only is do I think this is true, but
Speaker 2: this is actually metaphysically true. This is actually what makes
Speaker 2: up the encompasses our reality, what makes up Western civilization.
Speaker 2: And if we don't follow through with this, this could collapse.
Speaker 2: Apps are civilization, This could this could make us lose
Speaker 2: what we have in our society. Right, So, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you might view that as extreme, but this is essentially
Speaker 2: what this comes to. This is the reason why folks
Speaker 2: get interested in this stuff. They think that there is
Speaker 2: this idea of the West versus the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: And then then you know, we have to protect the
Speaker 2: West and all of its values, even though they're inconsistent
Speaker 2: and some of them are great, and and it changes
Speaker 2: all the time, and who is a part of the
Speaker 2: West and not part of the West is going to
Speaker 2: be a constant end abate with no end. But but
Speaker 2: this is what happens, Like, this is what this community
Speaker 2: gets to do. And I guarantee you Sofia, we're gonna
Speaker 2: get the Jordan Peterson stands in the comments telling us
Speaker 2: how we're all wrong, we're taking things out of context.
Speaker 2: But I've read Nietzsche, and I've read Sarge, and I've
Speaker 2: read food cult and I disagree with the a lot
Speaker 2: of the premises here. I don't I don't think you
Speaker 2: can get to these kinds of arguments.
Speaker 1: I've read them and forgotten a lot about them. Must
Speaker 1: be real I haven't found and.
Speaker 2: They're hard to understand, so it doesn't really matter. Also, Nietzsche,
Speaker 2: it's like a brilliant book philosophers, and I say the others,
Speaker 2: but you know, I would.
Speaker 1: Say that I find them less useful than attempting to
Speaker 1: work out logic from my own standpoint in the world,
Speaker 1: I think that, yeah, they're hard to understand and they're
Speaker 1: easy to get lost in. And so I realized that
Speaker 1: I oftentimes will start rephrasing something as like, hey, let's
Speaker 1: let's try to put this into something that's a little
Speaker 1: bit easier to digest. It's not because complex ideas aren't important.
Speaker 1: It's that I don't believe that we need to use
Speaker 1: words that are kind of alienating to explain them. And
Speaker 1: if someone doesn't understand an idea well enough to simplify it,
Speaker 1: then I don't know that they understand that idea well
Speaker 1: enough full stop. So yeah, I think that this was
Speaker 1: an interesting call in the sense that I think you're
Speaker 1: right that folks get lost in finding folks who tell
Speaker 1: them what they want to believe. And I kind of
Speaker 1: think that's a bit what's happened. So yeah, I look
Speaker 1: forward to Jordan Peterson stands in the comments because I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure he would like me anyway. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he liked the fact that you had a kid.
Speaker 7: Oh good, you you fulfilled your reproduction version, Sophia, congratulations
Speaker 7: is real. You're a pillar of Western society. That's awesome,
Speaker 7: that's really cool.
Speaker 1: I'm going to destroy Western society. Yeah, you know, like
Speaker 1: I get a.
Speaker 2: Little heated with this. I just I really don't like this.
Speaker 4: This.
Speaker 2: I don't like this idea of, first of all, monopolizing
Speaker 2: a conversation with absolute just out of the wall stuff,
Speaker 2: out of pocket, stuff with stuff that neither of us
Speaker 2: have actually argued for or have we're really interested in
Speaker 2: talking about. To be blind.
Speaker 1: That was pretty funny, just the like, well, it's what
Speaker 1: postmodern atheists think. I'm like, I don't think that.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like cool, Well, when you're strong man
Speaker 2: with folks online and uh, you know, and it's a
Speaker 2: lot different when you actually have a conversation with somebody
Speaker 2: and figure out like, oh, what people actually think and
Speaker 2: how they evaluate ideas. I guess I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: maybe I'm being a little extra, but I can't be
Speaker 2: more extra than what our callers decided to bring to
Speaker 2: the table today, right.
Speaker 1: So no, I like it, and I think that there
Speaker 1: are there's something to be said. And I've said this
Speaker 1: on the show before that like, I know that you
Speaker 1: want to get your point out, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to let you preach. This is not a sermon, this
Speaker 1: is not just time for you. And so I appreciate
Speaker 1: the call and the perspective, but maybe it's really important
Speaker 1: to hit our points really fast. So I actually got
Speaker 1: a little bit sass here there that I typically do,
Speaker 1: just because I think I was a little frustrated with
Speaker 1: that too. So I don't know, fiery makes it interesting.
