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Speaker 1: Christian morality loves to sell itself as human centered, but

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when you actually read the source material, that's not what

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you get. You get a worldview where the greatest command

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is to love God with everything you are, where you're

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told to deny yourself, to take up your cross, seek

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God's kingdom first, and place loyalty to Jesus about family,

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comfort and even your own life. And it doesn't stop there.

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God tells you to lean not on your own understanding

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and biblical wisdom supposedly begins with fearing him. That's not

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a person focused morality. That's deity focused obedience with human beings.

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Somewhere down the priority list, Secular humanism starts in the

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opposite place. It ask what reduces suffering, protects dignity, and

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helps actual people flourish.

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Speaker 2: So the question is simple.

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Speaker 1: Should morality serve a God or should it serve persons?

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If you have an answer to this question, then please

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call in because the show starts now. What's up, Heathens,

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How y'all doing?

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Speaker 3: Today?

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Speaker 1: Is May third, twenty twenty six, and I'm your host,

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Godless engineer John Gleason. Joining me right now is Fish Stark.

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Speaker 2: What's up there?

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Speaker 3: Fish? How you doing Hey, John, it's good to see

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you again and good to be streaming with you again. Man,

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I am doing really, really well. It's great to be

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at the Atheist Community of Austin. This is my first

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time here. Such an awesome setup, in awesome space, one

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of our faiths. I'm not supposed to have favorite American

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Humanists Association local groups, You guys are one of my favorites.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm envious actually that I'm not actually

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there right now, and I wish that I didn't live

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in the hell hole that is Alabama. But in case

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there's anybody out there that doesn't know who you are

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what you do, won't.

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Speaker 2: You tell people about yourself?

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Speaker 3: One hundred percent? So my name is Fish Stark. That's

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fish like the animals, Stark like iron Man. I am

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the executive director of the American Humanist Association. Humanism is

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for anyone who believes science tells us what's real and

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compassion tells us what's right. And for coming up on

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a hundred years, the AHA has fought to promote humanism,

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build humanism community, and fight the religious rights so that

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we can all live with civil liberties and dignity.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm right, there with you.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a little bit more of

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a precarious situation with you know, where I work. But

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you know, I'm definitely on their short list for calling,

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you know, a terrorist or something.

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Speaker 3: And that's why we're spending a billion dollars a day

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to bomb school children in Iran. So thank you.

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Speaker 1: You gotta love you, gotta love that that very God

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centered sort of mentality, right, I mean that was kind

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of what my opening was about.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we've been.

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Speaker 1: Hearing a lot of rhetoric in you know, the news

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lately about you know, how this is sort of like

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a God.

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Speaker 2: Centered war that we're waging over there, and.

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Speaker 1: It's been framed in a very religious sort of centered

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sort of mindset there, And I'm just kind of curious, like,

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you know, coming from a secular humanist organization and everything,

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how do you think that this is kind of, you know,

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affecting I guess the you know, the United States in general,

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Like I guess I'm what I'm focusing on is like

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the shift, you know, the radical shift from you know,

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a more secular state to this very Christian oriented sort

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of rhetoric.

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Speaker 3: I think that they are rapidly exposing all of the

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things that make people skeptical of religious nationalism in the

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first place. They it's honestly impressive how quickly they've shown

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how much of a failure religious nationalism can be right

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because people, you know, I really don't think in twenty

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twenty four people voted because they were like, you know what,

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I really want a religious nationalist state. They're like, well,

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my grocery prices went up a whole lot, and my

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gas prices went up a whole lot, my home prices

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went up a whole lot, And I guess maybe changing

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the party in charge would work. And instead what they've

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gotten is illegal, undeclared wars that they were promised they

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wouldn't get. More expensive groceries, more expensive housing, way more

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expensive gas, and a government that is way more concerned

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with making ai images of themselves as Jesus and trying

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to tell us all how to worship. And you know, John,

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I think it gets back to you know that ultimately

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they think their morality comes They don't care about helping

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the American people. They care about their very narrow vision

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of what they think is biblically ordained right. I brought

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up Doug Wilson for a reason, because he went on

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a podcast a few years ago when he said empathy

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is a sin because it encourages people to turn away

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from God for the sake of the neighbor. And that's

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the undercurrent of their whole philosophy. It doesn't matter what

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they do to everyday Americans as long as they feel

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like they're bringing about their prophecy at end times. And people,

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even Christians are saying this and they're like, wait a minute,

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I am tired of this. This My whole thing is

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actually that I think we should love everybody, and I'm

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tired of enforced cruelty coming from the top. Sorry.

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Speaker 1: Sorry, I started laughing at the very beginning of that

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because I was gonna correct you. And I think that

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you mean doctors like them dressed as doctors and healing

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you know, potential uh p three dos.

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Speaker 2: I feel I.

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Speaker 1: Feel like that's very indicative of where we're at in

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this current administration. But but yes, uh so, I just

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wanted to let everybody know that the atheist experience is

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a product of the atheist community of Austin. If I've

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on one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion

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of atheism, Critical critical thinking, secular human and the separation

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of religion and government.

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Speaker 2: We are try streaming tonight.

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Speaker 1: So a big shout out to our viewers over there

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on TikTok and on YouTube mobile. If you are watching

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us on TikTok tonight and you'd like to talk with this,

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then request up and we'll bring you up on stage.

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Please make sure that you are over eighteen years of

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years of age before doing so, And while you're over

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there on the TikTok app, make sure you're tippy tapping

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on that screen.

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Speaker 2: To get those lags up.

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Speaker 1: It'd be great to see those lugs get up over

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like five thousand here at the very start of it,

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so that we get into the algorithm there. Make sure

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you're sharing the stream out with your friends, family, and

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people that you could potentially might want to call in.

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If anybody out there on any of these platforms has

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a question about secular humanism or like to challenge us

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on the prominence of I guess Christian morality. Would I've

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been calling Christian morality because like, I don't know how

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you feel about it, fish, but like the Christian morality thing,

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I know that there's no Christian morality, but I feel

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like it's starting to take shape in our culture right now,

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this sort of idea of Christian morality, and it's very

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it is very sort of it's not focus on helping people,

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but it's focused on well, what does God want? And

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I mean that really is the central idea in Christianity,

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and with Christianity being you know, the central focus here

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with Christian nationalism and everything like that, how do you

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feel about that framing of it being like them implementing

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like Christian morality and everything.

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Speaker 3: Look, you asked thirty Christians what morality is and you

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get thirty different answers. I can't you know, I don't

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think we can ask a religion that can't figure out

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which of three different figures is God for a coherent

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definition of morality that can work across time, space and communities.

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Like ultimately, I just got interviewed for this article in CNN.

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It was on Eastern There was this guy who had

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written a book called Dominion that was like, Hey, all

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of the good things about Western culture, like individual rights

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and feminism and all these things come from Christianity. And

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I was like, that doesn't make any sense, right, Like,

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there's I it would be imagine me going and saying

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humanism has a monopoly on morality, that actually all good

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things about the world came out of humanism. Like the

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truth is the only way we've come to good things

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is by religious and non religious people from a bunch

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of different traditions trying to figure out what is good together,

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rather than somebody's stone tablets beating somebody else's stone tablets out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, the whole the whole stone tablet thing. Like,

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so as far as the tank commandment's good, that this

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has been one thing that which I don't know. I

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don't I'm frozen on screen. Do I need to on

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the back end? Do I need to like refresh or anything?

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Speaker 3: Why? I don't know.

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Speaker 2: If I didn't clear.

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Speaker 1: John, yeah, my videos like frozen, I'm not sure what's

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going on there. But so one of the things that

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I've encountered the most in my conversations with people online

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has been that, you know, they want to reject all

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of the commandments of the Old Testament when they're talking

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about their Christian morality, and then what they want to

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do is they want to only adhere to the Ten Commandments.

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And you know, I really find the Ten Commandments to

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be nearly devoid of any kind of real sense of morality.

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But you know, whenever somebody talks about the Ten because

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we got the Ten Commandments in the news cycle like

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a lot here lately, with them being forced into schools

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and everything, I'm wondering, how do you feel about the

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Ten Commandments?

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Speaker 2: And how do you.

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Speaker 1: Feel about the forcing of the Ten Commandments on the

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American people?

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Speaker 3: I mean, depends on the commandment, right, thou shalt not kill?

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That one is I try to follow that one in

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my own life. That one is pretty top for me.

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The idea that the government should be making statements around

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I am the Lord, your God, Thou shalt have no

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other gods before me. There's no there's no way around

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the fact that the Ten Commandments are an explicitly religious

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document meant to advance the promotion of the Christian religion.

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And that's fine if you believe in that, But I'll

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be damned if you're going to use my tax dollars

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to teach that to school children. And so, you know, ultimately,

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we just won this last month, our lawyers won in

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federal court against the state of Arkansas. They were trying

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to plaster the Ten commandments all over their state government,

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and we got a federal judge to say that is

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not an acceptable use of tax payer money, especially if

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you're going to tell other religious groups they can't put

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up their holy monuments too. At the end of the day,

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I don't want to live in a country where everybody

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thinks like me. That's not the point of being an American.

