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Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,

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an idea.

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: I put my hand on a book and made a.

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

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Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.

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Truth Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.

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

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Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.

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Speaker 2: Bill O'Reilly was a staple of the Fox News network

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in the nineties and into the two thousands had one

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of the most popular shows on the channel called The

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O'Reilly Factor. And back when I was a Fox News Christian,

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I was a right wing conservative, evangelical Christian. I would

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nightly tune into Bill O'Reilly. Well, you know, he left

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the networker was let go after a big blow up

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over sexual harassment and misconduct allegations and a payoff, etc.

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And now he is broadcasting his own show on his

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own terms. I think it's just called Bill O'Reilly or

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the Bill O'Reilly show, and Bill one of his big

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things is, you know, the decline of religion or the

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belief in God in the United States is a net negative.

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It's actually bringing us to not a point of moral chaos,

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certainly moral decay. And to talk about that, he invited

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on his show a friend of mine who is a sociologist,

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Phil Zuckerman, who joins me today. Phil, thanks for coming man.

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Speaker 3: Hi Seth, good to see. Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: So you are a sociologist. What does that even mean?

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What does a sociologist do? And where do you do sociology?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm a well, I'm a professor of sociology

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and secular studies at the Claremont Colleges in southern California.

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I guess quick ways that we're interested in what's going

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on in the social world in the here and now.

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So historians tend to look at what happened in the past.

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We're trying to figure out what's going on right now

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in the present, you know, always mindful of what happened before.

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You can't really understand the present without knowing the past.

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But we try to actually talk to living human beings,

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not just read the letters of dead human beings. We

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try to observe, go out, you know, do field work,

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do participant observation, do surveys. You know. We try to

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ask and observe as much as we can of the

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here and now. And we're very mindful of things like

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societal health, society well being. How do you measure that?

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What kind of data can you generate? So we're trying

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to be empirical in our search and we try to

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have the best evidence available. So that's my background, and

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I feel like the tools of social science help us

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understand things like the decline of religion. Is it a

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good thing, is it a bad thing? What's causing it?

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So that's what I do. I write books. I try

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to stay on top of the data every now and then.

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I try to generate my own original data by either

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doing in depth interviews, a survey, that kind of thing,

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person of observation. But that's me and I'm here and yeah,

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I was on O'Reilly and it was a trip.

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Speaker 2: Before I get into some snippets on my play, some

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sound bites from the interview. But you've written, like what

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eight books? I was curious about the titles too, Society

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without God? What the least religious nations can tell us

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about contentment beyond doubt, the secularization of society, what it

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means to be moral, why religion is not necessary for

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living an ethical life. Do you get into the culture wars,

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then a lot of these wedge issues.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, to know, it's unavoidable. Those issues like gay marriage,

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abortion rights, guns are gonna are gonna definitely come up.

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But what I try to do is in my work

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is I try to say, like, well, what's what's the

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reality on the ground. So I'll give you an example.

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People will say, like people like Bill O'Reilly will constantly say,

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if people stop worshiping God and people stop going to

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church and we stop having religion, then crime will increase. Well,

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that's a social scientific assertion, Like we can measure that.

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We can measure rates of belief in God, strength of

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belief in God, and given populations church attendants, I mean,

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those are our independent variables, and then we can look

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at outcomes and we can see is there a strong correlation,

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a weak correlation, what no correlation at all? What do

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we find? And so it's not just speculative. It's not

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just like, well, if people don't believe in God, they'll

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go out and commit murder. It's like, do they is?

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Is this really what happens? And what we find consistently,

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what I've tried to write in my work is that

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that is not the case. That in fact, society, democracies

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that secular do not descend into lawlessness. And you can

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run at this a number of ways. You can look

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at the most religious societies and see how their violent

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crime rates are, or you can look at the most

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violent societies and see what their religiosity rates are, so

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you can you can mix and matches you like. But

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I mean just here in the United States, for example,

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the states with the highest levels of belief in God,

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the highest rates of church attendants, have the highest violent

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crime rates. Now someone could simply say, well, that's not

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because of religion, that's some other factor, and it's like, yeah,

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that's the point. Some of these other things are far

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more important than God or worship of God. That's kind

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of the point. So that's the kind of work I

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try to do, try to look at, you know, take

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these assertions and debunk them by looking at the reality

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on the ground.

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Speaker 2: I look at other nations of the world that are

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more secular. I want to throw Japan out, but some others,

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And you know, and I think moral decline, I don't

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think Japan. You know, I don't see the decline of

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humanity as rooted in a more secular society like that.

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Your research goes global like that.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, Japan is a great case study because not only

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is Japan one of the more secular societies on the

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planet Earth, but it has never had a Christian civilizational foundation.

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In other words, sometimes I'll have critics say, oh, yeah,

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maybe Europe's doing okay now, but that's because they had

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centuries of Christianity and they're living off the fumes of it.

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But you take a country like Japan that has never

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had established Christianity, was never part of Christendom, never, never

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sort of was it part of the life blood of

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Japanese culture or civilization. So you can just say this

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is a non Christian society that never had it. And

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even today, though even if they had other forms of religion,

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whether they were Buddhist or Shinto or whatever, those are

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quite diluted today. Most people are quite secular Japan. And

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what do you find in Japan The lowest murder rates

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on planet Earth, the lowest violent crime rates on planet Earth,

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the cleanest cities, the cleanest streets, lowest levels, you know,

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such any way you want to measure societal health, Japan

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stands out. Now. It's not perfect. You know, there's generin

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equality in Japan. There are other issues in Japan. I'm

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not saying it's an earthly paradise or a utopia, but

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Japan is a perfect example. You can do this all

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over the I mean Latin America. Like, the least religious

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country in Latin America with the least amount of God

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worshipers and God believers is Uruguay. Well how are they

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faring compare to El salvad or Colombia, Brazil. And what

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you'll find is Urguay is a much more peaceful, much

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more democratic, and much more sane country. And again I'm

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not saying it's just because they're secular, but I am saying,

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whatever the reason is, it's not about God, it's not

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about religion. There are other factors at play that are

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this worldly, and so I'm just trying to always beat

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that drum.

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Speaker 2: It was interesting when I was watching Bill o'reiley talk

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about his faith. When he mentioned Catholicism, I didn't hear

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real commitment or conviction.

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Speaker 4: So I'm fairly I wouldn't say religious fanatic, but I'm

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engaged in Catholicism.

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Speaker 2: He's not engaged in Catholicism, but I know he identifies

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as a Catholic. Now we know, at least my inference

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has been that the Catholic Church doesn't really promote or

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encourage heavy scriptural study in its congregants, right, I mean,

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isn't it more of an identity. You go to Mass,

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you genuflect, you hear the sermon, and then you go off

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to your beer and bingo and do let's live a

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secular life. I mean, does that unfair fill with the

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Catholic culture.

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Speaker 3: I think that's a great social You're doing sociology right now,

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Like what does Catholicism look like in reality on the ground?

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And if you want to understand Catholicism, sure you can

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read histories, you can read liturgies, but how are actual

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Catholic people living in the here and now? It depends

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on the society, depends on the culture, depends on the

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state the country. You know, how Catholics live in Vietnam

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is not going to be the same way as now

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Catholics live in Vermont. But yes, I would say there's

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a spectrum. So there are some Catholics that are deeply

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studious and deeply committed to the scriptures, and they're a minority.

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And yeah, your average Catholic is probably not even going

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to Mass all that often as more of a cultural Catholic.

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And there's a lot of people in between that. Like

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you said, they show up for a Mass, they do

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what they have to do, they say what they have

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to say, and then they get on with their lives.

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So I think that's accurate.

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Speaker 2: It's an interesting way to phrase it. You know, I'm

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a Catholic, but I don't really engage with Catholicism in that.

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I just find, you know, it's an odd positions like

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I'm a Christian but not really. It's almost like when

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Jordan Peterson was doing the debate with the twenty people

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in there, like he's quoting scripture and then they say, well,

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you're a Christian and he said, I never said that,

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and it's just this odd little spot. He threw some

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numbers out. You're a numbers guy, let me just hit

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them quickly, Bill O'Reilly. Talking about eleven years ago, sixty

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six percent of Americans said that religion was an important

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part of their daily lives. Today, forty nine percent almost

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eighty percent of Americans ident two find as Christian in

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two thousand and seven. Today that numbers dropped to sixty

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two percent, and in the United States today, almost one

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in three Americans say they are religiously unaffiliated. Would we

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call them a religious non and o ne film.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that'd probably be best. You know, when you're when

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you're talking religion, is it belief behavior belonging, And like

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you said, a person could identify as Catholic in a

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kind of belonging sense, like that's my tribe, that's my culture,

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that's my heritage, but not necessarily believe. Conversely, I know

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a lot of Christians here in my town that are

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strong believers in Jesus and God, but they say that

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they're not religious because religion is an institution and they

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have a relationship with Jesus, not an institutional you know, affiliation.

