Speaker 1: I'm speaking with folks that I go to school with
Speaker 1: at my Christian university lately, and someone made a joke
Speaker 1: about an atheist baby. I thought that was interesting and
Speaker 1: pointed out that there's no such thing as an atheist baby.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as a Christian baby either. There's
Speaker 1: just babies. Babies have to be taught that they're fundamentally
Speaker 1: sinning and unworthy of love and everything is given as
Speaker 1: a grace to them. They have to be taught that
Speaker 1: they have to submit to an arbitrary and capricious God,
Speaker 1: or else they will burn forever in hell. Because I
Speaker 1: don't have to teach my children this, I get to
Speaker 1: appreciate them for just who they are, these wonderful, hilarious,
Speaker 1: emotionally fascinating creatures. I can see them for them, and
Speaker 1: not as future missionaries or as potential fodder for an
Speaker 1: eternal flame. So do you think that I'm a bad
Speaker 1: mom for not introducing my children to God explicitly?
Speaker 2: Or do you wish maybe you had been raised without religion?
Speaker 1: Either way, give us a call, because the show is
Speaker 1: starting now. I was just gonna start wooing like just
Speaker 1: on my own, just out of like excitement, and then
Speaker 1: I forgot there was an audience for a second, and
Speaker 1: so I was just like, oh, yeah, that was so great. Anyway, Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome everyone. Today is Sunday, March twenty third, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Sophia Spina, and here next to
Speaker 1: me is a lovely Thomas Westbrook, also known as Holy
Speaker 1: kool Aid, known from Holy kool Aid.
Speaker 2: How you doing.
Speaker 3: Hey, It's great to be on. It's bell while. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it's been a few years since I've been
Speaker 3: in one of these seats.
Speaker 2: How do you feel?
Speaker 3: Great to be back? It's good to be on and
Speaker 3: so much has changed. So much has changed, a few
Speaker 3: new faces, a few old faces, but overall just you
Speaker 3: guys continue to keep plugging away and doing good work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is our first time hosting together. Obviously I'm
Speaker 1: one of the newer faces, you know.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I'm one of the old guard from
Speaker 3: long long ago. I just realized that this this year
Speaker 3: will be the ten year anniversary of launching my channel.
Speaker 3: So I've been at this for a while.
Speaker 1: That's amazing ten years, ten years, nine years full time.
Speaker 1: But that makes me feel old or are you like?
Speaker 1: What what's like a big maybe lesson.
Speaker 3: Don't remind me. I still like when people carved me
Speaker 3: at the bar. But yeah, you know, if I shave
Speaker 3: this off and then then I have a little bit
Speaker 3: of a baby face. I haven't done botox or anything,
Speaker 3: but it's not too Yeah, I like to think that
Speaker 3: at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could just be a very stressed out child
Speaker 1: with crow's feet.
Speaker 3: You know, fair just be you know, these odds have
Speaker 3: seen things.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love it. Is there any like
Speaker 1: big like takeaway from ten years if you were to
Speaker 1: be like, what's what's a thing?
Speaker 3: Ooh? I mean, I think one major thing is that,
Speaker 3: like you can't get too hung up on whether or
Speaker 3: not you change a specific person's mind. The important thing
Speaker 3: is that you're you're doing your best, You're getting good
Speaker 3: information out there, do your research. There's no excuse nowadays,
Speaker 3: it's I mean, especially with chat ept and with other
Speaker 3: tools that are making it easier and easier to gather
Speaker 3: gather information and source information and perplexity, et cetera. Like
Speaker 3: there's no reason that we can't figure out how something works.
Speaker 3: But if you do your research and you have these conversations,
Speaker 3: just keep at it, stay strong, because like there's always
Speaker 3: going to be drama and in fighting, both with your
Speaker 3: own groups and with groups that you're taking on and
Speaker 3: that you're trying to persuade. But you can't get too
Speaker 3: caught up emotionally in the outcomes. But I think in
Speaker 3: the long term we're having domino effects and those those
Speaker 3: domino effects work. I like that.
Speaker 2: It was almost like a moment of just like, that's
Speaker 2: the show for today. That's how we need to know.
Speaker 2: Is just that there you go.
Speaker 3: That is have I been talking a whole hour and
Speaker 3: a half?
Speaker 1: You gave us an hour and a half where it's
Speaker 1: That was some very efficient wisdom. I would say, you
Speaker 1: know that that was great. I didn't just for audience knowledge.
Speaker 1: I did not tell her I was going to ask
Speaker 1: him that question. I didn't think of it until he
Speaker 1: said that right then. That was just all on the fly.
Speaker 1: So well done, sir. Part of what's exciting about today
Speaker 1: is that we are in person here at the Free
Speaker 1: Thought Library, and we have a live audience. Like I
Speaker 1: mentioned right there, Yeah, this.
Speaker 3: Is all real. This is not an AI generated table
Speaker 3: right there. This is not a green scream.
Speaker 2: Yes, look at the number of fingers he has. It's correct.
Speaker 1: Yay, yeah, that's I feel like some I'll feel threatened
Speaker 1: by AI when it figures out how many fingers people have.
Speaker 1: So yeah, definitely collin with whatever is on your mind today.
Speaker 2: But real quick, we want to remind you that.
Speaker 1: Talk Heathen is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin,
Speaker 1: which is where we're at here in the Free Thought Library,
Speaker 1: which is a five oh one c three nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism,
Speaker 1: and the separation of religion and government. So if you're
Speaker 1: down for not being told what to do by religious demagogues,
Speaker 1: come hang out with us.
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Talk Heathen is a live call in show and we
Speaker 1: have open lines, so get your calls in at five
Speaker 1: one two nine nine one nine two four to two,
Speaker 1: or you can call from your computer at tiny dot
Speaker 1: cc slash call t H. That's five one two nine
Speaker 1: nine to one nine two four to two or tiny
Speaker 1: dot CEC slash call t H. Both of these are
Speaker 1: also at the bottom of the screen, so you can
Speaker 1: just like look there if you don't, you know, remember
Speaker 1: from my little little jiggy call there, I really just
Speaker 1: started talking and like beat really.
Speaker 2: Quick, all right.
Speaker 1: But first before we just hate calls, we are going
Speaker 1: to talk do our weekly segment, talk heathen to Me.
Speaker 1: So it's time for talk Ethan to Me segment, which
Speaker 1: is where we get into.
Speaker 2: The question of the week.
Speaker 1: Last week we asked you what is the most surprising
Speaker 1: thing in God's browser history? Oh my goodness, and here
Speaker 1: are top three answers, which Johnny and Katie have a
Speaker 1: tough time choosing because they were all so good. So,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's it definitely makes sense. Okay, So Thomas,
Speaker 1: do you want to go ahead and read out number
Speaker 1: three from mister Mark Corey.
Speaker 3: Yes, from God's own browser history, non lethal alternatives to
Speaker 3: drowning the world. Geez, well, I guess you kind of
Speaker 3: shot himself in the foot with that rainbow because you know,
Speaker 3: I can't I can't do can't do a global flood anymore.
Speaker 3: But you know, the Bible never says anything about fire,
Speaker 3: so he can go true.
Speaker 1: Apocalypsis just sinkholes for everyone.
Speaker 3: That Christian legally is God's Like, gotcha? Grab number two?
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, So number two with why Sally b you
Speaker 1: want to hit it?
Speaker 3: Top baby names for year one?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love that there's that one movie
Speaker 1: where somebody says they're talking about wine and they're like,
Speaker 1: was one a good year?
Speaker 2: And I feel like I love that.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you think about it now, you can
Speaker 3: pull up okay, in the last ten years or this
Speaker 3: year one of the most common names, because there's all
Speaker 3: these other people that have been naming their kids. But
Speaker 3: if you're God and there's no one around, it's like,
Speaker 3: is Barb a good name? Like nobody's ever been named before.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and say, yes, Blarb is an
Speaker 1: excellent name. Your child will have a distinguished life, good
Speaker 1: or bad so. And then number one Joe Beforetuna says
Speaker 1: do you want to want to throw that?
Speaker 3: I would you impregnate own mom with me?
Speaker 1: Oh that hurts? Yeah, one would have to google that, and.
Speaker 3: You shall name every manual that was also in the
Speaker 3: top baby names, like after he chose at on here.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I feel like I'm in my brain.
Speaker 1: There's just sort of a long sketch going on that
Speaker 1: incorporates all of these so like snil style, Yeah, Sunday
Speaker 1: Night Live, although I'm sure some horrible church has done
Speaker 1: that and it was terrible, all right, The prompt for
Speaker 1: next week is finish the joke three wise men walk
Speaker 1: into a stable. Do you have an idea for this?
Speaker 1: Three wisemen walk into a stable?
Speaker 3: Three wise men walk into a stable? And I'm drawing blanks.
Speaker 1: Which is why we need you to write down below
Speaker 1: what your best answer for.
Speaker 2: This question is.
Speaker 1: Post your best answer below in the video comments, and
Speaker 1: next week we will read them all out. So I'm
Speaker 1: anxious to see what our audience comes up with, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, post it in the comment section and tune
Speaker 1: in next week. We can we can see what y'all
Speaker 1: have come up with, all right. I also want to
Speaker 1: mention that this show is not done just with us. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we're in this huge studio. There's a ton of amazing
Speaker 1: people that help with this. So if we can show
Speaker 1: the crew real quick, those are our heroes in every way.
Speaker 2: Look at all them folks, they're amazing.
Speaker 1: The Heathen's behind the scenes. Then's, oh my goodness, maybe
Speaker 1: they're not. It's a terrible joke, but a wonderful crew,
Speaker 1: so great for that.
Speaker 2: We love them all right.
Speaker 1: So we're still looking like we have some calls coming
Speaker 1: in and people are still looking at them, and let's
Speaker 1: see oh nope, we got them out there, all right,
Speaker 1: So let's see. I'm sorry, I'm like talking out loud
Speaker 1: or thinking out loud as we go. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about let's talk with Cliff he him from Ohio.
Speaker 3: Evolution versus Creation?
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Cliff, tell us about your thoughts on
Speaker 1: evolution versus creation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can hear you. What would what would you
Speaker 3: like to what would you like to bring up?
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, yeah, I've I've got some thoughts on
Speaker 4: some boughs. Just willing to talk with you guys for
Speaker 4: a little bit and I'll tell you why cool. I've
Speaker 4: watched some of your YouTube stuff and I see where
Speaker 4: there are some kids on there that are watching you
Speaker 4: are going to church, and they're starting to question whether
Speaker 4: there's a guy or not. And I don't have a
Speaker 4: problem if it's me and you, but I have a
Speaker 4: problem with kids. So there you go. I'm just laying
Speaker 4: that out for you a little bit. Okay, but if
Speaker 4: you wanted, if you would like to discuss a little
Speaker 4: bit of creation and versus evolution, I can do that.
Speaker 4: I'm not a I'm not an apologist or apologetic or
Speaker 4: whatever they are. But uh, I mean we can start
Speaker 4: in genders is one, and you can go and then
Speaker 4: some of that. I've listened to you. It's about well,
Speaker 4: grass couldn't grow without the sun, right, I've heard your
Speaker 4: comments on that, so you can go through creation.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's kind of what you said you
Speaker 1: wanted to call in about God. So so, yeah, can
Speaker 1: you give us a good like summary of you tell
Speaker 1: us like in a in a bullet point because it's,
Speaker 1: you know, a Collins show, so we don't have it
Speaker 1: be conversation. What do you think is the major flaw
Speaker 1: with the idea of evolution?
Speaker 4: What's the major flaw with evolution?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Okay, how did everythings start?
Speaker 3: Well, so you you go there so close?
Speaker 4: How did what what evolved into a man? Where'd it
Speaker 4: come from? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So this is actually a very good question. There are
Speaker 3: two different fields of science, right One is a biogenesis,
Speaker 3: which is the origin of life itself, and then you
Speaker 3: have evolution, which is once you have these cells, how
Speaker 3: do they change over time? And the second one, evolution
Speaker 3: is something that we clearly see happening right now. You
Speaker 3: can look at a bacteria and you see mutations, you
Speaker 3: see it changing, you see it pick up new genetic material.