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That's not I think the point of living anywhere. The

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goals should be to have a country where everyone can

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follow the dictates of their conscient and this idea that, oh,

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if everyone just believed our moral code, the world would

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be fine. Not only do I think that that is

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a sad view of other people's ways of thinking. I

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think thinking about moral questions in different ways allows us

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all to come to a better response. That's just not

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the way the world works. Who can't ban different ways

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of believing about morality and expect to have a society

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where people are actually free and can collaborate. So I

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don't know. I am glad we beat the snot out

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of the Christian right in that case. I'm looking forward

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to doing it again when they appeal it. And I

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really would love somebody to call in and argue with

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me and tell me we actually should have state and

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forced morality from the top down. And tell me where

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you've seen it work. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can't tell you where I've seen

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it work unless you're talking about authoritative regimes where people

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are like pretty miserable and everything, which I don't know

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if I'm sure that you guys can still hear me.

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But I'm cause playing God right now, this is what

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God looks like. The visual Oh no, the visual representation

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of God.

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Speaker 2: You see me.

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Speaker 1: The point at the exact same time, Just so that

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everybody's clear, where's your yeah, because he heard to think so?

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Uh but yeah, well you know, I just uh you know,

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I've I've got them stash away.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be doing something with them.

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Speaker 3: This is really convenient, actually.

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Speaker 2: Outing I mean, don't worry about it.

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Speaker 3: There's a there's a hole. They've got like tons and

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tons of bottles of water here, and I you and

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I could go into the wine business right now. I

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just as long as this holds.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I just uh, you know,

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I hope So, I mean I definitely could snap my

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fingers and create all that wine right now.

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Speaker 3: I mean honestly, this is who we're going to hire

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another lawyer.

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Speaker 2: I mean I should just be able to like snap.

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Speaker 3: And that's what I'm saying. Man, like, I'll go now

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now that you're now the disembodied voice is lurking, I'm like,

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oh man, it's time for me. Is anyone here, anyone

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here needs some healing? Anybody here? Anyone want? Anyone want

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bread and fish? Like John is just John's going to

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perform some miracles live.

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Speaker 1: I can just multiply it immediately, like that's that's that's

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how God works, right, magic. I ain't gotta explain anything

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there you go.

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Speaker 3: Can you make from my wrist?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh, I mean I could.

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Speaker 1: I can, I can make I can make anything from

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your rib? I mean, come on, why not?

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Speaker 3: What what fruit?

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Speaker 2: Am I what I need to do on my end?

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I don't think there's anything I can do dragon fruit?

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I just and that's just like.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to throw out this whole box with

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some kind of honey or something.

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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, only only eat the fruit of the tree.

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Speaker 1: Been to the uh right, I've I've actually been to

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the Creation Museum and they have like the the tree.

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You know that they have a representation of it, and

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it looks like a dragon fruit.

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Speaker 2: It's so crazy to see.

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Speaker 1: They got this dragon looking snake wrapped around a dragon fruit.

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And inside the dragon fruit are these like seeds that

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looks like little capsules, you know, and it looks like

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little taile andol pills the gel caps and that's apparently

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what's stored in dragon fruit according to the Creation Museum.

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Speaker 3: Wow, I you know, that makes the whole thing make

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a lot more sense. If I told somebody not to

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eat that fruit and they ate it, I'd be like, wow,

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you are pretty stupid. That does nothing.

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Speaker 2: But no, it does not.

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Speaker 1: Now, So we were talking, Sorry I got distracted and everything.

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So we were talking about the Ten Commandments in schools.

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A lot of people think that it's gonna do something

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and that and there, I guess, do something for the

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students or like the students need to be reminded of

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it and everything. My criticism, of course, is like what

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does this say. Well, for one thing, we've got the

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first three commandments, like you pointed out, like you know,

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have no other gods before me and everything like that.

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They want to try to paint that as being like

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non religious. Oh no, is it just me, Or is

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that like really bullshit?

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Speaker 3: You know, I don't know how I am the Lord,

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thy God, Thou shalt have no other gods before me

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could ever be construed as non religious. I think you

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know they're leaning in on this defense that says the

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Ten Commandments are not it's not a religious document, it's

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a historical document, because the founders all believed in the

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Ten Commands, know the fuck they didn't. Like you've got

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Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, You've got these old like

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deist Unitarian universalists who I guarantee you one hundred percent,

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straight up and down, did not believe in the Ten

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Commandments because they very clearly did not believe in an

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interventionist God. Right, So if you're gonna say the Founding

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fathers believed in these things, and these are the foundations

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of American society, you should be able to show that

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the guy who wrote the Comsents pamphlet and the guy

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who wrote the goddamn Declaration of Independence actually incorporated this

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and the way that they were thinking. I don't deny

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that there were Christians at the Founding like George Washington,

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although George Washington famously warned about the dangers of religious states,

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despite being religious himself. But my god, if you're gonna

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make some kind of craven historical argument to force your

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religion on kids, at least do us the courtesy of

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being right. It's just such a profoundly stupid exercise to

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try and pretend that the founding Father sat down and

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challenged a state religion with a king who was said

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to be divinely ordained with this idea of consent of

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the governed, which has morality comes from the people, and

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have people be like, oh no, but what they really

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wanted was for government bureaucrats to decide what religion your

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child should be. It's asinine, and if you disagreed, yell

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at me.

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Speaker 2: It really is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely call in. We would love to hear from y'all.

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We would love to hear from y'all. The phone number

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is it's covered up right now. I'm so blanking right

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now on the phone number. I know that it's out

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there somewhere. I don't know in the chat. I know

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it's in the chat. I'm floundering because I'm not on

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the screen. Uh yeah, it's uh five one two nine

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to nine to one nine two four two, call in,

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or you can hit up that link in the description

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called uh it's tiny dot c C forward slash call axph.

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Do that now if you would like to disagree with us. Now,

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one of the things that I usually run with and

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that people have a problem with is I is and

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and most.

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Speaker 2: Of this is to be inflammatory.

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Speaker 1: And that's the statement that Christian morals have done more

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harm than good. And it's really just a challenge that

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I issue to people, would be like, call in and

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tell me what Christian morality, what Christian morals has has

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actually succeeded in doing good, at least more good than

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it's than than Christianity on the whole is done harm.

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But kind of curious, how do you about that statement?

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Speaker 3: You know, I would say, who what do you get

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to call Christian morals? Right? When I when I ask

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people what is Christian morality, they're like, well, Christian morality

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is about dignity. Okay, Well, news flash, every religion in

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world history has a concept of human dignity. You don't

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get to claim that because there are more of you

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than us and say you came up with it, like

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there is a concept of human dignity and Hinduism and

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Buddhism and Judaism and Islam. Right, So when you're talking

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about Christian morality, you should talk about the things that

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are distinct to Christianity that make it separate from say,

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Judaism or humanism, which also believes in things like human

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dignity and reciprocity and humility. So what are the specific

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tenets of Christian belief that you think make your life

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better than mine? Is the question? Or make your country

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you're imagined Christian nationalist country better than mine. And that's

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where people start to have a hard answer, and it's like, look, okay,

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like we can. We can both believe in the Golden

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rule in loving thy neighbor. And your belief in loving

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thy neighbor is not somehow stronger than my belief in

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loving thy neighbor because you read it in a different

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book than me. So you know, again, I'm curious if

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somebody thinks that their Christianity makes them a better person

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than John and I because of what you believe, not

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how you live. Because I again this for humanism, right,

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Like humanism isn't something you can just call yourself. You

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can't convert to humanism. Humanism is about what you believe

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and what you do, because we think that's what morality is, right.

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It's like not what club you say you're in, it's

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who the hell you are and how you live your life. Yeah,

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And I feel like I've really started to work in

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a lot of those aspects into my interactions with people.

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I've started, you know, you know, deploying that statement of

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Christianity as Christian morals has done more harm than good

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as a way to get people into the common station,

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to demonstrate to them that they're actually better than their

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own God, because it's like, you know, they don't oftentimes

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they don't even realize like how deplorable some of the

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some of the things that they think.

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Speaker 1: Are benign are. I had a kid the other the

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other week. I say kid, because I'm you know, forty, and.

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Speaker 3: Am I a kid?

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Speaker 2: John twenty or so?

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Speaker 1: So I said, I say kid, No, no, no, no, You're

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definitely not a kid. But he he was definitely young

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in multiple different ways. But he did not understand that

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the Tenth Commandment listed women as property and that you know,

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had slaves in there, just like you can own slaves.

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Speaker 2: That was like a mind blowing thing for him.

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Speaker 3: Doude, what do you think?

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Speaker 1: I guess this leads me to think, what do you

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think the ramifications are of places like Texas as well

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as other states forcing the Ten Commandments into schools.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think number one, you're going to have every

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child in that school who doesn't come from an Abrahamic

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religion feel ostracized, feel less than feel that their government

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is saying that other families' religions are worth more than theirs. Right,

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I will you know, I will be damned if my

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tax dollars are used to teach my child in a

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public school that they might be going to hell. That

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to me is beyond the pale. Right. So number one,

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that's what I care about. I don't kids deserve to

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be who the hell they are, and I don't want

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any kid going to school to feel like they don't

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belong there because their family's the wrong religion. And again,

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I think it promotes it's bad because it's historically inaccurate.

