Speaker 1: Religious fanatics see no issue engaging in the violence, sexism,
Speaker 1: and racism, and general malevolent foolishness, provided that they can
Speaker 1: end the phrase with but Jesus. Once I was hanging
Speaker 1: out with my uncle and a friend of his, and
Speaker 1: they thought it would be super fun to start telling
Speaker 1: horrible racists and sexist jokes. I out loud said ugh, gross,
Speaker 1: And then I was told that it was weird that
Speaker 1: I was objecting because I was white, that it's just
Speaker 1: a joke. I shouldn't take it so seriously. That they
Speaker 1: knew people who fit into the punchline of the joke
Speaker 1: that fit those stereotypes, so it was okay, which is
Speaker 1: really sort of an admission that they actually believed what
Speaker 1: they were saying. And they topped it all off with
Speaker 1: someone looking directly into my eyes and saying, but what
Speaker 1: really matters the most to me is someone's relationship with
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. I feel like I see that a lot today.
Speaker 1: You can just say anything, you can be as unhinged
Speaker 1: as possible, provided you end it with but Jesus. Almost
Speaker 1: as though it's a challenge to put the person you're
Speaker 1: talking with on the back foot, as though now they
Speaker 1: have to argue with your whole religion when really they
Speaker 1: just objected to you saying something horrible and disgusting. So
Speaker 1: I mean, hey, that's pretty gross. I find it really
Speaker 1: confusing when I'm thinking about this, because we are told
Speaker 1: we're the blasphemers. We're told that we are the ones
Speaker 1: who have no morality and that those with morals are
Speaker 1: the ones who belong to religion. So I find this confusing.
Speaker 1: If you want to call and set me straight and
Speaker 1: let me know like that these things actually are, I'm
Speaker 1: completely wrong about all of them. Thank if it's a call,
Speaker 1: because the show is starting now.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody.
Speaker 3: Today is April twenty seventh, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: How did it already get to April?
Speaker 3: It feels simultaneously like it's been two weeks into twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five, and also that it's been four years. But anyway,
Speaker 3: it is April twenty seven, and I'm your host, Doctor Bennon.
Speaker 3: With me today is Sophia Spina. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: I know is this our we've posted together at least
Speaker 3: one of together another.
Speaker 4: Time before we hosted together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I have.
Speaker 4: Been all right, I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm merely graduating from a grad program get them there.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm kind of bragging about that a
Speaker 1: little bit because I kept forgetting to tell people and
Speaker 1: now I'm like, oh, yeah, like I've been doing grad
Speaker 1: school so pretty soaked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And uh we're with regard to your cold open today,
Speaker 3: we had some some current events recently, one of them
Speaker 3: being of course, related to the pope. And I'm curious
Speaker 3: if we have any Catholics in the chat that wants
Speaker 3: to number one, tell me why we need a pope?
Speaker 3: You know, why, why does a why does one person
Speaker 3: get to essentially be you know, infallible and just say
Speaker 3: whatever he wants and have that be gospel essentially? Why
Speaker 3: do we need to have that?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 3: You know, why do we praise people who are religious
Speaker 3: and who maybe didn't completely genocide anybody? And like why
Speaker 3: is why are the other things that they do still Okay?
Speaker 3: So we have a lot of a lot of things
Speaker 3: we could talk about today about that, and I hope
Speaker 3: we get some calls related to it. But of course,
Speaker 3: on talk Heathen, we're open to all of your questions
Speaker 3: on religion, secular humanism, atheistic morality, philosophy, cosmology, science, abortion,
Speaker 3: If you want to talk about that. Anything that's on
Speaker 3: your mind today related to religion, we are here for it.
Speaker 3: Talk Heathen is a production of the Atheist Community of Austin,
Speaker 3: a five oh one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to
Speaker 3: the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the
Speaker 3: separation of religion and government. And like I mentioned, this
Speaker 3: is a call in show and we want to talk
Speaker 3: to you. So get your calls in at five one
Speaker 3: two nine nine one nine two four to two or
Speaker 3: from your computer at tiny dot c C call THH.
Speaker 3: We still have some open lines, but they can fill
Speaker 3: kind of quickly, so if you want to talk with
Speaker 3: us and get some extra time, get your calls in
Speaker 3: now so we can be sure to answer your call.
Speaker 3: And with that, we do have a segment in the meantime,
Speaker 3: Talk Heathen to me, which will bring up the welsh
Speaker 3: Man Richard deliver to deliver this part. He's laughing at me,
Speaker 3: but I'm gonna keep saying this every time I'm done.
Speaker 5: Just it's not going away, is it this?
Speaker 3: And if someone wants to and someone wants to call
Speaker 3: in and argue with us and tell us that Richard
Speaker 3: does not in fact Welsh you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't prove me wrong.
Speaker 3: Like I don't think you have the documentation to prove
Speaker 3: me wrong. H So anyway, if someone wants to call
Speaker 3: in and say that Richard does not Welsh, you know,
Speaker 3: we might take that call.
Speaker 1: Apparently Richard's own personal testimony not enough.
Speaker 5: Yeah, not enough is not enough. It's time to quickly
Speaker 5: move along from Ben's nonsense and so come out then, somebody.
Speaker 5: He's like, and where we get into the questions of
Speaker 5: the week, and last week we asked you what does
Speaker 5: atheist hell look like? And here are top three answers.
Speaker 5: Number three is from Daniel Aaron and he says, they
Speaker 5: say atheist hell looks like Christian heaven, Well it could
Speaker 5: well do. Thoughts guys on that one.
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes me think of the book Childhood's End,
Speaker 1: where at the end of humanity everyone is just kind
Speaker 1: of one singing mass, no individuality, And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that actually does sound like Christian heaven and atheist hell.
Speaker 1: So so there you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 5: Number two is why Sally re atheist hell is eternal
Speaker 5: separation from Carl Sagan. I'm a big fan of Carl Sagan,
Speaker 5: so I'm not sure if I'd go as far as
Speaker 5: a hero worshiping, But what do you guys think on
Speaker 5: that one?
Speaker 2: We do love Carl Sagan.
Speaker 1: You know, I discovered Carl Oh sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, you go ahead.
Speaker 4: Later in my atheist life.
Speaker 1: I went to Bertrand Russell first, and so somehow that
Speaker 1: became my thing, and Carl Sagan was cool in sciency.
Speaker 1: But you know, hey, everybody's got their own little heroes.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually my favorite thing about Carl Sagan.
Speaker 3: It was like that whole story with where people were
Speaker 3: trying to make dolphins learn English and so they were
Speaker 3: giving them acid and like jerking them off.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Balladium, Florida. Yes, and lived with just a
Speaker 4: flooding house anyway.
Speaker 2: Yes, was like, that's not what I meant. That's not
Speaker 2: what I meant.
Speaker 5: I first found Carl Sagan, not through the doing anything
Speaker 5: Good with Dolphins, Yeah, both through the movie Contact, which
Speaker 5: to these days my favorite movie of all time. I
Speaker 5: love that film. Jody Foster's in it and that weird
Speaker 5: Christian guy from Texas, but it's a really really good movie.
Speaker 5: In the book it's really good as well. But I've
Speaker 5: found the movie first and then went onto the book,
Speaker 5: and they're a little bit different. So watch a movie
Speaker 5: and read the book because they're both very, very fun.
Speaker 5: And yeah, so let's move along number one, because I
Speaker 5: don't want to get onto anybody being Welsh or tossing
Speaker 5: dolphins off. Let's keep it just a little bit normal
Speaker 5: for one. So if we got number one, Chuck Gados
Speaker 5: Gados etheist, Hell is exactly like eightist even after the
Speaker 5: first million years. Yeah, I can go with that one. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, praising God for eternity. Yeah, I can't see
Speaker 5: that being much fun at all. The prompt of the
Speaker 5: week for next week, how would Jesus' story be different
Speaker 5: if he were born to day? And to your best
Speaker 5: answer below the video in the comments, and next week
Speaker 5: we will reveal our three favorite answers. But of course
Speaker 5: I've got what Sophia and Ben first, So let's go
Speaker 5: with Sofia first. How would you just story be different
Speaker 5: if he was born today, Sofia.
Speaker 1: He'd be selling alpha male courses on TikTok.
Speaker 3: My answer is going to be also along the lines
Speaker 3: of TikTok, like definitely at the resurrection, it would not
Speaker 3: be just people showing up at the tomb or like
Speaker 3: him showing up to like the five hundred people or whatever.
Speaker 3: It would just be him sharing a video to TikTok,
Speaker 3: and then that would be the eyewitness account would just
Speaker 3: be a.
Speaker 4: Little and then he'd pop on and be like it's
Speaker 4: really me and just keep Yeah.
Speaker 3: Definitely something that was pre recorded. Definitely not something that
Speaker 3: was pre recorded before his death and then released afterwards
Speaker 3: as a as a way to keep the world you
Speaker 3: going no, no.
Speaker 1: And then he'd roll into a ground news sponsorship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we do have calls waiting, so I'm going to
Speaker 5: disappear off skirt out of there. Thanks for you answers,
Speaker 5: guys and audience answering the comment section below, and we
Speaker 5: will reveal you answers next week.
Speaker 3: Bye, Hi Richard, thanks for letting us make fun of
Speaker 3: you every week. And with that, people that we're not
Speaker 3: going to make fun of because we value them greatly
Speaker 3: in they're working very very hard behind the scenes. Let's
Speaker 3: go to the crew cam. See their beautiful faces there.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Crew. We love everything that you're doing.
Speaker 3: Oh and one of them is green.
Speaker 2: Oh let's green now.
Speaker 3: Thanks crew, and we do have some calls coming in,
Speaker 3: so let's take this first one, it seems very interesting.
Speaker 3: Let's talk to Steven. He him from New York talking
Speaker 3: about the Bible verse that everyone descended from Adam and
Speaker 3: Eve is misunderstood. Tell us more about that, Steven, you
Speaker 3: are on talk Ethan.
Speaker 7: Hey, yeah, I think misunderstood because people think that it
Speaker 7: means that everyone was birthed by by Oudam and Eve,
Speaker 7: and you know that it's a the but but that's
Speaker 7: not what it means. So I just want to I
Speaker 7: just want to make sure I know what I'm responding to.
Speaker 7: So what's your take on it?
Speaker 3: First, Well, the whole passage in Genesis is confusing because
Speaker 3: it's contradictory in multiple ways, Like because if you if
Speaker 3: the assumption is that Adam and Eve were the first people,
Speaker 3: and then of course they had children, but then you
Speaker 3: have other people that show up that are also adults.
Speaker 3: So I honestly, I don't know what to make of it,
Speaker 3: like because I don't take it as true. I don't
Speaker 3: take it as logically coherent. So if if you have
Speaker 3: an argument that it is logically coherent, let us know.