Speaker 3: You see things over from one generation to the next,
Speaker 3: passes on traits, and the traits that are beneficial to
Speaker 3: survival stay and the ones that aren't get lost. And
Speaker 3: there's a lot of complications that go into it, but
Speaker 3: that's the gist of it. Now. Evolution we see in
Speaker 3: every field of science. This isn't just in the fossil record,
Speaker 3: although we have that. This isn't just in looking at
Speaker 3: like the geological time scale. It isn't just withdi radiometric dating.
Speaker 3: It isn't just with you know, paleontology or biology. Like
Speaker 3: it's every single field of science. It all fits the data,
Speaker 3: it all fits. If it's like even diagram where all
Speaker 3: of the data is like clustered in one place, all
Speaker 3: of these circles, all of these these different fields of science,
Speaker 3: it all overlaps on evolution. So I think what you're
Speaker 3: asking is how do we get life from non life
Speaker 3: so that evolution can get started? And for that, if you.
Speaker 4: How do we get how do we get anything?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's anything start? Where was what was your Oh.
Speaker 3: Well, I was just gonna say, I think that that's
Speaker 3: a really good question. There is actually a lot more
Speaker 3: science that's been done on this, a lot of experiments
Speaker 3: that have shown that the building blocks for life do
Speaker 3: form together naturally. So you do have things like amino
Speaker 3: acids and nucleic acids and things carbohydrates and lipids and
Speaker 3: things that do form on their own. And there's been
Speaker 3: experiments like the miller Uri experiment, and that was back
Speaker 3: in the forties. There's been hundreds of experiments since then
Speaker 3: that have been looking at the different mechanisms whereby this
Speaker 3: could happen. And we've got a lot of pieces of
Speaker 3: the puzzle where we can see, oh, hey, you have
Speaker 3: these normal forces of nature that are causing these things
Speaker 3: to form together on their own. Now you can go
Speaker 3: further back and further back and further back, and we
Speaker 3: don't have every piece of the puzzle, and we're not
Speaker 3: gonna pretend like we do. But when you have all
Speaker 3: of these pieces that all align with this one picture,
Speaker 3: then you start seeing that. You start seeing how stars
Speaker 3: form naturally, how all that stars need is gravity, matter
Speaker 3: and time, and then they form and they fuse together,
Speaker 3: and these giant fireballs and eventually there's so much pressure
Speaker 3: that it ignites. It doesn't need anything more than the
Speaker 3: basic laws of the universe for stars to start, and
Speaker 3: then as they burn up their fuel, they collapse in
Speaker 3: on themselves and explode outward. And all of that matter,
Speaker 3: all of those those basic elements that have been fused
Speaker 3: together in this high pressure environment and formed more complex atoms.
Speaker 3: Like we see these things go from less complex to
Speaker 3: more complex. And it's something that we can study, that
Speaker 3: we can know. And when you start to get all
Speaker 3: of those pieces, when you're really curious about this and
Speaker 3: you dive deep into it, then this is the direction
Speaker 3: that it points. Does that kind of answer your question?
Speaker 4: Okay? Well then how no? Not really? So okay, what
Speaker 4: about when the Bible says that everything gives, everything comes
Speaker 4: of its own seed, everything gives after its own time.
Speaker 1: Why do I ask you to answer the question of
Speaker 1: how evolution works by looking at what the Bible says?
Speaker 2: Why are we only bound to that?
Speaker 4: Okay, you're you're not I'm asking you on my side now,
Speaker 4: I'm starting with the Bible. You've been with your scientific
Speaker 4: How about the Bible? So but me doesn't we don't
Speaker 4: have to stick science because here you go go ahead.
Speaker 1: Well we don't you know, you're saying, we're talking on
Speaker 1: your side? Now, first of all, you can't say that
Speaker 1: it's our side of science and your side is the
Speaker 1: Bible and then say they don't contradict, so like, if
Speaker 1: they work together, then great, but everything coming from its
Speaker 1: own seed. Nowhere do I think he said anything that
Speaker 1: says that that's not true. You know, a human does
Speaker 1: give birth to a human. We're talking about changes over time,
Speaker 1: so that seems to.
Speaker 3: Really really do you think that that's not I can
Speaker 3: I explain it because I think maybe where the disconnect
Speaker 3: is happening is if I have a child, that child
Speaker 3: is going to be human. If you have a child,
Speaker 3: that child is going to be human. No one is
Speaker 3: expecting you to have a child that has the head
Speaker 3: of a crocodile and the body of a human. That's
Speaker 3: not how this works. But if you have a child
Speaker 3: the higher scientific community, if you go and take a
Speaker 3: biology course, this is not how it works. And I
Speaker 3: think that that's where people a lot of times I've
Speaker 3: seen creation is pain evolution as that that is not
Speaker 3: what anyone is arguing. That is not the argument. That
Speaker 3: is a strong am position of what we're claiming. What
Speaker 3: we're saying is I might give birth to a human
Speaker 3: and Let's say that Sophia goes off and lives on
Speaker 3: Mars and joins a new colony, and I stay behind
Speaker 3: on Earth and we're separated for a million years. Over
Speaker 3: that period of time, I will continue to have human babies,
Speaker 3: and they might have a tiny genetic change, and then
Speaker 3: their children have a tiny genetic change, and there's a
Speaker 3: tiny and then there might be a sure where there's
Speaker 3: massive global warming and we have to adapt to that,
Speaker 3: and some of us die out who are less resistant
Speaker 3: to heat, and some are better able to regulate their temperature.
Speaker 3: And so there's these little changes that happen, and over
Speaker 3: time those changes compiling compiling, compiling, compile, And if you
Speaker 3: get to that long end of the line a million
Speaker 3: years from now, my descendants are going to look very
Speaker 3: very different than me. Now, that doesn't mean that my
Speaker 3: immediate offspring is going to be radically different, because it
Speaker 3: happens on very small time scales. Does that make sense, Well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's assuming that it's all going to work out
Speaker 4: that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I think that we assume that because we've
Speaker 2: seen that.
Speaker 1: Happen before, because we're able to make predictions when we
Speaker 1: talk about evolution that do turn out to be true.
Speaker 4: Ben here for but we haven't been here for millions
Speaker 4: and millions and millions of years.
Speaker 2: Do you believe we've been here about six thousand you.
Speaker 4: That is what? That is what evolution says.
Speaker 2: Now make clarify.
Speaker 4: Millions of years.
Speaker 1: May clarify that is indeed what I believe. Are you
Speaker 1: saying that you think we have not been here for
Speaker 1: that long? How long do you think we have been here?
Speaker 4: I believe what the Bible says. I believe we've only
Speaker 4: been around for about six thousand years.
Speaker 3: How do you know that the Bible is true because
Speaker 3: you're taking it on its word, but there are other
Speaker 3: holy texts from other religions.
Speaker 4: You were one hundred percent, I'm taking it ons word.
Speaker 1: Okay, So then there's no real point I believe the
Speaker 1: Bible or anything else, because if you're just saying that
Speaker 1: I believe these exact words as I understand them, and
Speaker 1: the Bible does never say that the earth is only
Speaker 1: six thousand years old, You're right, there doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a contradiction between science and religion. But by saying
Speaker 1: that it's only six thousand years old, you're sort of
Speaker 1: forcing that contradiction. There's a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: atheist community who are here because we're from backgrounds or
Speaker 1: families that said, the Bible says the Earth is six
Speaker 1: thousand years old, and then we learn even a tiny
Speaker 1: bit about science and are like, wow, most of what
Speaker 1: I was I was actively being lied to. So I
Speaker 1: would say, maybe look into that idea a little bit.
Speaker 1: But if you're coming in to say that you're wanting to,
Speaker 1: you know, let us talk about you have this idea
Speaker 1: that's better than evolution, and it's just because you take
Speaker 1: the Bible at its word. Do you see how that's
Speaker 1: not really an argument for those of us who don't
Speaker 1: take the Bible at its word, that there's no reason
Speaker 1: for us to believe that it is true. And so
Speaker 1: you're just saying I believe in the story. Because I
Speaker 1: believe in the.
Speaker 2: Story, I don't really know where we're supposed to go
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 1: Additionally, I think it's kind of a bit ironic that
Speaker 1: you mentioned children, you know, in the comments, and that
Speaker 1: we're going after kids when the arguments that you're making
Speaker 1: aren't even arguments. And when I was a kid in
Speaker 1: the Christian Church, I would bring up really obvious flaws
Speaker 1: and like, hey, but why does the Bible have to
Speaker 1: contradict science? Why can't it be more than six thousand
Speaker 1: years old? It really actually looks like it's not a
Speaker 1: six thousand year old earth, and the Bible never really
Speaker 1: says that.
Speaker 2: I would ask those two grown.
Speaker 1: Ups like you and be like really looking for an answer,
Speaker 1: and I would just be told take the Bible out
Speaker 1: its face. And that's why I'm sitting here today is
Speaker 1: because that's not a strong answer. So I'm sort of
Speaker 1: curious to.
Speaker 2: You, Oh, smart, what are we supposed to do with this?
Speaker 1: If there's just the Bible is the Bible, and I
Speaker 1: believe the Bible and I'm not interested in anything outside of.
Speaker 4: It, what are you supposed to do with it? Okay,
Speaker 4: well you take you have to take the Bible by faith,
Speaker 4: and I understand that people want to question that, and okay,
Speaker 4: I get that, but without faith it is impossible to
Speaker 4: please God. And there must there is a little bit
Speaker 4: of faith, and the same thing hold on a man.
Speaker 4: Let me say, I won't take a long time. Even
Speaker 4: with evolution. Even with evolution, you have to have a
Speaker 4: little bit of faith to believe in evolution, because there
Speaker 4: is no physical there is no one person living today
Speaker 4: that can say, oh, yeah, that's exactly how that happened.
Speaker 4: It started millions of years ago, and this evolved into this,
Speaker 4: and this evolved into that there is not one person
Speaker 4: that can tell you that it.
Speaker 3: Was here to verify that.
Speaker 4: So you take care, you take all that you collect
Speaker 4: this information and say, well, it's got to be this
Speaker 4: and here, let me let me get into this real quick.
Speaker 4: And I want, I might, I.
Speaker 1: Might pause you there just because I do think that
Speaker 1: there was a quite bit said there that I think
Speaker 1: would not want to respond to real quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I want to push back first on the notion
Speaker 3: that you're you're taking the Bible on faith is equal
Speaker 3: to taking science on faith, because if I were to
Speaker 3: look at the Bible and the Biblical text tells me
Speaker 3: that fish live in trees, would you believe that simply
Speaker 3: because it's in the Bible. Or would you go out
Speaker 3: and look at the universe and look at fish and
Speaker 3: study them and study their their attributes and their lives
Speaker 3: and see if this matches with the Bible. And if
Speaker 3: it doesn't match with the Bible, what are you going
Speaker 3: to believe? Are you going to believe the Bible or
Speaker 3: are you going to say, look, we were told to
Speaker 3: take the Bible on faith, but the Bible was wrong.
Speaker 3: So maybe there's other ways that we can confirm if
Speaker 3: something's true, because I genuinely believe that truth would stands scrutiny,
Speaker 3: and we should be able to go out and scrutinize
Speaker 3: something and see if it's true or not. It's how
Speaker 3: you can tell.
Speaker 4: That, Amen Jesus truth, Amen, pre chilling.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, So then how if I'm.
Speaker 4: The way the truth in the life that is correct?
Speaker 3: But you're you're spoutings. You're spouting this like it's true
Speaker 3: because it's in the Bible. But how can we test
Speaker 3: that the Bible is true? How can we know that
Speaker 3: the Bible is true? Shouldn't we not be afraid to
Speaker 3: go out and look and see if it contradicts nature?
Speaker 4: There you go, Nature itself declares that there is a guy.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't.
Speaker 2: It really doesn't.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that it's accurate that the Bible says.
Speaker 4: That it's the grasp. Okay, what do you mean? What
Speaker 4: animal have you ever seen? Yeah? How does how does
Speaker 4: nature not declare that there's a god?
Speaker 1: How does it not that's strange, just like asking me
Speaker 1: how how do I not turn orange every day? It's
Speaker 1: like a completely nonsense question. I don't really know what
Speaker 1: to how does it? Maybe let's do these.
Speaker 3: Are inanimate objects that all.