Speaker 1: All Right, we should talk real quick about the super
Speaker 1: chats first of all, that are in the chat, which
Speaker 1: include actually the end of Jamie's Blind Blind Limey sorry
Speaker 1: the super chat there and yeah, you want to read
Speaker 1: those out real quick.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: We got one from Miranda Rensberger members six months gave
Speaker 2: five dollars, who said, is Jackie familiar with communicating like
Speaker 2: a normal human? Yeah? I listen, We're no. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: if you're gonna come and talk to us, about your points.
Speaker 2: There's definitely a more succinct way you can, like, like
Speaker 2: absolutely if you want to talk about hey, I think
Speaker 2: the Christian menaitrev is more true than others. Cool, let's
Speaker 2: start with that. Let's just why do we have to
Speaker 2: have this preamble? I don't understand. If you have great
Speaker 2: idea and it involves some philosophy context, there's definitely a
Speaker 2: way you can talk about on this show. There's definitely
Speaker 2: a way where you can make it work. But let's let's,
Speaker 2: you know, let's try to think before we call our
Speaker 2: hosts and and do that for next time. So thanks
Speaker 2: for that. And then also we have our top five patrons.
Speaker 2: Do you want me to read those two SOPHI? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got it right here, Sure, go for it? All right,
Speaker 2: we got top five patrons this week is oops all singularity, Dingleberry, Jackson,
Speaker 2: ca Levy, Helvetti left in the leaves, Neil the six
Speaker 2: O four atheists, and honorable mention goes to Brian Zook.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to our top five patrons. And
Speaker 2: if you want be a patron on the Patreon you
Speaker 2: can do that in the description anyway you can go.
Speaker 2: Gready to keep going.
Speaker 1: Okay, so give me one second, because I am going
Speaker 1: to point out where they can go to give on
Speaker 1: Patreon here. If you want to have your name read
Speaker 1: on the air, then please consider supporting us at our patreon,
Speaker 1: which is tiny dot cc slash patreon. T that's tiny
Speaker 1: dot cc slash patreon th like talk ethen. Yeah. On
Speaker 1: that note, we started recording the talk e than discord
Speaker 1: after show for all levels of paid patrons. So if
Speaker 1: you want more content and more sort of an informal
Speaker 1: look at the hosts. And this isn't just the host
Speaker 1: who've just posted. Sometimes other hosts come on there and
Speaker 1: just have a much more casual conversation. It won't necessarily
Speaker 1: be like show themed. It's really fun actually, So you
Speaker 1: can access that if you join our patreon. There's a
Speaker 1: couple other super chats a little bit further up. First,
Speaker 1: I want to Blindlimy the last thing that you said here,
Speaker 1: aside for asking God to make him a wing commander
Speaker 1: in the Arif so you can fly the Eurofighter, the
Speaker 1: last wish while we're asking for impossible things was a
Speaker 1: reasonably priced one bedroom in Austin. I would say keep dreaming, Bud,
Speaker 1: and then we have a super chat from Nash for
Speaker 1: five dollars five dollars a Canadian. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that matters. I feel the need to point it out though, Yeah, Canada.
Speaker 1: But Jack Frost is one of my favorite myths. It
Speaker 1: seems so interesting to me that people would attribute something
Speaker 1: so small to a whole supernatural being. I completely agree.
Speaker 1: I love the Jack Frost myth. And there's a book
Speaker 1: that I greatly enjoyed reading called The Year one thousand,
Speaker 1: and it looks at a medieval calendar for each month
Speaker 1: and uses that illustration to talk about what life was
Speaker 1: like in that month. And that's they talk about Jack
Speaker 1: Frost and the end of the harvest and all of
Speaker 1: these different rituals and so specifically Britain in the year
Speaker 1: one thousand. So if you're interested in Jack Frost and
Speaker 1: some of these interesting ideas that folks had back in
Speaker 1: the day when we understood less science, that would be
Speaker 1: when you might enjoy all right, so the sweet Okay,
Speaker 1: those are all the super chats. Be sure you can
Speaker 1: totally send us more super chats in the comments. All right,
Speaker 1: So we have one more collar that we're going to take,
Speaker 1: and I am definitely curious about this we have had
Speaker 1: a theme today. The theme has been like philosophy basically
Speaker 1: how our brains work, how we respond to things because
Speaker 1: our brains work that way. So this is Rogue Show.