Speaker 3: I'm curious what your take is because I'm kind of
Speaker 3: I'm kind of indifferent to to whether or not it's
Speaker 3: well understood, because I don't think it happened at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that's sort of my take too,
Speaker 1: is that like looking back, it gives you know, a
Speaker 1: specific lineage, which is sort of odd if he's the
Speaker 1: father of everyone. So yeah, I would agree that seems unlikely.
Speaker 1: But I view it as a legend anyway, And so
Speaker 1: it's kind of like asking me to interpret, you know,
Speaker 1: folklore about menin angal or something like, do I really
Speaker 1: believe that this vampire is well understood or misunderstood? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in the vampire. I believe the story
Speaker 1: says something about us, not about the thing.
Speaker 2: You know, what are your thoughts, Stephen, But I.
Speaker 7: Wanted to I wanted to explain what that qualage means,
Speaker 7: or that or the adverse means. Basically, it's saying that
Speaker 7: everyone descended from Adam and you from a prototypical standpoint
Speaker 7: and from a chronological standpoint, like it's it's not it's
Speaker 7: not the word with the with the letter I. It's
Speaker 7: it's just like like I like, if you, you know,
Speaker 7: think of an hour glass and they just came before everyone.
Speaker 7: That's what that's what that means. It doesn't mean everyone
Speaker 7: want but.
Speaker 3: That doesn't But that doesn't work right because if there
Speaker 3: were people around at the same time as Adam and Eve,
Speaker 3: then then Adam and Eve weren't the first ones, and
Speaker 3: chronologically speaking, you could not say that everyone came after them,
Speaker 3: So like, sure, that could be a thing, But I mean,
Speaker 3: are you saying that this is purely like like purely metaphorical,
Speaker 3: or are you saying that there's some legitimacy to the
Speaker 3: passage itself.
Speaker 7: It's it's metaphorical. But Okay, even if they were at
Speaker 7: the same time, I would say it was it was
Speaker 7: chronologically the first idea for creation. They're the molds of
Speaker 7: human of all human beings. That's that's why people are
Speaker 7: misinterpreting diverse a lot. I think.
Speaker 1: So, first of all, can you tell us specifically which first,
Speaker 1: because I'm kind of scanning through early Genesis and there's
Speaker 1: a lot that talks about like you know, Adam's descendants
Speaker 1: and kind of that lineage and some of the things
Speaker 1: they encountered. But I'm wondering you're saying this verse, like
Speaker 1: can we look at the specific verse? Which one are
Speaker 1: you thinking of?
Speaker 7: Something like I don't have it pulled up in front
Speaker 7: of me, but it's something like that everyone was descended
Speaker 7: from out of an ever I don't, honestly, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, why is this important to you to talk about?
Speaker 1: I'm curious because I think that you know, our take
Speaker 1: is very much that this is all kind of a
Speaker 1: metaphor anyway, this is a creation myth, and so it's
Speaker 1: not going to make literal sense. And it feels like
Speaker 1: the Bible is open to interpretation, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: So like, what is it that you think that would.
Speaker 1: Be fruitful from a conversation about this, considering we don't
Speaker 1: believe in it at all? Like, what's making you call
Speaker 1: in about this today? I guess I'm a little confused about.
Speaker 7: That clarification because I don't know. I just wanted to
Speaker 7: correct that idea.
Speaker 3: Well, and I can see that it's it's reasonable to like,
Speaker 3: if you want to say, hey, this is a metaphorical thing,
Speaker 3: I don't think we should be taking the Bible literally.
Speaker 3: You know that that is a fair argument to make.
Speaker 3: The question is, though, like, is that the goal you're
Speaker 3: trying to have? Are you trying to say, hey, people
Speaker 3: should look at this metaphorically and not take the Bible
Speaker 3: literally or do you have a different point of utility
Speaker 3: for this particular misinterpretation.
Speaker 7: Well, no, even within it. No, I'm not saying it's
Speaker 7: like within the Bible. It's not metaphorical. It just means
Speaker 7: something other than what what most people think.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you don't think it's a metaphor so I'd
Speaker 3: love to hear how you rationalize that there is some
Speaker 3: form of truth to this. Where you did this idea
Speaker 3: come to you, like from your own kind of logical
Speaker 3: thinking or do you have like a source that you
Speaker 3: were kind of referencing, like did someone say this in
Speaker 3: a book? Or like how did you come up with
Speaker 3: this idea?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 7: No, I thought of this myself yesterday.
Speaker 9: Actually.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Okay, so it's obvious, and I think a.
Speaker 1: Lot of Christians actually don't necessarily literally believe that Adam
Speaker 1: was the father of all humans. Like, so I guess
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, who are you correcting? Who are
Speaker 1: you talking to here?
Speaker 7: You know, Well, I've heard say that actually.
Speaker 4: We think Adam was the father of all humans.
Speaker 1: Or that we think because it's true that some Christians
Speaker 1: think it, But like that's just us reporting what some
Speaker 1: Christians think.
Speaker 4: It's not us say you think that's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an argument like when atheists are arguing against
Speaker 3: biblical literalism, like I think that Adam and Eves story
Speaker 3: is a great one to target to say, hey, you
Speaker 3: cannot take the Bible literally. And the reason why we'll
Speaker 3: attack that whole point is because if you have certain
Speaker 3: parts of the Bible that cannot be taken literally, then
Speaker 3: therefore the whole rest of the book is up to interpretation.
Speaker 3: And so then we get into the discussion of was
Speaker 3: the resurrection a real thing or was that a metaphor?
Speaker 3: Was Noah's ark? Was that a metaphor? Do you get
Speaker 3: into the rest of the book and if you can
Speaker 3: no longer say that this is like undeniably true, then
Speaker 3: it calls into question the whole rest of the book
Speaker 3: and the whole rest of the religion. So that's why
Speaker 3: a lot of atheists take that position. But for people
Speaker 3: that take a more metaphorical stance on this, or if
Speaker 3: they say, you know, this story the way it's written
Speaker 3: is not entirely true, then we have to scrub through
Speaker 3: the rest of the book and say, okay, which parts
Speaker 3: of it are true, which ones are not, and how
Speaker 3: do we know that.
Speaker 2: So that's why I would say this.
Speaker 3: I would agree that this discussion is important, but I'm
Speaker 3: curious for like how you came to this idea and like,
Speaker 3: cause if it's not a metaphor, then it's just misinterpreted.
Speaker 3: Do you think that there is some truth to that
Speaker 3: story and if so, what parts of it are true?
Speaker 3: And how do you know that?
Speaker 7: I don't know if it's true, but I'm just saying
Speaker 7: that with like, within the Bible, it's not a metaphor.
Speaker 7: It's not written to be a metaphor. I'm saying that
Speaker 7: it's within the Bible, it just means something else. It
Speaker 7: means that, you know, as I said before, it's saying
Speaker 7: that everyone descended from out of a news from a
Speaker 7: chronological and prototypical standpoint, that's what it's saying. But it's
Speaker 7: it's real within the Bible. If you believe in the Bible.
Speaker 2: It just it's just okay cool.
Speaker 1: I mean, hey, I'm not sure I believe in Harry Potter.
Speaker 1: Like that's kind of an irrelevant point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure where we're going with this conversation,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I guess I'm just I'm sure you could
Speaker 3: make that point, but I don't know what to do
Speaker 3: with it beyond that.
Speaker 4: That's kind of my take to any.
Speaker 2: Other arguments you want to bring up. Any other points
Speaker 2: kind of related to.
Speaker 7: That, Uh, not really like I I lost my train.
Speaker 3: Actually problem And you can feel free to call back
Speaker 3: a different week if you have kind of more thoughts together.
Speaker 3: But thanks for calling in. I appreciate the discussion and
Speaker 3: a great risk of your Sunday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting first call.
Speaker 3: It's one that like, we can argue semantics and argue
Speaker 3: like translation and stuff of certain parts of the Bible,
Speaker 3: but like, at the end of the day, if we're
Speaker 3: not claiming that it's true and we're not using that
Speaker 3: to make other decisions, and it's like, okay, you can
Speaker 3: have that interpretation and I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I need to refute that a
Speaker 2: whole lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that back when I was
Speaker 1: a Christian, I didn't literally believe in that aspect. I
Speaker 1: think I had a similarly squishy kind of take, to
Speaker 1: be honest, because it seemed so fantastical.
Speaker 4: But I also feel like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of apologists who work very hard
Speaker 1: on those particular verses to try to make them make sense,
Speaker 1: and it kind of boils down to it's literal, but
Speaker 1: not really so all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but if any if anybody does have a belief
Speaker 3: in the literal Adam and Eve and the literal timeline
Speaker 3: of Genesis, I love to have you call in because
Speaker 3: that's a very interesting topic of conversation. So get that
Speaker 3: call in, love to hear about it. And with that,
Speaker 3: for everyone in the side chat and everyone watching the show,
Speaker 3: thank you for being here. You engaging with with the
Speaker 3: content does help us get our show out there, does
Speaker 3: help us keep doing this. And so there are multiple
Speaker 3: multiple ways to help show your support. Watching the show
Speaker 3: is one of them. Chatting in the side chat is
Speaker 3: another one. Putting your comments in the comment section below
Speaker 3: with the question of the week. All of that does
Speaker 3: help us out. And another way, of course liking the video,
Speaker 3: sharing it out to your family and friends, sharing it
Speaker 3: out to I don't know, your roommates, your siblings, all
Speaker 3: of that. You can also share it out to every
Speaker 3: single person. Yeah, every single person needs to be watching
Speaker 3: talk you. Then you can also like the video. Like
Speaker 3: I said, subscribe to the channel, hit that notification bell
Speaker 3: so that you get alerts when we're going live because
Speaker 3: that's a great way not only for you to make
Speaker 3: sure you're here for the show, but also it does
Speaker 3: help us if you are able to financially support the channel.
Speaker 3: You can send super chats throughout the show and we
Speaker 3: will try to show them on the screen and read
Speaker 3: them out when they come in. Usually we'll read them
Speaker 3: kind of at the end of the show, but if
Speaker 3: there's something interesting related to a call, we might we
Speaker 3: might read it kind of earlier on in the show,
Speaker 3: So get those in. There's also some other events going on.
Speaker 3: If you're in the Austin area, you can go to
Speaker 3: meet up and keep up with community events. You can
Speaker 3: see what's going on at tiny dot cc slash ACA meetup.
Speaker 3: They've got events such as Philosophy under the Stars, game Nights,
Speaker 3: and many more, so be sure to check that out.
Speaker 3: Also more community events, you can go to weekly watch
Speaker 3: parties at the Free Thought or Library I cannot speak
Speaker 3: today Free Thought Library on Sundays for live viewings of
Speaker 3: Talk Heathen and The Atheist Experience Every Sunday, doors open
Speaker 3: at noon. And if you want to go and watch
Speaker 3: this show together with a group of secular friends, by
Speaker 3: all means go have some fun. I wish I was
Speaker 3: nearby so I could do that. It sounds like, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Know some people there right now, and I'm like, you
Speaker 1: know here, I'm on the show, not with them, but
Speaker 1: hi everybody there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I'll make my way back there sometime soon.