Speaker 4: Right, let's go to how it does. Let's let's go
Speaker 4: to how it does, go back to Genesis, go back.
Speaker 2: To general goodness. Okay, I feel like.
Speaker 4: Here's another thing I've heard you guys say. Here's another
Speaker 4: thing I've heard you guys say with this thing is that, well,
Speaker 4: how could grass grow without the sun? Because you talk
Speaker 4: about the.
Speaker 2: Day I ever talked about that, and I googled and
Speaker 2: I went.
Speaker 4: I had to go with it a little bit, and
Speaker 4: and I looked at the Bible and the sun was
Speaker 4: created on the third day. Okay, I think was it grass?
Speaker 4: Or no, I'm sorry, grass was created on the third day.
Speaker 4: And you guys say, well, how could grass live without
Speaker 4: the sun?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let me pose right there, and grass can
Speaker 1: live for up and made a positive or meet just
Speaker 1: one secred almost you're continuing, Okay, so I've meeted you
Speaker 1: for just a second because I was sort of trying
Speaker 1: to come in one being. You can find some atheist
Speaker 1: out there who says that I'm sure. I'm sure. I
Speaker 1: never have Thomas. Have you ever said just how can
Speaker 1: grass grow without the sun? Just on that out there?
Speaker 3: I don't think I haven't. I haven't been on the
Speaker 3: show in a few years, so I don't.
Speaker 5: YEA.
Speaker 1: So I think that the reason why I'm like this
Speaker 1: is kind of a silly question to keep bringing to
Speaker 1: us because you heard someone say it. It'd be like,
Speaker 1: there are Christians out there who genuinely believe that yours
Speaker 1: flowed and the.
Speaker 2: Earth is flat? Sure give it. Let's say that.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair to hold you to account
Speaker 1: for something that just some Christians somewhere thinks or they
Speaker 1: really believe that, like everyone in Africa the descendant of Kine, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a real thing, some real Christians believe. But it'd
Speaker 1: be weird for me to ask you to explain that
Speaker 1: when that's not something that you have said. I think
Speaker 1: that I'm curious too, So I'll amute you, but I
Speaker 1: really am you know, Thomas sort of explained our basic
Speaker 1: fury of evolution and of abiogenesis and how that works.
Speaker 1: Can you give me anything he said there that you
Speaker 1: found compelling or was there anything that you remember from
Speaker 1: what Thomas said, because you're sort of re asking a
Speaker 1: question that Thomas already answered, You're unmuted, say this again, I'm.
Speaker 4: Sorry, Well hold on, I'm kind of I'm out in
Speaker 4: the wind here, So okay, well go ahead and ask me.
Speaker 4: What are you trying to tell me?
Speaker 1: So initially, I'm saying, I don't think we need to
Speaker 1: respond to an argument that we personally have never made,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure there are Christians who believe things that
Speaker 1: you believe or sorry, but the strength.
Speaker 4: And I'll give you. I'll give you that I taught.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So I'm asking because I feel like Thomas also already
Speaker 1: dealt with this pretty well in his response about evolution
Speaker 1: and abiogenesis. Is there anything that you can you know,
Speaker 1: respond to from there or have further questions on or noted?
Speaker 2: Even just from what Thomas said?
Speaker 4: I guess not. I guess where I wanted to go
Speaker 4: with all this was this evolution versus creation thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I see that you go to you go
Speaker 1: to any I see that. I think that the difficulty
Speaker 1: I have is that you asked a question and it
Speaker 1: was answered, and then I just said, do you have
Speaker 1: anything that you can respond to it or even remember
Speaker 1: things he said, and you kind of just said no,
Speaker 1: So what's the point in a dialogue?
Speaker 2: Do you see my issue with that?
Speaker 1: I can yeah, So I almost want to say, can
Speaker 1: we go ahead? And I have actually enjoyed our conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if maybe that's something you could watch back
Speaker 1: and then call in again, because I feel like have
Speaker 1: a dialogue like Thomas gave you a really good answer
Speaker 1: in my opinion, and if you have questions or issues
Speaker 1: with that, I think that would really be worth exploring.
Speaker 1: But because it feels like the dialogue fell off with
Speaker 1: not listening to the answer, I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: call it.
Speaker 2: A day on that one.
Speaker 3: Also, I would want to add the Cliff like, I
Speaker 3: do appreciate this call, and I appreciate how how patient
Speaker 3: you've been, you know, in this conversation. Sometimes I've jumped
Speaker 3: on shows where I've just been cut off and can't
Speaker 3: talk at all. But Cliff, I've been in your shoes,
Speaker 3: and I've been in places where I've just taken the
Speaker 3: Bible one hundred percent at his word because it said
Speaker 3: so that's not critical thinking, man, That is not how
Speaker 3: we can tell like if you were born Hindu you
Speaker 3: would believe in the Hindu God. The only way that
Speaker 3: you can tell if it's true or not is by
Speaker 3: going out and testing and exploring how does the world
Speaker 3: actually work with an open mind, looking critically at the evidence.
Speaker 3: You can go right now online. You don't have to
Speaker 3: have a paid account. You can just get chat GPT,
Speaker 3: pull it up and type in give me all of
Speaker 3: the problems and all of the flaw with Noah's ark,
Speaker 3: and just start there and read through them, click on
Speaker 3: the links, do some research. Don't just look at answers
Speaker 3: and genesis. You can look at their rebuttals, but look
Speaker 3: at what the scientists are actually saying. And I think
Speaker 3: that'll that'll give you some idea as to why we
Speaker 3: personally don't take the Bible at its word because we
Speaker 3: started there, but we didn't end there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but thank you very much for calling and for
Speaker 1: your politeness, and I do really appreciate it, and I
Speaker 1: hope you call back in again.
Speaker 2: If this thing will listen when I click the button.
Speaker 1: Okay, the real Yeah, I think that I don't know
Speaker 1: what's your what's your take on that?
Speaker 2: After that call, do you have a basic feeling of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, overall, I would a very nice caller. Yeah, seemed
Speaker 3: like a nice guy. The arguments, besides the one that
Speaker 3: he wanted us to defend someone else's claim that I
Speaker 3: don't personally find the claim of like the order of
Speaker 3: things that we're creating genesis as very compelling. The only
Speaker 3: time that I find that argument compelling is with old
Speaker 3: Earth creationists that say, oh, it wasn't actually days, it
Speaker 3: was millions of years. And then it compounds the problem
Speaker 3: because you can't have grass live millions of years without
Speaker 3: the sun, just for example. But I don't find it
Speaker 3: to be the most compelling argument to me. I find
Speaker 3: the most compelling argument the fact that the Bible makes
Speaker 3: very very clear claims about the entire Earth was covered
Speaker 3: in water. There's no evidence of that in the geological layers.
Speaker 3: It talks about the Earth being created in six thousand years,
Speaker 3: there's no evidence for that. In fact, we have a
Speaker 3: whole ton of evidence for an old Earth. And it's
Speaker 3: like all of these little things. I think he brought
Speaker 3: up evolution, but it was a kind of a vague argument,
Speaker 3: and then it seemed like it started segueing into a
Speaker 3: bunch of other stuff, and it was that's when it
Speaker 3: went a little off the roll.
Speaker 1: It feels like it often does, just because it will
Speaker 1: never be I remember from back when I was much
Speaker 1: more fundamentalist, or a fundamentalist at all. I'm no longer
Speaker 1: a fundamentalist Christian, just clarifying that I kind of argued
Speaker 1: the same way. It wasn't just evolution, it was also
Speaker 1: a biogenesis. It was also the effect of atheism on
Speaker 1: the world. Everything was kind of thrown in together. It
Speaker 1: was sort of the like spaghetti at the wall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like a smoke bomb of distraction,
Speaker 1: kind of just like ha ha, like run away.
Speaker 3: It's ash gallop. It's a gish gallop.
Speaker 2: That is an amazing word that I have never heard.
Speaker 3: So. A gish gallop is when you have a bunch
Speaker 3: of arguments and rather than address them one by one,
Speaker 3: you just throw like twenty arguments at someone. They might
Speaker 3: all be good arguments, but you won't know because the
Speaker 3: other person they're sitting there trying to answer this one,
Speaker 3: and then it's trying to answer this one. You see
Speaker 3: William Laine Craig do this a lot in his debates,
Speaker 3: where he'll throw out twenty different arguments. Yeah, a person
Speaker 3: chooses three to respond to. He's like, well, you clearly
Speaker 3: you didn't respond to this one, so you must not
Speaker 3: have a response to it.
Speaker 2: And it's just like you.
Speaker 1: You threw every exactly. I love gish gallop. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to use that this week. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I do want to really briefly reference also the
Speaker 1: idea of us like going after kids. And one thing
Speaker 1: I would say, we're not on children's YouTube.
Speaker 2: That's just not a thing.
Speaker 1: If children are coming to this, they're coming to it
Speaker 1: because they're curious, because they want to watch it. If
Speaker 1: they're asking questions, it might be because we're the people
Speaker 1: answering them. I remember seeking, truly seeking people older that
Speaker 1: I thought were older and wiser than me to answer
Speaker 1: questions about the Bible, because I also believed that if
Speaker 1: I tested this.
Speaker 2: It would hold up to scrutiny. So I was not
Speaker 2: afraid of that.
Speaker 1: I was going to question everything, keep what is good,
Speaker 1: like Paul says, right, and yeah, it kind of kept
Speaker 1: being made into a thing where I was I was
Speaker 1: made to feel bad or ashamed because I was asking questions.
Speaker 1: And I don't necessarily think that was the intention of
Speaker 1: older people, but they kind of kept coming back to
Speaker 1: how I had to have faith, sort of implying that
Speaker 1: I wasn't if I was asking questions, that I was
Speaker 1: pushing this too far, and that I was making myself
Speaker 1: something of an idol that I thought I knew better
Speaker 1: than God, which is something I was accused of because
Speaker 1: I would ask really what I thought were extremely obvious questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think that when we think about kids coming here, like,
Speaker 1: first of all, this isn't a kid's show, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're a grown up watching thinking about you know,
Speaker 1: watch with discretion.
Speaker 2: We say swear words, I.
Speaker 1: Talk about my boobs sometimes, so like it's not something
Speaker 1: that I would recommend to children necessarily, But I think
Speaker 1: the fact that we deal with their questions seriously and
Speaker 1: honestly and are willing to say I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think that's why children end up here.
Speaker 1: And by children, I mean anyone under eighteen, because in
Speaker 1: my mind, anyone under eighteen is a baby.
Speaker 3: Also, can I just say, can I just say and
Speaker 3: that this isn't directed at Cliff because he didn't make
Speaker 3: this argument. I don't want to put words in his mouth,
Speaker 3: but can I just say, Oh my god, the hypocrisy
Speaker 3: among Christians ye to have the audacity to And again
Speaker 3: I'm getting this just from many, many, many other Christians
Speaker 3: who I've talked to you that are like, you're indoctrinating
Speaker 3: the youth? How dare you? And I'm like, are you
Speaker 3: kidding me? Right?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: You have how many private schools and religious schools that
Speaker 3: are shoving the stuff down kids throats without teaching the
Speaker 3: alternate position at all whatsoever other than maybe a stramm
Speaker 3: position of it, and indoctrinating them by the millions, and
Speaker 3: now defunding things like the Department of Education trying to
Speaker 3: get rid of it. And it's like to then, tell
Speaker 3: us that we are indoctrinating the youth simply because we
Speaker 3: are providing the world with the alternative opinion, which is
Speaker 3: actually the scientific consens his opinion that is based in
Speaker 3: evidence and grounded in reason and logic and critical thought,
Speaker 3: And like they're upset at us for simply having the
Speaker 3: free speech to express ourselves. Is the Bible that fragile
Speaker 3: is God, that incapable and inept that he can't defend
Speaker 3: his position with facts and reason and evidence, that some
Speaker 3: call in show is gonna somehow destroy the Bible? If
Speaker 3: so it's probably not a holy book.
Speaker 1: I love it. I mean also I love the idea
Speaker 1: of us being the sole force of like ah talk
Speaker 1: even did it. You know, they took down the Bible
Speaker 1: once and for all. But I think that what you're saying,
Speaker 1: it comes brings me back to kind of my intro
Speaker 1: about people really think there's Christian babies. They think that
Speaker 1: like it's just so inherently evident and so true, and
Speaker 1: that they have the right to tell children that they
Speaker 1: will burn in hell if they don't believe, and then
Speaker 1: are shocked when we actually think that it's maybe better
Speaker 1: for them to live without that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really interesting to.