Speaker 1: He him from South Carolina and says is it necessary
Speaker 1: or is asking is it necessary for atheists to study philosophy?
Speaker 1: All right, so we're going to bring in hey rogue show.
Speaker 1: All right, you're asking tell us about this? Is it
Speaker 1: necessary for atheists to study philosophy?
Speaker 2: Yeah? But there's one thing.
Speaker 6: There's one thing that's kind of nagging. It's for those
Speaker 6: for those who want to know post modernism is actually
Speaker 6: active perspective that takes a lot of perspective. It's pretty
Speaker 6: much we have to consider a lot of perspectives here
Speaker 6: or not. We can't just operate on one. And it
Speaker 6: focuses on science and a lot of it focuses on
Speaker 6: science and critical thinking, which sees U don't, which sease.
Speaker 5: Don't, Mike.
Speaker 3: But my question, yeah, my question is like is it
Speaker 3: is it not necessary?
Speaker 4: Is it really?
Speaker 6: Is it necessary to study philosophy as an atheist or
Speaker 6: is it like just a side gig you can do?
Speaker 2: Why is it necessary? Live your best life? Who cares?
Speaker 2: Who would you want. I don't think. I don't think
Speaker 2: being an atheist. Oh wait, you have to. You have
Speaker 2: to get your credits in Sorry, you know you can't
Speaker 2: have your bachelor's and atheism without getting your philosophy credit
Speaker 2: Rogue show. Actually, so we gotta we got to revoke
Speaker 2: your atheist degree.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's like that. I think it's more
Speaker 2: just like, yeah, you can look at it if you
Speaker 2: want to. Now, granted, there is a benefit to studying
Speaker 2: philosophy in a formal context versus watching a fifteen minute
Speaker 2: YouTube video that summarizes some guy's books. Right, So you're
Speaker 2: going to get a deeper understanding if you read the word. Obviously,
Speaker 2: I can't speak any of the original language that folks
Speaker 2: like nietzschee right, writing in German. And then most postmodern
Speaker 2: philosophers are French, so a lot of them are going
Speaker 2: to be writing in French. Right, So like there's I
Speaker 2: don't have that benefit. And I've heard that that's like
Speaker 2: the best way to read a lot of works. But
Speaker 2: I think it's great if you can if you want
Speaker 2: to speak confidently about a particular subject. Sure, But the
Speaker 2: thing is, philosophy kind of by design is always going
Speaker 2: to be endless. I mean, I guess that's true with
Speaker 2: any kind of science, but like, if you're going to
Speaker 2: speak on any sort of like real knowledge or authority,
Speaker 2: it helps to actually look at the original source material,
Speaker 2: especially if you're going to be engaging with folks online,
Speaker 2: which is like what a lot of us tend to do. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: you're going to be on the back foot if people
Speaker 2: are going to be talking about religious phenomenology and you're
Speaker 2: not familiar with some of the basic texts that like
Speaker 2: go into that, right, Because philosophy, unlike a lot of
Speaker 2: other fields of study, are really context dependent on the
Speaker 2: sources that come before it. There's a really you have
Speaker 2: to really no philosophy in the order in which things
Speaker 2: were kind of written in order for things to make sense.
Speaker 2: Like if you just start with postmodernism, you're going to
Speaker 2: be really confused if you haven't read modernist texts. And
Speaker 2: then you're going to be really confused if you haven't
Speaker 2: read you know, the Greeks, right, and then you know,
Speaker 2: there's like a lot of stuff that gets referenced each time.
Speaker 2: So in short, yeah, if you want to go for it,
Speaker 2: but like I'm not going to be the atheist police
Speaker 2: and say you haven't read your philosophy. No, no, that's
Speaker 2: bad news. Yeah, just do what you want. I don't care.