Speaker 3: And also follow talk Heathen on TikTok. We have a
Speaker 3: pre show that goes live every week, and Richard was
Speaker 3: working very hard on the TikTok before the show.
Speaker 2: So join us there.
Speaker 3: At ACA TikTok Atheist Community of Austin. It's how you
Speaker 3: can find that info. Any other announcements that you can
Speaker 3: think of before we get into the next call, now,
Speaker 3: just do I also.
Speaker 1: Want to put a plug in, like, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: come to community events. I really feel like that's sometimes
Speaker 1: an underrated thing that the ACA does. We have secular
Speaker 1: sisterhood now as well, and we do things like go
Speaker 1: on hikes and like hang out and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: So yeah, And I mean we were just talking before
Speaker 3: the show about like some atheist parenting conversations and like
Speaker 3: so if you're if you're an atheist that has kids,
Speaker 3: like I'm sure Sophio would be down to have some
Speaker 3: some fun discussions, fun things going on.
Speaker 1: There is actually now at the ACA there's a baby
Speaker 1: changing table because I had children and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: can't change them on the floor anymore. So you know,
Speaker 1: ACA is a parent supportive organization. There was a changing
Speaker 1: table as soon as I asked for it, and I
Speaker 1: just think that's sweet. So yeah, coming out.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yes, so stop by, go go to the Free Thought
Speaker 3: Library on Sundays, watch the show and change your baby's
Speaker 3: diaper all the same time.
Speaker 4: You don't have to be great.
Speaker 2: Tangent. We do have as caller.
Speaker 3: We have a theist caller, and we went from our
Speaker 3: previous caller, Steven to now caller Steve, and I believe
Speaker 3: this is the same Steve that called a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago when I was hosting. Steve from Florida wants
Speaker 3: to respond to the cold Open about hateful jokes. So
Speaker 3: I'll let I'll let Sophia kind of take the lead
Speaker 3: on this one. But Steve, welcome back to talk ethen
Speaker 3: what is your topic today?
Speaker 10: Thank you for having me back, and you are correct,
Speaker 10: this is the same Steve.
Speaker 3: Awesome, good to good to hear from you. Well, what's
Speaker 3: your what's your topic today.
Speaker 10: Well, first I wanted to make sure Sophia excuse me,
Speaker 10: doesn't conflate jokes with hate a lot of time.
Speaker 1: Tell me about that.
Speaker 8: You can meet.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you can see a lot of comedians of all
Speaker 10: races making jokes about all different things, and even the
Speaker 10: people of that group will laugh at it because they
Speaker 10: all understand it's a joke. So really, if you want
Speaker 10: to have a you really should probably differentiate jokes from hate.
Speaker 10: I mean, if it's a hateful to jo, you.
Speaker 1: Have a what makes you think I don't. Is it
Speaker 1: possible to have a hateful joke? And is it possible?
Speaker 1: That's what I was talking about, not just every joke
Speaker 1: that touches on race or sex or anything like that.
Speaker 10: Well, then just make sure you clarify it a lot more.
Speaker 1: Wait, so you think I should have said wait by
Speaker 1: the should have talked about how some jokes are hateful,
Speaker 1: and I should have stopped and said, but I do
Speaker 1: know that all, not all jokes are hateful, and that
Speaker 1: it can be okay, and that there's even people within
Speaker 1: those That's what the cold open should have included.
Speaker 10: Yes, because you kind of imply that all jokes based
Speaker 10: on you know, whatever, genders and race and all that
Speaker 10: could be hate automatically, I.
Speaker 1: Think that that was something you inferred from it. But
Speaker 1: I don't think I implied that. I listened to a
Speaker 1: lot of what would be considered eddie jokes. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the difference between whether or not
Speaker 1: it's hate or whether it's just a potentially edgy joke
Speaker 1: is really and how it's gone about, and who's the punchline,
Speaker 1: and how it's told.
Speaker 4: And is it dehumanizing?
Speaker 1: So I feel like it's kind of an interesting thing
Speaker 1: here for you to call it and just you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: So can you give me an example of a hateful
Speaker 1: versus a non hateful joke?
Speaker 6: Then?
Speaker 10: Well the whole thing is like in the Spondern society
Speaker 10: now they want to ban all sorts of jokes and
Speaker 10: anything derogatory towards anybody.
Speaker 6: We're not sure if it's.
Speaker 2: A joke or not doing that. Yeah, who's doing that?
Speaker 1: Can you tell me?
Speaker 10: Well? Mostly white women on the far.
Speaker 1: Lank Okay, so do you know do you know a
Speaker 1: group of white women, the international group of mean white
Speaker 1: women are doing this to you? What's happening? Where are they?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: I want a join.
Speaker 6: Mean white women. Yes, it's just okay.
Speaker 3: Steve, do you know what do you know what punching
Speaker 3: down is? Do you know the concept of punching down?
Speaker 10: No, but you're going to feed into a lot of
Speaker 10: atheists that just see this kind of.
Speaker 6: Stuff as Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, So here's the difference. Here's one of the big differences.
Speaker 3: And so not all jokes are hateful, but there is
Speaker 3: a tactful way to tell the jokes, like Sophia was saying,
Speaker 3: and a big difference, especially if you're going to make
Speaker 3: fun of a marginalized group of people, if you are
Speaker 3: coming from a position of privilege, that's where it's probably
Speaker 3: not okay to make that joke.
Speaker 2: Like let's say, if you.
Speaker 3: And this is why we will kind of sometime have
Speaker 3: jokes about like cis het white men, it seems like
Speaker 3: it's kind of hateful. But in that case, the sis
Speaker 3: het white man in at least in America is in
Speaker 3: a majority class, is in a position of social privilege,
Speaker 3: So where making a joke like that is not going
Speaker 3: to cause social harm to that person, Like that person's
Speaker 3: not going to lose their job because someone made a
Speaker 3: joke about them. That person's not going to lose their
Speaker 3: family lose their friends because of a joke that was
Speaker 3: made about them. The difference is when you make a
Speaker 3: joke based on a stereotype, coming from a position of privilege,
Speaker 3: and making a joke about someone who does not have
Speaker 3: that position of privilege, it can influence their lives outside
Speaker 3: of the joke. Like if you make jokes about trans
Speaker 3: people being groomors, that is a joke that can actually
Speaker 3: harm people, and like that has done that, that has
Speaker 3: caused trans people to lose their jobs and to lose
Speaker 3: rights and to lose like societal privileges. Right, So same
Speaker 3: thing with jokes related to race and ethnicity and nationality,
Speaker 3: and even it does even get into like religious humor.
Speaker 3: I would argue that in a lot of cases it's
Speaker 3: inappropriate to make jokes about Muslims in America because they
Speaker 3: are a marginalized community. So you can comment on the
Speaker 3: religion and certain practices, you can say I don't agree
Speaker 3: with this particular thing that is oppressive, But making a
Speaker 3: joke about Muslims like to bash their culture, bash their people,
Speaker 3: that is problematic and that is a hateful joke. So
Speaker 3: there's a different with who you're trying to attack with
Speaker 3: a joke. And that's where the phrase punching down is
Speaker 3: when somebody in a position of privilege jokes about a
Speaker 3: community that does not have that same amount of privilege
Speaker 3: and uses that joke to disparage them. Does that kind
Speaker 3: of make sense where the line is, well.
Speaker 10: You just kind of made my argument where you said
Speaker 10: all white people making jokes about everybody else, because I
Speaker 10: use that.
Speaker 3: As an example. I use that as an example because
Speaker 3: a person from a position of a marginalized community that
Speaker 3: would be punching up. Right, you are making a joke
Speaker 3: about somebody in a position of power. You're not making
Speaker 3: a joke because of the fact that, like, you're not
Speaker 3: making the joke because of their skin color. You're not
Speaker 3: making the joke because of their anatomical features or whatever.
Speaker 3: You're making the joke because of their social status. You're
Speaker 3: making the joke about their privilege. So to say that,
Speaker 3: like making a joke about like cist white men not
Speaker 3: understanding people in marginalized communities, that is a joke punching
Speaker 3: up because it's social commentary. It's saying that this is
Speaker 3: a problem in our society with them having privilege that
Speaker 3: nobody else would get just because of like a racial status. Well,
Speaker 3: so that's so that's different than punching down.
Speaker 10: You're still proving my point. You're just classified.
Speaker 4: But is your point.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, hold on, I still don't get you're saying
Speaker 1: you're proving my point. And your initial statement was you
Speaker 1: wanted to be sure I knew the difference between hate
Speaker 1: and a joke, And so what is your point, like
Speaker 1: teach me.
Speaker 10: Well, doctor Ben, Doctor Ben, there is classifying all what
Speaker 10: straight white men as privilege. Therefore they can't make any
Speaker 10: jokes about anybody. Dumb.
Speaker 4: I don't think that was it.
Speaker 1: That's not what I said, Ben said, And so it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: No, that's not what I said.
Speaker 3: I said, like in general, like that is an example
Speaker 3: of a people group that should that is, it's less
Speaker 3: likely appropriate for them to make a joke about another
Speaker 3: group of people because me and it's not the case
Speaker 3: in every country, Like there are other countries where you know,
Speaker 3: if you're like somewhere where cist white people are not
Speaker 3: the majority, and if there was a case where they
Speaker 3: were having a loss of social status or loss of
Speaker 3: social privilege because of any of those categories, then that
Speaker 3: would be the same thing where it would be inappropriate
Speaker 3: to make jokes about them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can give it.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, if you're if you're done, No, you go for.
Speaker 1: A particular example. Okay, Yes, so I have a particular
Speaker 1: example that might be illimited. I'm gonna call them grape
Speaker 1: jokes for the sake of YouTube. I have heard funny
Speaker 1: and non funny jokes about grape. It's something that can
Speaker 1: be amusing when told with sensitivity and with the thoughtfulness
Speaker 1: of the fact that there's actually a victim on this end.
Speaker 1: So I heard a comic say something once about how
Speaker 1: you know, grapists and pirates have a lot in common.
Speaker 4: You know, they take what isn't theirs.
Speaker 1: There they feel entitled to a lot, and sometimes their
Speaker 1: names are And it was a joke about her personal
Speaker 1: experience in this situation, and it was a joke at
Speaker 1: the expense of a white dude. In this instance, If
Speaker 1: there was a white dude telling a joke about sexual
Speaker 1: assault or grape, and the person who was sort of
Speaker 1: the victim of the joke, it wasn't talking about their
Speaker 1: own personal experience, but it was talking about a woman
Speaker 1: who had experienced this grape. I think that we see
Speaker 1: there there's a very there's a large difference in status.