Speaker 3: Jump on another one. If you guys want to call
Speaker 3: in the show, there's still openings, there's slots, so the
Speaker 3: numbers on the screen pick it up. Let us know
Speaker 3: what you think. If I enraged you with something that
Speaker 3: I said, if Sophia has has radically pissed you off,
Speaker 3: then it'll because I.
Speaker 2: Mentioned my boobs.
Speaker 1: So we are also now accepting super chats and we
Speaker 1: may read them live on the air, So feel free
Speaker 1: to make us read things you've written, assuming they are
Speaker 1: YouTube appropriate. And if you're in the Austin area. Follow
Speaker 1: us on meetup to keep up with community events. I
Speaker 1: do live here in Austin, so you can come hang
Speaker 1: out with me. You know, we actually do really cool
Speaker 1: stuff and everyone is so neat. I am so lucky
Speaker 1: to know these folks here in Austin at the Atheist Community.
Speaker 1: You can see what's going on at tiny dot cc
Speaker 1: slash ACA meetup. There's things like Philosophy under the Stars,
Speaker 1: which is like a little starlamp they put up, but
Speaker 1: then they talk about philosophy and oftentimes they're even joined
Speaker 1: by like a professor of philosophy. So if that's really
Speaker 1: your jam, then that would be something great for you
Speaker 1: to do. There's game nights where we just get together
Speaker 1: and we don't it's not like everything is talking about
Speaker 1: atheism all the time. There is, you know, a bit
Speaker 1: of community here that's really cool to be a part of.
Speaker 1: There's Secular sister Head, which is like a women's group
Speaker 1: around and that's so fun, very cool. Any women identified
Speaker 1: folks more than welcome to attend. Went for a hike yesterday.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so hang out with us and join our weekly
Speaker 1: watch parties at the Free Thought Library, which is here
Speaker 1: on Sundays, we're live. Viewings of Talk Ethen and the
Speaker 1: Atheist Experience are back to weekly in building. Well, we're
Speaker 1: doing like showing in Okay, so it's not always like
Speaker 1: filmed here.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so when you have local hosts, the hosts
Speaker 3: are here, but they can every week you have a
Speaker 3: get together and group of people, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes they'll be here.
Speaker 1: Sometimes even the local hosts will be like, like, I
Speaker 1: have been on my couch before all these people seen
Speaker 1: my couch.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also it's it's cool because hey, like if we're
Speaker 1: not on the show, we may still come in and
Speaker 1: just be around and commentating and yeah, just being together,
Speaker 1: you know, which is lovely. And then follow Talk Heathen
Speaker 1: on TikTok Talk Heathen. Yeah, TikTok is just Talk Heathen. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm getting all my words mixed up, and join us
Speaker 1: for our pre show lives at the ACA TikTok, which
Speaker 1: is Atheist Community of Austin. Richard who's one of our
Speaker 1: hosts and also our producer. He gives us that, you know,
Speaker 1: does that that pre show live? Okay, I'm hearing laughter
Speaker 1: and I sense there's a super chutte on the screen,
Speaker 1: but it's so small. I can't read it, and I'm
Speaker 1: excited for it to show up on my end. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do that here in a second. Alrighty, So
Speaker 1: with all of those announcements going on, I'm going to
Speaker 1: look at coming back to our next caller.
Speaker 2: Alrighty, So we have Benji.
Speaker 1: He him from Alabama, and Benji wants to talk about
Speaker 1: how pronouns are used by the new generation.
Speaker 2: Well, that'll be interesting.
Speaker 3: That's not what I think of when I think of religion,
Speaker 3: and not so much either.
Speaker 2: Hey, Benji, can I tell us what you're thinking about?
Speaker 5: Hey? Yeah, So I was watching some astises Beans videos
Speaker 5: yesterday and and this guy called in, this is bat
Speaker 5: that saint when matter one of them was on and
Speaker 5: or no, I'm sorry it was uh it was Jay
Speaker 5: Mike and uh uh secularity I saint or uh saint
Speaker 5: might have been doctor Ben but I know Jay Mike
Speaker 5: was on it. And they they the guy had mentioned
Speaker 5: uh like uh basically the pronoun stuff like and the
Speaker 5: main thing guy thinks about. And and I've even watched
Speaker 5: a Family Guy episode where they kind of made fun
Speaker 5: of this and me, myself, I'm pretty.
Speaker 3: Old, so like when I was in school.
Speaker 5: Uh, well I've been in school a few times. But
Speaker 5: when I was in school, they you know, when we
Speaker 5: learned about like sets, gender orientation and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: That's and really the.
Speaker 5: Only ones I even heard on the video was just
Speaker 5: too but there's literally three or four different ones. Do
Speaker 5: you have sexual orientation, which is like if you're into
Speaker 5: male or female? And then you had zender, which I guess,
Speaker 5: I mean a lot of people use that in its
Speaker 5: tangibly with set, so I sence that's kind of where
Speaker 5: some of the confusion goes.
Speaker 3: And then the the like even we did back in the.
Speaker 5: Eighties and nineties, like we were just in a time
Speaker 5: because like you didn't want to see sets on PaperWorks
Speaker 5: and stuff male or female until later on that sens
Speaker 5: dif from zender to sets because it was it was
Speaker 5: getting confusing, and now they used zender as like this
Speaker 5: social trap, you know. And in my mind, and I'm
Speaker 5: not trying to be offensive to anybody out there, but
Speaker 5: this is just my opinion based on how stuff you know,
Speaker 5: used to be and how I view stuff in my life.
Speaker 5: And I don't know if this is this pause I'm
Speaker 5: old or what, but like if you're born a male,
Speaker 5: you can't. I mean, you could do a sense change, right,
Speaker 5: you can change yourself into a female or whatever. But
Speaker 5: like the stuff about you know, identifying its animals and
Speaker 5: animate objects and all this drap, it's just crazy with
Speaker 5: to me.
Speaker 3: To me, it seems like a man, hold up, hold
Speaker 3: up this, This to me seems like a massive red
Speaker 3: herring to the argument that most people in the trans
Speaker 3: community are making. And it's it's this idea that it's
Speaker 3: it's so utterly preposterous because you have this one fringe
Speaker 3: nutcase that might have identified as an attack helicopter or something,
Speaker 3: and it's just it's it's not what people are saying.
Speaker 3: It's what people in the trans community are saying, is hey, look,
Speaker 3: things are more complicated than we thought, even just with sex,
Speaker 3: Like if you have male on one end of the
Speaker 3: spectrum and female on the other, you have a lot
Speaker 3: of variability with intersex cases where people are born with
Speaker 3: two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome, or people are
Speaker 3: born with two Y chromosomes or three x's, And so
Speaker 3: to look at this and say, hey, this pictures actually
Speaker 3: a lot more complicated than we thought. Maybe we should
Speaker 3: handle this and approach it with compassion and say, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a really complicated issue, and especially if you're a
Speaker 3: kid and you're dealing with something like this, rather than
Speaker 3: simply delegitimizing it in a way and saying, ah, come on,
Speaker 3: what do you think next, someone's going to be identifying
Speaker 3: as a cow? This is absurd if instead we just
Speaker 3: approach it with you know what, like, yeah, this is
Speaker 3: a lot more complicated, And I may not be a
Speaker 3: doctor and know everything about it, but if someone tells
Speaker 3: me that, like, something's going on with them and they
Speaker 3: may look like they're male, but that's not answering everything
Speaker 3: else that's going on, Like they may have developed secondary
Speaker 3: sex characteristics of another gender, they may have a neural
Speaker 3: chemistry of the other gender, and you can see and
Speaker 3: test these things. It's not really my place to say,
Speaker 3: but I'm gonna do my best to not just write
Speaker 3: them off and to try to just be more understanding
Speaker 3: because they go through a lot of hell with bullying
Speaker 3: and stuff as it is.
Speaker 5: Does that kind of no, No, that's not what I
Speaker 5: was talking about. So I'm going to get into that,
Speaker 5: but that's not that separate. Yeah, So, so like if
Speaker 5: somebody is born and male hy and they have a
Speaker 5: chemical imbalance, so they have, you know, a genetic mutation
Speaker 5: that causes them to have more wide chromosomes and X
Speaker 5: chromosomes or vice versa. Why that that's different than what
Speaker 5: I was taught, But I can get in that.
Speaker 2: Are you talking about yeah, are you talking about folks
Speaker 2: who are essentially.
Speaker 1: Like there is no identifiable medical reason why they would
Speaker 1: be uncomfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth.
Speaker 1: I think I get the impression that you're talking about
Speaker 1: people that.
Speaker 5: Change or something that's not an issue for me, Like,
Speaker 5: there's circumstances, So what is.
Speaker 2: The issue for you?
Speaker 1: Like, if you were to just summarize it in a sentence,
Speaker 1: it seems like you have an issue with it.
Speaker 5: Why, Well, I don't have an issue with gay or
Speaker 5: bay or any of that. My neighbors are lesbian. I've
Speaker 5: never done them for that. I don't have an issue
Speaker 5: with sensual orienta. As far as who somebody likes, I
Speaker 5: don't have an issue with. You know, if a boy
Speaker 5: wants to be a goal and does a set change,
Speaker 5: I don't care about that either.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 5: Uh, And really, if it's if it's genetic, if it's
Speaker 5: caused by genetics, that's one thing, and I can understand that.
Speaker 5: But the thing I was talking about is people just
Speaker 5: you know, the youngers in a way saying, oh, well,
Speaker 5: I identify as a horse.
Speaker 1: Okay, But do you think that's common? Homo sapien, do
Speaker 1: you think that that's common? Do you think that that's
Speaker 1: something that happens often.
Speaker 5: I've heard of it and I've seen it alongside with
Speaker 5: the LGBT. Key, Oh that's separate.
Speaker 2: Still, where did you see that? Because I mean.
Speaker 5: There's been there's been like videos of like if you
Speaker 5: go online, you can find some people that say, oh, well,
Speaker 5: identify as a basketball or ident an animal. You also
Speaker 5: have those seen.
Speaker 7: Stories series, yeah, where kids have been dressing.
Speaker 5: Up furries or whatever and going out.
Speaker 3: Else entirely. But Benji, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 3: that me and Sophia and everyone in the atheist community
Speaker 3: and the scientific community and the trans community would be
Speaker 3: in agreement that we also don't take people seriously who
Speaker 3: say that they identify as a basketball or what have you.
Speaker 3: Most of the time when we see stories like that,
Speaker 3: we assume that these people are trolling, or we assume
Speaker 3: that that maybe there's there's some mental illness or something
Speaker 3: going on, or maybe it's someone. Oftentimes people on the
Speaker 3: right might take on a position that seems extreme in
Speaker 3: order to basically paint it as see, this is what
Speaker 3: the left is doing. Yeah, and oftentimes right when commentators
Speaker 3: will hone in on these stories and showcase it's it's
Speaker 3: called like the nut picking fallacy, where they'll take the
Speaker 3: most extreme examples of someone's position and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that I'm going to respond to kind
Speaker 1: of some of what you said as well real quick
Speaker 1: before we would move on. It's shocking to me when
Speaker 1: I came to let go of not only my faith
Speaker 1: but also I was a very staunch conservative for quite
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 2: When I came to let that.
Speaker 1: Go, I started to realize how often things like this
Speaker 1: really extreme case of like someone identifying I feel like
Speaker 1: the cat is the classic example, someone identifying as a
Speaker 1: cat and wanting to be treated as a cat.
Speaker 2: How often it's just a lie.
Speaker 1: I think that there was when people looked into that
Speaker 1: specific story. There was no specific individual upon whom it
Speaker 1: was based. This is just not really happening. Like maybe
Speaker 1: occasionally it's a middle school or a high schooler who
Speaker 1: just wants to be shocking or you know, who actually
Speaker 1: might be dealing with some mental health issues that need care.