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I think it promotes this total myth that the Founding

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Fathers intended to establish a country based on the Christian religion,

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when in fact you can find every Founding Father, even

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the religious ones, being like this is not what we're

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trying to do at all. And then, yeah, John, I

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would agree with you. There are elements of Old Testament

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morality like, oh, you know, if you hear a disembodied

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voice saying to kill your son, you should definitely do that.

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That are this is a mark of your faithfulness and

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worthiness and virtue that I think we want to rightly

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move people away, right Like, I don't care if someone's

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got a different theory of what happened before the Big

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Bang than I do. But what I think is really destructive,

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and I think this is what you're talking about with

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Christian morality. Are these concepts of things like original sin,

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the idea that people can be born inherently broken. I

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used to be a teacher. Nothing in my classroom ever

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would have been about telling a kid they are inherently

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broken or inherently bad. You don't get good behavior out

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of kids when they think when they believe you think

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they are inherently no good. You get good behavior and

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good results out of kids when you're like, I believe

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that you are a good person, and I think you

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have the ability to grow and change. So yeah, there

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are certain there are just elements of that I don't

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want anywhere near a public school classroom, not just because

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it's not my belief, but this practice of looking for

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badness to punish in people, I think has created so

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much violence in our culture, and that's what we need

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to move away from. What do you think about that, man?

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Speaker 1: I totally yeah, yeah, I totally agree that that we

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need to move away from from all that in our

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culture and we need to get back to a more like,

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you know, individual focus sort of and I don't mean

447
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like selfish, I mean individuals and well, we instead of

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focusing on like, well, what does this old book want

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or what does this character in this old book want?

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Speaker 2: What does he say?

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Speaker 3: Is good?

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Speaker 1: I think that I think that, uh, you know, what

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we need to be focusing on is what what do

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we what can we do to be you know, better

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to our fellow humans? And you know it, it seems

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to me like the way things are going right now

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is that there's an intense pressure to refocus you know,

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ourselves into like this, Well, what can I what can

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I justify with with this old book? What can I

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justify with the morality of the Bible? What cherry picked,

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uh you know, versus out of it? That seemed to,

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you know, sound profound, but yet they the only profound

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thing that.

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Speaker 2: They do is profound harm. And uh, it's just it.

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Speaker 1: It's rather ridiculous that that that people seem to focus

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more on, Well, what is this? I'm being very this

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is gonna be a pejorative. What does this you know,

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old sky wizard wants? Which is essentially what it ends

469
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up being. It's like what appeases this sky wizard that

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I'm interpreting out, And really what it is is what

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offends this sky wizard? And the only way that I

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know that is by what my pastor is telling me.

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Pastors like Doug Wilson or who's that one Christian nationalist

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guy that's been going on the podcast that like is

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incredibly racist.

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Speaker 3: Oh that guy Devin Right?

477
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 2: Webe Joel Webbin, Joel.

478
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 3: I think it's something Eban the guy who was saying

479
00:24:59,279 --> 00:25:01,240
he was saying something on Twitter the other day about

480
00:25:01,279 --> 00:25:06,480
how like the world needs is like masculine, virtuous men

481
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,720
who are going to come in and forcefully take rights

482
00:25:10,759 --> 00:25:12,960
away from people. And it's like, where the fuck did

483
00:25:13,039 --> 00:25:16,799
Jesus talk about any of that? Man? Like, what in

484
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:21,680
what world do you think most people, even most Christians

485
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:25,799
define their morality by coming in and strong arming things

486
00:25:25,839 --> 00:25:28,599
away from people. And what part was Jesus like, you know,

487
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,079
thou shalt go out to all the temples, and thou

488
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,720
shalt self appoint you know, put yourself in charge of

489
00:25:34,759 --> 00:25:38,359
all the other people who know less than you do. Ultimately,

490
00:25:38,559 --> 00:25:40,799
I think for a lot of these people, none of

491
00:25:40,839 --> 00:25:44,799
this is really about God or Jesus, right, Jefferson said,

492
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,559
in every country and in every age, the priest has

493
00:25:47,599 --> 00:25:51,440
always been the ally of the despot. This is in

494
00:25:51,599 --> 00:25:56,359
part about the fact that they want a massive power

495
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,279
grab and they want to figure out how to Oh

496
00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:02,000
my gosh, we're gonna We're about having good time up

497
00:26:02,039 --> 00:26:05,240
in here. This is about the fact that the religious

498
00:26:05,319 --> 00:26:08,359
right is in cahoots with billionaires trying to grab as

499
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,799
much power and money as they can for themselves. And so,

500
00:26:12,599 --> 00:26:14,920
you know, at the end of the day, you know,

501
00:26:15,039 --> 00:26:19,000
I think that we've got sorry, I'm districted, because we're

502
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,400
about to have a very special guest on the atheist experience.

503
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,559
I think that at the end of the day, it's

504
00:26:24,839 --> 00:26:28,079
using the stories from the Old Book as a smoke

505
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:33,039
screen to get people to buy into whatever narrative serves

506
00:26:33,599 --> 00:26:37,599
the people with the most power, because ultimately, those are

507
00:26:37,599 --> 00:26:39,400
the people who have always been able to claim that

508
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:47,000
they speak for God and get people to follow them.

509
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, we're about to have a special guest as

510
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:52,680
he's are they still getting set up?

511
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:54,039
Speaker 2: Don need de vamp a little bit.

512
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:57,319
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not sure he looks ready to go.

513
00:26:57,799 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 4: Let me see.

514
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 5: Am I hearing? Am I hearing myself? You guys hearing me?

515
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:02,559
I think it will depend on when we get the

516
00:27:02,599 --> 00:27:03,119
shot going.

517
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,160
Speaker 2: Oh who I'm hearing it's another disembodied voice.

518
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 3: H O WHOA one one more and will be truly trinitarian.

519
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 5: The multitude in the heavens is multiplying exponentially at this rate.

520
00:27:16,519 --> 00:27:18,599
At this rate, we're gonna have about sixty people hosting.

521
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,519
Speaker 4: By the end of this ghost, we'll.

522
00:27:21,319 --> 00:27:23,599
Speaker 3: Be able to feel the whole baseball team called Angels

523
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:24,240
in the outfield.

524
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 5: John, you're the Father, Jamie, Holy Spirit. And then me, well,

525
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:36,359
I'm the sun, what I'm the fishes and you're the fishes.

526
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 4: We just need the loaves and we'll have a whole group.

527
00:27:39,559 --> 00:27:40,759
Speaker 3: Guy, I got some cakes right here.

528
00:27:43,039 --> 00:27:49,559
Speaker 5: Hey, everybody, I think that you were on.

529
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 3: Uh, well, now I feel I'm there so thank you.

530
00:27:53,319 --> 00:27:57,319
Speaker 5: I would say, yeah, as soon as anybody wants me

531
00:27:57,400 --> 00:27:59,759
to talk about the fact that that's what my next

532
00:27:59,799 --> 00:28:02,519
vide is, I'm super happy to do that.

533
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 3: Talk about what your next video is.

534
00:28:04,079 --> 00:28:05,839
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I think okay.

535
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:13,839
Speaker 5: So, historically speaking, white supremacy and Christianity have gone hand

536
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,160
in hand. You know, white supremacy in the United States

537
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:21,839
has always been a Christian institution and cultural movement, and

538
00:28:22,559 --> 00:28:25,440
that's for a reason. That's because Christianity has been the

539
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:29,359
dominant religion. I actually would say the somewhat controversial thing

540
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:31,880
among a lot of seculars and say that I don't

541
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:35,119
think that Christianity even has to be inherently chauvinistic. I

542
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:38,440
don't think that's the reason why Christianity became white supremacist

543
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,799
at some point. I actually think it's because Christianity was

544
00:28:41,839 --> 00:28:45,160
first popular and it was used as a weapon to

545
00:28:45,279 --> 00:28:49,359
divide people and allow fewer resources to get into more hands.

546
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:54,160
So the reason why white supremacy and Christianity are often

547
00:28:54,279 --> 00:28:56,519
using and dealing with a lot of the same narratives

548
00:28:56,759 --> 00:28:58,920
is that if you look at the history of white supremacy,

549
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:00,960
what did it arise in order to do? What was

550
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,480
the function that it meant to provide from the get go.

551
00:29:03,839 --> 00:29:07,240
It meant to provide justification for colonizing places and for

552
00:29:07,359 --> 00:29:10,240
enslaving people. What's the point of colonizing places and enslaving

553
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:15,000
people extracting wealth from those places? Then, like you have

554
00:29:15,079 --> 00:29:17,880
all of these narratives that are just justifying, like, oh,

555
00:29:18,039 --> 00:29:22,319
we're allowed to do that because scientifically we're the superior

556
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:23,359
race and so we deserve.

557
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:23,519
Speaker 4: To do that.

558
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:28,119
Speaker 5: Now, you know, Christians today will say something really strangely similar.

559
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,559
We're allowed to go to war with Iran. We're allowed

560
00:29:31,599 --> 00:29:34,240
to do such and such two Palestinians, we're allowed to

561
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,960
do genocide. And that's because we are the chosen people.

562
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,599
We are the people who actually have the moral of

563
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,119
justification and right to rulership.