Speaker 1: In general, women tend to be the ones who would
Speaker 1: be the victim of sexual assault and men tend to
Speaker 1: often be the victimizers more often than not. So it
Speaker 1: seems more palatable to us, and rightfully so, that one
Speaker 1: of these folks can make a joke about grape and
Speaker 1: the other one can't. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily
Speaker 1: hateful toward white men to tell a joke in this way,
Speaker 1: but I also think that something to be her in
Speaker 1: mind when we're making these jokes. So if I'm sitting
Speaker 1: around in a group of white men, like in my
Speaker 1: story was the case me, and there's no person there
Speaker 1: who is a representative in any way of any person
Speaker 1: they were making fun of, and it was making fun
Speaker 1: of them in a dehumanizing way, that was taking stereotypes
Speaker 1: and just sitting together and laughing about them as though
Speaker 1: they believed them, because there's a grain of truth in
Speaker 1: a joke, right, I find that pretty gross. So, like,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, how do you deal with like, let's go
Speaker 1: with the example of like a rape joke. How do
Speaker 1: you Oh, sorry, I said it wrong for YouTube, But like,
Speaker 1: what is your take on that. That's a more concrete example.
Speaker 10: Well, right now, the only thing that comes to my
Speaker 10: mind is doctor Ben allways classifying the privileged and the underprivileged.
Speaker 10: So he's basically saying all white men can't make jokes
Speaker 10: to anybody.
Speaker 1: So you're touching the question and say, you didn't say
Speaker 1: so I answer a specific question here, and you just
Speaker 1: went back to mischaracterizing what doctor Ben said. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I feel like you also mischaracterized what I
Speaker 1: said at the beginning and in the cold open. I
Speaker 1: never said that all jokes that include any of this
Speaker 1: are hateful. I never said anything like that, And you
Speaker 1: seem to kind of be taking everything really personally, and
Speaker 1: so I'm curious, like, why where's that coming from?
Speaker 10: And because he's using privilege all the time to classify
Speaker 10: upper class and lower class, so he's actually.
Speaker 1: Making think that's upper class and lower class.
Speaker 3: But it's setting up context. It's setting a context for
Speaker 3: what the commentary is. And that's the difference somebody who
Speaker 3: is not really at all impacted by some of those issues,
Speaker 3: but as just perpetuating stereotypes and sitting back and laughing
Speaker 3: at other people's expense in that like laughing at people
Speaker 3: who are poor, laughing at people who don't have access
Speaker 3: to health care, laughing at people who are presumed to
Speaker 3: be criminals when they're not just because of a racial
Speaker 3: background that they have, Like that is kind of lacking
Speaker 3: tact It's something that like, why why are you going
Speaker 3: out of your way to make fun of somebody who's
Speaker 3: in a worse position than you like, And that's and
Speaker 3: that's where it's coming from. It's like you just have
Speaker 3: to think about is this joke tactful? Is this like
Speaker 3: what purpose is this joke serving? And that's and the
Speaker 3: fact that you're not able to distinguish that is a
Speaker 3: little bit concerning to me. Like and even as somebody
Speaker 3: in uh like a minority group, like I will make
Speaker 3: so many kind of uh I guess like I will
Speaker 3: make a lot of jokes about trends people and about
Speaker 3: LGBTQ people that two other people might sound very harsh
Speaker 3: and might sound very dark, but like that's the community
Speaker 3: I come from, and so for me, it's not a
Speaker 3: problem for me to say that those jokes. I will
Speaker 3: choose the audience that I'm saying those in front of,
Speaker 3: Like I'm not going to say a lot of those
Speaker 3: jokes in front of people who are not part of
Speaker 3: that community because it is also lacked, lacking tact in
Speaker 3: that sense. But me in a community with all LGBTQ people,
Speaker 3: it's going to be received a bit better. And so
Speaker 3: it's it's the way you approach any conversation, like if
Speaker 3: this community that you're in, if you're telling the joke
Speaker 3: among a certain group, you have to think, is this
Speaker 3: is this productive to say? Is the message that I'm
Speaker 3: trying to communicate going to be received in the way
Speaker 3: that I'm intending it? Or could this be easily misconstrued?
Speaker 3: And like that's what we have to think about, and
Speaker 3: oftentimes issues regarding minority groups, like there's a lot of
Speaker 3: depth that a lot of contexts that people who are
Speaker 3: not part of that community might not understand, might not
Speaker 3: understand the fullest extent. So that's where you have to
Speaker 3: be really cautious. And it's not saying that people outside
Speaker 3: those groups like can't comment on things related to that community,
Speaker 3: but you have to be very careful about how you
Speaker 3: do it and how you handle that. And it's worth
Speaker 3: talking to like if you have a friend, like an
Speaker 3: actual close friend in that community and you say, hey, like,
Speaker 3: is this is this joke tasteful or not? And if
Speaker 3: they say, you know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that
Speaker 3: around my community that maybe don't say it. And even
Speaker 3: if you think, like if you're questioning whether or not
Speaker 3: you say that joke around that community.
Speaker 2: Maybe just don't. Maybe just don't say it.
Speaker 3: It's more of not like people not knowing the baggage
Speaker 3: that something carries and then just saying, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: fine saying this and not caring what that joke is
Speaker 3: going to do to the other person. So I think that, Steve,
Speaker 3: I think you're smart enough to understand social context and like,
Speaker 3: like you understand that there are times to act professional
Speaker 3: and there are times to not act professional, right, Like
Speaker 3: would you wear the same clothes to like a big business,
Speaker 3: formal business dinner that you would like just go to
Speaker 3: the park with your dog or is there a difference
Speaker 3: of how you act an each of those places.
Speaker 10: Well, it's fine, I mean, as all jokes, they're only
Speaker 10: funny or something like that when they have a brain
Speaker 10: of truth in them, so you know, yeah.
Speaker 3: But the whole you're dodging things. Again, I'm asking you
Speaker 3: questions about context. You understand that there are contexts for
Speaker 3: different things, and there's behavior that's appropriate in different settings. Right, sure,
Speaker 3: there is, but there's also within that context there's appropriate.
Speaker 3: There's different ways that are differently appropriate for different people. Right,
Speaker 3: Like at a wedding, it's appropriate for the bride to
Speaker 3: wear a white dress, and our society has said it's
Speaker 3: not really appropriate for other people to show up wearing
Speaker 3: a white dress. Like there's nothing inherently wrong about wearing
Speaker 3: a white dress, but the context, like, in that context,
Speaker 3: it is disrespectful for someone to wear a white dress
Speaker 3: and appear like they're the bride in somebody else's wedding.
Speaker 3: Like that's just kind of you just feel kind of
Speaker 3: icky about it. It's like, you know, maybe this is
Speaker 3: a little bit disrespectful. That's kind of a similar thing
Speaker 3: with these jokes. There's a time and a place, there's
Speaker 3: a person to wear, it is appropriate for them to
Speaker 3: make that comment and maybe not as appropriate for someone else.
Speaker 3: And I think I think Steve, that you understand social context.
Speaker 3: I think you understand some of this nuance, and it
Speaker 3: seems maybe you just you feel you feel like you
Speaker 3: want to be able to say these things, and you
Speaker 3: don't want to feel guilt about it, which tells me
Speaker 3: a little bit about their jokes.
Speaker 6: Maybe there's jokes, but behind a lot of them.
Speaker 4: You just said that there's a grain of truth in
Speaker 4: the jokes.
Speaker 1: Isn't it possible that some folks find these jokes funny
Speaker 1: because they want to actually be racist and sexist, and
Speaker 1: so they're saying these things that they actually believe, but
Speaker 1: they're doing it in a joking way so they can
Speaker 1: act like I'm crazy and say they just made a joke, so.
Speaker 2: They don't get social repercussions for it.
Speaker 10: The grain of truth in some in jokes, and that's
Speaker 10: what makes them funny. There's some in them, you know.
Speaker 10: And if you're offended, that's on you, not on the
Speaker 10: other listeners.
Speaker 4: So wait, I didn't the other listeners?
Speaker 1: Hold on? If I say that you're a bag of
Speaker 1: dicks and you're offended, then is that just on you?
Speaker 1: Like that seems like it would be something I'm intentionally
Speaker 1: saying to be mean, it's inflammatory, I'm a bag. Maybe
Speaker 1: it has a grain of truth to it. But if
Speaker 1: somebody laughed at that, like, are you mad at them? No?
Speaker 10: Because I'm not a bad dicks.
Speaker 1: Steve Is it okay to make question someone thought because
Speaker 1: they laughed because they thought you were so is that offensive?
Speaker 1: Or is that okay that they laughed because they agreed
Speaker 1: that you were a bag of dicks?
Speaker 10: Well, it's fine to make jokes if you're like, you're
Speaker 10: stereotyping a whole group or something like that, or there's
Speaker 10: a great the thing is that my big is the hate?
Speaker 2: Steve? Is it okay?
Speaker 3: Is it okay to make racist jokes like where are
Speaker 3: their race? Is the punchline? Is it okay all.
Speaker 1: White men in Florida are bags of dicks? Is that offensive?
Speaker 10: It's fine to make racist jokes that there's no hate
Speaker 10: about it?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: But how would you tell?
Speaker 1: Do I need to stop and ask someone making the
Speaker 1: joke do you actually feel hate? Or is this just
Speaker 1: a joke?
Speaker 2: Well, that's like you do you draw the line?
Speaker 1: Like where is your line? Have you ever heard a
Speaker 1: joke like this and you've been like, actually, that's too much.
Speaker 10: I watched a lot of comedians on the YouTube all
Speaker 10: the time that are making all sorts of racist jokes
Speaker 10: and in the context in the.
Speaker 2: Place is Steve us funny?
Speaker 4: Answer my question here?
Speaker 8: Though?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard a joke and thought, no, actually,
Speaker 1: that's too much, because if you have no standards, if
Speaker 1: you have no line at all, then anyone taking offense
Speaker 1: ever or saying something is wrong to joke about, then
Speaker 1: of course you're going to think they're wrong. But then
Speaker 1: there's no point in convincing you were trying to convince
Speaker 1: you because you have no standards.
Speaker 4: So have you ever thought a joke went too far?
Speaker 4: Can you tell me about a time like that?
Speaker 10: You always going to make a joke and offend somebody, Usually.
Speaker 1: It's not what I asked you personally, Steve, if the
Speaker 1: bag of dicks are not from Florida, have you been
Speaker 1: offended by a joke.
Speaker 6: Before that makes it funny?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry?
Speaker 1: What is this uncomfortable laugh about? I'm confused? Can you
Speaker 1: answer my question?
Speaker 10: No, Steve, the bag of dicks from Florida?
Speaker 2: That was funny, Steve, Steve, interesting, cigare man.
Speaker 3: The interesting thing is that you find you find it
Speaker 3: offensive when I when I say something about cist white men.
Speaker 3: But then you come back and you say that it's
Speaker 3: okay to make racist jokes Like I think that you're
Speaker 3: personally offended, and you're not willing to admit that you're
Speaker 3: personally offending other people, and that you are you're okay
Speaker 3: with being racist and just telling jokes about it. I
Speaker 3: think we were probably done with this call because you
Speaker 3: know what, like I have a zero tolerance for racism
Speaker 3: or anything similar to racism, Like we do not.
Speaker 2: Tolerate that here.