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So it's very complex. But if you look at belief

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behavior belonging, so do people believe in these supernatural claims?

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Do they engage in you know, religious rituals, Church of

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His Prayer, Bible City, and how do they identify do

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they belong and all three you've mentioned some are going down.

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So it depends on the question. So if we ask someone,

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you know, what religion are you and they say, I'm

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not any religion, yeah, we would call them an none.

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It doesn't tell us they might secretly believe in their heart.

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Maybe they but they don't want to identify with the religion.

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But you can ask directly do you believe in God?

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Or how strong do you believe in God? You know,

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with absolute curdy, I believe in God every other day,

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or I'm not sure, or I'm definitely don't believe. So

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you can ask about belief, you can ask about behaviors

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like church attendants, or you can ask about belonging. And

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it sort of just depends which one. But what I

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can tell you is on all three bees, the three bees,

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the rates are going down, down, down, in not just

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the United States, but in most countries, not all, there

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are some exceptions, but in most countries you see the

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same trajectory.

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Speaker 2: I was going to ask how accurate his numbers were,

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I mean, was he close according to the data that

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you've seen?

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and I feel like he even picked I

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think he'd cited Gallup and I forget the other one

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he cited, but those were even pretty mild. I mean,

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I if I knew, you know, there's other statistics. I'm

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just saying in the book Beyond Doubt, my latest book,

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we lay at all the numbers out there for not

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just the United States, but globally.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be that guy. You know, they're worth

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that line. There are lies, damn lies and statistics. So

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I'm going to play Devil's advocate and say, oh, yeah,

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you can go poll anybody. That's a small sample. How

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do you know where were you polled? Et cetera. When

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someone comes to you, I mean, how do you correlate?

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How do you gather data and then verify the data?

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Speaker 3: Great question? Surveys are notoriously unreliable. They're blunt tools. There's

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a lot of problems. How do you who are you

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going to ask? Is it a convenience sample, is it

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a random sample? Who are these people who would be

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willing to do the survey? What's your response rate? Meaning

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if you ask people to do it, how many people

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actually respond? And if your response rates low, then those

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people actually are not representative of most people. There something

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odd about them. So yeah, there's a lot of problems

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with surveys, and all I can say is the gold

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standard would be is it a random sample, meaning everybody

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in the population had an equal chance of being selected?

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And do you have a relatively robust response rate? When

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you have both of those things, it's the best we

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can do. They're still not perfect, as we know, but

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there we have to make use of the limited data

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we have, not just lament its deficiencies. So what I

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would say is surveys aren't perfect. You triangulate, you know,

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if multiple surveys tend to find similar results, that's always

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a good sign. So when you have different organizations with

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different agendas finding similar patterns, you can also verify survey data,

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you know, by doing field work. They kind of go

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hand in hand. So for example, I've spent many years

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in Scandinavia. The surveys told me that Scandinavians were not

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very religious, but that I went and I did my

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own on the ground investigating and talk to people and

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interviewed and all swats and there seem to be a

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strong they seem to up hold each other. I wasn't

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finding lots of believers, so there's no if it's not

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a convenience. You know, if it's a convenience sample, it's worthless.

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If the response rate is very low, it's ruthless. But

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we tend to try and stick to the best that

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we have out there. A lot of new surveys are

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using panels as well, where they're getting randomly so good

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individuals that agree. So I'm actually not at the highest

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level of that. I tend to rely on my colleagues

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for that, but that's the best I can do. Is

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it a convenience sample, is it a national sample? Is

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it a random sample? Those are the kinds of questions

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I ask, but we always take them with a grain

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of salt. I'll give you a perfect example. We know

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that people often over report church attendants. How do we

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know this? Well, some sociologists in a particular city in

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the Midwest. What they did was they started asking people,

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you know, how often do do you tend church weekly?

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And they got a rough sense of how many people

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said they were going weekly. Then they went to every

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church in the county consistently and counted in the parking lot,

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and they said, is this possible. We know the population

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of this town, we know you know how many people,

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Perhaps we will have the census data on who lives

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where and their ages and whatnot, and we're going to

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count cars. Is it possible that this many people? And

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what they found was like, no, it's just impossible. They're

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not walking and if they're driving. So we know that

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people are over reporting how often they go to church

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because it's socially desirable in that part of the world

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to say yes, yes, I'm a church attender. It's associated

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with being moral. So there's different techniques we can use.

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I can give you another one. I don't want to

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go on and on our methods. Go request Well, okay,

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so you're a colleague of Professor Gervais who's a social

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psychologist on the God belief question, right, how do you

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get people to honestly answer if they believe in God

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or not? Because there's a stigma for saying you don't.

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So they've devised these ways where you and see if

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I can say this simply you get some people, preferably

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a random sample of people willing to do this, and

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you give them ten statements and you say, please say

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how many of these would you say yes? And these

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are ten rand of students like I am a vegetarian,

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I believe in God. I'm asturbate, I'm a Republican, I

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like football, whatever it is. And you ask them just

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say how many of these would you say yes to?

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But you don't have to say yes to specific ones.

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You just say, like, of these ten, I'm going to

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say yes to four of them, and the researcher won't know.

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That increases validity because someone might be willing to be like,

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I actually don't believe in God, but I'm not being

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asked to specifically answer that. Another way you can do

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it is you can ask the same questions and in

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one case insert the God question and then the other

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one not have it in there. And then you ask

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the same people the same battery, and if the response

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rate of like how many yes is shifts and the

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only one you change was the God question, then you

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know if they're being honest about their belief in God

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or not. So these are some of the tools we have.

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Like I said, it's a soft science. We can't isolate

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isotopes in little beakers and add flame and watch what

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they do. But we do the best.

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Speaker 2: This is how my brain works. Phil. You know, it's

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like someone who goes and wants to buy condoms at

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the store, but they don't want to just buy condoms,

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so they throw in like, you know, paper plates and

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bananas and shit like that. You know, then they might

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hide the contraceptive purchase. This is just how this is

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just how the machine of my brain works. Okay, I've

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got more sound bites and more questions about those soundbites

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from the Bill O'Reilly interview with Bill Zuckerman. We continue

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in just second. I so appreciate your support on Patreon

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makes a big difference. If you want the show early

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00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:45,640
and commercial free, become a patron at patreon dot com.

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00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:51,839
Slash Seth Andrews continuing now my conversation with sosiologist and

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author Phil Zuckerman. Bill O'Reilly quite alarmed about the decline

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of religion, and he asked you a specific question about

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how and why it's happening.

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Speaker 4: If there's one thing you had to point two doctor

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that has made religion on the decline in this country,

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what would it be.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting because the producer spoke to me beforehand

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and said, how would you answer this? And I wrote

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out like eight explanations, and I said, these are the

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ones I would cite, like at least eight of these explanations,

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but Bill, when he had me on the air, said one,

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and I suddenly had to be like, uh, oh, what's

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the cool one I can talk about? I talked about

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the influence of the Internet. I'm not necessarily sure that

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would be number one for me, but I knew it

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would make for good TV or good back and forth conversation.

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So I can unpack that one and talk about the

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others too, should I?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we can talk about whatever. You have

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all the bandwidth here that you want. But I didn't

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notice when he was you were talking about the connection

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factor of people who had doubts and questions who before

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or would have had to drive to the library. Who's

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going to do that? But now they can go and

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google something that the pastor has claimed and see what

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the research says. And Bills seem to distill let that

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down to, oh, if you're an atheist, now you can

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go online and find other atheists. Therefore there are more

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atheists number.

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Speaker 4: So it's easier to be an atheist because you have

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other atheist pals on social media.

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Speaker 3: So we'll start there. You know, we deal with averages

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and correlations in the social sciences. It's rarely, if ever,

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never absolute. But we see that there's this correlation that

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populations that spend the more members of a population that

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have access to the internet, and the more time they

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spend online, those we also see a decrease in religiosity.