Speaker 1: But to say that to sort of conflate that with
Speaker 1: the trans community at large, I find that kind of
Speaker 1: degrading to the trans community because it's sort of saying
Speaker 1: that your desire to live as, say a woman, that
Speaker 1: you feel that you are, that that's sort of equivalent
Speaker 1: in any way to someone who is identifying as a whore,
Speaker 1: Like it's really not. These are very different things, and
Speaker 1: it makes them all look like it's just some pathological issue,
Speaker 1: when in reality, these are just people who want to
Speaker 1: live in the way that feels the most accurate to themselves.
Speaker 1: I do also want to point out that when we're
Speaker 1: mentioning trans people, you know, you mentioned that they can
Speaker 1: get a surgery and become female.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of different thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of folks who identify as trans, they do
Speaker 1: what's called socially transition, So they may want to live
Speaker 1: as a gender that is different than the one that
Speaker 1: they were assigned at birth, but they don't necessarily always
Speaker 1: want to get operations, and those operations are also really
Speaker 1: hard to get and really expensive, and insurance typically doesn't
Speaker 1: cover them. So there's a lot of ways to be
Speaker 1: trans and to take all of that kind of diversity,
Speaker 1: all of these very different stories and very different people,
Speaker 1: and to compact them into well, they're fine, but.
Speaker 2: The cat girl or the guy identifying as a basketball like,
Speaker 2: that's really, I think, kind of demeaning.
Speaker 1: And I don't get the sense you mean to be demeaning,
Speaker 1: but I think that that's how that comparison can come across.
Speaker 5: Well, the only other thing I was going to blame
Speaker 5: up the idea, So I'm going to mention this too,
Speaker 5: because you just bought it up.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: I don't take a hard stance to this. I do
Speaker 5: think it's kind of off putting as far as society goes,
Speaker 5: because again, I'm pretty old, so this stuff wouldn't be
Speaker 5: happening thirty forty years ago, and it could have been happening,
Speaker 5: but it wasn't public, so like people wouldn't go out
Speaker 5: in public and you know, say if they're a god,
Speaker 5: they wouldn't sit there and say they feel like a
Speaker 5: woman in public.
Speaker 1: So you think that's kind of sad though, Like, isn't
Speaker 1: that sort of sad that if someone felt that way,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have been safe to do that in published
Speaker 1: at this.
Speaker 5: Point, I don't know if it's good or bad, because
Speaker 5: like there's been I mean, you have hate crime and
Speaker 5: stuff like that too. But also like in my mind,
Speaker 5: and I'm not a heart, I'm not a hard I
Speaker 5: don't take a hard stance to this.
Speaker 3: But there is people out.
Speaker 5: There that's around my age, that is, you know, in
Speaker 5: their forties, fifties, sixties and on, that looked at the
Speaker 5: world now and go, this is hell of a handbasket.
Speaker 5: I not even religious tape people that say, I'm not
Speaker 5: even talking about religion. I'm just saying like people that say,
Speaker 5: you know, if there's a boy that's born a boy
Speaker 5: and they're saying nine or ten years old, and all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, you know they Now, I will say
Speaker 5: this that I do agree with some people that say
Speaker 5: it's on the parents.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to jump in yeah, I see where
Speaker 1: you're going.
Speaker 2: I'm going to jump in there real quick.
Speaker 1: Many who So when we're talking about younger people who
Speaker 1: are identifying as a gender other than the ones that
Speaker 1: they were signed at birth, there's a lot of rhetoric
Speaker 1: that comes out about how children are mutilating their bodies
Speaker 1: and they're being pressured into get into getting these surgeries.
Speaker 2: That is not that's just a lie. I mean, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: It sounds so dramatic to say that an entire group
Speaker 1: of people is just lying to persecute another, But that
Speaker 1: is what's happening. So there are absolute lutely children that
Speaker 1: identify as being trans and the most that most of
Speaker 1: them are ever going to do when they're below the
Speaker 1: age of eighteen is socially transitioned.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to go to fourth grade and I want.
Speaker 1: To be seen as a boy and experienced as a boy,
Speaker 1: and I want to use this boy name that I've selected.
Speaker 1: That's really what's happening. The only medical intervention that is
Speaker 1: in any way, it's not even common. I think the
Speaker 1: last number was about like five thousand ish people in
Speaker 1: America even being assigned. This would be hormone blockers, which
Speaker 1: are frequently used for reasons aside from gender confirmation, and
Speaker 1: there isn't really solid medical evidence that that causes any
Speaker 1: problem whatsoever. They're often used when there are other medical
Speaker 1: issues that a kid has, and we never blink twice
Speaker 1: at using hormone blockers, but we get really upset when
Speaker 1: we're using them for trans kids. I would also point
Speaker 1: out that when we're talking about trans kids, these are
Speaker 1: some of the kids with the highest risk of suicide,
Speaker 1: and it's because the whole nation is focused on arguing
Speaker 1: about whether or not they should be allowed to exist
Speaker 1: as the gender that they feel most comfortable as.
Speaker 2: I find that horrifying.
Speaker 1: I also kind of want to go back and mention,
Speaker 1: you know, you're saying you're old and people weren't talking
Speaker 1: about this then, and that's.
Speaker 2: Sort of true.
Speaker 1: But there were absolutely trans people then. There are trans
Speaker 1: people your age. It's not even a bet I've met them.
Speaker 1: They're there, and they can talk about when they were kids,
Speaker 1: how much joy and how much comfort it would have
Speaker 1: given them to be able to live as they saw themselves,
Speaker 1: and how heartbreaking it is to watch children today try
Speaker 1: to do that and then just be made the center
Speaker 1: of these huge national debates when there's.
Speaker 2: Not really any hurting anyone here.
Speaker 3: And also, this isn't exclusive to America. This is not
Speaker 3: something where all of a sudden the existence of trans
Speaker 3: people popped up in the last thirty years. This is
Speaker 3: something that is true across cultures. It's true across time.
Speaker 3: There have been skeletons and like different burials of people
Speaker 3: they go back hundreds and thousands of years that were
Speaker 3: trans There are people in different colures and different communities,
Speaker 3: they call it different things, but it's people who don't
Speaker 3: quite fit the mold of this kind of standard two
Speaker 3: gender narrative, and so to act like it's just new
Speaker 3: if it wasn't, if they weren't allowed to be open
Speaker 3: and honest about it, and they weren't allowed to talk
Speaker 3: about it at all, to me, that's kind of a
Speaker 3: tragedy of free speech in a country that claims that
Speaker 3: we should be able to have open dialogue and discussion
Speaker 3: to just shut them down as like weird or odd
Speaker 3: or some sort of like societal reprobate simply because they're
Speaker 3: having a conversation about how something is not normal compared
Speaker 3: to what they're seeing around them, and then being shunned
Speaker 3: for it. I don't really see how, And maybe this
Speaker 3: isn't what you're saying, but you're saying it's hard to
Speaker 3: come to terms with or grasp the fact that things
Speaker 3: have changed the way that they have. But isn't that
Speaker 3: kind of a good thing that they can talk about
Speaker 3: it now, Like we can have conversations about you know,
Speaker 3: how safe for puberty blockers? How effective are they do
Speaker 3: they bring the rights of suicide down. That's where the
Speaker 3: conversation should be handling, and instead it's you know, kids
Speaker 3: shouldn't even have the ability to like do this, or
Speaker 3: their parents shouldn't have the ability to like.
Speaker 5: Oh well, yeah, well I'm going to jump into here,
Speaker 5: will trip. So there's a huge things y'all have said
Speaker 5: that I'm trying to hit on will trip before y'all
Speaker 5: move on one. I've talked to a lot of different
Speaker 5: age groups. I've talked to young people, I've talked to
Speaker 5: my generation. I've also talked to the older genuation. I'm
Speaker 5: playing with a whole bunch of people, and the consensus, well,
Speaker 5: not with everyone, but majority. So I've also seen even
Speaker 5: on the news, and you know, parents that get involved
Speaker 5: with their kids and the schools. It seems like and
Speaker 5: maybe this isn't the case, but like, for example, if
Speaker 5: a ten year old.
Speaker 4: Kid starts playing with.
Speaker 5: A doll house, and maybe younger than that, but you
Speaker 5: get when I'm going with this. So if a ten
Speaker 5: year old kid starts playing with a doll house, right,
Speaker 5: and he in his mind, it's like, oh well, I
Speaker 5: like the doll house, so I must be a female.
Speaker 5: And it's just like, I'm sorry, give me a second.
Speaker 4: My TV.
Speaker 5: So that's that's where I was going with that. It's
Speaker 5: like it's up to the parents to teach their kids
Speaker 5: the difference between enough female and a male, because otherwise,
Speaker 5: and this kind of society nowadays, they might be pressured
Speaker 5: to feel like, Okay, well I like a doll house,
Speaker 5: so I must be a female.
Speaker 3: Very different things. You can be a woman who loves
Speaker 3: playing outside, and in the past we've always just called
Speaker 3: them tomboys. It's like, oh, she likes to get dirty
Speaker 3: and play in the dirt. It doesn't suddenly mean that
Speaker 3: she thinks that she is a man. My sisters had dollhouses.
Speaker 3: They had you know, little polly pockets and stuff, and
Speaker 3: I remember as a kid opening those up and kind
Speaker 3: of playing around with them. I didn't suddenly think I
Speaker 3: was female. I thought, oh, here's another toy. That's just
Speaker 3: how how my brain worked as a kid. There's a
Speaker 3: big difference between when someone is genuinely sincerely questioning their
Speaker 3: gender identity instead of being like, okay, why do you
Speaker 3: think that, and listening to them and hearing them out
Speaker 3: and having an open conversation and dialogue. If we just
Speaker 3: shut the conversation down with like you're wrong, that's an abomination.
Speaker 3: We can't talk about this, well, that person's going to
Speaker 3: feel isolated, shunned, probably struggle with depression because they feel
Speaker 3: like they can't even talk to their parents about it.
Speaker 3: They're going to turn to other people that they who
Speaker 3: they can trust, and to me. I just I don't
Speaker 3: see these things as like operating in any way, shape
Speaker 3: or form the way that you've described it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I would also throw out there, yeah,
Speaker 1: finish your statement and then I and then I will respond.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I add two more times, one more thing, just.
Speaker 1: Because we do have to get going at some point.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you one more thing because we
Speaker 1: do have to get going on at some point.
Speaker 5: Is and this is the stand of a lot of people,
Speaker 5: is that there is only male or female and that's
Speaker 5: the born with both. But that's still like you have
Speaker 5: people that are born with both parts, right, but then
Speaker 5: generally there is only male or female.
Speaker 3: So that's interesting, so something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's not always the case, and even if
Speaker 1: it were, who cares, I guess is my take? You know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that children need to be taught like what
Speaker 1: male or female is?
Speaker 5: What is that?
Speaker 2: Am I doing it wrong?
Speaker 1: Like I'm here, I'm talking well, I exist in a
Speaker 1: lot of masculine spaces.
Speaker 2: I have tattoos. Am I not femaling?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Gender but comes really complicated as soon as we start
Speaker 1: to talk about these things, so you know, unless you
Speaker 1: can tell me if I'm doing it right or wrong.
Speaker 5: So if you're born female, you would be considered a
Speaker 5: female right now. Even if what is a female and
Speaker 5: you want to be a male, that's different. But if
Speaker 5: you're born female with female parts and female hormone, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I don't to be honest, so I'm going to actually
Speaker 2: let you go.
Speaker 1: But before that, I'm going to just say real quick
Speaker 1: that we have been sort of speaking on behalf of
Speaker 1: trans people best we can, which is not usually a
Speaker 1: position that I would want to put myself in. We
Speaker 1: definitely do have like call back in when when doctor
Speaker 1: Ben is on, because doctor Ben is not only a
Speaker 1: medical professional but a transman and so can speak with
Speaker 1: more authority than I can.
Speaker 2: But I do wanna want to bring up here, So
Speaker 2: I'm gonna drop you.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to ask you to call back at
Speaker 1: some point because I feel like we've kind of hit
Speaker 1: what we're going to hit today, and I would I
Speaker 1: think that it would be really valuable for you to
Speaker 1: speak with some folks who are more of an expert
Speaker 1: on this than I am.
Speaker 2: We keep talking about parts.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry when when we're chatting and I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: at a table with you, like I I'm a sign
Speaker 1: film at birth, I'm female presenting, I identify as woman,
Speaker 1: all of these things? Are you thinking constantly about my vagina?