Speaker 3: And you are, like Steve, if you make jokes like
Speaker 3: that and you think that is okay, you are a
Speaker 3: bag of dicks like that is just that is just fact,
Speaker 3: no shame about that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I was trying not to last.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also realized that I chose sort of a male
Speaker 1: focused insult, like dicks are a male body part, and
Speaker 1: that's what I went with because that's what I first
Speaker 1: thought of. So there is potentially some gender defense in there,
Speaker 1: and it's just yes, yeah, I think when you talk
Speaker 1: like that, you put yourself into this corner where you
Speaker 1: have to pretend you find everything funny even though it's
Speaker 1: very obvious that you don't. And so like having any
Speaker 1: standard is is kind of impossible when you're arguing.
Speaker 3: That is it on Steve that like if he got
Speaker 3: offended by uh calling him as white man? Is that
Speaker 3: like if that's is that just on him because you're
Speaker 3: the one that is your problem be for you're offended?
Speaker 2: Is that just a hymn problem?
Speaker 1: I guess question mark Like, and it was interesting just
Speaker 1: how hard he worked not to answer questions directly, and
Speaker 1: that apparently like white women are banning any joke about anything,
Speaker 1: which I thought was interesting. I'm like, where is this meeting?
Speaker 1: How am I not a I'm a progressive white woman.
Speaker 1: Nobody's called me, Nobody said this to me, and I
Speaker 1: would I would love to be to figure out how
Speaker 1: to be a part of that. I think he was
Speaker 1: just trying not to say Karen because I'm a woman
Speaker 1: with an opinion, and that's I think was his was
Speaker 1: his take. Yeah, I think it's just like what is
Speaker 1: the punchline? If we'd narrow down this joke, if we
Speaker 1: just said, like, here's the summary of the joke. Is
Speaker 1: it that I'm weirded out by gay people? Is that
Speaker 1: what the is that what the joke was? Is it
Speaker 1: that this group or you know, race of women are ugly?
Speaker 1: Is that the joke is that, like, you know, where
Speaker 1: what is the funny part of it? Like that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good way to tell, Like, can you summarize what
Speaker 1: this was about, and so like if you can and
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty fresh and pretty interesting and can potentially
Speaker 1: work without assuming that all people that you are not
Speaker 1: in a group with are the same, then like maybe
Speaker 1: it's good, but yeah, just just summarize it for like
Speaker 1: a second.
Speaker 4: We learned that skill in fifth grade, guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And it's like if you if you get to be
Speaker 3: offended because we called you something of a position of privilege,
Speaker 3: but then you think it's fine, Like that's what offends you,
Speaker 3: but you think it's fine to punch.
Speaker 2: Down to everybody else like oh.
Speaker 1: My god, that privilege that killed it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, couldn't you just like circuit in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like because people with privilege, like if you're
Speaker 3: honest and you understand you have privilege, Like I'm not
Speaker 3: going to be offended by someone pointing out the ways
Speaker 3: that I have privileged, Like it's it's a thing where
Speaker 3: you have to have some introspection and say, you know,
Speaker 3: there is a greative truth to this, and maybe I
Speaker 3: need to change how I act around people, Like maybe
Speaker 3: maybe I do need to use the privilege I have
Speaker 3: for more positive things. Like if you're not the problem,
Speaker 3: you're probably not going to be offended by somebody pointing
Speaker 3: out the societal problem.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been in a situation where you were
Speaker 1: aware you had more social power than someone else, then
Speaker 1: you understand privilege, whether or not you choose to like
Speaker 1: acknowledge it.
Speaker 4: It's just not that hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And it's like and if you're not the problem,
Speaker 3: you know, the joke isn't about you, so you can
Speaker 3: calm down.
Speaker 4: I know, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you worked very hard to be like, well,
Speaker 1: it's funny because I'm not a bag of dicks. It's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe literally or not, but anyway that I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't insult callers. I just was like, why not lean
Speaker 1: into this idea? But I promise if I won't call
Speaker 1: you a bag of dicks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't make that promise.
Speaker 3: But next next caller, at least are you ready? Are
Speaker 3: you ready for another caller?
Speaker 4: We still get ready.
Speaker 2: This is our little therapy session.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Welcome to therapy, say everybody, Sunday morning therapy.
Speaker 3: All right, So our next caller is Tom. He him
Speaker 3: from Mississippi wants to respond to the chat poll.
Speaker 2: So I'll bring you on. Tom. You are on Talk
Speaker 2: he theen What is your question or argument today?
Speaker 8: A Yeah. Before I get to the pole question, I
Speaker 8: just wanted to say that the issue of the teller
Speaker 8: of a joke versus the joke itself, it's something I've
Speaker 8: never really settled in my own mind, and I found
Speaker 8: this analysis you've just gone through excellent, so I really
Speaker 8: appreciate that you like it.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 8: Yeah. As far as the pole question goes as belief
Speaker 8: got excuse bad actions? I answered yes because that was
Speaker 8: really the only choice. It's obviously impossible to put a
Speaker 8: lot of nuance into a question of pole question, but
Speaker 8: I answered est because while I believe the maturity of time,
Speaker 8: religion does not excuse bad action. I think the question
Speaker 8: pinpoints an underlying issue which is critically important, which is,
Speaker 8: there are people who have been exposed or I should
Speaker 8: actually stress the opposite, who have not been exposed to
Speaker 8: ideas of careful reflection and critical thinking, who do bad
Speaker 8: actions based on their understanding of their religion. And that's
Speaker 8: really the problem. More than do people do bad things
Speaker 8: because of religion, I think it is why are there
Speaker 8: people who sincerely believe they are not doing a bad
Speaker 8: action based on their religion? And I think that's really
Speaker 8: the struggle we face trying to reintroduce critical thinking and
Speaker 8: the concept of a reflective a self reflective life, and
Speaker 8: that seems to be falling away in the current social environment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can agree with a lot of that. I
Speaker 3: do think that the majority of religious people don't believe
Speaker 3: that the things that religion does is bad. I think
Speaker 3: that the majority of people want to do the right thing.
Speaker 3: They want to help people, they want to do what
Speaker 3: they understand is good, and yeah, I think they're misled
Speaker 3: by their religious leaders, their religious texts, and especially people
Speaker 3: that were like born and raised in the church. Like
Speaker 3: I remember when I was evangelical, there were so many
Speaker 3: things that looking back, I now understand are not positive things,
Speaker 3: but I strongly believed that they were. And I strongly
Speaker 3: believed that, you know, going to other countries and telling
Speaker 3: people about Jesus was actually a good thing to do.
Speaker 3: And then now learning about why like volunteerism and mission
Speaker 3: work is actually pretty ichy, and you know, supporting churches
Speaker 3: that use those funds for irresponsible things, Like I look
Speaker 3: back and see those as bad, but I genuinely believed
Speaker 3: that they were positive things. And I will give people
Speaker 3: the benefit of the doubt and say, like, at an
Speaker 3: individual level, I think the majority of them are genuinely trying,
Speaker 3: but they're in the system that you know, taught them,
Speaker 3: taught them things that were not okay. So I do
Speaker 3: I do mostly agree with you on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Also so I'm curious because when I
Speaker 1: was religious, I felt a lot of personal pressure just
Speaker 1: from myself to stand up to other religious folks that
Speaker 1: I felt were we're using religion in an abusive way,
Speaker 1: and some of it in the churches where I was
Speaker 1: was because of my gender. It was very much ignored
Speaker 1: and very easily ignored. But also it feels sort of
Speaker 1: cathartic and satisfying, I think for people to get swept
Speaker 1: up and being this, I am the chosen person, and
Speaker 1: I must save our country and I must be you know,
Speaker 1: it's God's mandate that I insert social policy here. It
Speaker 1: was very hard to argue against and to say, hey, actually,
Speaker 1: I think we need to be like reflecting on this
Speaker 1: and really thinking about what this meant in the context
Speaker 1: of the Bible in which it was said, and I
Speaker 1: think that this is actually wrong. And yes, I understand
Speaker 1: that you think you're living into God's commandments, but also
Speaker 1: look at all of the folks you're hurting, and that's
Speaker 1: that's not as it's not as charismatic a message. It's
Speaker 1: not as you know, people don't get as easily swept
Speaker 1: away in that, and it's very hard to stand in
Speaker 1: the way of it. And so in this way, I
Speaker 1: would say that I saw a lot of instances where
Speaker 1: religion empowered people to just get really carried away in
Speaker 1: whatever ideology they were going to run into. Anyway, So
Speaker 1: I do agree with you, I'm curious, how how do
Speaker 1: you message that then, to like other religious folks that
Speaker 1: what needs to come back is reflection and critical thinking
Speaker 1: without sort of being told that you're a lukewarm Christian.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, that's that is a big problem.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 8: And if I had a solution, I would start my
Speaker 8: own channel.
Speaker 1: Do if you get a delusion to that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, if I could figure out. But again, what I'm
Speaker 8: really trying to stress is less a lot of emphasis
Speaker 8: in these sorts of conversations. A lot of emphasis gets
Speaker 8: placed on indoctrination, social milieu and things like that with
Speaker 8: respect to religion. And what I was trying to stress
Speaker 8: was actually not that, but the lack of an social
Speaker 8: emphasis on clear thinking or critical even better critical thinking.
Speaker 8: I was raised by a Seventh Day Adventist mother, who,
Speaker 8: as I grew older, realized wasn't so much Seventh Day
Speaker 8: Adventist as humanist, and a father who was an atheist
Speaker 8: and also a humanist. But the peculiar thing was that
Speaker 8: I always had to qualify my father as an honest atheist.
Speaker 8: It had never occurred to me for a long time.
Speaker 8: It didn occur to me, why do I have to
Speaker 8: apply the qualification honest to his atheism? And eventually, of
Speaker 8: course I realized, well, you know, that was a holdover
Speaker 8: from the religious, the common religious perspective that there can't
Speaker 8: be such a thing as an honest atheist, but clearly
Speaker 8: my father was. So it's the ability to reflect on
Speaker 8: one's own positions and say why. And as to something
Speaker 8: that doctor Benn said, I agree that the overwhelming majority
Speaker 8: of people are just trying to lead good life, to
Speaker 8: be good people, but I think that a significant number
Speaker 8: of them have a struggle between what they believed to
Speaker 8: be good and what their religion tells them is good,
Speaker 8: such as sperience, the words alternative sexual identities, and the
Speaker 8: only rest to that I think is for those people
Speaker 8: to actually spend some time thinking about why do I
Speaker 8: have this tension? But again, how to try to get
Speaker 8: more people to adopt that mental stance I wish I know,
Speaker 8: good answer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's why the show exists. That's why TAKI
Speaker 3: then exists, and that's why we have so many callers
Speaker 3: talking about slavery, talking about very negative things in their
Speaker 3: religion and hearing people struggle to make sense of it
Speaker 3: even on the show, like pointing out, this is what
Speaker 3: your religion says, and this is what you've told me
Speaker 3: you believe is good versus bad. And so many times
Speaker 3: we see people having that cognitive dissonance on the show,
Speaker 3: and so many of them like you'll hear this little,
Speaker 3: this little hesitancy like in their voice as they say it,
Speaker 3: and then they'll go right back to the thing they
Speaker 3: were saying before and try to rationalize it, and it
Speaker 3: just it just goes to show how much like and
Speaker 3: I know indoctrination isn't like all of it, but how
Speaker 3: people will have this concept of what is like, what
Speaker 3: is the ultimate authority in what they should believe? And
Speaker 3: I agree that if people are taught critical thinking, if
Speaker 3: they're taught how do I think for myself, how do
Speaker 3: I make this decision without having to decide what is
Speaker 3: the ultimate authority?