564
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 4: It's like the.

565
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 5: Divine right of kings, but you know, changed a little

566
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,440
bit for a liberal democracy. That's the kind of like

567
00:29:49,519 --> 00:29:53,440
Christian talking point right now. Ultimately, what is that doing

568
00:29:53,559 --> 00:29:57,680
though materially in the world, that narrative that is allowing

569
00:29:57,759 --> 00:30:00,880
people to go into places like Iran and go, you

570
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:03,079
know what, they have a lot of oil.

571
00:30:03,519 --> 00:30:05,559
Speaker 4: But if I just say I want to do all.

572
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,319
Speaker 5: This stuff to them, unseat their leaders, bomb them because

573
00:30:08,319 --> 00:30:12,119
I want their oil. The vast majority of people, whatever

574
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,680
religious system they're a part of, the vast majority of

575
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,400
people are going to say, I don't like that.

576
00:30:17,519 --> 00:30:19,519
Speaker 4: I don't think that that's okay. I don't think that's moral.

577
00:30:19,599 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 5: Most people have a conscience and would not be okay

578
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,720
with just bombing to take somebody's stuff. So they say instead, oh, well,

579
00:30:25,759 --> 00:30:27,319
those people are the wrong religion.

580
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:28,599
Speaker 4: Those people are Muslim.

581
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,279
Speaker 5: And it operates the same way as white supremacy historically has.

582
00:30:32,359 --> 00:30:35,039
It provides moral justification for a bunch of rich people

583
00:30:35,039 --> 00:30:36,519
to go in and steal a bunch of stuff from

584
00:30:36,559 --> 00:30:38,319
regular people so they can keep getting richer.

585
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's what it is, right and that's what's happening

586
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:44,200
with public schools too. Again, So much of the debate

587
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:46,279
they're trying to ignite in public schools is about trying

588
00:30:46,319 --> 00:30:49,160
to undermine confidence in the public school system so they

589
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,440
can defund those systems which support so many working class

590
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,119
and middle class jobs in America and provide every kid

591
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,920
with an equal opportunity to make good right and then

592
00:30:59,119 --> 00:31:02,680
take that money parcel it out to a decentralized set

593
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,480
of services that don't work, that make kids dumber and

594
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:08,839
that are run either by tech billionaires or the Christian right.

595
00:31:09,759 --> 00:31:10,759
It's a giant grift.

596
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:13,559
Speaker 5: Yeah, what's really crazy about the school voucher thing. So

597
00:31:13,599 --> 00:31:19,599
we have a school choice here supposedly in Texas now,

598
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:22,160
and what that means is that essentially you can start

599
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,920
a school or you can be a private school, and

600
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:29,279
you can basically have a student come in and you

601
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,519
take about nine thousand dollars per student nine to eleven

602
00:31:32,559 --> 00:31:35,640
thousand dollars depending on the district, away from a public school.

603
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,519
So that then that that private school can be funded

604
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,400
to educate that student. Supposedly. Now, private schools don't really

605
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,400
have much oversight. But here's the really interesting part of

606
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,920
this is that this is not just a grift that

607
00:31:51,039 --> 00:31:53,640
makes it to where Christian private schools can take money

608
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:57,079
from public schools and therefore empower like a Christian base. No,

609
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,920
it actually has to do with the main lobbying group

610
00:32:01,519 --> 00:32:05,720
for getting the school choice thing to happen was not Christians.

611
00:32:06,559 --> 00:32:07,039
Speaker 4: It wasn't.

612
00:32:07,319 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 5: It was like you're saying, tech people who created companies

613
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:16,680
to serve as the middleman to help create accounts where

614
00:32:16,759 --> 00:32:19,519
money from public schools could go and sit for a

615
00:32:19,519 --> 00:32:22,359
little while accrue a little bit of interest and then

616
00:32:22,559 --> 00:32:25,519
go to the private schools. So, ultimately, are we really

617
00:32:25,559 --> 00:32:29,079
talking about fighting Christianity or are we talking about fighting

618
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:34,079
whatever it is that is incentivizing people to use Christianity

619
00:32:34,119 --> 00:32:34,680
to get richer.

620
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,039
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and ultimately I think we're talking about fighting. I

621
00:32:38,079 --> 00:32:41,839
call it the axis of nonsense, the alliance between the billionaires,

622
00:32:42,079 --> 00:32:45,440
the bishops, and the biggots, the people who are realizing

623
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:47,799
that ultimately they can't agree on a lot. They can't

624
00:32:47,799 --> 00:32:49,799
agree on things like H one B visas, they don't

625
00:32:49,839 --> 00:32:53,160
agree on Israel, but they can agree that our government

626
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,240
cares about too many people too much of the time.

627
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:57,359
And what they want is our government to sort of

628
00:32:57,359 --> 00:32:59,559
a smaller number of people who either share their wealth,

629
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:01,759
or share their whiteness, or share the way they worship.

630
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,240
And that's ultimately what humanists are fighting against, right, not

631
00:33:06,359 --> 00:33:08,599
for everyone to think the same way we do, but

632
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,319
for everyone to live with the same dignity. And that's

633
00:33:11,359 --> 00:33:12,359
the thing they can't abide.

634
00:33:12,559 --> 00:33:15,319
Speaker 5: Right, we were just having a conversation about. Ultimately, you know,

635
00:33:15,359 --> 00:33:18,440
the thing that I think that people can and already

636
00:33:18,519 --> 00:33:21,319
are uniting over is that people want to be able

637
00:33:21,359 --> 00:33:24,279
to control the means that they subsist off of in

638
00:33:24,319 --> 00:33:27,839
their lives. So that means that means having democracy that

639
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,079
is both in electoral politics but also economic democracy.

640
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 4: Right.

641
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,599
Speaker 5: So we're not ultimately talking about going out there and

642
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:38,680
being like, this is why God doesn't exist, and if

643
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:40,799
everybody is just an atheist, things are going to get better.

644
00:33:40,839 --> 00:33:43,920
We're talking about empowering people regardless of what they believe,

645
00:33:44,559 --> 00:33:46,759
and that can come from a place of well, we

646
00:33:46,839 --> 00:33:50,240
believe in the inherent human dignity of every person.

647
00:33:50,359 --> 00:33:52,319
Speaker 3: That's right. There was an old labor slogan from the

648
00:33:52,359 --> 00:33:56,000
nineteen twenties, no Gods, no masters. Right. That's the whole

649
00:33:56,079 --> 00:33:58,039
central point of humanism, by the way, which is where

650
00:33:58,039 --> 00:34:00,599
we got some of our greatest labor advocates like Goldman

651
00:34:00,839 --> 00:34:05,319
and a Philip Randolph and Eugene Dubs from Happy may Day,

652
00:34:05,839 --> 00:34:10,480
is there should be no higher power than all of

653
00:34:10,559 --> 00:34:15,280
us collectively, than the human spirit and the human experience.

654
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:15,519
Speaker 1: Right.

655
00:34:15,599 --> 00:34:20,159
Speaker 3: We are here ultimately not to serve some abstract function,

656
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,719
but to help other people live lives of freedom and flourishing,

657
00:34:25,159 --> 00:34:28,159
and everything else often just serves as a smoke screen

658
00:34:28,199 --> 00:34:29,199
and a distraction from that.

659
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,519
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think John gave a really excellent intro when

660
00:34:32,519 --> 00:34:35,679
he was talking about this idea of Christian morality being

661
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:39,119
floated out there, And you know, when I think of

662
00:34:39,199 --> 00:34:42,519
Christian morality, I'm thinking of their way that they're kind

663
00:34:42,519 --> 00:34:45,880
of posing this is there is a moral system that's

664
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:47,519
delivered from an ultimate.

665
00:34:47,159 --> 00:34:49,119
Speaker 4: Authority, you know, top down.

666
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:53,199
Speaker 5: And in doing that, in delivering that idea that there's

667
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,920
one guy who's the ultimate authority who's decided what's right

668
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,239
and wrong, and we can just adopt that, they're hiding

669
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,199
the fact that even if you do you believe in

670
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,440
the inerrancy of the Bible, even if you do believe

671
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:08,800
in a God who is divine and morally authoritative, they're

672
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,840
leaving out the part that is required even for people

673
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,639
who believe that, which is a group of people coming

674
00:35:14,639 --> 00:35:17,400
together to create a moral system based on their interpretation

675
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,880
of what God has said. At the end of it,

676
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,000
all moral systems, even if the Christians are right that

677
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,519
their God is real, are based on the consensus of

678
00:35:27,599 --> 00:35:30,800
a group of people who want to influence the world

679
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:31,360
around them.

680
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,760
Speaker 4: We're just saying that that is the case. They're hiding

681
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:35,920
the fact that that's the case.