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Now it could be spurious, it could be like they're

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all both being caused by people eating more bananas or something.

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But when we see these kinds of robust correlations, we

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try to understand what's going on, and it seems to

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work in various levels, but the one so on number one,

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The fact of the matter is social. You know, there

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was a famous sociologist named Peter Berger, and he talked

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about plausibility structures, and that was simply a fancy way

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of saying, what kind of beliefs do we believe because

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they just feel plausible, and what makes them feel plausible

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everybody else believes them. We haven't tested it ourselves. But

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if everybody kind of has this belief, it has a

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taken for granted quality to it. Religion tends to have

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that in many parts of the world, Like if everybody

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believes it, your parents, your uncles, your teachers, you know,

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you sort of take it for granted, like of course

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there has to be a God. I mean, we're saying,

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I budgetbly you do you know? One nation under God

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every day? And so if you start to doubt and

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you're the only one, it's a very hard talk about

401
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social psychology. They do experiments, perhaps you've seen these, where

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they get a bunch of people in a room and

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they showed like three lines, and they say, like, which

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is the biggest line, And most of the people, all

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the people except one are part of the study, and

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they'll say, oh, I think it's line B. And you

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see the person who's not, you know, who's not one

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of the actors, and you'll be like, he sees that

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it's the other line that's clearly longer. But everybod what

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he's saying B. They start to panic. They're like, do

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I go along with the crowd? Like I do I

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believe my own eyes? And what you'll find is people

413
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will often go with the herd. So this is the

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same clay. We see the same pattern with secularity and

415
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secularism in the old When I was a teenager, if

416
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I was in a speaking in tongues community in some

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part of the Pentecostal neighborhood and everybody expected you to

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speak in tongues and it was a sign that the

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Holy Spirit was inside of you. You went and you

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either faked it or you convinced yourself it was true.

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But if you were like, I'm just I did it,

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but I didn't really feel the Holy Spirit. I just

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did it. You could you lived alone with that? You couldn't.

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You didn't necessary. Maybe you found a friend at the

425
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cafeteria that shared it with you. Maybe not. But when

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you go online, you can immediately connect with people who

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also doubt the speaking of tongues, who also faked it

428
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till they made it. And suddenly you were talking to ten, fifteen,

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fifty people and you start sharing your experiences, your ideas,

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and that creates plausibility, and it actually creates it's not

431
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just social support, but it's actually worldview support. And there's

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just no question that the Internet has enabled people with

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minority viewpoints on this issue, minority being agnostic, humanist, atheists,

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to find each other, connect with each other, meet with

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each other, and that has increased their numbers. It's just

436
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made people feel more comfortable. The other point about the

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Internet that I was trying to make was there's been

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studies on clergy that have lost their faith. Linda Lascala

439
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has pioneered this as well as others Alex Zamozinski. And

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what they did was they talked to pastors who lost

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their faith, like clergy members, rabbis, priests, preachers, and almost

442
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to a tee, they said how decisive the internet was.

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That they started looking stuff up because they wanted to

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prepare another sermon and they wanted to look at something up.

445
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And in their research they started seeing skeptical viewpoints, how

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the Gospels are plagiarized, forgeries, how there's no evidence for this,

447
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how there's no and they found themselves learning to doubt

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by doing actual research that they were finding easily online

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on the Internet. And then the third thing I think

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the Internet does is it just it makes religion a

451
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little bit quaint. I mean, when you're on the social

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media and you're on all the I'm not on social media,

453
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so I'm not going to list all the different social medias.

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I'm sure you know what they all are. And you're

455
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looking at and you're shopping constantly, and you're being entertained constantly,

456
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and you're looking at porn all the time, Like all

457
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this stuff has bombarding you. Religion I think is having

458
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a hard time competing with all that that the Internet offers.

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So those are some of the factors I talked about

460
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on the Bill o'reiley Show. There are other factors as well,

461
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such as as populations become more educated, they tend to

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be less religious. As more women go into the paid

463
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labor force, religion tends to go down in the family

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for various reasons. An unpack There's been a strong reaction

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against the religious right and the success of the religious right.

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People moderate Christians who are middle of the road don't

467
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want to associate with Christianity anymore because they're so era

468
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:10,920
acting against the viciousness of the religious right and Christian nationalism.

469
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The Catholic Church's pedophile priest scandal turned a lot of

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Catholics off and they disaffiliated. We have the numbers, We

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have the data in places like Boston, Rhode Island, in

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those areas that are heavily Catholic, we saw what happened

473
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:27,160
in the wake of the discovery of the Catholic pedophile priests.

474
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,599
The gay marriage issue has divided younger Americans from older Americans.

475
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,599
Younger Americans don't have a problem with gay marriage and

476
00:24:33,599 --> 00:24:37,519
the only institutional hostility to gay marriage comes from religions.

477
00:24:37,559 --> 00:24:40,160
So a lot of younger Americans are just like, that's ridiculous.

478
00:24:40,359 --> 00:24:42,759
I don't have anything against gay people, and your religions

479
00:24:42,799 --> 00:24:45,240
fucked up. So those are some of the factors going

480
00:24:45,279 --> 00:24:48,559
on that have affected religiosity in this kintry.

481
00:24:48,599 --> 00:24:51,160
Speaker 2: It was me, you know, on the internet. I stumble

482
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,519
across a debate and I heard about this ex evangelist

483
00:24:54,559 --> 00:24:58,000
in Canada, Charles Templeton. He wrote a book called Farewell

484
00:24:58,079 --> 00:25:00,640
to God. Oh what's that? So I the book and

485
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,279
start reading the book, and you know, an ex pastor

486
00:25:03,599 --> 00:25:07,359
dismantles his former faith. My mind is blown. I start

487
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,119
to feel validated in my doubts. And before you know,

488
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:12,519
and I'm spinning through the web looking at all kinds

489
00:25:12,559 --> 00:25:15,559
of debates and speeches, and that leads me to other

490
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,279
books and texts, and it was just crazy. And then

491
00:25:18,319 --> 00:25:22,079
of course you talked about these ministers. The Clergy Project

492
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:26,440
is a remarkable experiment. It started back in I think

493
00:25:26,839 --> 00:25:32,359
twenty eleven ish, so it's an entire network of pastors, ministers,

494
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,359
religious professionals, many of whom are totally under the radar,

495
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,599
like they might even be there anonymously. Oh my god,

496
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,599
if anybody found out my career's gone, how am I

497
00:25:42,599 --> 00:25:44,680
going to pay the bills? My wife will leave me

498
00:25:44,839 --> 00:25:47,119
or my husband will leave me. I'll lose custody of

499
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,759
the kids. Holy shit, what's going to happen. But it's

500
00:25:49,759 --> 00:25:52,400
this whole weird underground network of people who were, like,

501
00:25:52,599 --> 00:25:55,640
I'm doubting they wouldn't have had a resource had they

502
00:25:55,680 --> 00:26:01,119
not had an online place to go. Right, you nailed it.

503
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,119
Speaker 3: Some is spawn on what you just described. We hear

504
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,559
over and over and over again in the interviews we do,

505
00:26:07,319 --> 00:26:10,599
in the survey data we do, absolutely And it's like,

506
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:15,200
I think of like I remember, I know Dan Barker

507
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:17,440
wrote a book called like I think, Losing Faith in

508
00:26:17,559 --> 00:26:20,759
Faith a long time ago, I want to say, early

509
00:26:20,839 --> 00:26:24,200
eighties maybe, And it's like, if you happen to get

510
00:26:24,319 --> 00:26:26,240
how would you even get that book? I think it

511
00:26:26,279 --> 00:26:29,119
was Prometheus Press. You had to already sort of be

512
00:26:29,279 --> 00:26:32,680
in the atheist freethought community to even know about Dan

513
00:26:32,759 --> 00:26:35,680
and his book. But today, like you said, there's this woman,

514
00:26:35,799 --> 00:26:37,920
an ex Mormon. Right now she shows up in my

515
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,119
on YouTube. My god, she's got hundreds of thousands, if

516
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,559
not millions of people tuning in and just her talking

517
00:26:44,599 --> 00:26:47,759
about her experiences as an ex Mormon is catching the

518
00:26:47,799 --> 00:26:50,319
attention of a lot of current Mormons who are gonna

519
00:26:50,319 --> 00:26:53,079
be ex Mormons. It's just and like you said, with

520
00:26:53,079 --> 00:26:56,319
the Clergy project, So not only do those clergy have

521
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:58,839
the Internet as a as a wind, as a as

522
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,160
an avenue into their loss of faith, but then they

523
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:05,519
connect with each other, which just strengthens their community, strengthens outreach.