Speaker 2: Then, yeah, people have a better.
Speaker 3: Time, But like I think, just continuing to have these
Speaker 3: conversations with people continuing to give them moments of cognitive dissonance,
Speaker 3: because some people do change their beliefs, like I did.
Speaker 3: I know many of the hosts here, and even if
Speaker 3: you go watch objectively Dan's street epistemology videos like back
Speaker 3: when he was a Christian, you can visibly like see
Speaker 3: the cognitive dissonance show up and he ended up making
Speaker 3: a huge one ad and then hosting with the ACA.
Speaker 3: So it does happen, and it's very difficult for a
Speaker 3: lot of people. But I think that's why these conversations
Speaker 3: are so important to have and why we still have
Speaker 3: call in shows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of was thinking about this sort of
Speaker 1: along the same lines. Effectively, even what you're doing by
Speaker 1: calling in and saying these things is what we would
Speaker 1: call in the therapy world modeling. You're showing people how
Speaker 1: to question by doing it yourself. And I think so
Speaker 1: much about how you don't realize who is listening and
Speaker 1: who is watching what you're doing I, you know, have
Speaker 1: been told by I remember, you know, younger siblings and
Speaker 1: cousins of mine sometimes that I would do something and
Speaker 1: years later they would tell me that that made them
Speaker 1: think differently about something.
Speaker 4: Or I was at a city.
Speaker 1: Council meeting once arguing with someone about racism because why not,
Speaker 1: and his son came up to me after and said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just had never heard anyone talk like you know
Speaker 1: about those things before. And so even though you know
Speaker 1: you don't have to have the perfect answer, just having
Speaker 1: questions and being able to engage with questions and being
Speaker 1: afraid to change yourself because otherwise you'll be scared to
Speaker 1: engage in an argument with somebody.
Speaker 4: I think that matters.
Speaker 1: So in a weird way, we don't really know how
Speaker 1: to do it, but at the same time we're kind
Speaker 1: of doing it, aren't we.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I guess yeah, nobody, nobody can be led out
Speaker 8: of their own mistakes or delusion, but I think that
Speaker 8: sometimes we're able to drop a little capitalist in there
Speaker 8: that makes them start leading themselves out. Yeah. It's tricky,
Speaker 8: and I think you're right it is. It is thinking
Speaker 8: about specific things. For instance, I still remember the approximate
Speaker 8: age I was when I came to realize that yes,
Speaker 8: in fact, I am racist.
Speaker 2: That's made a using previous callers question back to the
Speaker 2: previous color. But yeah, but that is what it takes.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's like, yeah, having that realization of like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I did something that hurt people, I did something that
Speaker 3: was a problem and it's it's okay, Like no one
Speaker 3: is expecting you to be one hundred percent perfect all
Speaker 3: the time, Like that's impossible.
Speaker 2: But what's worse is doing.
Speaker 3: Something problematic and then pretending like you didn't do something
Speaker 3: problematic and just pretending like you were perfect that whole time.
Speaker 3: Like that that's worse to me than coming out and
Speaker 3: saying I was incorrect. I saw this in a problematic way.
Speaker 3: I hurt people, and like that's exactly what we need
Speaker 3: to do, like own up to it and try to
Speaker 3: be better next time.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, may I ask what led you to that realization
Speaker 1: You're saying you remember it, Like, was there anything a
Speaker 1: particular that helped you change?
Speaker 8: I don't know if there was one in particular incident,
Speaker 8: which is why I say I remember the age I
Speaker 8: was as opposed to I remember the event, but there
Speaker 8: were several things that happened. I think that was I
Speaker 8: would say maybe thirty and for a few years before
Speaker 8: I was actually genuinely seeking forget. I mean, my daily
Speaker 8: prayer was God, if you're out there, creator of this
Speaker 8: beautiful world, I want to hear your voice, even if
Speaker 8: it's only to hear you tell me I'm damned. And
Speaker 8: that went on for a long time. Finally I realized
Speaker 8: a lot of other things, and that became I think
Speaker 8: due to various interactions I had. There was a man
Speaker 8: that I occasionally ran into at the local store who
Speaker 8: didn't overtly bege but was desperately in need of assistance,
Speaker 8: and I actually realized I shouldn't just give him some money,
Speaker 8: let me engage him in conversation. And that kind of
Speaker 8: thing is what really started me realizing my own attitudes
Speaker 8: that I've held, and of course I still held. I
Speaker 8: don't think there's any way to stop being racist if
Speaker 8: like me, you're a a CIS had white male, but
Speaker 8: you can realize that yes I am privileged, Yes I
Speaker 8: am racist. I need to be careful that I don't
Speaker 8: act privileged and that I don't act racist. Needless to say,
Speaker 8: there were plenty of times when I fell down on
Speaker 8: the job but hey, you try and do better. And
Speaker 8: as my mom used to say when she was in
Speaker 8: her sixties, I think I might be starting to grow up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, good good on you for recognizing all of that.
Speaker 3: Like that takes a lot. And I know there are
Speaker 3: some people in the side chat that are happy, happy
Speaker 3: to hear about your journey and probably are in similar
Speaker 3: places themselves, Like we're all we're all constantly going through
Speaker 3: that journey and like constantly learning where we've where we've
Speaker 3: hurt people, and where we've messed up. And so I
Speaker 3: do want to applaud you for your effort and your
Speaker 3: public acknowledgment of that. That's like, that is a very
Speaker 3: mature thing to do.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think also something that stands out to me in
Speaker 1: the story is that being wrong doesn't scare you. And
Speaker 1: I think if we go back to kind of our
Speaker 1: previous caller, you know, with dodging questions and having a
Speaker 1: hard time with the idea that he could ever have
Speaker 1: been wrong, that there may be a perspective on this
Speaker 1: that he doesn't necessarily understand yet and getting real hung
Speaker 1: up on the wording of this hat white male and
Speaker 1: where it's like privilege. It seemed very fearful to me
Speaker 1: very much like I can't be wrong because that will
Speaker 1: change everything about me. I'm not the kind of person
Speaker 1: who's wrong. I've thought about this before, you know, And
Speaker 1: I feel like in your story, it's just holding truth
Speaker 1: with an open hand, that you might be wrong, but
Speaker 1: you're still seeking how to be the most right you can.
Speaker 1: And I thought, I think that's really cool.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I think there's a couple levels to that. When
Speaker 8: I was young, I was the kind of guy who
Speaker 8: had to be right, and even when I came to
Speaker 8: know I was wrong, I would still insist I was right.
Speaker 8: So I have sympathy to that. Like a long time
Speaker 8: to get out of that, But I think it was
Speaker 8: after I stopped being that way for the most part,
Speaker 8: that I actually came to realize there's two levels of
Speaker 8: rewards there. The first is if you were wrong and
Speaker 8: you come to know you're wrong and you learn better,
Speaker 8: that's just that's so great that you learn something new.
Speaker 8: But even more important was the next level, which is
Speaker 8: you learned that you were wrong and then reflect on
Speaker 8: why did I come to that incorrect conclusion? What's wrong
Speaker 8: with my tool bag? What tool am I missing? Or
Speaker 8: what tool am I miss using that allowed me to
Speaker 8: arrive at any incorrect solution. And that's how learning how
Speaker 8: to think that earned. That's one of the biggest things
Speaker 8: about life is living a reflective life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: That being said, I know we've been talking for a
Speaker 3: little bit. Is there any other kind of point that
Speaker 3: you'd like to discuss before we take another call?
Speaker 8: No, Actually, you've given me an opportunity to cover more
Speaker 8: than I originally intended to. So thank you.
Speaker 3: That was This is a great call. I appreciate you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it a lot. This is I think a
Speaker 3: really good discussion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a lovely person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a good rest of your day, Tom.
Speaker 2: If we we'll talk to Tom again. That was a great discussion. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also, you know, I lived in Mississippi for a bit,
Speaker 1: and to be honest, like, there are people in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: contrary to popular opinion, that that are wonderful and thought
Speaker 1: and I think so often they have to go through
Speaker 1: a decent amount to kind of reach these points. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of resistance from others, sometimes the history of
Speaker 1: life in the church. Sometimes you know, recognizing racism in
Speaker 1: a way that's going to make them culturally sort of outcasts,
Speaker 1: but it's really I don't know, there's some nostalgia for
Speaker 1: me and just being like, oh yeah, there are lovely people.
Speaker 1: Just it's nice when they Mississippi has some lovely people
Speaker 1: talking on the world stage a bit more so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3: And speaking of some other really cool people, Sophia, would
Speaker 3: you like to read the top five patrons this week?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: I would, all right? So Top five patrons Number one
Speaker 1: Oops all Singularity always Great, two Dingle Barry Jackson, three
Speaker 1: Kleevi Helvetti. I think I said that, I just have
Speaker 1: to run up to it for Brian Zipke, Zupka Zoop
Speaker 1: and five Ja Carlton, with an honorable mention to Amit
Speaker 1: k Pandy. So those are our our lovely top patrons
Speaker 1: this week.
Speaker 3: And if you want to get on this list of
Speaker 3: wonderful people, you can go to tiny dot, cc slash,
Speaker 3: Patreon thh and compete for a spot on this list.
Speaker 2: We do update the list every week.
Speaker 3: We have some people that continually show up, and we're
Speaker 3: very appreciative of your ongoing contributions to the ACA. But
Speaker 3: if anyone else wants to, you know, fight for a spot,
Speaker 3: it is available through the Patreon. That's just another way
Speaker 3: in addition to the other ways that I mentioned that
Speaker 3: you can support this show. Something else that I do
Speaker 3: want to mention is that you can hang out with
Speaker 3: us afterwards in the discord for the after show. So
Speaker 3: if you want to join us in ad afterwards, you
Speaker 3: can join us. The link is on the screen there
Speaker 3: a tiny sec slash ACD discord. Any other announcements, I
Speaker 3: think a.
Speaker 2: Week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, and with that we will take another caller.
Speaker 2: This is one of our.
Speaker 3: Lovely friends we talked to a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3: D They them from Iowa. It sounds like you want
Speaker 3: to talk to us about some Mormons on your doorstep.
Speaker 3: Tell us more about this story.
Speaker 9: D Hey doctor Dan, Hi, Sophia.
Speaker 2: Hi, are you doing.