682
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 3: Right right, Humanism ultimately is about harnessing what is true

683
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,039
about human nature to improve the world. And the thing

684
00:35:42,079 --> 00:35:45,920
that's true about human natures. We don't accept things as

685
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,400
moral because someone tells them to us, right. This is

686
00:35:48,639 --> 00:35:51,519
Psychologists have worked for years on how people actually develop

687
00:35:51,559 --> 00:35:55,400
their moral beliefs. We stop at around age six accepting

688
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,360
that things are true because somebody said so. The reason

689
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:01,119
we think things are good is because we're social beings

690
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,079
and we can see the impact our actions have on

691
00:36:04,199 --> 00:36:06,519
other people in the world, and so we start to realize, Okay,

692
00:36:07,159 --> 00:36:08,920
this is a good way to treat people, and this

693
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,480
is a bad way to treat people, not because it's

694
00:36:11,519 --> 00:36:13,920
written in the sky somewhere, but because of our innate

695
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,960
sense of empathy and our desire to be liked by

696
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,119
others and to want to do well for others.

697
00:36:20,599 --> 00:36:23,119
Speaker 5: Okay, I got to pick on a word there. You say,

698
00:36:23,199 --> 00:36:27,480
innate sense of empathy. It sounds like you might tell

699
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:29,119
me if I'm wrong. It sounds like you might make

700
00:36:29,159 --> 00:36:34,079
a case that there is a natural part of human

701
00:36:34,159 --> 00:36:37,039
nature that might lend itself well to a kind of

702
00:36:37,119 --> 00:36:41,039
humanist type of community. Christians like to make the point

703
00:36:41,119 --> 00:36:46,000
that humans are naturally evil and naturally they do all

704
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,320
these bad things, and so you have to have a

705
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,639
kind of top down moral authority or else we'll just

706
00:36:50,679 --> 00:36:51,599
evolve into chaos.

707
00:36:51,599 --> 00:36:53,039
Speaker 4: But it sounds like you're saying no.

708
00:36:53,199 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 5: I think that human nature actually at least has a

709
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,119
significant element which lends to cooperation.

710
00:36:58,519 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 4: And that's why humanist community might work.

711
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,519
Speaker 3: That's how we've built civilization, right, haven't. We haven't had

712
00:37:03,599 --> 00:37:06,920
Christianity throughout all of civilization. What we've had at every

713
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:11,000
turn of human history is people who ultimately see it

714
00:37:11,039 --> 00:37:14,639
as to their benefit to work together with others. We

715
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:16,840
can go back and you know, we can look at

716
00:37:17,159 --> 00:37:19,440
the we can look at evolution and we can see

717
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,519
that ultimately the species that survived were the species that

718
00:37:22,559 --> 00:37:25,920
we're able to collaborate. There's absolutely some genetic evidence that

719
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,920
humans have the ability to empathize with others encoded into

720
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:31,920
our DNA, not in the literal sense, but that this

721
00:37:32,039 --> 00:37:34,679
is a biological function within us to try and because

722
00:37:34,679 --> 00:37:38,400
the goal is to connect to people, right, ultimately, we

723
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,440
are hardwired to find community with others because we know

724
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,960
that's how we survive. And there's so many ways we

725
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,000
can create that community. But you cannot create that community

726
00:37:47,039 --> 00:37:49,360
without being a decent person. You're not going to have

727
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:51,480
people around you if you don't treat them well. And

728
00:37:51,519 --> 00:37:55,320
we've realized this fact as we've evolved as a species. Now,

729
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:58,559
obviously I don't believe that people have fixed innate natures. Right.

730
00:37:58,599 --> 00:38:01,599
We have within us the ability and the drive to

731
00:38:01,599 --> 00:38:03,400
do good, and we also have in us the ability

732
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,360
and the drive to be selfish sometimes, and the act

733
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:09,960
of being human is about making the hard choices over

734
00:38:10,119 --> 00:38:14,760
and over again to prioritize the common good over our

735
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:17,840
own selfishness. But the truth is there's no one else

736
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,840
but us who makes that decision. There's not some unseen

737
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,159
force making those things for us. That is an awesome

738
00:38:23,159 --> 00:38:26,760
and terrifying responsibility we have, and that's what makes life

739
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,280
so hard. But it also wants to make what makes

740
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:30,800
a well lived life so beautiful.

741
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:35,559
Speaker 5: Okay, I have put out the take that I don't

742
00:38:35,679 --> 00:38:43,079
think that evil exists. I've talked about that a deviation

743
00:38:43,519 --> 00:38:47,920
from a cooperative or at least like a morally neutral

744
00:38:48,119 --> 00:38:51,559
set of base actions that humanity does. Deviation from that

745
00:38:52,039 --> 00:38:57,920
comes from a circumstance in which somebody is seriously disenfranchised,

746
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:02,719
in which they they're material existence is severely threatened, or

747
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:07,119
they have they're in a society where the social relations

748
00:39:07,119 --> 00:39:11,480
have incentivized just extreme acts of selfishness rather than cooperativeness

749
00:39:11,519 --> 00:39:15,159
and generosity, or maybe they have some kind of chemical

750
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,960
or neurological imbalance. I think that's where bad stuff, bad

751
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,519
actions come from. I don't think that they come from

752
00:39:21,559 --> 00:39:24,639
some kind of inherent broken human nature. I don't think

753
00:39:24,639 --> 00:39:28,320
that there's any kind of like supernatural metaphysical evil substance

754
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:31,239
like sin that is corrupting our souls. I don't think

755
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:35,480
that corruption isn't even inherent, you know, is a coherent concept.

756
00:39:36,039 --> 00:39:38,000
What do you think about if you think that about

757
00:39:38,079 --> 00:39:39,920
you know, morally, that's where morality comes from.

758
00:39:40,519 --> 00:39:42,760
Speaker 4: Where does bad stuff come from?

759
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:45,519
Speaker 5: Am I like way off to say that evil doesn't exist,

760
00:39:45,519 --> 00:39:47,480
given there's been some pretty bad things that have happened

761
00:39:47,519 --> 00:39:47,960
in history.

762
00:39:48,639 --> 00:39:50,679
Speaker 3: No, I don't think you are. I think ultimately what

763
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,840
we are is people reacting the circumstance right in part

764
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:56,480
of the in part, good things come from the fact

765
00:39:56,519 --> 00:39:59,800
that we need to collaborate in order to survive. I

766
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:01,400
do you think that a lot of the evil in

767
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:05,480
the world comes from deep personal wounds that people are

768
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:10,400
trying to reckon are falsely and maladaptively trying to reconcile

769
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:12,480
by lashing out. I think it comes, as you said,

770
00:40:12,519 --> 00:40:15,079
from scarcity, the fear that if I don't keep these

771
00:40:15,079 --> 00:40:17,920
people down, they'll take the things that I need to survive.

772
00:40:18,679 --> 00:40:21,480
I think it comes sometimes. I think bad things often

773
00:40:21,519 --> 00:40:26,000
come from a desire for order that you're not entitled to, right.

774
00:40:26,079 --> 00:40:27,880
I want to make the world make sense to me.

775
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:30,280
The world will look a lot better if everyone lived

776
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:32,880
the way I live, and I definitely will feel a

777
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:34,880
lot less entropy in my life. So I'm going to

778
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:39,440
try to subjugate people. You know, Ultimately, all of the

779
00:40:39,519 --> 00:40:43,320
reasons I think people behave really terribly come from a

780
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,880
lot of the morality we've been taught and misinterpreted. I'm

781
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,639
with you. I don't think that there's any dark matter

782
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,760
substance within us that compels us to be bad. I think, certainly,

783
00:40:56,039 --> 00:40:58,880
you know, we have a self interest, and sometimes if

784
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,760
we don't temper that self interest with other things, that

785
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:04,400
can get out of hand. And that's true. But when

786
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,280
I look at what humans have achieved throughout history, and

787
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,719
when I think about the what I find my own

788
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:12,000
instincts being the other instincts of the people around me.

789
00:41:12,079 --> 00:41:15,440
I think most people are driven by a desire to

790
00:41:16,559 --> 00:41:20,199
help others, help themselves and find ways for those things

791
00:41:20,199 --> 00:41:21,199
to be true at the same time.

792
00:41:22,199 --> 00:41:23,559
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm gonna ask.

793
00:41:23,599 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 5: I'm going to make the moral request that you scoot

794
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:27,199
in closer to the mic because we'll get a little

795
00:41:27,199 --> 00:41:28,559
bit better audio quality that way.

796
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:29,079
Speaker 3: Thank you.

797
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 4: Okay, Oh oh that's sounding really Chris. Oh okay, all right, uh.

798
00:41:33,039 --> 00:41:34,639
Speaker 3: Thank you for encouraging my moral behavior.

799
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:38,679
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, That's how it works, folks. What what does

800
00:41:39,519 --> 00:41:41,960
what is the AHA? And I mean what is fish

801
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,920
stark and the aha? More broadly, think about encouraging and

802
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,480
helping to create moral behavior. Then are you guys, are

803
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,039
you acting upon kind of what we're talking about, this

804
00:41:52,159 --> 00:41:55,920
kind of more You know, if you alleviate certain conditions,

805
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,639
then people are better incentivized to cooperate.

806
00:41:59,079 --> 00:42:01,119
Speaker 4: Are are you doing something like that? Are you going

807
00:42:01,159 --> 00:42:02,800
out and telling people be good?

808
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:03,400
Speaker 3: Be good?

809
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 5: What's the approach to actually trying to encourage moral behavior?