524
00:27:05,599 --> 00:27:08,960
They can share material, they can share resources. Now the

525
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,799
interesting thing though is that obviously this could work for

526
00:27:11,839 --> 00:27:14,680
religious people too, Like a religious person could reach out

527
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,079
to other religious people and you you know, the Internet's

528
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:18,880
just a tool that can be used for both. But

529
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:23,200
what we're finding is it's not helping religion maintain its

530
00:27:23,279 --> 00:27:25,920
numbers or increase its numbers. It even worked, it's but

531
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,720
it is increasing and helping secularism. It's even if you

532
00:27:29,759 --> 00:27:32,599
don't want to debunk something. What I have interviewed people

533
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:36,039
who were religious and then they just started learning about

534
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:41,000
other religions online. So you know, they were some you know, Protestant, Christian, Evangelical,

535
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,680
and they were like, what is it that those Mormons believer?

536
00:27:43,839 --> 00:27:47,079
What is Hinduism just by learning about other religions, which

537
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,599
is so easy now, you know, with just some tapping

538
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,319
on your keyboard, can cause people to go, wait a minute.

539
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,799
They believe this is true, and they're totally fervent. Why

540
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,680
And I believe mine's true. So, like you said, it

541
00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:03,480
causes doubt, It exposes people to debate. There's just no

542
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:08,200
question about. It's a corrosive influence on religious.

543
00:28:07,839 --> 00:28:09,759
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's true. I heard that one line.

544
00:28:09,799 --> 00:28:13,519
If you teach a child one religion, you indoctrinate them.

545
00:28:13,519 --> 00:28:16,319
If you teach them about all religions, you inoculate them.

546
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,400
There may be some truth to that film. But you know,

547
00:28:19,759 --> 00:28:23,880
Bill O'Reilly is alarmed. He says the world is on decline,

548
00:28:24,039 --> 00:28:27,519
and he believes that it has reduced our ability, our fortitude,

549
00:28:27,519 --> 00:28:30,119
our discipline to fight evil.

550
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,039
Speaker 4: You know, I wrote a book called Confronting Evil, and

551
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:42,720
America's motivation to deal with real evil has dropped, along

552
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,559
with the belief in God or the practice of religion.

553
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:53,559
And I think it's because we are an undisciplined, selfish society.

554
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:58,039
Speaker 2: Generally speaking, I'm guessing he's using evil with a capital

555
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:02,279
E in this case. I guess, how would you define evil?

556
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 3: To me, evil is the wilful or intentional causing of

557
00:29:07,599 --> 00:29:10,519
unwanted suffering of sentient being.

558
00:29:10,559 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 2: Did you get divibed that he was going spiritual when

559
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:14,000
he talked about evil?

560
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,519
Speaker 3: No, No, it was such a bizarre part of the interview.

561
00:29:17,559 --> 00:29:20,640
I really wasn't prepared for it. He had just spent

562
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,319
the first ten minutes of his show railing about how

563
00:29:24,319 --> 00:29:27,720
we need to attack Iran and kill more Iranians and

564
00:29:27,759 --> 00:29:29,880
he's never going to set foot in Spain again because

565
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,240
they won't let us, they won't help us kill Iranians.

566
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,920
I mean talk about evil, and yet so I felt

567
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,799
like for him, evil is sort of like anything that

568
00:29:39,839 --> 00:29:45,759
opposes Trump, or anything that opposes white capitalists, Christian global dominance.

569
00:29:45,759 --> 00:29:48,079
I mean, it was odd to me and I didn't

570
00:29:48,119 --> 00:29:50,480
quite know how to say it. But again, this is

571
00:29:50,559 --> 00:29:52,160
one of those things where you want to say, well,

572
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,400
what do you mean by evil? And I did try

573
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,400
to say that in the show. I'm like, well, evil

574
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,039
is different to different people. Bill. You know, somebody might

575
00:29:59,079 --> 00:30:01,559
think gave me marriage is evil. Another person might think

576
00:30:01,559 --> 00:30:04,319
it's just and good, and denying gay marriage is evil.

577
00:30:04,319 --> 00:30:06,279
So it's very subjective. And what I can tell you

578
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,599
is those society many I'm happy to talk about all

579
00:30:09,599 --> 00:30:12,160
the ways in which a decline in religion negatively affects

580
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,359
our society and our culture, but on this one, I

581
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:15,960
don't see it that way because.

582
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,279
Speaker 4: I'm not coming at it from that point of view.

583
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:22,559
I don't really It doesn't matter to me what the

584
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:29,000
theology or religious tenant that you embrace. That doesn't matter.

585
00:30:29,279 --> 00:30:32,279
It's the overall belief in a higher power and a

586
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:33,880
right or a wrong.

587
00:30:34,599 --> 00:30:38,079
Speaker 3: And again what you'll find is actually secular humanists do

588
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,839
a lot better in terms of alleviating unwanted suffering than

589
00:30:42,119 --> 00:30:44,240
strongly religious people do. And I tried to give an

590
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:46,880
example from Israel on that kind of derailed things, but

591
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,920
you can take examples from throughout history or different societies

592
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,000
where it is the strongly religious who are the most

593
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,960
gung ho about war, the most supportive of the death penalty,

594
00:30:57,119 --> 00:31:00,359
the most supportive of torture, the most hostile to human

595
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,400
rights and civil rights. And you'll find that secular humanist

596
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,440
people the world over tend to be the least tribalistic,

597
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,359
the least militaristic, the most supportive of women's rights, human

598
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,319
rights children's rights, et cetera, et cetera, animal rights. So

599
00:31:13,559 --> 00:31:16,519
for me, my understanding of evil is like, you know,

600
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:20,839
let's decrease suffering. That's pretty much where I go. But

601
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,000
for Bill, it seemed to sort of be like whatever

602
00:31:24,359 --> 00:31:27,119
enemy of the United States, they must be evil. And

603
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:29,519
sometimes that's true and sometimes it's not true.

604
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,119
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't say the word Zionist, but I

605
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,960
did get a Zionist vibe off of him, like Israel,

606
00:31:36,039 --> 00:31:40,359
let all costs doing the chosen people, doing battle against Thomas.

607
00:31:40,599 --> 00:31:43,559
And it's sticky because he brought up the very real

608
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:49,160
problem of bigotry against Jewish people, anti Semitism, which is

609
00:31:49,319 --> 00:31:52,400
epidemic and it's a cancer and it's horrible. But I

610
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:57,519
think he believes that any criticism of Israel or Yahu's

611
00:31:57,559 --> 00:32:01,680
tactics against Tamas, Gaza, etc. Is somehow an attack on

612
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,480
the Jews. I don't know, I'm and maybe just inferring that,

613
00:32:04,519 --> 00:32:06,079
but it's the vibe I got film.

614
00:32:06,319 --> 00:32:10,599
Speaker 3: So it's totally bizarre. I just saw yesterday statistics on

615
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,200
how you know, different religious groups supporting Israel or not,

616
00:32:13,519 --> 00:32:17,680
and Evangelical Christians are far more supportive of Netagnahu specifically

617
00:32:17,759 --> 00:32:21,519
and Israel's policies than American Jews are. So yes, it's

618
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,319
it's a really weird time to be a Jew right now.

619
00:32:24,359 --> 00:32:28,799
As I'm experiencing it's I'm I feel like, on the right,

620
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,880
you have some people that are supportive of Jews, but

621
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,480
in a weird posturing sense. It's like because it's furthering

622
00:32:34,559 --> 00:32:37,440
their anti Dei agenda or something. But there's also a

623
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,039
lot of right wingers who are you know, can of

624
00:32:39,119 --> 00:32:41,480
someone's talking about the Synagogue of Satan and it's the

625
00:32:41,519 --> 00:32:44,480
old Henry Ford. You know, Jews are running everything. And

626
00:32:44,519 --> 00:32:45,880
you get that on the right, and then on the

627
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,039
left you get people who are just like Jews aren't

628
00:32:48,039 --> 00:32:51,880
really persecuted people. They're actually the ultimate colonizers and they're evil,

629
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:56,759
and Zionisms the ultimate evil. I try to find a

630
00:32:56,799 --> 00:33:00,000
middle path where it's like, let's not hate on Jews,

631
00:33:00,079 --> 00:33:03,640
be critical of Israel's violation of human rights and occupation

632
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:07,279
of occupied Palestine. But I find it blurs and it's

633
00:33:07,319 --> 00:33:10,079
just so bizarre. So I find right wingers who are

634
00:33:10,279 --> 00:33:13,240
supportive of Israel and Jews but for odd reasons, and

635
00:33:13,279 --> 00:33:15,759
I find right wingers who are hostile to Jews, like

636
00:33:15,839 --> 00:33:18,519
you know, and hostile to Israel for the wrong reasons.