Speaker 1: So I see that responding a little bit with the crowd,
Speaker 1: but just this idea of his fixation on what what
Speaker 1: genitale as someone has and if they're living in a
Speaker 1: way that is aligned with their genitalia, which first of all,
Speaker 1: is not your business.
Speaker 2: And second why you know, it's really uncomfortable to.
Speaker 1: Imagine that when you're talking to a transperson the only
Speaker 1: thing going.
Speaker 2: Through your head is penis or vagina.
Speaker 1: You know, like, that's very strange, that's a weird thing
Speaker 1: to do, man. So I think that we can say
Speaker 1: that we respect folks and that we see them as
Speaker 1: fully human and that you know, we don't have an
Speaker 1: issue with folks who are trans or who identify differently,
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be. But if we're still going
Speaker 1: through that narrative, if we're still trying to parse them
Speaker 1: out in gender and peg them as male or female,
Speaker 1: try to guess what genitalia they had at birth, then
Speaker 1: we're still not really treating them like human. We're still
Speaker 1: treating them like that's all they are. So if you
Speaker 1: can can't get over that, maybe it's not really a
Speaker 1: time for you to be parsing out what acceptable gender is.
Speaker 3: I had a while back, I was looking at potentially
Speaker 3: doing your video on this topic, and I stayed up
Speaker 3: all night just like reading as much research as I
Speaker 3: coult on the topic. And I went from like, oh,
Speaker 3: it'll be an easy video too, like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: this topic is complicated, and just to give you an idea,
Speaker 3: this gross simplification that it just comes down to the
Speaker 3: parts which parts, Like I mean, I mentioned briefly that
Speaker 3: you could have, you know, like Turner syndrome or Cliinfelter
Speaker 3: syndrome are different, you know, based off of your kareotypes,
Speaker 3: Like karyotype is your sex chromosomes? So are you xx
Speaker 3: or u x Y or you xxx or you xx
Speaker 3: y xxx.
Speaker 4: Y, or you like.
Speaker 3: The list goes on and on. But even outside of that,
Speaker 3: you can have mutations that occur on one of your
Speaker 3: sex chromosomes, so that you can be xx but you
Speaker 3: have male parts. You can be x Y and you
Speaker 3: have female parts. You can have all of everything in between.
Speaker 3: You can have male primary sex characteristics but develop female
Speaker 3: secondary sex characteristics, and vice versa. You can have so
Speaker 3: many things in between. You can have people that neurologically like,
Speaker 3: you can actually scan the brain of your stereotypical female
Speaker 3: and the brain of your stereotypical male, and there will
Speaker 3: be certain noticeable differences. What do you do when you
Speaker 3: have someone that has a brain that seems to be
Speaker 3: a female brain inside of a male body? What do
Speaker 3: you do when they're when you know, you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: we're just looking at the parts. And people can have
Speaker 3: a micro penis that looks like a clitterists or vice versa,
Speaker 3: a giant clitorist that looks like it's a penis, and
Speaker 3: it's miss like. The doctors look at it, and sometimes,
Speaker 3: you know, usually they're like, h male, eh, female. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they go eh, I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 3: And and sometimes the parents and the doctors, they make
Speaker 3: this split second decision, and sometimes they get it wrong,
Speaker 3: and sometimes the child grows up their whole life, and
Speaker 3: sometimes they don't even necessarily know until they get older,
Speaker 3: and then they they take a carrier type text and
Speaker 3: they realize, oh my god, i was xx chromosomes all along,
Speaker 3: but I've been like presenting as a male, I have
Speaker 3: a penis, I've been going to the men's locker room,
Speaker 3: competing in men's sports, and blah blah blah. And then
Speaker 3: they realize that their whole world turns on its head.
Speaker 3: So this notion that things are just that simple, it's
Speaker 3: it's an archaic way of looking at it. And everyone says, well,
Speaker 3: the science says, doesn't have the slightest clue about how
Speaker 3: just how complicated this is. So I don't want to
Speaker 3: speak on behalf of the whole trans community, but like
Speaker 3: just a basic one night of looking into the stuff
Speaker 3: completely rid me of this this illusion that maybe things
Speaker 3: could be explained in a super super simple manner because
Speaker 3: I'm barely scratching the surface of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and it's interesting and I feel like a
Speaker 1: little bit telling when I think about the idea of
Speaker 1: like if we're presenting. It is so clear that females
Speaker 1: slash women which we are going to conflate, are this way,
Speaker 1: and male slash men, which.
Speaker 2: We're going to conflate are this way.
Speaker 1: Then you couldn't tell me anything about if I'm womening right,
Speaker 1: Like that's he kind of reverted to, oh, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like I really don't, did you? And I shaved my
Speaker 2: neck this morning? Like, I, you know, is that womaning right?
Speaker 2: Should I just come?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many little bits that we do
Speaker 1: to express our gender all.
Speaker 3: That you expected me to somehow know that. I'm just like,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're like I could see from your upper lip
Speaker 1: hair that's necessary, but you know, it's just it's one
Speaker 1: of those things like I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: doing gender affirming actions for myself and I.
Speaker 3: And also what is what is seen as female or
Speaker 3: male just in terms of how what clothes we wear,
Speaker 3: how we wear our hairs, Like throughout history, there have
Speaker 3: been times when men wore their hair long, when men
Speaker 3: wore kilts, when men wore skirts or dresses or togas
Speaker 3: or robes or whatever you want to call them, like
Speaker 3: these this notion of like Oh, that's a man in
Speaker 3: a dress, And I'm like, no, actually that's a priest.
Speaker 3: He's wearing a rope.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Like, there's there's so many different things that are societal
Speaker 3: that we place on society of Like pink is a
Speaker 3: girl's color, why not in every culture. There's plenty of
Speaker 3: cultures where people wear pink that are men. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that the fundamental thing that we come down
Speaker 1: to is not that it's obvious that there are two
Speaker 1: categories of gender sex.
Speaker 2: However these folks want to put it.
Speaker 1: It's that they think there should be and that there
Speaker 1: should be these prescribed roles and that we would somehow
Speaker 1: be better off if we lived into them. And I
Speaker 1: think that's based on a desire for power, a desire
Speaker 1: not to hear people.
Speaker 2: Who disagree with you speak.
Speaker 1: And I don't think any good comes of deciding that
Speaker 1: people need to fit into neatly defined categories.
Speaker 3: And also, no one within science is denying the existence
Speaker 3: of male and female. No one is saying that there
Speaker 3: aren't two sexes, because there are. There are two sexes,
Speaker 3: but sex and gender gender is where we try to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's more nuanced, it's more complicated. Yes, you have two sexes,
Speaker 3: you have intersex cases. But then how everything is interpreted
Speaker 3: and presented and how we make sense of all of it, Like,
Speaker 3: we've got to start having a conversation that incorporates the
Speaker 3: complexity of this stuff, or else you end up with
Speaker 3: an incredibly shallow narrative that doesn't really help anyone.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don won't change anybody either.
Speaker 1: Trans people have always existed, and gender and unconfirmed people
Speaker 1: have always existed. So yeah, I would say that if
Speaker 1: you are accusing someone of denying science and reality, then
Speaker 1: also say that folks didn't exist who were a trans,
Speaker 1: jenner nonconforming before.
Speaker 2: You're just wrong.
Speaker 1: But on that note, well, first we have to do
Speaker 1: the top five patrons.
Speaker 3: Oh and then we'll get to that our next call.
Speaker 1: Yes, so top five patrons we have if you felt
Speaker 1: like scrolling on down, can you read the first one?
Speaker 3: I'll oh, I'm here, great.
Speaker 2: All right, So the top five patrons go oops.
Speaker 3: All Singularity, Dingleberry, Jackson, Calevy Helvetti.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got it, Like run into that one sometimes.
Speaker 3: Brian zoop k zoop key, zup key.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that one.
Speaker 1: Brian, I would say zoop key, but I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that one, will have to ask Brian.
Speaker 3: Z Ja Carlton, and you want to do the honorable mentions?
Speaker 2: Sure, honorable mention to Mark Lagusker. Did you give me
Speaker 2: that one? Because it's hard to say.
Speaker 3: I had already hogged five and I figure no, I
Speaker 3: love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So thank you for everyone who gives on the patron.
Speaker 1: If you want to have your name read on air,
Speaker 1: then please consider supporting us a tiny dot cc slash
Speaker 1: patreon t that's tiny dot cc slash patreon th. On
Speaker 1: that note, we have also started recording the Talk Heathen
Speaker 1: Discord after show for all levels of paid patrons. So
Speaker 1: if you want more content and a more informal look
Speaker 1: at the host, than join our patreon. Today we talk
Speaker 1: about all sorts of stuff too, So it can.
Speaker 2: Be family, it can be atheism, it can be all whatever.
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about, like recipes on there before.
Speaker 1: There's just so many different things, and I think we
Speaker 1: will be on today.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so you can just come.
Speaker 1: And just talk to us in a much more informal environment, just.
Speaker 2: Hang out with us exactly.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a selling pointers.
Speaker 1: I know after my announcements about my facial air. People
Speaker 1: are gonna be like, she is a bit much so,
Speaker 1: and it's true. Okay, so we can go on to
Speaker 1: our next caller. We have Theresa. She her from Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: who wants to talk about my journey to atheism.
Speaker 2: But yes, sorry, now you're right.
Speaker 1: You're right about her journey to atheism and how they
Speaker 1: cannot overcome past programming from growing up Catholic.
Speaker 2: So Teresa, tell us your thoughts.
Speaker 6: Hi, how are you kids doing well?
Speaker 1: I'm a kid.
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah, we're doing pretty well. How are you?
Speaker 6: I'm really good. I'm going to go.
Speaker 8: I support a couple of comedians on Patreon, and I'm
Speaker 8: going to go right after we're done.
Speaker 6: I'm going to go and and throw some support at
Speaker 6: you guys.
Speaker 2: To the audience is a body for you. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you can hear.
Speaker 6: That is adorable, awesome good.
Speaker 8: So anyway, Yes, I was raised Catholic in to be honest,
Speaker 8: I never I could never quote unquote get into it,
Speaker 8: and at sixteen I was no longer required to go
Speaker 8: and I never did again. However, I was certainly programmed
Speaker 8: as a child to believe that Christ is and still
Speaker 8: is the Savior and that our religion is the religion,
Speaker 8: and everybody else is in the world is wrong and
Speaker 8: they're going to hell. I'm not a real scientific person,
Speaker 8: but as I developed into an adult in over time,
Speaker 8: slowly I have been sailing toward atheism. I have been
Speaker 8: listening to my favorite atheist, Chris Hitchens. God, you know,
Speaker 8: I was just gonna say, God bless me.
Speaker 2: I got to love that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, funny, But you see that's kind of just proof
Speaker 6: of my programming right there, just much as that.
Speaker 8: But my question is what can I continue to do
Speaker 8: because I think I am an atheist, but then things
Speaker 8: get in my way, like, for example, on my deathbed,
Speaker 8: I'm pretty sure I will be saying to myself, oh Jesus,
Speaker 8: I'm sorry if I was wrong this whole time. And
Speaker 8: then secondary I think that, you know, science answers many many.
Speaker 6: Of my questions, but not all of my questions.
Speaker 8: And then I bounced back to, well, okay, maybe we
Speaker 8: have to talk about divine presences and I'll just shoot that,
Speaker 8: you guys said. I guess my question is how do
Speaker 8: I get to become an atheist? Is it okay to
Speaker 8: just be an agnostic work, which is what I think
Speaker 8: I am.
Speaker 6: Right now.
Speaker 8: And also the biggest thing for me is again, where
Speaker 8: you were born in the world is going to determine
Speaker 8: probably ninety five percent of the time, what religion you're
Speaker 8: going to be.
Speaker 6: And that is a kind of my number one issue is.
Speaker 8: Just because you were born a Christian, suddenly you are
Speaker 8: the one going to have it now all your Islamic
Speaker 8: millions and millions of Islamic.
Speaker 6: People are going to Hell or are not going. So
Speaker 6: I'll leave it there for your comments.
Speaker 3: Do you mind if we start with the fear of Hell?