810
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,639
Speaker 3: Well, the best way to shape moral behavior, and this

811
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,440
is what the humanistic psychologists figured out in the nineteen

812
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:19,639
sixties was Carl er Carl Roger Heavin aslow All, John

813
00:42:19,679 --> 00:42:24,119
Dewey all my faves. They realized that morality doesn't come

814
00:42:24,159 --> 00:42:28,360
from external threats or shame. We adopt moral behavior because

815
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:30,800
we have a vision of who we want ourselves to be,

816
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:33,199
and we try to live our life in line with

817
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,440
that vision. The concept is called congruence. Right. When I

818
00:42:37,039 --> 00:42:39,599
how I imagine myself to be lines up with my actions,

819
00:42:40,119 --> 00:42:42,440
you get an incredible mental health benefit from that. That's

820
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:44,639
when you feel a sense of joy and meaning. And

821
00:42:44,679 --> 00:42:47,239
so the value of humanism is that it is a

822
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:52,440
moral code. Right. Humanism offers people question or answers to

823
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:54,239
the questions of what does it mean to live a

824
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,719
good life and serve others? And so if people see

825
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:00,679
themselves as humanist, one of the things that done throughout

826
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:04,599
centuries is it incentivized people to act like humanists. So

827
00:43:04,639 --> 00:43:06,840
we're trying to build that community of people who say, Okay,

828
00:43:07,039 --> 00:43:09,280
I have these values and I share them with other people,

829
00:43:09,559 --> 00:43:11,239
and I'm going to focus on acting in line with

830
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,039
those values. Number one. And then the second thing that

831
00:43:14,079 --> 00:43:15,760
we do is, yeah, I think it has to be

832
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,920
the work of humanists to make people's material circumstances better

833
00:43:20,199 --> 00:43:23,440
so that they can live lives of service and meaning.

834
00:43:23,559 --> 00:43:25,840
That's why yesterday we were out here together. That was

835
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:29,920
a lot of fun working on the American Empathy Project.

836
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,119
We funded one hundred and one community service events across

837
00:43:33,119 --> 00:43:36,599
the country yesterday that were for humanists to come together

838
00:43:36,679 --> 00:43:40,599
and help their neighbors, because that's that's our charge, that's

839
00:43:40,639 --> 00:43:42,159
what we need to be doing right now in a

840
00:43:42,159 --> 00:43:44,000
world with so much cruelty and brokenness.

841
00:43:44,039 --> 00:43:46,280
Speaker 5: So what kind of so I know, tell the people

842
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:48,960
what kind of projects you guys had across the country

843
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:50,639
one hundred and one in one day, one.

844
00:43:50,599 --> 00:43:53,159
Speaker 3: Hundred and one projects. We had people hosting free community

845
00:43:53,199 --> 00:43:57,400
resource fairs. We had people doing period packing projects for

846
00:43:57,519 --> 00:44:00,400
folks who are homeless. We had people fixing me for

847
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:02,840
immigrant families that can't go to the grocery store because

848
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:05,480
they're being targeted by ice. We had people doing free

849
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,039
community feedings. Overall, we invested one hundred thousand dollars in

850
00:44:09,119 --> 00:44:11,400
these projects, and then people went out on the back

851
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,000
of that and they raised two, three, four times more

852
00:44:14,039 --> 00:44:17,159
from local donors and they ran these projects and they

853
00:44:17,199 --> 00:44:19,800
brought in people from around their community, some of whom

854
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,079
aren't even humanists. And we don't care to serve and

855
00:44:23,119 --> 00:44:27,079
so you know, ultimately people think about humanism and they

856
00:44:27,079 --> 00:44:29,599
think about it as like an endless philosophy supper club.

857
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:33,000
And the truth is, humanism in this country has always

858
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,960
been best when it's moved away from the temptation to

859
00:44:36,079 --> 00:44:38,559
discuss things over and over and said no, if we

860
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:41,079
believe that human dignity is the most important thing, then

861
00:44:41,119 --> 00:44:44,360
the work is not talking about human dignity. It's going

862
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:47,000
out and fighting for human dignity. That's why my favorite

863
00:44:47,079 --> 00:44:49,599
human that's are not people who wrote a bunch of

864
00:44:49,599 --> 00:44:52,760
books in mid two thousands, but people like Frederick Douglas

865
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:57,039
and Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman and Gloria steinem the

866
00:44:57,039 --> 00:45:00,000
people who said, Okay, if it is up to us

867
00:45:00,159 --> 00:45:02,559
coming to save us, then it is our job to

868
00:45:02,639 --> 00:45:06,519
save ourselves and build that world together. That I think

869
00:45:06,599 --> 00:45:10,159
is the thing I get from humanism personally, this idea

870
00:45:10,159 --> 00:45:12,719
that Okay, if no one's coming to save us, I

871
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:17,679
have that awesome responsibility and that power. But ultimately, if

872
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:19,800
nobody's coming to save us and we're still here, that

873
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,760
means we've been capable all along of doing what it

874
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:23,960
takes to build the world we need.

875
00:45:24,159 --> 00:45:25,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, I really like.

876
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:27,760
Speaker 5: That's so a lot of the time, you know, when

877
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,559
I meet somebody in person that says that they've watched

878
00:45:30,639 --> 00:45:33,320
my videos and they like, you know, atheist content, they

879
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,639
will say something along the lines of, you know, I

880
00:45:37,519 --> 00:45:43,199
stayed in for so long because I felt like I

881
00:45:43,639 --> 00:45:46,719
felt like I couldn't do it by myself. I felt

882
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:49,360
like I just I needed to call on God's strength

883
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:55,440
in order to get through whatever my circumstance was. And

884
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:57,519
then I asked them, you know, how do you feel

885
00:45:57,559 --> 00:45:59,840
on the other side of that, And a lot of

886
00:45:59,880 --> 00:46:05,159
the time I'm able to deliver something that people find

887
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,960
empowering if they haven't figured it out themselves, than usually

888
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:08,280
they have.

889
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:10,079
Speaker 4: And that is any.

890
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 5: Time that they have overcome something, anytime, whether they were

891
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,119
fighting addiction and they were calling on God for that,

892
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:19,320
whether it was you know, an abusive home life and

893
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:22,280
they figured out a way to escape from that, whatever

894
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:23,599
it was, even if it was just it was a

895
00:46:23,639 --> 00:46:28,400
self esteem issue, Yep, they can have the realization that

896
00:46:28,559 --> 00:46:31,840
every time they called on God and they felt empowered

897
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,840
to rise above that circumstance, or when they called out

898
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:38,960
for help and another person answered that call, ultimately, what

899
00:46:39,119 --> 00:46:42,320
was happening is that human beings. The whole time humans

900
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:45,559
were solving human problems. That is how they ended up

901
00:46:45,559 --> 00:46:49,079
actually getting out of that circumstance, is that they performed

902
00:46:49,119 --> 00:46:53,119
something so great that their former conception of reality itself

903
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,719
demanded that only God could do that.

904
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 3: Right.

905
00:46:56,519 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 5: I think that's a profoundly empowering realization. To have everything

906
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:04,639
that's ever been attributed to God has always been us,

907
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:07,000
both good and bad. If you look at the good

908
00:47:07,039 --> 00:47:11,760
of that especially, I think that it's a way to realize, like, oh,

909
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:17,000
maybe miracles do exist, and every single time, yeah, exactly,

910
00:47:17,039 --> 00:47:17,960
we're the ones that make them.

911
00:47:18,159 --> 00:47:20,800
Speaker 3: I mean, this is you know, I often almost tell

912
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:23,320
people prayer works, but not for the reason people think

913
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:26,639
it this, Yes, right, Like I used to study developmental psychology.

914
00:47:26,679 --> 00:47:29,679
That was what I did before I became a professional humanist.

915
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:34,239
There is so much research showing the positive effects of visualization.

916
00:47:34,519 --> 00:47:36,760
If you were like, this is what I want for myself,

917
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:38,360
this is what I want for my future, and you

918
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:40,960
really think about it and you imagine yourself going out

919
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:44,320
and achieving it, it's more likely to happen, not because

920
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:47,119
you've appealed to some higher power, but because you have

921
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:51,079
trained and prepared yourself with a sense of confidence that

922
00:47:51,119 --> 00:47:52,840
you can achieve this outcome, and so you'll go out

923
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:55,960
and do the work necessary to make it happen. And

924
00:47:56,039 --> 00:48:00,519
so ultimately, you know, if this appear keel to a

925
00:48:00,639 --> 00:48:04,639
higher power gets you thinking about the things that you

926
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:07,320
want in your life and then gives you the confidence

927
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:09,679
and the motivation and the agency to go out and

928
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:13,599
do them. That's a beautiful thing. That's why humanism matter

929
00:48:13,639 --> 00:48:15,480
is because we are so powerful and we have so

930
00:48:15,559 --> 00:48:18,559
much potential, and we ought to celebrate that rather than

931
00:48:19,039 --> 00:48:22,800
taking our biggest and best accomplishments and credible, challenging things

932
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:25,960
people have overcome and outsourcing our own hard work and

933
00:48:26,039 --> 00:48:28,920
success to something else and not giving ourselves or our

934
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:30,280
community the credit.

935
00:48:30,519 --> 00:48:34,119
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, do you remember the social experiment that happened

936
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,280
where there was a lady on TikTok that was calling

937
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,760
churches and being like, Hey, I really need baby formula.