637
00:33:18,759 --> 00:33:20,920
And I find it on the left as well. It's

638
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:23,680
a really strange time to be Jewish and it's not

639
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:25,759
very fun, but so it goes.

640
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 2: I mean, the common sections are crazy. I mean we

641
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,920
see a lot of that, you know, the Illuminati, the Coobal,

642
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,720
the you know, the deep state of the Jews who've

643
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,279
come and taken over all of our institutions, and they're

644
00:33:38,319 --> 00:33:40,559
like a shadow organization. I don't know if that's a

645
00:33:40,599 --> 00:33:43,559
riff on Marjorie Taylor Green and the Jewish space laser

646
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:47,599
setting fires for the liberal agenda. I mean, it's crazy, phil.

647
00:33:47,519 --> 00:33:51,319
Speaker 3: Right, it's scary, and it's you know, jew hatred is

648
00:33:51,319 --> 00:33:54,480
a light sleeper, and so I always thought growing up,

649
00:33:54,519 --> 00:33:56,839
you know, okay, after the Holocaust, well that's it. Everybody

650
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:59,240
saw that this is not cool. But it seems to

651
00:33:59,279 --> 00:34:02,759
be perkly up again and Israel. Some days I'm glad

652
00:34:02,759 --> 00:34:04,759
there's you know, sometimes I'm like, thank goodness, there's a

653
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:06,880
place on this planet Earth where Jews have an army

654
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,320
and can defend themselves, and I'm happy and proud that

655
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,599
there's a Jewish state. And other times I'm like, oh, man,

656
00:34:11,679 --> 00:34:14,840
this country is fucking up. It's destroying the Palestinian people,

657
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:18,400
it's acting immorally, it's creating chaos. I just wish people

658
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,719
could separate individual Jewish actors from all the Jews. And

659
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,800
I wish people could separate. You know, criticisms of Israel

660
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:29,000
are not necessarily criticism of the Jewish people. Sometimes they

661
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,000
are and sometimes they're not. You have to be it's nuanced.

662
00:34:32,199 --> 00:34:35,400
But what I can tell you is that secular people

663
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,559
are the least of my worries. In other words, it's

664
00:34:38,559 --> 00:34:42,639
the strongly religious that scare me on the anti Semitism issue,

665
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,000
or the or the Israel wrong or right issue, where

666
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,199
it's secular humanists that I think take a more reasonable approach.

667
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,639
They believe in a two state solution. Let Israelis and

668
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,199
Jews have a homeland, Let Palestinians have a homeland. Let's

669
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,320
work together, and that's where we have to put our hope,

670
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:58,679
and that's where I put my home.

671
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 2: I've got to go back to my own days when

672
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,039
I was a rush Limbaugh listener. I mean, Phil, this

673
00:35:04,159 --> 00:35:06,079
is a confession. I mean I was that guy, you know,

674
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,920
and I would start the drive home feeling pretty balanced

675
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,199
and by the time the twenty minute monologue was over,

676
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,239
I was like, this country's going to hell in a handbasket,

677
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,079
and blah blah blah, and a lot of what rush

678
00:35:16,519 --> 00:35:19,480
who For those who were listening who may not be aware,

679
00:35:19,519 --> 00:35:24,400
he was a huge right wing radio talk show host

680
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,000
who had the most popular show in the country. It

681
00:35:27,039 --> 00:35:30,920
was a phenomenon, spawned a bunch of imitators, and he

682
00:35:31,079 --> 00:35:34,320
was a brand, and he used to just wail about

683
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,119
them secular humanists, and he would say it that way,

684
00:35:37,159 --> 00:35:40,400
those secular humanist it was a pejortor it was an insult.

685
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:43,239
They've come to dilute us. And so when you're out

686
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,280
there talking about secular humanism, that's the vibe I got

687
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,159
from Bill O'Reilly. It's you know, secular humanism is now

688
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:55,719
deluding us. Can you define what a secular humanist even is?

689
00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 3: To me, a secular humanist is someone who tries to

690
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:01,800
make the world a better place in the here and

691
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:05,639
now using natural means and not relying on anything supernatural.

692
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:08,400
So you're secular because you don't rely on or believe

693
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:11,039
in anything supernatural, be it gods or fairies. And you're

694
00:36:11,039 --> 00:36:13,199
a humanist because you're trying to alleviate suffering and make

695
00:36:13,199 --> 00:36:15,880
the world a better place. And this is again one

696
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:20,559
of those examples where like democracy, it's not in any religion.

697
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:24,079
It's not no profit talked about government by the consent

698
00:36:24,119 --> 00:36:27,559
of the government. It's a strictly secular humanist belief, ideal

699
00:36:27,679 --> 00:36:31,440
and institution democracy, they're a foundation of this country and

700
00:36:31,559 --> 00:36:35,519
all healthy saying countries where people can govern themselves. That's

701
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:38,360
pure secular humanism. It doesn't trace, it doesn't go to

702
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,559
the Bible, the Koran, the uponishads that you cannot build

703
00:36:41,599 --> 00:36:44,320
the case for democracy. It doesn't even exist. All the

704
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,199
prophets just assume that kings and emperors are the natural

705
00:36:47,199 --> 00:36:50,519
state of being. And so there's an example where people

706
00:36:50,559 --> 00:36:52,639
like Bill O'Reilly who like those countries going to Hell

707
00:36:52,639 --> 00:36:57,159
in a handbasket. It's like, what do you think created

708
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,000
all the rights we enjoy, you know, freedom of speed.

709
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:03,000
That's a secular humanist value. It's not in any religious

710
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,880
scriptures or prophets, never talked about it. Right to it,

711
00:37:06,039 --> 00:37:07,800
you know, you haven't a right to an attorney, and

712
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,960
if you don't can't afford it, the state will provide

713
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,320
one for you. I mean, every ideal we live by

714
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:17,599
practically is enlightenment values, secular humanist values, and that had

715
00:37:17,599 --> 00:37:21,719
to be implemented up and against the opposition of the religious.

716
00:37:22,679 --> 00:37:24,719
So that's what's just so weird to me.

717
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:27,159
Speaker 2: That brings me to a specific thing. You tied me

718
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,639
up perfectly. Bill O'Reilly says an odd thing, and I

719
00:37:30,679 --> 00:37:34,199
still can't connect the dots in my brain. But he

720
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:38,840
makes the assertion that the Muslims who are less muslim,

721
00:37:39,679 --> 00:37:44,719
who are less religious, more secular, those Muslims are the

722
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,719
most ji hottiest Muslims.

723
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:54,039
Speaker 4: Okay, the more secular these Muslims are, the more intent

724
00:37:54,199 --> 00:37:58,239
they are in wiping Jews and Americans off the planet.

725
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:04,360
Speaker 3: So that was an absolutely incorrect, unsupportable assertion. There is

726
00:38:04,519 --> 00:38:06,920
no data supporting it. And that was one of those

727
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,440
things where like I had to decide, like do I jump,

728
00:38:09,559 --> 00:38:11,039
you know, I didn't want to interrupt him and be

729
00:38:11,079 --> 00:38:13,480
like that's actually wrong. I just let him say his thing,

730
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,320
and I figure out people can Google look it up

731
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:20,480
if they want. It's absolutely incorrect. The more secular Muslims

732
00:38:20,519 --> 00:38:24,280
in the Muslim world are far and away the more reasonable,

733
00:38:24,559 --> 00:38:27,960
humane and peace loving and democracy loving. Whether we're talking

734
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:32,599
about the secularists and Iran, the secularists in Algeria, the

735
00:38:32,639 --> 00:38:37,519
secularists in Sudan. Wherever Islam exists, the more religious they are,

736
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,360
the more fanatical anti democratic, anti human rights they are,

737
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:45,840
and the more secular they are, the more humane, kind

738
00:38:47,119 --> 00:38:50,199
democratic they are. It was the weirdest assertion he made,

739
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:52,840
and I have to say, with all due respect to

740
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,559
good old Bill, I saw some racism there. I just

741
00:38:55,559 --> 00:38:58,280
felt like, or xenophobia, whatever you want to call it, Islamophobia.