Speaker 1: Hi?
Speaker 9: I'm good, I'm good. You guys really rolling the day.
Speaker 8: I'm enjoying the show.
Speaker 2: Tell us about your story?
Speaker 9: Well, I thought, well, yeah, and I thought that it
Speaker 9: kind of it really ties in nicely with your last
Speaker 9: caller and Sophia's cold open. Last year, I had a
Speaker 9: couple of young men that visited me weekly from the
Speaker 9: LDS Church and they were really lovely young men, and
Speaker 9: we were able to meet each other where we were.
Speaker 9: I never actually came out and said I was atheist
Speaker 9: to them, but you know, shared a little bit of
Speaker 9: my searching story in that and they were very receptive.
Speaker 9: And then, you know, winter in Iowa, nobody wants to
Speaker 9: do that on a regular basis. So I guess this
Speaker 9: week the official new twenty twenty five missionary season opened,
Speaker 9: and I had a couple of new young men at
Speaker 9: my doorstep, and I moved on, you know, from my
Speaker 9: willingness to engage with the lunacy of Mormonism. I learned
Speaker 9: a lot from from the previous young man, but it
Speaker 9: just wasn't anything that I wanted to dedicate any of
Speaker 9: my time to any longer, as far as conversations and exploring.
Speaker 9: And so I respectfully told these new young in that honestly,
Speaker 9: I I just was not convinced, uh that Mormonism is
Speaker 9: true or you know, real, and gave them some of
Speaker 9: my main you know, reasons for no longer wishing to engage.
Speaker 9: And they, unfortunately, these young men very were very negative.
Speaker 9: They received my uh, they received my comments very negatively,
Speaker 9: and I started looking for polite ways to you know,
Speaker 9: get get them away, just to have them continue and
Speaker 9: just you know, make a note that I was no
Speaker 9: longer interested in conversation. And it just they took it very,
Speaker 9: very personally because uh and I and I did actually
Speaker 9: tell them I do not believe in Jesus. I do
Speaker 9: not believe in Jehovah. And one of them just got
Speaker 9: you could tell he had never spo oken to someone
Speaker 9: who didn't believe in Jesus before, because he was just incredulous.
Speaker 9: He was, I can't if you if you, guys, anybody
Speaker 9: you think back to something that you took as a given,
Speaker 9: uh as an as a natural thing in your life,
Speaker 9: and somebody comes along and says, Nope, I don't believe
Speaker 9: in that. Like if somebody said I don't believe in gravity,
Speaker 9: you'd be like what.
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 9: And uh.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 9: Okay, yeah, so definitely, and so you don't believe in Jesus.
Speaker 9: And I mean his his voice went up and octave
Speaker 9: and a couple of decibels and uh. We we danced
Speaker 9: around that concept for a couple of more minutes, and
Speaker 9: I said, and then he said, well, what do you believe?
Speaker 9: And I said, why do I have to have a belief?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 9: A couple of Bibles? Yeah, right, exactly, and then a
Speaker 9: couple of Bible verses came up, and this and that
Speaker 9: and the other. And so my methodology is to engage
Speaker 9: with people where they are, So if they're going to
Speaker 9: engage with the Bible, I'll engage with the Bible back.
Speaker 9: And then when I did that, that was even worse
Speaker 9: than saying I didn't believe in Jesus, because I don't
Speaker 9: believe in Jesus, but I still quoted the Bible. So
Speaker 9: I was blaspheming basically.
Speaker 1: Well did they yeah, because basically you're Satan now, right,
Speaker 1: because Satan knows the Bible too.
Speaker 9: Right, right, and he's like, you don't know anything, and
Speaker 9: blah blah blah. And so you know, these missionaries go
Speaker 9: out when they're like twenty something, after they've read a
Speaker 9: couple of after they've read a couple of Mormon manuals,
Speaker 9: and engaged in kind of like mock debates, and I,
Speaker 9: instead of being angry with these young men, I was
Speaker 9: really sad for them. Number One, that their turn, that
Speaker 9: their church sent them out so unprepared and that all
Speaker 9: they had to hang on to was Jesus. And I
Speaker 9: was directly challenging that, and it was very threatening for them,
Speaker 9: very unpleasant for them, and I'm sorry that I I'm
Speaker 9: sorry that they responded to me that way, but I
Speaker 9: blamed their church for that because when all you know,
Speaker 9: they I understand the isolationism that a culty church imposes
Speaker 9: on their members because I was there, there was a
Speaker 9: there was a there was a point in my life
Speaker 9: where I had absolutely no contact with the outside world
Speaker 9: except maybe when I went grocery shopping.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and just like that, that script that they have
Speaker 2: to follow. And it's why too.
Speaker 3: On this show, we'll get people that call in who
Speaker 3: are apologize students or there's some kind of missionary and
Speaker 3: they'll call in thinking that they're just going to use
Speaker 3: that same script that they use with everybody else, and
Speaker 3: that script doesn't work here. Like we've all read their script.
Speaker 3: We know what they're going to say when we try
Speaker 3: to get them off it tell us what you actually believe, like,
Speaker 3: and it's so hard for them to do that. And
Speaker 3: I agree that it's their church that did this to them.
Speaker 3: They taught them exactly what words to say, like if
Speaker 3: they say this, you say this, And that's not how
Speaker 3: the world works, and that's not how a lot of
Speaker 3: people are going to respond to discussion. And I know
Speaker 3: it sounds like it feels harsh. It feels like you
Speaker 3: traumatize them a little bit, and maybe that's the case.
Speaker 3: But sometimes with those people you have to shock their
Speaker 3: system a little bit, like they have to feel a
Speaker 3: little embarrassed, they have to question what they said, and
Speaker 3: sometimes that's a way to get them out or at
Speaker 3: least start questioning. So even if it feels harsh like it,
Speaker 3: I probably would have done a similar thing for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think also, and.
Speaker 9: Like the prior, like your prior caller said that that
Speaker 9: we need critical thinking skills, we need you know, we
Speaker 9: need to And I've watched something on the Nonprofits earlier
Speaker 9: about the f fr F and American Atheists lawsuit and
Speaker 9: how the hosts were saying, you need to dig deeper
Speaker 9: and not just swallow anything you see. And uh, and
Speaker 9: I felt a real kinship with your previous caller, you know,
Speaker 9: because of that, and uh, and I was not being rude.
Speaker 9: I did get you know, irritated a little bit, and
Speaker 9: I and I asked him, uh, you know, I did
Speaker 9: ask him. I'm like, why why are you getting so
Speaker 9: emotional with this? And He's like you're telling us we're wrong.
Speaker 9: That's really rude.
Speaker 4: I mean rudeness.
Speaker 9: You know, I'm not, I'm not I'm I'm not telling
Speaker 9: you you're wrong. I'm telling you why I'm not vinched.
Speaker 9: I think so tonight. Really, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Rudeness is such a social thing, right, You know the
Speaker 1: number of times I've been told that I'm too much,
Speaker 1: that I'm rude, that I'm brash, or given the question
Speaker 1: could you have gone about that a better way, It's
Speaker 1: like it's always because somebody was, you know, didn't like
Speaker 1: the thing I said. And I mean sometimes I was
Speaker 1: rude on purpose got to say like that. I know
Speaker 1: that I cross some social boundaries sometimes, but it's like
Speaker 1: it's just a way to not have to listen, you know,
Speaker 1: to just say like, oh, that was rude. You know, well,
Speaker 1: it's rude that you're knocking on my door at my
Speaker 1: home trying to tell me that I need to believe
Speaker 1: in your very specific, very culty book. And you know,
Speaker 1: when I think about these these young Mormon missionaries, I
Speaker 1: also think a lot about young scientologists. They're kept in
Speaker 1: similar conditions, they're trained in similar ways. They are are
Speaker 1: sent out into the world to be rejected basically as
Speaker 1: sort of a test of see the world is bad,
Speaker 1: come back to us. We are the only good people.
Speaker 1: We are the only ones who are actually trying to
Speaker 1: help mankind. And they don't even want to listen. There's
Speaker 1: this really strong narrative that is married to ignorance. And
Speaker 1: then they're cut off from their families a lot of
Speaker 1: the time. If you read and listen, two ex Mormons
Speaker 1: talk about what it's like to be on these missions.
Speaker 1: It's kind of painful, like they really aren't treated well
Speaker 1: and as a result, they're kind of you know, if
Speaker 1: you think about mind control conditions, you make someone miserable,
Speaker 1: you make them think the world is evil and bad,
Speaker 1: and you don't give them any out other than to
Speaker 1: do exactly what you tell them to. And yeah, it's
Speaker 1: horrifying to watch. You know, you got to wonder if
Speaker 1: someone's so threatened by critical thinking, what is it that
Speaker 1: they're planning on doing? And realistically, we know, you know,
Speaker 1: they've been around long enough, we know that they want power,
Speaker 1: and these poor little guys are the victims of it.
Speaker 9: I know the way you know when you you said,
Speaker 9: you know they're kept they're kept in isolation, they're trained,
Speaker 9: Like I mean, it's almost like they're training attack dogs
Speaker 9: and yeah, you know what I'm saying. I'm like, they're
Speaker 9: throwing them out there, like throwing a couple of fighting
Speaker 9: dogs into a fighting pit and see who comes out.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is interesting when you have a
Speaker 3: religion that instead of sending their their best, like, instead
Speaker 3: of sending their preachers, instead of sending their higher ups
Speaker 3: who like theoretically went to seminary or went through some
Speaker 3: other training or were ordained in some way to like
Speaker 3: be that minister, Like, instead of sending out the religious
Speaker 3: leaders to do that, they're sending out the most young,
Speaker 3: the most inexperienced, the most the most new people out
Speaker 3: to do that. It's like, are you really so like,
Speaker 3: if you're so confident in this hierarchy of a system,
Speaker 3: if you're in that the preachers, you know, the top
Speaker 3: of the food chain, why is like, why are you
Speaker 3: not sending your.
Speaker 2: Best people out there?
Speaker 3: Like if you really want people to be persuaded or whatever, like,
Speaker 3: why are you not sending your best? And part of
Speaker 3: it maybe too they it's of course a way to
Speaker 3: indoctrinate their younger people. It's a way to force people
Speaker 3: to obey and to get so in so invested in
Speaker 3: this organization and the fear of punishment, the fear of
Speaker 3: being ostracized, et cetera. Like, there are plenty of reasons
Speaker 3: why they're sending the young people out there to do it.
Speaker 3: And it's it's not to be more persuasive. It's not
Speaker 3: to actually like I mean, of course it's a further
Speaker 3: the religion, but it's it's not to give their best arguments.
Speaker 2: That's not the point of this. The point is. The
Speaker 2: point is.
Speaker 3: To indoctrinate their own people and to have like friendly
Speaker 3: young people try to convince other young people to give
Speaker 3: into this stuff.
Speaker 2: And it's just it's very interesting.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, they're going to send them out there and
Speaker 9: say and then they come back after an experience like
Speaker 9: this and they will say, see, the outside world is dangerous.