938
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,760
My baby's about to go without eating. Would you be

939
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,360
able to provide me just one day of baby formula?

940
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,760
And it was like ninety percent of churches said no,

941
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:54,760
every mosque said yes. And then the churches that said yes,

942
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:59,639
we can do that were small, family run churches where

943
00:48:59,639 --> 00:49:01,920
you would had, you know, the same group of people

944
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:05,800
just scraping by to keep this church open for forever.

945
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:07,639
They never had any major donors, and a lot of

946
00:49:07,639 --> 00:49:10,440
the time when they were, you know, providing that baby formula,

947
00:49:10,519 --> 00:49:12,800
at the end of that it was the pastor or

948
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:16,079
a secretary or you know, the pastor's kid running out

949
00:49:16,079 --> 00:49:18,920
and buying it at Walmart and meeting that person totally impromptu.

950
00:49:19,519 --> 00:49:23,199
Those were the people who were willing to extend charity

951
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:30,199
and compassion outside of the fold. If humanist groups are

952
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:35,599
called to provide baby formula, to provide housing to our neighbors,

953
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:42,079
do we allow where that person has fallen religiously to

954
00:49:42,199 --> 00:49:43,199
affect our answer?

955
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 3: We can't and we shouldn't. And I'll give you an

956
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:47,880
example of something that happened just a couple of weeks

957
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:50,280
ago where I know for a fact we didn't ask

958
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:52,920
that question. I got a call I was in a meeting,

959
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:54,800
and I got to call myself phone from a friend

960
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:57,559
of mine who works for the ACLU, and like, I'm thirty.

961
00:49:57,599 --> 00:50:00,719
Millennials don't call each other unless somebody's dying, So I

962
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:02,760
was like, I gotta pick this up. Something is clearly

963
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:06,039
going on and she was like, hey, we have and

964
00:50:06,079 --> 00:50:08,400
I'm gonna be vague about this story because it involves

965
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:12,559
us like evading immigration enforcement. Right. She was like, we

966
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:16,480
have a mother and her baby in a city somewhere

967
00:50:16,519 --> 00:50:18,920
far away from where they live, and the dad who

968
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:20,840
is with them has just been kidnapped by ice and

969
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:24,280
they're safe, but they're afraid Ice is coming back. We

970
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:26,639
have somebody driving down from that state right now to

971
00:50:26,639 --> 00:50:28,760
get them home, but we need I don't know anybody

972
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,119
in this rural city, and we need someone who can

973
00:50:31,119 --> 00:50:34,239
get them out of town. Do you know anybody? And

974
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:36,960
I was like, I know the AH Chapter lead in

975
00:50:37,039 --> 00:50:39,119
the city thirty minutes away, and I'm gonna give them

976
00:50:39,159 --> 00:50:41,079
a call and see what I can do. And I called,

977
00:50:41,159 --> 00:50:43,760
I said, here's the situation with him. Five minutes they

978
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:46,079
had a volunteer going to get that mother and baby,

979
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:47,960
get them out of that city, and they're now home.

980
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:51,039
We didn't ask for a fucking second. Yeah, is this

981
00:50:51,119 --> 00:50:54,199
person Christian Jewish? Does this person identify as an atheist?

982
00:50:54,199 --> 00:50:56,000
Have they read The God Delusion? What do they think

983
00:50:56,039 --> 00:50:59,039
about Richard Ducket. It's like, Okay, this shit is not

984
00:50:59,519 --> 00:51:04,039
relevant to humanism. It's not about do you share our

985
00:51:04,159 --> 00:51:07,559
takes on the supernatural. It's about are you a human being?

986
00:51:08,199 --> 00:51:11,079
And do you need help? And then it is our

987
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,679
moral obligation to do what we can and get you there,

988
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:16,599
whether you're in the club or not.

989
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:18,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh exactly.

990
00:51:18,599 --> 00:51:21,559
Speaker 5: And I think, first of all, I'm pretty sure I

991
00:51:21,639 --> 00:51:24,639
know who you're talking about, because they're fucking awesome people

992
00:51:24,679 --> 00:51:27,079
that I've been able to meet, and that's amazing, And

993
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:29,119
I am not surprised that I'll all to hear that

994
00:51:29,119 --> 00:51:31,679
that's the thing that probably came out of that chapter.

995
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 4: If I'm thinking it's the right person.

996
00:51:33,119 --> 00:51:36,599
Speaker 3: I think, you know, yeah, yeah, I'm talking about Yeah, yeah, yeah.

997
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:41,320
Speaker 5: No, But you know, it's I think I asked that

998
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:46,280
question because it's something that's somewhat plagued atheist spaces for

999
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:51,119
a while and has really separated the atheists and anti

1000
00:51:51,199 --> 00:51:55,719
theist spaces from the humanist spaces, which have historically had

1001
00:51:55,880 --> 00:52:00,239
overlap but differences in some really key areas. You know,

1002
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,920
there is an important point to make in that a

1003
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:09,599
lot of us have been victimized by religious institution, structures, people,

1004
00:52:10,079 --> 00:52:12,880
and so we want to come into secular spaces and

1005
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,800
be safe from that. Yeah, that totally makes sense. That's valid.

1006
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:20,360
Like I felt that way the first time. Actually, the

1007
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:22,199
first time I ever told you this. The first time

1008
00:52:22,199 --> 00:52:25,760
I ever went to a humanist, a secular humanist group.

1009
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:28,679
It was my very first time ever talking to somebody

1010
00:52:28,679 --> 00:52:29,920
about being an atheist.

1011
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 4: I was in Tyler, Texas.

1012
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 5: I went to just like a dinner that had about

1013
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:39,639
twenty people Secular Humanists of East Texas. And right after

1014
00:52:39,679 --> 00:52:42,960
I left the meeting, first of all, I had thought that, Wow,

1015
00:52:43,039 --> 00:52:45,360
this is amazing. Everybody was nice to me even though

1016
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,280
God wasn't threatening them with hell, so that's really healing.

1017
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 4: But someone reported me to the group leadership for being

1018
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:58,239
a mole. What they I thought that was insane.

1019
00:52:58,679 --> 00:53:01,119
Speaker 5: I thought that was ridiculous that some report me for

1020
00:53:01,199 --> 00:53:03,760
being like a suspected Christian. I thought, why would they

1021
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:08,119
be like so hard up about a Christian potentially coming in?

1022
00:53:08,159 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 4: Maybe I just talked like a Christian. They got suspicious.

1023
00:53:10,519 --> 00:53:13,519
Speaker 5: I ended up finding out that the reason they reported

1024
00:53:13,599 --> 00:53:15,920
me as a mole or they were suspicious that I

1025
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:20,840
was trying to infiltrate the group, was that they had

1026
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:25,880
been infiltrated by local youth pastors three separate times, Holy

1027
00:53:26,199 --> 00:53:29,559
and the number one goal of these youth pastors was

1028
00:53:29,599 --> 00:53:32,880
not to spread the gospel to these people or show

1029
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:35,960
them the love of Christ. It was to collect names,

1030
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:41,280
figure out which church congregation those people were connected to

1031
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,119
in their past or where their parents went to church,

1032
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:47,800
and then report them to their own families and report

1033
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:50,800
them to their church leadership. Essentially, it was an extremely

1034
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:54,760
tactical form of doxing all within the Christian world. So

1035
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:57,719
they were really suspicious of, you know, Christians coming in.

1036
00:53:58,199 --> 00:54:00,639
And so I think that you get this specibition in

1037
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:04,320
spaces you know that are meant to protect atheists and

1038
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:07,239
humanists from the trauma that's been inflected upon them, you

1039
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:10,360
get the suspicion of Christians being in these spaces because

1040
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,639
we want to protect ourselves. Is a hard question, but

1041
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:17,639
I've got to ask, how do we because I agree

1042
00:54:17,639 --> 00:54:19,960
with you on the altruism part, how do we protect

1043
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:22,400
human dignity, even of the people who might have been

1044
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:27,079
a part of groups that have oppressed us, while protecting ourselves. Like,

1045
00:54:27,119 --> 00:54:29,400
what practically do you guys do on the ground at

1046
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:30,840
the AHA to make that happen.

1047
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:33,599
Speaker 3: It's a good question, And look, I don't want to

1048
00:54:33,639 --> 00:54:38,039
disclaim the need for a space with people who share

1049
00:54:38,079 --> 00:54:41,480
common values and common beliefs. Right. I think it's okay

1050
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:45,199
to have spaces that are just for atheists about atheism,

1051
00:54:45,519 --> 00:54:48,119
but that can't be where our compassion ends. Right. We

1052
00:54:48,159 --> 00:54:51,760
can build community with people of like values, but what

1053
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,039
you believe shouldn't be a barrier to whether we care

1054
00:54:54,119 --> 00:54:57,079
or not about your well being. And so you know

1055
00:54:57,599 --> 00:55:00,559
we are we're trying to model this part through the

1056
00:55:00,559 --> 00:55:03,519
policy work that we do. Right, our goal is to

1057
00:55:04,039 --> 00:55:06,239
show folks in the secular movement that, hey, there are

1058
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,199
plenty of liberal Christians, liberal Jews, liberal Muslims who are

1059
00:55:09,199 --> 00:55:11,960
willing to work with the non theist community and fight

1060
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,880
for the separation of church and state together. So you know,

1061
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:17,599
we work with for instance, American United for Separation of

1062
00:55:17,679 --> 00:55:20,920
Church and State or Interfaith Alliance, both groups led by

1063
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:24,960
religious people to work on policy issues at the federal

1064
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:27,239
and state levels. And that's not an accident. It's not

1065
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:29,159
only because they do great work and they're willing to

1066
00:55:29,199 --> 00:55:33,239
welcome us as full partners. But the truth is, humanists

1067
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:35,960
have always been at our best when we say this

1068
00:55:36,119 --> 00:55:37,920
is who we are, and we're standing in our truth

1069
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:40,480
as non theist. But we're going to collaborate with religious

1070
00:55:40,519 --> 00:55:43,400
folks and work together as long as we can share

1071
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:45,440
an agreement about what we're supposed to do in this

1072
00:55:45,519 --> 00:55:47,159
one life on this planet.