742
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:00,800
I mean, I just felt like he had image of like,

743
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,159
that's the frothing mouthed Muslim. I mean, it's like it

744
00:39:04,199 --> 00:39:07,519
was such a strange assertion and it's simply not true.

745
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,760
Across the board, the more religious of every religion, it's

746
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,800
the most religious Jews in Israel that are the most fanatical,

747
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:16,360
don't see the humanity in the Palestinians want to just

748
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:19,440
liquidate them. It's the most religious in the Muslim world,

749
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:22,159
the most religious in the Hindu world, the most across

750
00:39:22,159 --> 00:39:24,519
the board. The only exception that I can think of

751
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,480
is Janes, where the more religious they are, the more

752
00:39:28,519 --> 00:39:32,880
they don't want to harm life. Yeah, other than Jan's,

753
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:37,280
it's like fanatics is a militarism, violence. These are all

754
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:41,000
strongly correlated with strong religiosity. Now, it's also true some

755
00:39:41,199 --> 00:39:45,760
secularists can go crazy too. Your your communist stalinists who

756
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:51,079
were also atheists were not humanists. They were despots and

757
00:39:51,119 --> 00:39:53,679
demagogues and fanatics who cause a lot of pain and

758
00:39:53,679 --> 00:39:57,000
suffering too. So I if Bill had said that, if

759
00:39:57,039 --> 00:39:59,880
he's like, well, sometimes the communists, I would say, okay,

760
00:40:00,079 --> 00:40:02,119
have a case there. But when he said secular Muslims

761
00:40:02,159 --> 00:40:03,760
are the worst, he was completely right.

762
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 2: I mean, the enemy is extremism in so many cases, right, absolutely,

763
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,159
And I think it ignores the fact I'm in a

764
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:14,480
place where you say Muslim and somebody just pictures a

765
00:40:14,519 --> 00:40:18,239
brown person with dynamite strapped to their chest. It's pathetic, right,

766
00:40:18,639 --> 00:40:21,119
And it ignores the reality that the vast, fast, fast

767
00:40:21,159 --> 00:40:23,360
majority of the people who are under the boot of

768
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:28,079
radical Islam are themselves Muslim. And that takes me to Iran. Right.

769
00:40:28,079 --> 00:40:31,119
We see people who are protesting, they want a revolution.

770
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:33,280
You see women who want to get rid of the hijab,

771
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,519
and they're having acid thrown in their faces and their

772
00:40:35,559 --> 00:40:38,800
families are in prison. So often these are Muslims who

773
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:43,480
want peace and they want equality and goodness. And I

774
00:40:43,599 --> 00:40:47,239
think to say that Iran is a monolith and they're

775
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:50,920
all this and that this is extreme tells me you

776
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,000
know nothing about the Middle East.

777
00:40:53,599 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 3: Not only that, but I've seen data that suggests Iran

778
00:40:57,119 --> 00:41:00,639
is actually the most secular nation in these Islamic world,

779
00:41:00,679 --> 00:41:04,679
meaning that prior to the Iotola takeover and the Fanatic

780
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,639
revolution of nineteen seventy nine, you had a huge chunk

781
00:41:07,679 --> 00:41:13,599
of Iran that was extremely secular, pro democracy, modern and

782
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:18,639
they and in fact, the initial the biggest fight against

783
00:41:18,639 --> 00:41:22,159
the dictator Shaw came from Marxists, but it was the

784
00:41:22,199 --> 00:41:25,719
Islamic fundamentalists that hijacked that movement and ended up taking over.

785
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:28,880
So it's a great irony that people like Bill O'Reilly

786
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:32,800
are like, oh, Iran is this horrible? The regime is horrible,

787
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,239
and it's most horrible to its own people. And in fact,

788
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:40,679
in Iran you have millions and millions of secular humanists

789
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:42,960
who don't want to live in a theocracy, who don't

790
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:45,360
even believe in Islam, but they are under its boot

791
00:41:45,599 --> 00:41:48,039
more than they suffer, like you said, more than any

792
00:41:48,119 --> 00:41:50,280
of us. So for Trump to say, like I'm going

793
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:54,280
to annihilate Iran. Basically, he's saying he's gonna he would

794
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:58,280
kill all these people that are our allies, our philosophical

795
00:41:58,280 --> 00:41:59,159
and political allies.

796
00:41:59,199 --> 00:42:01,039
Speaker 2: I'm going to go and a lot of the victims.

797
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,800
Is just something I never thought I would see an

798
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:10,119
American leader of any stripe say. This conversation is far

799
00:42:10,159 --> 00:42:14,760
from over. Billed Zuckerman and I continue our chat next.

800
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,400
Thank you so much for listening. I am in the

801
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:29,280
middle of a conversation here with a sociologist, a professor,

802
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,400
and the author of eight books, a guy who talks

803
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,280
a lot about secular living in the United States and

804
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:39,639
all around the world. Phil Zuckerman. Let me come back

805
00:42:39,679 --> 00:42:43,000
to this quickly. What do you say to the claim

806
00:42:43,079 --> 00:42:47,400
that religion and religious people are more charitable statistically they

807
00:42:47,519 --> 00:42:50,000
give more to charity. Is that true?

808
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:53,280
Speaker 3: It depends where are you talking in Malawi or are

809
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:56,280
you talking in the United States, So it's going to

810
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:00,239
be different from different societies in the United States. I

811
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:04,719
would say, on average, yes, it is true, but not

812
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,679
as significantly as people think. And it's true for various reasons. So,

813
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:11,280
for example, what we know is that people who are

814
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:15,000
embedded in religious communities tend to be more charitable with

815
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:20,079
money and time than people who are not embedded in

816
00:43:20,119 --> 00:43:23,039
religious communities. So it's the communal aspect that does it,

817
00:43:23,199 --> 00:43:25,760
not the belief. So a believer in God who stays

818
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,360
at home and never goes to church is not as charitable. Conversely,

819
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:31,800
an atheist who is a member of some kind of

820
00:43:32,119 --> 00:43:35,480
maybe they go with their wife to church, they are

821
00:43:35,519 --> 00:43:38,119
going to be more charitable. It's the institutional aspect of

822
00:43:38,159 --> 00:43:41,480
religion in the United States today that does increase charitable

823
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,599
and that's because there's more opportunities if you go to

824
00:43:43,679 --> 00:43:45,599
church every week and there's always someone saying, hey, we're

825
00:43:45,639 --> 00:43:47,239
doing a food drive. Hey there's going to be a

826
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,360
blood drive. I mean, it's just structured into the weekly

827
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,880
and so you're more likely to say, okay, there's just

828
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,960
no question about that. On the other hand, it's not

829
00:43:57,119 --> 00:43:59,800
as strong of a court. Oh and people secular humanists

830
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:02,480
that are part of secular humans committees, they're more charitable

831
00:44:02,519 --> 00:44:05,239
as well. They equal or even outperform the religious. So

832
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:09,679
it's the communal aspect that tends to increase giving, donating

833
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:13,239
of time and energy. So there is some truth to that.

834
00:44:13,639 --> 00:44:16,880
I think that being religiously embedded has a lot of

835
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:19,719
advantages that being one of them. On the other hand,

836
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:23,360
I always point out the more secular you are, the

837
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:26,239
more likely you are to want to pay your taxes

838
00:44:26,679 --> 00:44:30,119
to do that work instead of relying on individuals to

839
00:44:30,159 --> 00:44:32,800
reach into their pocket and donate to them. You'd rather

840
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:37,239
solve homelessness at the structural institutional level than just rely

841
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:40,639
on the goodwill of people donating here and there on Sundays.

842
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:44,079
So secular humanists are much more interested in solving problems

843
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:48,000
at a societal level rather than relying on personal individual charity,

844
00:44:48,199 --> 00:44:50,400
and the results are better. So we see that those

845
00:44:50,599 --> 00:44:55,239
democratic nations that have instituted better social policies have lower

846
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:58,199
rates of homelessness, hunger, and all those things. They do

847
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:01,079
a better job of addressing those societ idle ills. That

848
00:45:01,159 --> 00:45:03,679
society is like ours, which more heavily rely on the

849
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:05,960
donations of good, good willed people.