Speaker 2: Live your best life rogue show.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that. My take is that no matter
Speaker 1: what it is you're looking at, there's always going to
Speaker 1: be somebody who disagrees with you and knows more about
Speaker 1: it than you do. So there's never going to be
Speaker 1: like this perfect amount you can know about any subject
Speaker 1: that will mean that you're the most like bulletproof or
Speaker 1: certified atheists or whatever it would be. Clearly I am
Speaker 1: less well versed in philosophy than Dan Is, Like that's
Speaker 1: just evidently true, and that's fine. I think that there
Speaker 1: can also be a lot of space in it isscussion
Speaker 1: to ask what someone means by what they're saying. If
Speaker 1: they're using a term I don't know, then I'm happy
Speaker 1: to say, like, hey, I'm not familiar with that term,
Speaker 1: because then I get to know how they're understanding it
Speaker 1: and what standpoint they're actually arguing from, and I can
Speaker 1: maybe have that conversation a little bit more successfully. So
Speaker 1: I've also feel like I feel like there's value in
Speaker 1: focusing on critical reasoning, like regardless of what topic you're
Speaker 1: looking at, and for me, philosophy is it's cool to
Speaker 1: get into different philosophers, and critical reasoning is a fundamental
Speaker 1: part of it. But being able to be critical on
Speaker 1: the fly and just to think through, like what are
Speaker 1: the questions I have about this? Like what can we
Speaker 1: explore further? I found a lot of help with a
Speaker 1: lot of help from that, I guess I found that
Speaker 1: extremely useful. I guess I'm not always the best with words,
Speaker 1: but I feel like being curious and asking questions as
Speaker 1: you're having conversations is totally okay. I do think that
Speaker 1: there will be experiences you have with atheists and theists.
Speaker 1: They're going to have read a philosopher and they're going
Speaker 1: to do a lot of Dickson in with it, like sorry,
Speaker 1: that's rather a cross term, and people without Dick's also.
Speaker 2: Do that it's an appropriate term.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there isn't quite another term that I'm really sure
Speaker 1: gives this this ideal. But I think there are folks
Speaker 1: who will feel like they're smarter than you because of that,
Speaker 1: and who will walk away and feel like, well, they
Speaker 1: didn't even know blink. But okay, I'm not really trying
Speaker 1: to impress those folks anyway.
Speaker 2: You know, it's also appropriate, actually, Sophia just to add
Speaker 2: on to that, because philosophy folks tend to be chauvinistic.
Speaker 2: There is a tendency towards this idea of this sort
Speaker 2: of rational objectivity that some people speak to. You know,
Speaker 2: look at any philosopher ever and you'll see that there's
Speaker 2: some of the most problematic people that have ever lit
Speaker 2: like like like like Heidegger is like kind of a Nazi,
Speaker 2: Like that's like kind of been spoken about, you know,
Speaker 2: like there's all kinds of people who have absolutely written
Speaker 2: amazing stuff that have contributed to the literature, and they
Speaker 2: themselves are not the most rational people when it comes
Speaker 2: to other issues. So the point is, if you're doing
Speaker 2: it to better yourself, that's great. Well it make you
Speaker 2: think more critically sometimes, Sure, it's not the be all
Speaker 2: end all. Please do not treat one specific discipline as, oh,
Speaker 2: this is going to solve everything for me and make
Speaker 2: me super smart and be able to debate people and
Speaker 2: take them down and be the winner. Because that's what
Speaker 2: a lot of people take when it comes to philosophy.
Speaker 2: That's kind of the approach. And yeah, you know it's
Speaker 2: pretty bad.
Speaker 1: I think that that can happen too. In I feel
Speaker 1: like that's happened with psychology. Let's think about Jordan Peterson,
Speaker 1: Like that definitely comes up. I think that can happen
Speaker 1: with economics, Like I've seen a lot of folks who
Speaker 1: are even hobbyist economics act like this is the field
Speaker 1: that really explains humans. This is really what gets us,
Speaker 1: you know, all of the answers and anything that you
Speaker 1: come to me with if you don't understand my jargon
Speaker 1: is wrong, So people can be kind of crappy regardless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would also just throw out that there are there
Speaker 1: are different ways to engage with philosophy in the sense
Speaker 1: of like how people actually live and how we apply
Speaker 1: ideas to how we live. I'm a big, big advocate
Speaker 1: for reading fiction, particularly from different time periods and different cultures.
Speaker 1: I think that being able to see belief supplied in
Speaker 1: fiction is incredibly valuable. I think that that's a great
Speaker 1: way to understand other people. Even if it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: help you, like win a debate, it helps you understand
Speaker 1: how other people live and why they live that way.
Speaker 1: So I would throw out there that like literature, fiction
Speaker 1: also has a place and just human understanding, even though
Speaker 1: it does not aim toward being objective. Does all that
Speaker 1: make sense? We just threw a ton of a ton
Speaker 1: of words at you. We've both had some feelings on
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 6: I guess I can.