Speaker 6: Yes? Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Did you know that the Jews didn't believe in Hell
Speaker 3: in the same sense that Christians do.
Speaker 8: Isn't that a construct that they invented?
Speaker 3: See? I thought that as well. But then if you
Speaker 3: go and you talk to actual rabbis and you talk
Speaker 3: to people who are experts in the rabbinic literature, you know,
Speaker 3: old Testament scholars, Biblical critics, they'll universally tell you that
Speaker 3: the notion of Hell is very, very very different among Jews.
Speaker 3: And as this religion developed over time, it got added
Speaker 3: on to So initially you had this more of a
Speaker 3: concept of kind of an underworld, So you have discussions
Speaker 3: of Shiel Abraham talks about, you know, this is going
Speaker 3: to send me down to Shield. I think Abraham or Jacob,
Speaker 3: one of the patriarchs, talks about how I'm going to
Speaker 3: go down to Shield in worrying. It's basically like you're
Speaker 3: going to give your dad a heart attack and send
Speaker 3: me to an early grave. But it was this idea
Speaker 3: of like an underworld where everyone goes. There were other
Speaker 3: notions of hell. There's different mentions of it, but you
Speaker 3: see this evolution over time where it's only by the
Speaker 3: time you get to like Revelation, where you have this
Speaker 3: notion of just this never ending fire, and even then
Speaker 3: a lot of the interpretations have been questioned. But this
Speaker 3: idea was not original. And over time, even even post Bible,
Speaker 3: post Biblical ideas of hell, you have books like Dante's
Speaker 3: Inferno that are talking about the different layers of punishment
Speaker 3: and this this horrible torture for this sin and this
Speaker 3: one for this sin. None of that, none of that
Speaker 3: is original. This has been a crude on but it
Speaker 3: has sticking power because clearly, if it's an idea that
Speaker 3: you're indoctrinated with as you're demonstrating, it's very hard to
Speaker 3: let go of these fears when it's that powerful of
Speaker 3: a form of imagery that's given to you as a kid,
Speaker 3: that like, if you don't believe this, you're gonna burn forever.
Speaker 3: But when you realize how it's evolved over time and
Speaker 3: that this idea is one hundred percent man made, it
Speaker 3: kind of would you say that for you at least,
Speaker 3: maybe that would help to lose some of the fear
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well absolutely, because that is what I fear is. Oh, yes,
Speaker 8: it is all that I was programmed to believe.
Speaker 6: And yeah, that does help.
Speaker 8: Again, everything, everything on.
Speaker 6: This earth is about education, and the more we know, yeah,
Speaker 6: I think that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that was just such a beautiful
Speaker 1: way of stating it too, just being like, hey, like
Speaker 1: we made this up for me, it was very hard
Speaker 1: to leave behind.
Speaker 2: The fear of hell.
Speaker 1: And I've talked about this before, just because you know,
Speaker 1: what if you still have that what if feeling in
Speaker 1: your head, Like I can say that the Bible was
Speaker 1: not even constructed the way I'd been told it was
Speaker 1: that there were many documents that you know, just as
Speaker 1: easily could have made it that none of these were
Speaker 1: meant to be read as anything other than sort of
Speaker 1: legendary and I can know all of these things, but
Speaker 1: there's still that like feeling of what if.
Speaker 2: And for me learning about the history was really helpful.
Speaker 1: Also seeing someone actually, you know there when they talk
Speaker 1: about outside of the gates where there will be weeping
Speaker 1: and gnashing of teeth, that's a physical place that you
Speaker 1: can go see. And there's muched a video of someone
Speaker 1: walking around that place, and it's it's a park.
Speaker 2: It's just sort of green and just kind of there.
Speaker 2: I feel like as you're talk yeah, I'm worse with words.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're the more academic of the two
Speaker 1: of us.
Speaker 3: Is it is an actual location in Israel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so just being able to watch someone walk
Speaker 1: there was really comforting to me to.
Speaker 2: Just be like, yeah, this is really all that ever was.
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, for me it was hard
Speaker 2: to give a peal.
Speaker 1: For you, it sounds hard to kind of move past
Speaker 1: that because we were indoctrinated with it when we were children.
Speaker 1: So what a powerful tool for the church to use
Speaker 1: to keep people in line. Right, Like, when we think
Speaker 1: about the history of the church, particularly where I am Catholic,
Speaker 1: we think about things like selling indulgences. Right, I can
Speaker 1: do whatever I want provided that I pay a certain
Speaker 1: amount to the local priests or bishop or whatever, and
Speaker 1: they will let me. You know, my sins are covered
Speaker 1: if I just pay the right mount Like, it was
Speaker 1: a great way to shore up power in the church,
Speaker 1: to make us believe that we're unworthy, we are sinful,
Speaker 1: we need intercession, and if we don't.
Speaker 2: Then burn and fire for eternity. Like.
Speaker 1: It was so useful for them that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and we are living proof as to why that was.
Speaker 1: But thinking about the political reality of it in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, thinking about you know, the literature like the
Speaker 1: Dante's Inferno or the Exorcist that has come to really
Speaker 1: form our vision of hell and evil demons and spirits,
Speaker 1: it helped for me quite a bit.
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: Yeah, excuse me.
Speaker 5: Have you.
Speaker 8: Have you guys heard of a guy named Dan mccollin.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely have.
Speaker 3: I actually just did. I just did an interview with
Speaker 3: Dan McClellan. I'll be dropping it on my channel fairly soon.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like Dan McClellan has been really helpful
Speaker 1: for me, even though I know he is still a
Speaker 1: religious person. Just in talking about what is actually in
Speaker 1: the Bible. And I feel like I find that really
Speaker 1: helpful too.
Speaker 3: I got to say, there's something you were about to
Speaker 3: say about it though, Oh that is his.
Speaker 6: Data over dogma has really helped me.
Speaker 8: And again I don't understand he's he's somehow he is
Speaker 8: a very devout Mormon. But when you lift just talk
Speaker 8: about what the Bible and the translations, he's a he's
Speaker 8: a religious and a biblical scholar, highly educated on what
Speaker 8: the Bible does and does not say. I listened to
Speaker 8: him a lot because it's clearing up questions about.
Speaker 6: The Bible that that I have have had in the past.
Speaker 8: And he said, oh, and he's telling you, Okay, this
Speaker 8: is what they meant, what the apostles meant when they
Speaker 8: said Tom, what they really meant. And he talks about
Speaker 8: the timing, and he talks about, oh, I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 8: sixty years old.
Speaker 1: And I just thought the cultural context, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: so which is so valuable. And I think that maybe
Speaker 1: it's a good demonstration and of the fact that I
Speaker 1: don't feel my personal goal anyway is to make everyone
Speaker 1: an atheist. But I think if there were more theists
Speaker 1: who really looked, you know, data over dogma, and who
Speaker 1: really cared about finding how to interpret things as accurately
Speaker 1: as possible, how they may be limiting other people with
Speaker 1: their beliefs that are unjustified if they were really asking
Speaker 1: those questions. I think the world would be a better
Speaker 1: place if there were more theists who really wanted to
Speaker 1: get into that I do want to address really quickly.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the idea of.
Speaker 1: Still having really big questions that things like atheism can't answer,
Speaker 1: and I sort of wanted to mention, like, first of all,
Speaker 1: empathize with that too, just that yeah, there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of questions, and I think being able to say
Speaker 1: I don't know is one of the only ways I
Speaker 1: was able to come out of religion, because the idea is,
Speaker 1: I feel like, if you're in, particularly as I was,
Speaker 1: a more fundamentalist space, if as soon as you say
Speaker 1: I don't know, someone will say, see God, you know,
Speaker 1: just there must be He must be there. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so I think for me embracing the fact that that
Speaker 1: I don't know and that's okay, that science is not
Speaker 1: meant to be an all you know, answering system. I
Speaker 1: guess like it's about exploration, it's not about finding the
Speaker 1: one answer.
Speaker 3: At the same time, it is the best tool that
Speaker 3: we have to try to figure out how the world works,
Speaker 3: because what is the alternative prayer revelation? Having you know,
Speaker 3: a vision or something like you can compare that against
Speaker 3: the world and see how the world operates and test
Speaker 3: it and try it in order to not have to
Speaker 3: rely on just taking everything on belief, because that gets
Speaker 3: us in a lot of sticky situations when we don't
Speaker 3: rely on the evidence and we don't rely on the data.
Speaker 3: I am curious when you were mentioning how You're like, well,
Speaker 3: what if I get to the end of my life?
Speaker 3: And I'm just like, well, what if I got it wrong?
Speaker 3: Are you familiar with Pascal's Wager? Teresa? It's fresh meet
Speaker 3: Pascal's Wager. It was a proposition put forth by Blaze
Speaker 3: Pascal I believe in the late eighteen hundreds, and it
Speaker 3: goes like, if you believe in God and you're right,
Speaker 3: well you get eternal life. If you believe in God
Speaker 3: and you're wrong, then nothing happens. There's no consequences. If
Speaker 3: you don't believe in God and you're right, then okay,
Speaker 3: like you're right, but who really cares? Is not, there's
Speaker 3: not as much at stake. But if you're wrong, you
Speaker 3: burn in hell for all eternity because you don't believe right.
Speaker 3: So it's proposed as a mathematical proposition for why you
Speaker 3: should believe in God. And this is something that I
Speaker 3: think almost everyone who leaves the faith wrestles with, and
Speaker 3: that they'll even if they no longer believe, oftentimes they'll
Speaker 3: opt for the God as an insurance policy. But I
Speaker 3: think that there's a few there's a few fundamental problems
Speaker 3: with it, the first being that what if what if
Speaker 3: you chose the wrong God? What if you were born
Speaker 3: into Christianity and of the millions and millions and millions
Speaker 3: of other religious beliefs that have existed throughout history. If
Speaker 3: you chose wrong and the other God was a jealous
Speaker 3: God and he's vindictive, maybe he would burn you for
Speaker 3: all eternity heaven, and you're playing against astronomically tiny odds there.
Speaker 3: The other option is what if God is not vindictive
Speaker 3: and he exists or she exists, or it exists, and
Speaker 3: this deity is actually forgiving, but would be more understanding
Speaker 3: of the I don't know the honest searchings of an
Speaker 3: agnostic as opposed to the arrogant know it all assertions
Speaker 3: of a proud atheist following the wrong deity. And I
Speaker 3: think you look at that, and then you also look
Speaker 3: at like, if God is all loving and all kind
Speaker 3: and actually cares about us and is omnipresent, which those
Speaker 3: are a lot of big assertions. But assuming that all
Speaker 3: of that is the case, then hell would go against
Speaker 3: that God's very nature. Condemning people for an eternal punishment
Speaker 3: for a finite life of sin. It is not justice,
Speaker 3: it's not kindness, it's not love, it's not mercy. So
Speaker 3: you start looking at all of these problems that take
Speaker 3: place within Pascal's wager and you're like, oh, I've been
Speaker 3: doing the calculation all wrong, you know. And if, on
Speaker 3: the other hand, let's say that you're an atheist and
Speaker 3: it's out that you're right and that no one really
Speaker 3: knows because no one can know, and there's millions of
Speaker 3: deities that a lot of them there they go against
Speaker 3: Like the Bible, for example, it has historical inaccuracies, it
Speaker 3: has internal contradictions, it has in terms like failed prophecies,
Speaker 3: it has scientific errors. It has so many different issues
Speaker 3: with it to where I can say with one hundred
Speaker 3: percent confidence that the God of the Bible is not true,
Speaker 3: it is not real, it does not exist. I cannot
Speaker 3: say with absolute confidence that nothing started it, that there
Speaker 3: was no deity. So I'm kind of, I guess agnostic
Speaker 3: on that front. But I live my life in such
Speaker 3: a way where like, I do my best to be
Speaker 3: kind to other people because that's the kind of world
Speaker 3: I want to live in, and I just if I'm
Speaker 3: wrong and I die at the end of my life.
Speaker 3: And assuming that the Creator wasn't just an apatheistic deity
Speaker 3: that just kind of does its own thing and doesn't
Speaker 3: give a crap about us because we're just like mold
Speaker 3: growing on the side of bread and some planet that
Speaker 3: he doesn't even know about. Assuming that all of these
Speaker 3: things happen, then I think that that would see the
Speaker 3: sincerity with which I live my life and judgement accordingly.