850
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:07,760
Speaker 2: What's that line I want to say It was Madeline

851
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:11,280
Mary O'Hare said two hands working are more valuable than

852
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:13,840
a thousand hands. Class in prayer, I mean, if you

853
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,840
don't believe that God's going to mop up or that

854
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:19,760
we're going to a better place, then this is our

855
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,239
only place. We got to fix it ourselves kind of deal.

856
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:23,280
Speaker 3: I agree.

857
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 2: When I first came out of the faith, it was

858
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,280
during the time of the New Atheists, and I was

859
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:31,360
guilty of this, But we used to talk about religion

860
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,880
as a thing like capital our religion. Religion is the

861
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,480
biggest cause of suffering in the world. Religion, religion, religion.

862
00:45:38,559 --> 00:45:41,079
And of course, once I settled down, I thought, well,

863
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:45,519
how do you define religion? Like? Is it a Fundi religion?

864
00:45:45,599 --> 00:45:48,400
Is it a progressive religion? Is it a spiritual? I mean,

865
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,000
is it a Fundi Baptist? Or is it a Janist

866
00:45:51,079 --> 00:45:53,960
or a Hindu or a Buddhist. So when somebody goes

867
00:45:54,559 --> 00:45:58,360
like talks about religion, how do you approach that?

868
00:46:00,079 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, Seth, You're spot on. There's so many ways to

869
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:06,480
define religion. There's so many aspects to religion. It's such

870
00:46:06,519 --> 00:46:08,840
a diverse phenomenon.

871
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 2: I'm going to jump in if I can, I guess

872
00:46:11,039 --> 00:46:12,920
I have to throw this out. I'm going to make

873
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:15,199
you answer or beg you to answer the question. Is

874
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,800
there a context where religion is a net benefit to people?

875
00:46:19,079 --> 00:46:24,400
Is religion a good thing in Nonfundi incarnations?

876
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 3: Absolutely, There's plenty of evidence that people that are religious,

877
00:46:29,599 --> 00:46:31,960
and there's particularly people that are religiously involved in a

878
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:36,119
religious community experience all kinds of benefits, from better health

879
00:46:36,159 --> 00:46:40,119
to better marriages, their children do better in school. There's

880
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,000
all what we call social capital, like the ability to

881
00:46:43,039 --> 00:46:45,440
rely on others when you need help, so you don't

882
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,920
just rely on your own bank account. But like when

883
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,360
shit happens, are there people there who step up and

884
00:46:50,599 --> 00:46:53,280
deliver a lasagnas to you when you can't cook, who

885
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,559
take your kids to school if you can't walk. I mean,

886
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,920
so there's no question that in the United States, Again,

887
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:01,519
it depends on what society you're talking about in these

888
00:47:01,599 --> 00:47:05,679
days and times, being religious has many, many, many, many benefits,

889
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:10,679
even psychological benefits, just helping with addiction, helping with calming

890
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:13,199
oneself with anxiety. I mean, there's so many ways it

891
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,800
does help people's lives and could be seen as a

892
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:17,519
net positive for sure.

893
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 2: But if I'm going to be bill O'Reilly now, I'm thinking, okay, well,

894
00:47:21,119 --> 00:47:24,079
you do need religion and God to improve your life.

895
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 3: So that's the keyword. There is need. The keyword there

896
00:47:29,079 --> 00:47:32,119
is need. So what I'm willing to say, for many people,

897
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:36,039
in many circumstances, faith in God helps them, But do

898
00:47:36,119 --> 00:47:39,559
they need it? Maybe some do, but maybe many don't

899
00:47:39,599 --> 00:47:43,039
need it. And there are many other ways to get

900
00:47:43,079 --> 00:47:46,960
those things outside of faith in a supernatural deity. So

901
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:52,119
education has many payoffs. Every time you spent praying, if

902
00:47:52,159 --> 00:47:55,719
you spent studying or working towards a degree, or working

903
00:47:55,719 --> 00:47:58,480
towards some kind of certification. I mean, you could say

904
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:00,679
the same thing about education. You could say the same

905
00:48:00,679 --> 00:48:02,760
thing about strong families. You could say the same thing

906
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,360
about meditating. You could say the same thing about walking.

907
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,480
I mean, in other words, there's many ways. There's many

908
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:10,239
things we can do, many activities and beliefs that have

909
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:14,280
net positives. So yes, religion may be one of those.

910
00:48:14,559 --> 00:48:17,760
But the point is that people find these things through

911
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,679
other avenues. And so the notion that we need religion

912
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:23,719
or else we're doomed is simply not sustainable. How do

913
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,920
we know because we see so many societies today where

914
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:29,840
more and more people are not religious, Yet they still

915
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,440
find those things ways of coping with suffering, how to

916
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:37,039
alleviate poverty, how to reduce crime, in natural disworldly ways

917
00:48:37,079 --> 00:48:39,079
in fact, and they do a better job. So I

918
00:48:39,119 --> 00:48:40,840
would say, yeah, if you live in a country that

919
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,400
doesn't have good health care, doesn't have good housing, you know,

920
00:48:43,599 --> 00:48:46,800
is very corrupt. Maybe religion's the best thing you can

921
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,280
find to give you comfort and solace in the dark

922
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:51,239
of the night, but you don't need it. There's other

923
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:54,519
things that can provide that. It just takes the effort

924
00:48:54,639 --> 00:48:56,519
to address in other ways.

925
00:48:56,599 --> 00:48:59,159
Speaker 2: So we could pull God out of the equation. Human

926
00:48:59,199 --> 00:49:00,880
beings are doing all work anyway.

927
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:06,039
Speaker 3: But exactly exactly that's what the data shows. Now again

928
00:49:06,199 --> 00:49:08,480
on a case by case basis. If you show me

929
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:11,360
an individuals who's suffering and they find solace in God,

930
00:49:11,679 --> 00:49:13,760
if I take that away, they're probably going to suffer

931
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:18,199
even more. But what I'm saying is there this world

932
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:20,800
be natural ways to address that suffering that are actually

933
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,400
going to be more effective. But if they don't have those,

934
00:49:23,599 --> 00:49:27,119
then yes, by all means, you know, clutch your deity,

935
00:49:27,159 --> 00:49:29,480
I mean, if that's all you've got. But I think

936
00:49:29,519 --> 00:49:31,679
there are many ways we can address the suffering in

937
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:36,000
more practical ways than just relying on God or prayer.

938
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 2: I'm reminded of the conversation about if someone is if

939
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,000
they've lost a child and a car accident and they

940
00:49:43,199 --> 00:49:46,599
are praying God, leaning on the God belief, and they

941
00:49:46,639 --> 00:49:49,960
have a belief that maybe they'll be reunited. I think

942
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:52,760
the humanistic thing to do, the compassionate thing to do,

943
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:55,000
is not to walk into their living room and say, well,

944
00:49:55,039 --> 00:49:57,920
there is no heaven and there is no God, there's no evidence.

945
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,400
You know, the humanist in me has to approach that

946
00:50:01,559 --> 00:50:02,760
in a much different way.

947
00:50:03,159 --> 00:50:06,679
Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, absolutely. I'll give you an example of what

948
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:08,800
I'm trying to say. You know, when my wife had

949
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:11,360
a terrible stroke six years ago, I was in the

950
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,119
hospital a lot with people who had brain injuries, and

951
00:50:14,119 --> 00:50:17,000
I remember seeing this boy who had been in a

952
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:20,840
swimming pool and had been deprived of oxygen and basically

953
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:24,119
almost died but didn't, so they pulled him out. But

954
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:26,880
his brain, much of his brain, had died, so he

955
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,800
couldn't talk, he couldn't understand, he couldn't walk, he couldn't eat,

956
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:33,199
he couldn't move. He was just basically what we call

957
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:35,960
a vegetable, but was alive, like his heart was beating,

958
00:50:36,519 --> 00:50:39,000
there was some activity in his body, so he had

959
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:40,920
to be fed through a feeding tube. And I would

960
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:43,159
see his mom sitting with him every day, fourteen year

961
00:50:43,199 --> 00:50:46,679
old kid just sitting like this, No hope whatsoever. She

962
00:50:47,199 --> 00:50:49,760
definitely lead on her face. She thanked God he was alive.