Speaker 3: Okay, if I leave you with two.
Speaker 2: Things, sure you leave us with one and a half things,
Speaker 2: just kidding, you can.
Speaker 6: Do too, Okay, I will, I will, I'll rearrange the numbers.
Speaker 3: So the first the first thing is that the reason
Speaker 3: the reason why.
Speaker 6: I sort of this question ask this question, it's because
Speaker 6: I personally find philosophical conversations annoying, and it's like, do
Speaker 6: you really need to do you really need to study this?
Speaker 6: Like because it just feels like the art of talking
Speaker 6: past each other a.
Speaker 2: Lot sometimes sometimes.
Speaker 6: And second and secondly one and a half one and
Speaker 6: a half lead. What what woke moralists don't understand about
Speaker 6: post modernism is that it's flawed due to a metaphorical
Speaker 6: such creak.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good, that's a pretty good Jordan Peterson right there.
Speaker 1: I was like, Jordan Peterson, Kermit the Frog, that those
Speaker 1: were the two. But I love idea of Kermit the
Speaker 1: Frog lecturing about what moreless got to say that I
Speaker 1: went there. No, thank you, So I'm gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and the club thank you for leaving us with those
Speaker 1: two things, and awesome, thank you for calling. Definitely call back.
Speaker 1: We really liked that question. Yeah, yeah, sorry when it
Speaker 1: happens well to answer that question.
Speaker 2: Uh, I know, I think a lot of philosophy is
Speaker 2: useless to most people. I'm not afraid of saying that.
Speaker 2: I think I think there's yeah, it's it's it's immensely
Speaker 2: interesting for some people, and for some people it's just whatever,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. What what does uh, you know, religious phenomenology
Speaker 2: mean to a fisherman in Taiwan. I don't know. It
Speaker 2: could mean some things. It could be some very useful stuff.
Speaker 2: It's not going to help them fish any better, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's for a lot of people. Granted, maybe maybe
Speaker 2: I'm speaking to the mode of capitalism there, right and saying, oh,
Speaker 2: it's not useful for you making money, And that's not
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say
Speaker 2: is that, like you know, when we're talking about metaphorical
Speaker 2: or metaphysical substrates, it just doesn't hit with a lot
Speaker 2: of people because it's it's it's not unless you're in
Speaker 2: the academy and you're producing works. It's it's not gonna
Speaker 2: do much for you. So yeah, I don't think you
Speaker 2: have to have an understanding of philosophy to be a
Speaker 2: smart person or a competent person, or to think correctly.
Speaker 2: I only think it's useful for talking about the subjects
Speaker 2: that philosophy tends to talk about, which which could be
Speaker 2: a lot of things.
Speaker 1: It's like when you play a really complex board game,
Speaker 1: which I myself have learned to appreciate because many people
Speaker 1: I love really like complex table top board games. Being
Speaker 1: good at that game just means you're good at that game.
Speaker 1: Being good at chess doesn't mean you're actually going to
Speaker 1: be good at war. Like sometimes we like to make
Speaker 1: these things seem like a bigger deal than they are.
Speaker 1: For me, it took me a long time to actually
Speaker 1: feel confident in saying I am smart and I don't
Speaker 1: understand that and that's acceptable, and okay, I do think
Speaker 1: I'm a little self conscious of that as a woman,
Speaker 1: to be honest, because I feel the need to almost
Speaker 1: be like, well, I have to be the smartest, but
Speaker 1: no whatever, fuck them. So yeah, I agree, And I
Speaker 1: just feel like trust yourself and trust your logic and
Speaker 1: your arguments and things that you can logically defend are true.
Speaker 1: Do you know, yes, one hundred percent. That's my mission
Speaker 1: and make everyone say they don't be and make everyone
Speaker 1: okay with saying they don't know. I read that last
Speaker 1: super chap there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, I'll do that, and we have the
Speaker 2: super chat from Constellation Pasis, who gave twenty dollars nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine. Thanks for that and said, thank you. What's
Speaker 2: the most infuriating subject you have to deal with?