Speaker 4: The outside exactly.
Speaker 9: We are the wells that understand you. We are the
Speaker 9: ones who will protect you.
Speaker 4: And we mentioned too the attack dog analogy. Yeah, we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't value attack dogs for their creativity and individuality, right,
Speaker 1: We value them because they are trained to do exactly
Speaker 1: what they are told. And when I think about the
Speaker 1: utter waste of human beauty and creativity and variety that
Speaker 1: is created when we essentially force this flattening for the
Speaker 1: sake of religion. You know, you can't on the one
Speaker 1: hand say that God created you and this beautiful world
Speaker 1: and you are part God and you're in God's image,
Speaker 1: and at the same time say suppress all of those
Speaker 1: instincts and only do what we tell you. It's this
Speaker 1: very weird way to live, and it causes so much
Speaker 1: damage to those individuals. And you know, yeah, I wish
Speaker 1: I had a better conclusion than you know, but it's
Speaker 1: just a fucking tragedy.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Well, and the last thing I want to say
Speaker 9: about it is, the next time you see a couple
Speaker 9: of LDS young man on your porch knocking at your door,
Speaker 9: maybe maybe be a little more tolerant. Just realize that
Speaker 9: they're still they're still in development, they're still developing, they're young.
Speaker 1: You don't have those frontal lobes yet.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why I love I love methods like street epistemology.
Speaker 3: I think I think SC is a great way to
Speaker 3: approach those people. It's like, you don't even have to
Speaker 3: be aggressive with them, you don't have to even give
Speaker 3: any you don't have to give any of your own arguments.
Speaker 3: You can just sit back and ask questions. And that's
Speaker 3: what And they're they're probably going to feel invited to
Speaker 3: answer questions, because that's the whole reason that go and
Speaker 3: talk to people, Like they're under the assumption that they
Speaker 3: there to answer your questions about Mormonism. So take that,
Speaker 3: take that invitation, ask them some of those harder questions,
Speaker 3: but just frame ask questions. Frame it as innocent questions
Speaker 3: of like, yeah, what convinced you that this is true?
Speaker 3: Or like where did you find this? How did you
Speaker 3: arrive at this conclusion? Do you believe this is literal?
Speaker 8: Do you?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: You can ask those questions that we ask on the show,
Speaker 3: and you can keep it very gentle, and it's in
Speaker 3: their court then what they do with those questions and
Speaker 3: how they sift through that, and you might not get
Speaker 3: good results, Like in that moment, they might not openly
Speaker 3: start questioning it, but when they go home that night,
Speaker 3: they're going to have to come to terms with the
Speaker 3: questions that they were asked and like, oh, maybe I
Speaker 3: don't know how I got this information, or maybe I
Speaker 3: only believe this because I was born in this culture,
Speaker 3: like how much confidence do I give faith? And is
Speaker 3: faith a good way to arrive at any conclusion? And
Speaker 3: I think a lot of those questions carry a lot
Speaker 3: of weight for peace people. So yeah, you don't have
Speaker 3: to be aggressive. You can just sit back and ask
Speaker 3: questions and that can do a lot of the heavy
Speaker 3: lifting for you.
Speaker 9: Right right, Well, thanks for letting me share my thoughts
Speaker 9: on that, and I really appreciate you. Like I said,
Speaker 9: you guys are rocking it today, so I'll get awesome
Speaker 9: and give someone else a chance. You guys, I hope
Speaker 9: I'll see you at the after show.
Speaker 8: Take care.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, well chat in the after show. Thanks for
Speaker 3: calling Indy. Always appreciate your calls. A and yeah, and
Speaker 3: we are right at the end of the show. But
Speaker 3: that being said, we do have the after show in Discord,
Speaker 3: and for people who didn't get a chance to call
Speaker 3: in but still want to bring something up, callin next week.
Speaker 2: We're here every Sunday. Next week. I believe it's Christy
Speaker 2: Powell and who else is on?
Speaker 4: Sure, that's a great question.
Speaker 3: You can find that out later and surprise, surprise, you'll
Speaker 3: find out a mystery co host on next week. But
Speaker 3: we do have somebody in the basement here. I mean
Speaker 3: you saw him earlier, Richard Julliver the Welshmen. Bring him
Speaker 3: back on the show, bring him up in the basement.
Speaker 3: Have any thoughts on today's show.
Speaker 5: Chid I I've got a few thoughts on Steve. Better
Speaker 5: leave them, said unsaid.
Speaker 1: To hear more.
Speaker 5: Regarding the moments, I, my wife was part of that
Speaker 5: cult for a couple of years. We had to take
Speaker 5: them to court to get hurt and the children's names
Speaker 5: off their lists of their books, because they don't allow
Speaker 5: you to leave so they can falsely inflate their numbers.
Speaker 5: While we were doing that, they sent a couple of
Speaker 5: missionaries around or I politely told and the people in
Speaker 5: the church, the people are lovely, by the way, they
Speaker 5: really are, are politely told to the missionaries. You know
Speaker 5: that we didn't want to see them. I then sent
Speaker 5: an open message on Facebook so the bishop of the
Speaker 5: local Mormon church and I do not condone these actions.
Speaker 5: By the way, the ACA does not condone any action
Speaker 5: like this. This is my own personal opinion. I sent
Speaker 5: an open message to the bishop on Facebook for all
Speaker 5: to see, telling him that if he sent any more
Speaker 5: missionaries round to my house again, I would hand deliver
Speaker 5: them back to him, and I then got a private
Speaker 5: message back say no, it was all a mistake, they
Speaker 5: didn't mean to come round. Blah blah blah, and then
Speaker 5: we never heard from them again. They are a dangerous
Speaker 5: cult and they should be avoided at all costs. They
Speaker 5: they are The organization is horrible. It's manipulative, it's vile.
Speaker 5: It is one of the worst ones out there, and
Speaker 5: it dresses itself up behind these genuinely innocent, lovely guys
Speaker 5: and gals.
Speaker 2: It sends out to.
Speaker 5: Kind of get people's get hooks into people. That is
Speaker 5: my opinion on the moments.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, any any other calls you wanted to hit on.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, we had a couple of great calls. Steve is,
Speaker 5: let's leave that instead and if.
Speaker 2: You want to hear Richard's thoughts on.
Speaker 1: Steve.
Speaker 2: Look, this is this is the thing with Steve.
Speaker 5: Steve said, you know, we weren't You're not allowed to
Speaker 5: have a sense of humor in today's society, Steve, We
Speaker 5: let you on our show. We've got a fucking amazing
Speaker 5: sense of humor.
Speaker 6: Mate.
Speaker 5: That's all I'm saying on that one. I'm fucking off, bye.
Speaker 3: Bye, And and as far as targeting people with humor,
Speaker 3: I've been targeting Richard with humor like all day and
Speaker 3: he's only mildly offended every time I call him Welsh,
Speaker 3: So saying I'm actually saying Richard probably not Richard is
Speaker 3: is the type of person. He seems like the kind
Speaker 3: of person that would pay eight pounds for some cheese
Speaker 3: on some toast.
Speaker 5: On the note of privilege, on the note of privilege,
Speaker 5: this is this is a serious point. On the note
Speaker 5: of privilege. What a lot of people, what a lot
Speaker 5: of cis White guys don't realize is that you know,
Speaker 5: And I mentioned I was on the show last night
Speaker 5: and I talked about this. What we what we have
Speaker 5: done is we have basically, if we if we view
Speaker 5: kind of Life as a game of dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 5: We've rolled and would rolling a ten sided die. We've
Speaker 5: rolled a ten for all of our attributes, and then
Speaker 5: we walk round slaying everyone thinking I'm brilliant, I'm fantastic,
Speaker 5: isn't it me? When actually it's just the look of
Speaker 5: the draw. You know, you've had the look of the
Speaker 5: draw to be born into a position of privilege where
Speaker 5: you're not undergoing what people like Ben and what people
Speaker 5: like Sophia and what people like my good friend Cynthia
Speaker 5: McDonald are undergoing. That that society kind of prejudice against you.
Speaker 5: You're not aware of it. You're not aware of it
Speaker 5: because you're not in the position suffer it. And no
Speaker 5: matter how much we empathize, we cannot know what it's
Speaker 5: like to be in that position. So all we can
Speaker 5: do is facilitate people's voices or are in that position
Speaker 5: and say, look, we value you. Here's a fucking platform.
Speaker 5: Speak for yourselves, and that's the best way to do it,
Speaker 5: you know. Just just be there for people and give
Speaker 5: them your support. But don't pretend that you're not privileged,
Speaker 5: because you are. We are, I am.
Speaker 3: And make fun of you can make fun of each other,
Speaker 3: but make fun of each other to actually, like you
Speaker 3: can joke about things that somebody fucked up, like if
Speaker 3: somebody said the wrong word, Like if today's Sunday and
Speaker 3: I say like happy Monday, you can laugh all you
Speaker 3: wanted me because that's something I did that was funny
Speaker 3: and stupid. Like making fun of someone's actions is also
Speaker 3: different from making fun of somebody's identity.
Speaker 2: Or someone's like.
Speaker 5: Absolutely actually so they cannot let me tell you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, make fun of things they can control if
Speaker 3: you want, and just but keep it tact full.
Speaker 2: That's alwoome.
Speaker 3: Any other comments before we wrap this up and head
Speaker 3: over to Discord.
Speaker 4: Particularly head over to Discord.
Speaker 3: Well again, actually no, we do have a super chat
Speaker 3: that I will read out from Miranda Rensburger ten dollars saying,
Speaker 3: great show today, lots of really awesome conversations.
Speaker 2: Thank you and thank you Miranda Rensburger.
Speaker 3: You are one of our VIPs, showing up every week
Speaker 3: and always given super chats.
Speaker 2: We greatly appreciate you, and I.
Speaker 5: Believe you bring Christy and Jimmy Junior next week. By
Speaker 5: the way, everyone hosting so yes, yes, Christy and Jimmy Junior,
Speaker 5: so make sure you're here from that because they're both
Speaker 5: fucking awesome people as well.
Speaker 1: If anyone hasn't watched before and they're wondering why green
Speaker 1: things are happening.
Speaker 3: Yes, these are love rings, sending them out to all
Speaker 3: of you, and again join us for discussion in the discord.
Speaker 2: Tiny dots, that's the.
Speaker 3: This is lovering sception and if you want some more
Speaker 3: lovering sception or want to criticize us for a lovering sception,
Speaker 3: you can tell us in the discord. We'll be there
Speaker 3: after this. And if you don't believe this is your community,
Speaker 3: we appreciate all of you being here, We appreciate having
Speaker 3: some good hearted, tact fully humor with you all. And
Speaker 3: if you do believe we don't hate you.
Speaker 4: I'm just not convinced, dear one.
Speaker 7: We want the truth, So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays
Speaker 7: at seven pm Central Call five one two nine nine
Speaker 7: two four two, or visit tiny dot cc forward slash
Speaker 7: call tw