Speaker 8: Let me let me respond to what you just said,
Speaker 8: because that is very much where I'm at in my
Speaker 8: life right now. I retired five years ago, and that
Speaker 8: enabled me to do what I feel is in my
Speaker 8: heart and soul, and that's wherever I see my help
Speaker 8: is needed locally, I act on it. I do a
Speaker 8: lot of volunteering. A friend of mine, who is an atheist,
Speaker 8: she said, asked her, what do you think the meaning
Speaker 8: of life is, Tess, And she says, well, that's easy.
Speaker 8: It's to love and help each other. And I couldn't
Speaker 8: find a better example of my reason for being on
Speaker 8: the earth, which I consider. Look, we're on this tiny
Speaker 8: speck of dust in an infinite.
Speaker 6: Universe, and isn't this enough? I mean, yes, we've got
Speaker 6: some on this earth.
Speaker 8: You know, we have serious problems. We are we are,
Speaker 8: we are very broken, but we.
Speaker 6: Are also not very broken in many ways.
Speaker 8: And isn't it enough just to be on this beautiful
Speaker 8: planet and to love and help each other and to
Speaker 8: be good stewards stewards of it for generations to come.
Speaker 2: Wow, what a wonderful, concise way. The audience is a
Speaker 2: plotting you.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can hear that, but I
Speaker 1: think it's important that you know that was lovely. I
Speaker 1: really have anything else to say about that other than like,
Speaker 1: that was wonderful. And I look forward to the pull
Speaker 1: out little YouTube video of you saying those things, because
Speaker 1: I think that for me where I'm at right now,
Speaker 1: I agree that's enough.
Speaker 2: And that's hard enough too.
Speaker 1: To love the people that you encounter and to always
Speaker 1: be looking for ways to help. That's already hard because
Speaker 1: we are limited. And so yeah, I think that that
Speaker 1: is enough, and I'm really happy that there's people like
Speaker 1: you doing that.
Speaker 6: And also fire.
Speaker 8: So in my heart, I'm gonna squeeze every last hand
Speaker 8: shout of this life. I there's time to waste. We
Speaker 8: must live each and every day to the fullest possible
Speaker 8: because we're expiring, and we need to hand.
Speaker 6: Off what we know and what we love to those
Speaker 6: behind us. That's our jobs. That's how I see my
Speaker 6: job in my life.
Speaker 1: I love that I might let you go because I
Speaker 1: do want to get into this very last call, but
Speaker 1: I still appreciate you calling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: I love what you said at the end there. And
Speaker 3: I love this idea that because life is short, it
Speaker 3: increases the value of it, it doesn't decrease it. Because
Speaker 3: it's rare, it's special. You got to seize the moment,
Speaker 3: make the most of it, and treat other people in
Speaker 3: a way where it's like, if this person only has
Speaker 3: this one life and they're suffering and they're going through hell,
Speaker 3: shouldn't I be more compassionate and loving and kind towards
Speaker 3: them to make that life a little bit more tolerable.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Also, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: Sorry, this isn't aside, but I realized that we sometimes
Speaker 1: say on this show like, hey, like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: let you preach, I'm just going to make your point
Speaker 1: all this, and I'm like, I'll just let Teresa preach
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 2: That's fine. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: But I did want to get to this last call
Speaker 1: from D, who has called it and fairly often D
Speaker 1: they them from Iowa, because this is something that we've
Speaker 1: discussed so much on the show today. I wanted to
Speaker 1: get D's perspective. They say that they're willing to share
Speaker 1: about their true perspective of how gender ambiguity affects a child.
Speaker 2: So, hey, D, we don't have.
Speaker 1: A ton of time left, but I wanted to get
Speaker 1: you on here to tell us what your thoughts are
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Sophie, thank you Holy kool Aid. I don't
Speaker 7: know which first name is, but nice to meet you.
Speaker 7: So yeah, I was introduced very early to the idea
Speaker 7: that these sexes and genders may not be as cut
Speaker 7: and dried as possible. Now put this in perspective. I'm
Speaker 7: sixty one years old. My first introduction was in seventh
Speaker 7: grade science class in a section about genetics, and the
Speaker 7: text talked about sex testing in professional sports and in
Speaker 7: the Olympics and stuff because they want to make sure.
Speaker 7: They wanted to make sure that an athlete was a
Speaker 7: quote unquote pure male or pure female and not have
Speaker 7: any genetic advantages. And I, by that time, I had
Speaker 7: already been catching unspoken cues about my gender identity. I
Speaker 7: was a big, rough and tumble tomboy. But when and
Speaker 7: my parents, surprisingly they did not insist on only buying
Speaker 7: me gender appropriate toys. I got a lot of tomboy
Speaker 7: toys and stuff. But as I approached my preteens, I
Speaker 7: started feeling pressure to not be a tomboy anymore and
Speaker 7: to act more girly and feminine. Add to that, when
Speaker 7: I was six years old, I found my baby book
Speaker 7: that mom had started for me, and I read the
Speaker 7: very first words my dad said when I was born,
Speaker 7: and what he said was it was supposed to be
Speaker 7: a boy.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 7: So from my mom I felt From my mom, I
Speaker 7: felt a pressure to be more feminine, and from my dad.
Speaker 7: I felt kind of a disappointment, and when I found
Speaker 7: that baby book, I started trying to engage with him.
Speaker 7: I wanted to go hunting, but I was really squeamish.
Speaker 7: I wanted to go camping, and we did go camping.
Speaker 7: At times. There was just a lot of nonverbal messaging
Speaker 7: clashing with you know, my feelings about myself and if
Speaker 7: I was more than just a tomboy. And when I
Speaker 7: saw that, and when I started learning about that genetic
Speaker 7: segment in science class, I remember one day thinking to myself,
Speaker 7: when I get old enough, I need to have some
Speaker 7: genetic testing done.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 7: For various reasons I went through in my late twenties,
Speaker 7: I allowed myself. I identified as a lesbian and identified
Speaker 7: that way all the way up until last year. And
Speaker 7: I think it's very significant that, you know, my real
Speaker 7: acceptance of my thoughts about religion coalescing into a more
Speaker 7: or less atheistic outlook also freed me to accept what
Speaker 7: I felt back at twelve and thirteen years old, I
Speaker 7: am non binary. I like, go ahead and expressed to
Speaker 7: you the I can't express to this fellow that called
Speaker 7: two things how much I feel Number one big release
Speaker 7: and number two whether or not you have an issue
Speaker 7: with it. Oh sorry guy, last week I gave away
Speaker 7: my last fuck.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you can hear that.
Speaker 1: The audience is audience is really involved today and they
Speaker 1: were applauding that as well.
Speaker 3: And I think by this point I still give focks,
Speaker 3: but I charge for them.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good.
Speaker 1: I think something I want to pull out of your
Speaker 1: story too, is that nobody told you that it was
Speaker 1: cool to be.
Speaker 2: Gender non conforming, right like that.
Speaker 1: I think oftentimes how we have this discussion now, it's
Speaker 1: almost like people talk about the social contagion of it,
Speaker 1: of being gender non conforming or being trans, or this
Speaker 1: idea that it will only occur to you that you're
Speaker 1: gender non conforming if someone in a position of authority
Speaker 1: tell you that that's an option.
Speaker 2: It's so fundamentally untrue.
Speaker 1: And you know, you're mentioning that you're a little older,
Speaker 1: just like the caller earlier was saying, well, back in
Speaker 1: my day, no one did that, really, And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean people weren't there. And I always
Speaker 1: appreciate your calls so much, and I appreciate you calling
Speaker 1: and giving us that perspective.
Speaker 2: After speaking with that caller.
Speaker 7: I appreciate, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much.
Speaker 7: Nice to speak to you again, Sophia, and nice to
Speaker 7: meet you Holy kool aid. And Thomas appreciated your Okay, Tomas,
Speaker 7: I know it's.
Speaker 3: Not on the screen, but my name's Thomas, and that's
Speaker 3: nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we always we always love love d round here
Speaker 1: because they always come in with with lovely, interesting things
Speaker 1: to say and a perspective that we don't always hear.
Speaker 1: So before we conclude, there are two super chats that
Speaker 1: we neglected to read. So would you feel inspired to
Speaker 1: go ahead and at least take that first one?
Speaker 3: Yes, I'll do. Miranda Rinsberger has been a member for
Speaker 3: one year. Thank you. Miranda gave a ten dollars super
Speaker 3: chat that says, thank you ACA for saving the children,
Speaker 3: keep up the good work.
Speaker 2: I love that so much.
Speaker 1: I yeah, for so many reasons, but well said Miranda,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate it so much. All right, And superchat
Speaker 1: number two, you want to tackle that one?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Benji says that sex and gender are not binary, both
Speaker 3: are spectral, also obligatory. Theians, other can't slash, other can
Speaker 3: identify with animals. Spirituality, psychologically or sorry, spiritually psychologically typically
Speaker 3: not as animals. So furries just like anthros. So I
Speaker 3: think they're saying that people who, first of all, I
Speaker 3: don't know enough about furries and furry what do you
Speaker 3: call it? Furry lore? Yeah, where it's like I like,
Speaker 3: I think they're saying that they identify with the animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they find some connection with Like say, they're
Speaker 1: not saying that they are a fox.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you find some connection with it.
Speaker 1: And then furry's just like anths would be like anthempromorphised
Speaker 1: animals that they like prefer ones that will have more
Speaker 1: humanoid features.
Speaker 2: Maybe that would be my guess.
Speaker 1: Admittedly, I do want to underscore and thank you Nero
Speaker 1: for the ten dollars that was from Nero. I do
Speaker 1: want to underscore how ill equipped I am when it
Speaker 1: comes to discussing some of these things, and so I
Speaker 1: definitely did my best. But if there are things that
Speaker 1: we missed, please put them in the comments, because I
Speaker 1: do want to know if there's stuff that I said
Speaker 1: that was not as accurate as I was trying to be. So,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I do appreciate that that clarification from Nero
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: On that note, the prompt for this week for the
Speaker 1: question of the Week is finish the joke three wise
Speaker 1: men walk into a stable reply in the comments and
Speaker 1: tune in at the beginning of next week's episode to
Speaker 1: hear the top three answers.
Speaker 2: And how can people find you? You're kind of a
Speaker 2: big deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you guys are interested in my work, I
Speaker 3: have a channel called Holy kool Aid. You can go
Speaker 3: check out my work there. I actually did a whole
Speaker 3: video on Pascal's Wager, which based off of the conversation
Speaker 3: we've had. People might be interested in checking it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that so much. And thank you to
Speaker 1: the live audience that we were here we had here today.
Speaker 1: I appreciate them being here. It's dark.
Speaker 2: I prohaps there's more people to the sides as well.
Speaker 2: There's but yet. So we love having folks come down
Speaker 2: and hang out so much. It's wonderful. Definitely.
Speaker 1: You know, check out the atheist community meet up here
Speaker 1: in Austin.
Speaker 2: And now we send love rings. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember chucking then we do love rings? Okay, I
Speaker 2: oh are we doing them? From the audience during loverings
Speaker 2: system is that?
Speaker 1: Oh yay?
Speaker 2: Everyone does some loverings. We're supposed to appear. Our love
Speaker 2: magic is there, whether or not you can see it.
Speaker 2: Just have faith. So there's that and then uh so,
Speaker 2: oh hey, there they are. It was delayed. Our magic
Speaker 2: was delayed. See I told you to have faith. There was.
Speaker 1: There is the So feel you know, join the Atheist
Speaker 1: Community Discord, which is tiny dot cc slash a c
Speaker 1: D discord. And if you don't believe, this is your
Speaker 1: community and we appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2: If you do believe, we don't hate you.
Speaker 3: And if you don't believe, we just think you're wrong.
Speaker 2: We'll say we're just not convinced by it. One, half
Speaker 2: a dozen of the other. You know, we got there,
Speaker 2: We got there high five.
Speaker 3: We want the truth.
Speaker 2: So watch Truth Wanted live Friday at seven pm Central.
Speaker 2: Visit tiny dot cc slash y t tw and call
Speaker 2: into the show at five one two nine nine nine
Speaker 2: two four two, or connect to the show online at
Speaker 2: tiny dot cc slash call tw