Speaker 1: That's a good question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what's the most for you, Sophia.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting because I was thinking about, like, what
Speaker 1: actually makes me the angriest, and it's not. It was
Speaker 1: more from when I was in the church actually than
Speaker 1: something that I engage with as much now. If another
Speaker 1: Christian ever looks at me and smiles and says, well,
Speaker 1: no one is righteous, no no one, I'm going to
Speaker 1: fucking drown them. Like I have heard people say that
Speaker 1: about child molesters, about like folks who are just obnoxious
Speaker 1: about like it's just a deflection. I've never heard it
Speaker 1: used in a way that isn't just to say, well,
Speaker 1: you're bad too, essentially, and I'm like, if that's where
Speaker 1: your faith gets you, then I have no interest in
Speaker 1: your faith or your interpretation of it. So I think,
Speaker 1: obviously that gets me kind of riled up, and that's
Speaker 1: I feel like I deal with that attitude more now
Speaker 1: than the actual phrasing because now I'm out of the church.
Speaker 1: But it was it was smirkingly used. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's a word smugly maybe used so often in
Speaker 1: the church, and it was, it's disgusting. It's a coverall
Speaker 1: for being disgusting. So anyway, that at least makes me
Speaker 1: the maddest, not to that that's good.
Speaker 2: That's good stuff, Sophia, I don't. I do like into
Speaker 2: I dislike intellectual posturing. In case that wasn't clear already,
Speaker 2: I think I think that's a pet feeve of mine.
Speaker 2: I don't care whether you're the most you think you're
Speaker 2: the smartest guy in the room. It doesn't matter. All
Speaker 2: that matters, is what we're talking about. In that context.
Speaker 2: I've met so many people in my life who are
Speaker 2: exactly as you describe as if you they're good at
Speaker 2: they're good at the one thing or or or they
Speaker 2: think they're real good and they think that they're just
Speaker 2: the bees for everything in life, And there's always so
Speaker 2: much more you can learn from other people if you
Speaker 2: take the time to really set your ego aside and
Speaker 2: look at the world and spend time with people, Because
Speaker 2: it turns out not everything you know, wisdom doesn't always
Speaker 2: come from discord conversations and YouTube videos. There's more to life,
Speaker 2: right than just engaging with other people online arguing the
Speaker 2: same things every day, which I do see from some
Speaker 2: people sometimes, right, Like, there's there's a big world out there.
Speaker 2: So that's the stuff that probably annoys me to know end,
Speaker 2: it's the folks who do call in and who consider
Speaker 2: themselves experts on particular subjects and until they've actually talked
Speaker 2: to somebody about that subject, I guess you know. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying any in reference today in particular, but even
Speaker 2: just like you know, general Christianity kind of stuff too.
Speaker 2: You know, people saying, oh, well, you haven't actually read
Speaker 2: the Bible. Oh well, I've read it actually from beginning
Speaker 2: to end, and I can tell you estummation of probably
Speaker 2: every book if you ask me in one you know
Speaker 2: what am I missing here?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff, So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think in our so we're big load of the
Speaker 1: Rings people in my family, and we thought about naming
Speaker 1: our Sontheodin. We did not, but you know, we thought
Speaker 1: about it, and we refer to that as Saramon syndrome,
Speaker 1: because if you read Lord of the Rings, this my
Speaker 1: nerdy self is like Saramon didn't take the time to
Speaker 1: really understand how armies are composed and effective to the
Speaker 1: degree that a professional essentially not standing army but a
Speaker 1: more professional, cohesive army like Rohan which has been operating
Speaker 1: as an army for years, understood and so when in
Speaker 1: the movies it looks like Saramon is a genius with
Speaker 1: an overwhelming force, realistically, Saramon thought, because he's a very
Speaker 1: smart person, he would be able to of course take
Speaker 1: over you know, the lands of the row herem of
Speaker 1: course he could you know, be on par with Sorron
Speaker 1: and be a power to match his. When in actuality,
Speaker 1: he just assumed that because he was smart in these things,
Speaker 1: he knows he's smart and that he's good at everything.
Speaker 1: There are are some some powerful tech folks that I
Speaker 1: feel like fit this description. It's essentially the idea that
Speaker 1: I understand this, so I can run everyone else's lives, right,
Speaker 1: or I can tell everyone else how to live because
Speaker 1: I have this thing.
Speaker 2: I know this thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like sorromon syndrome is what I think.
Speaker 2: Of that gone great man and history vibes there right,
Speaker 2: like great theory of history there vibes well. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: tegbros thing. Yeah, very very on point with this. I
Speaker 2: like that. But hey, we're getting close to the Yes, we.