963
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:51,840
I mean, she expressed this all the time to me

964
00:50:52,039 --> 00:50:55,039
like so in that case, I'm so glad she has

965
00:50:55,119 --> 00:50:57,119
God in Jesus or a belief in it to help

966
00:50:57,159 --> 00:51:00,000
her through this horrible, worst suffering you could ever imagine

967
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:03,440
of your child. At the same time, everything going on

968
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:07,760
in that hospital, all the occupational therapy, the physical therapy,

969
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:12,079
the emotional therapy, all the new technologies to help people

970
00:51:12,159 --> 00:51:15,880
recover strokes, that all comes from humans, right, even the

971
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:18,360
hospital was built by humans. I mean, so when I

972
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,679
look around, I want to say, look this particular woman, Yes,

973
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:23,920
by all means, lean on your faith to get through

974
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,360
this horrible experience. But if you look at everything that's

975
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:29,480
happening around us, all the trainings, all the nurses, all

976
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:33,559
the speech pathologists, all the neurologists, it's all coming from

977
00:51:33,639 --> 00:51:36,719
human effort, human ingenuity. And that's where I also am

978
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:38,320
going to place my hope. So I'm going to say,

979
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:43,159
this secular humanist institution is also alleviating suffering. But in

980
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:46,960
the immediacy of this woman's emotional needs, obviously God is

981
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:48,880
going to help her. I wouldn't disabuse her of that.

982
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:52,559
Speaker 2: So you support like the Sunday oasis, you know, the

983
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:56,599
Sunday Assembly, the secular church model. You like that.

984
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,280
Speaker 3: That's those are two questions. Do I suppose it?

985
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:05,280
Speaker 2: And for those who don't know what it is? Essentially

986
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,400
for those who are seeking community, they follow winnings really

987
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:11,320
almost a church agenda. I mean, I will say that

988
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:14,840
religions have had thousands of years to hone community and

989
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:17,800
the format of what they do. And so Sunday Assembly

990
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:20,000
and oasis you go in and there's like music and

991
00:52:20,039 --> 00:52:24,039
announcements and more music, special music, speaker food, and it

992
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:26,480
feels very much like Sunday morning at church. And a

993
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:29,840
lot of people have found that's that kind of scratches

994
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,360
the itch. So you take that where you want.

995
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:36,119
Speaker 3: Phil, Yeah, I think it's a great idea. I get it,

996
00:52:36,199 --> 00:52:39,440
the need for community. So I have been. I enjoyed

997
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:42,440
it when I went. But at the same time, I'm

998
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:45,920
not much of a congregator. It's odd for me to

999
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:47,960
hang out with a bunch of strangers and sort of

1000
00:52:48,199 --> 00:52:51,880
affiliate on our lack of being religious. It's hard to

1001
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:54,760
create community out of thin air. It really is. Just

1002
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:58,480
try it. It's difficult to create heritage out of nowhere.

1003
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:03,840
So I'm actually even more comfortable going to Buddhist meditation

1004
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:06,000
because I like the music and I like the chance,

1005
00:53:06,199 --> 00:53:08,599
or even going to Jewish synagogue, even though I don't

1006
00:53:08,599 --> 00:53:11,000
believe the liturgy. I just have a lot in common

1007
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,320
culturally with the people there. I'm more inclined to go

1008
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:17,079
to a music concert because we all love the English

1009
00:53:17,159 --> 00:53:21,880
beat or whatever. So I support Sunday Assembly existing. It's

1010
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:24,239
just not necessarily for me. I'd rather play soccer or

1011
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:24,840
go to the beach.

1012
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:29,119
Speaker 2: But yeah, my yoga instructor, Natalie, and I do Sunday

1013
00:53:29,199 --> 00:53:32,239
yoga and I get the vibe. She's a non believer.

1014
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,599
She's very diplomatic, but she's like, this is my church

1015
00:53:35,639 --> 00:53:38,960
and it's like a totally secular yoga there's no mahachi

1016
00:53:39,119 --> 00:53:42,320
or you know, energy and meridians. But I just want

1017
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:44,159
to like to ask her sday, what do you mean?

1018
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:47,320
But I'm just going to be cool about it. Phil Zacherman,

1019
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:49,920
you've been very, very generous with your time. How do

1020
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:52,159
people find you and your work and what you do?

1021
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:55,559
Speaker 3: I guess you just got to google my name and

1022
00:53:55,599 --> 00:53:58,159
you can see my books are available for sale. I

1023
00:53:58,199 --> 00:54:00,960
have some stuff on YouTube, but I on Twitter. I'm

1024
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:03,519
not on TikTok, I'm not on Instagram.

1025
00:54:03,599 --> 00:54:06,679
Speaker 2: What's that about. Sorry, I just said, screw it's it's

1026
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:08,039
too much white noise or.

1027
00:54:09,119 --> 00:54:11,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was creating too much agro for me, too much,

1028
00:54:11,559 --> 00:54:14,519
I was. It's just it's just didn't make me feel good.

1029
00:54:14,559 --> 00:54:16,519
Every time I got off Twitter, I felt crappy. But

1030
00:54:16,559 --> 00:54:18,519
every time I go for a walk in the mountains,

1031
00:54:18,559 --> 00:54:20,480
I feel great. Every Time I tried to look at

1032
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,199
how many followers I had, I felt anxiety. But every

1033
00:54:23,199 --> 00:54:25,119
time I went boogie boarding, I felt great. And I

1034
00:54:25,159 --> 00:54:28,679
just realized, like, I'm not big on screen time, and

1035
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,079
I just don't building up followers. I mean, I know

1036
00:54:31,119 --> 00:54:33,880
it's really important because I know I'm missing out, like

1037
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,519
I see what's happening. Like, if you want to be relevant,

1038
00:54:36,559 --> 00:54:39,000
you have to be online. But I just had to

1039
00:54:39,559 --> 00:54:40,599
bow out of that race.

1040
00:54:40,679 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 2: What's crut you know, to be well informed, right, I'm

1041
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,679
supposed to be in the well informed business to have conversations.

1042
00:54:47,079 --> 00:54:49,840
The problem is is that I'm well informed, and then

1043
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:51,679
I just want to go run into the middle of

1044
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:54,679
the highway and just say please, you know, end it all.

1045
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:57,960
Right now, you and I are are going to be

1046
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:01,440
taking the stage together and at the Weekend Reason event

1047
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:06,960
in Calgary that's coming to first weekend of May. What

1048
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:09,000
are we talking? Are you going to get into Christian nationalism?

1049
00:55:09,039 --> 00:55:10,519
We're talking about Trump cult.

1050
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:15,320
Speaker 3: I'm going to try to talk about actually how secular

1051
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:19,679
people secular societies do better than non religious and not

1052
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:23,320
just in kind of physical or material ways, but in

1053
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:26,039
moral and ethical ways as well. And I'm going to

1054
00:55:26,119 --> 00:55:28,800
try and say, then, well, then why is there Why

1055
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:31,199
do people like Bill O'Reilly say like, oh, if we

1056
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:34,760
stop believing God, everything will fall apart. I have a

1057
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:36,920
theory as to why they do it, and you'll have

1058
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:40,840
to go to Calgary hear that. It's a secret, secret mystery.

1059
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:43,840
Speaker 2: It's going to be awesome. Phil on stage is just amazing.

1060
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:46,079
He's just everybody's on the end of their chair and

1061
00:55:46,119 --> 00:55:49,159
he's a great communicator, as you have seen on this broadcast.

1062
00:55:49,199 --> 00:55:50,920
And it's just an honor to know you, man. So

1063
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:52,639
I'll see you in a few weeks on the road.

1064
00:55:52,679 --> 00:55:55,440
I will link to some of your work, your books

1065
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,559
and the Weekend Reason events in the show notes of

1066
00:55:58,599 --> 00:56:02,079
this broadcast, and let's talk again. Phil Zuckerman. Appreciate you, brother,

1067
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:02,880
Thank you.

1068
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 3: I appreciate you too. I'm so glad you're out there

1069
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:05,639
and I'll see you soon.

1070
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,519
Speaker 1: Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a

1071
00:56:09,559 --> 00:56:13,199
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1072
00:56:13,199 --> 00:56:16,880
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1073
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:20,599
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1074
00:56:20,599 --> 00:56:27,800
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