Speaker 1: Need to wrap up. You are right to remind everyone
Speaker 1: the prompt for this week is what's the reason God
Speaker 1: created hell? Wrong? Answers only replying the comments and tune
Speaker 1: in at the beginning of next week's episode to hear
Speaker 1: the top three answers. And we also want to thank
Speaker 1: Richard for helping out today. Richard, do you want to
Speaker 1: pop on and tell us what is what was your
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show? Here's Richard.
Speaker 8: Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie.
Speaker 2: By the way, were you talking before the show? I'm
Speaker 2: just curious because you.
Speaker 8: Better, I'm going to I'm going to keep that secret.
Speaker 2: Well, Jackie, Jackie.
Speaker 8: I usually coming in I give a general appraisal about
Speaker 8: all of the calls, but the last two weeks. I
Speaker 8: feel I've answered Jackie. If you are an honest person,
Speaker 8: which I believe you, maybe you will know that the
Speaker 8: phenomenology of religion is a wide field with many many
Speaker 8: disagreements within it.
Speaker 2: That's true religious phenomenology. I'm sorry I'm interrupting you, but
Speaker 2: that also weird anyway.
Speaker 8: Well, one of the things that really pisses me off
Speaker 8: with people like that is they come on and they
Speaker 8: make statements as so there is only one opinion in
Speaker 8: the field, and it is not true. It is not
Speaker 8: the case, and something cannot be I could go on
Speaker 8: about this for hours, so I'm going to keep this
Speaker 8: as short as possible. Something cannot be more true than
Speaker 8: something else. You might be more persuaded that that thing
Speaker 8: is true, but something is either true or false. It
Speaker 8: cannot be more true than something else. This could have
Speaker 8: been an amazing call. Had Jackey been, you know, someone
Speaker 8: who wanted to come in and have a genuine conversation
Speaker 8: about this subject, it could have been an amazing call.
Speaker 8: We could have got to the point to that thing
Speaker 8: where we could have investigated what makes something, you know,
Speaker 8: a legitimate belief is what is where the phenomenology of
Speaker 8: religion really comes into its own is where is something
Speaker 8: a legitimate belief where we cannot criticize someone for having
Speaker 8: a belief in that thing, and does that make it true?
Speaker 8: That would have been an amazing call, but instead we
Speaker 8: had to go down this singing. Here's what Jackie did,
Speaker 8: and here's what Jordan Peterson does. What they do is
Speaker 8: this stuff fifteen twenty maybe twenty five pretty decent sized
Speaker 8: testicles in the mouth, and then they open their mouth
Speaker 8: and then they all come cascading out like a fucking waterfall.
Speaker 8: It's bullshit. You can speak in plain language if you
Speaker 8: understand the subject and you want to be honest when
Speaker 8: you're discussing the subject, you can speak in plain language.
Speaker 8: The reason you don't do that is because because you
Speaker 8: know full well if you do that, there is a
Speaker 8: conversation to be had, and that the conversation takes all
Speaker 8: the power away from you, because what you want to
Speaker 8: do is interspersual superiority. And finally, before before I drop out,
Speaker 8: you don't talk to my fucking host like you talk
Speaker 8: to them.
Speaker 2: I was the one who muted you at the end
Speaker 2: of that call. I will do it again. You do
Speaker 2: not talk to my host like that.
Speaker 8: Thank you guys. That was a fantastic show.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I feel so supported.
Speaker 2: Just came in and like, you know, talk to the
Speaker 2: teacher or something. That was That was the feeling I
Speaker 2: got there.
Speaker 1: It's nice. Yeah, and nt I drop the call and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it's already muted. I wonder how
Speaker 1: that happened. It's amazing, well, amazing. Thank everyone for watching,
Speaker 1: for being here. We are going to have a bit
Speaker 1: of an after show with at least a couple of
Speaker 1: us at to theatiny dot cc slash ACD discord. I've
Speaker 1: got all those words out. That's where you can catch us.
Speaker 1: And if you don't believe, this is your community and
Speaker 1: we appreciate you being here. If you do believe, we
Speaker 1: don't hate you.
Speaker 2: We're just not convinced. Thanks again, everybody. We'll see you later.
Speaker 8: We want the truth, so watch Truth Wanted live Friday
Speaker 8: at seven pm Central. Visit tiny dot CC slash YTTW
Speaker 8: and call into the show five one two nine nine
Speaker 8: one nine two four two, or connect to the show
Speaker 8: online at tiny dot cc slash call tw