1073
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 5: So are we talking about a collaboration based on shared

1074
00:55:51,039 --> 00:55:53,440
actions and shared goals rather than shared.

1075
00:55:53,159 --> 00:55:57,679
Speaker 3: Belief, shared actions, shared goals? And I think shared values right. Ultimately,

1076
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:01,199
just as I don't think religious people own the idea

1077
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:04,119
of morality, I don't think humanists own the idea of

1078
00:56:04,159 --> 00:56:05,440
compassion and reciprocity.

1079
00:56:05,519 --> 00:56:05,679
Speaker 5: Right.

1080
00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 3: And so there are things where you know, I think,

1081
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:13,559
for instance, on opposing you know, expeditionary wars, there are

1082
00:56:13,599 --> 00:56:17,760
places where we can work with plenty of liberal religious groups.

1083
00:56:18,039 --> 00:56:21,000
And I think especially on protecting the right to free

1084
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:27,039
speech and on protecting things like healthcare, and on fighting

1085
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:32,320
this immigration bullshit. Like there is so much that if

1086
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:37,159
we unite non theists and theists who believe in real

1087
00:56:37,199 --> 00:56:41,039
freedom and dignity, we constitute a majority when you bring

1088
00:56:41,079 --> 00:56:43,559
those groups together. Yeah, And ultimately, as long as we

1089
00:56:43,559 --> 00:56:45,199
have a democracy, that's the way to get things done.

1090
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:46,840
Speaker 4: No, I think that's totally true.

1091
00:56:47,519 --> 00:56:50,920
Speaker 5: What's integral to that, obviously is community organizing like we

1092
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:52,320
have to have in real life.

1093
00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:54,400
Speaker 4: Communities. We can't just do this on the Internet.

1094
00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:57,639
Speaker 5: As great as shows like The Atheist Experience actually are,

1095
00:56:58,039 --> 00:57:00,360
or we're getting our word out there with that, but

1096
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:02,800
at the end of the day, we need something like

1097
00:57:03,119 --> 00:57:05,880
the Atheist Community of Austin, which the Atheist Experience comes

1098
00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:10,400
out of, where real people can get together. And what's

1099
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:12,559
the cringey phrase that a lot of the non denominational

1100
00:57:12,599 --> 00:57:14,480
churches like to use, do life together?

1101
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:18,559
Speaker 3: Do life together? Yeah, but this is doing life together right.

1102
00:57:18,559 --> 00:57:21,320
It's like I was here for six hours yesterday and

1103
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:23,320
I'm so glad I got to visit ACA because You've

1104
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:25,440
been talking it up to me for over a year now.

1105
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:29,840
But like watching people come in and I watched like people,

1106
00:57:30,119 --> 00:57:32,679
I watched you. There were like a couple of different

1107
00:57:32,679 --> 00:57:34,559
guys who came up to you being like hey, Drew, like,

1108
00:57:34,559 --> 00:57:36,320
I'm here because I saw your video, and then you

1109
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:38,960
introduced them all to each other. And then at a

1110
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:42,519
certain point you stepped away and they were all talking

1111
00:57:42,599 --> 00:57:45,400
and everyone was, you know, sharing pizza and getting free

1112
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:48,239
condoms and like doing all of the like listening to

1113
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:50,079
the good music vern was playing and doing all the

1114
00:57:50,079 --> 00:57:52,840
fun things you do. I'm like, yes, this is living life,

1115
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:55,480
and we didn't ask at the door what somebody's religious

1116
00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:58,800
beliefs were a through. If somebody was a Christian who

1117
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:02,199
was questioning their belo and wondering if they could actually

1118
00:58:02,639 --> 00:58:04,760
meet and make friends with good atheists, I think they

1119
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:05,960
would have found that at all.

1120
00:58:06,039 --> 00:58:08,239
Speaker 5: Event I'm entirely sure that we had at least a

1121
00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:11,519
couple of people that were about right there that came

1122
00:58:11,559 --> 00:58:12,719
in and had a good time.

1123
00:58:12,840 --> 00:58:15,039
Speaker 3: And that's what our spaces should be for. And that's

1124
00:58:15,079 --> 00:58:17,880
why I'm so skeptical of people who want to, like

1125
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:20,199
you know, stand at the door like they're at a

1126
00:58:20,239 --> 00:58:22,599
frat party with a checkbox, being like, does somebody have

1127
00:58:22,599 --> 00:58:26,000
the right beliefs? It's like, look, our job actually should

1128
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:28,400
be to bring in people who aren't sure what they

1129
00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:32,199
believe and not you know, manipulate them or tell them

1130
00:58:32,239 --> 00:58:35,199
what they have to be, but really lovingly show, not tell,

1131
00:58:35,239 --> 00:58:37,199
what we are about, and if it is for them,

1132
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:40,719
they will stay. And that's that's the most beautiful thing

1133
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:43,840
we could possibly do, as opposed to creating a really

1134
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:47,039
small circle of people who just believe what we believe.

1135
00:58:47,679 --> 00:58:51,639
Speaker 5: Okay, So, in doing a little advertising for the community

1136
00:58:51,679 --> 00:58:54,400
fair that we had yesterday at the Atheist Community of Austin,

1137
00:58:55,880 --> 00:59:00,440
I had someone comment and say, as an atheis, this

1138
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:03,239
is the lamest thing I've ever seen. And by that

1139
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:08,159
they meant that we're getting together and we have any

1140
00:59:08,280 --> 00:59:11,559
kind of shared identity that we think that we should

1141
00:59:11,639 --> 00:59:12,360
organize to.

1142
00:59:12,519 --> 00:59:14,159
Speaker 4: I don't know, like help.

1143
00:59:14,039 --> 00:59:17,599
Speaker 5: Human beings live in conditions that are actually worthy of

1144
00:59:18,239 --> 00:59:20,880
their dignity, you know, that are not beneath their dignity.

1145
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:22,519
They said that it was the lamest thing ever that

1146
00:59:22,559 --> 00:59:25,239
we that we get together, and there is a strain

1147
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:30,320
of atheists that feel that way that will say, oh,

1148
00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:33,880
when you're getting together, you're just reproducing the things.

1149
00:59:33,519 --> 00:59:36,079
Speaker 4: That are bad about religion.

1150
00:59:38,280 --> 00:59:39,760
Speaker 5: I want to get your take on it before I

1151
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:41,480
have to sound off on that, because.

1152
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:43,320
Speaker 4: That I find that kind of infuriating.

1153
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:47,199
Speaker 5: I feel like the best parts of religion are the

1154
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:50,840
other people sitting in the pews with you, not the

1155
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:53,159
guy that's up there on the stage preaching and telling

1156
00:59:53,199 --> 00:59:54,960
you what you have to believe. And if we don't

1157
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:57,960
have that top down, if we don't have that dogma,

1158
00:59:58,079 --> 01:00:01,280
then we have the good parts. Don't wait anyway, what

1159
01:00:01,360 --> 01:00:03,039
do you think about that commentary?

1160
01:00:03,119 --> 01:00:05,800
Speaker 3: I was talking to my friend Katie Cladgy Grant, who

1161
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:09,599
runs camp Quest, which is, oh, yeah, I love Katie. Yeah,

1162
01:00:09,639 --> 01:00:12,039
camp Quest is awesome. Katie's amazing in camp Quest is

1163
01:00:12,079 --> 01:00:16,920
like it's this network of summer, low cost summer camps,

1164
01:00:17,199 --> 01:00:20,199
humanist camps that people can send their kids to, which

1165
01:00:20,239 --> 01:00:23,199
is something that religious organizations have done for a long time. Right,

1166
01:00:23,280 --> 01:00:25,480
They've had camps and use them as a tool for

1167
01:00:25,519 --> 01:00:27,960
faith formation. And she was like, look, there are these

1168
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:35,119
things like camp, community, ritual belonging, shared singing, shared meeting having,

1169
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:39,480
like having affirmative creeds of shared values. All these things

1170
01:00:40,679 --> 01:00:43,239
they can be good and beautiful, and we shouldn't let

1171
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:47,400
religion claim the best parts of life and take them

1172
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:50,880
away from us. They don't own ritual, they don't own community,

1173
01:00:51,239 --> 01:00:53,840
and in many cases they're not trying to write. No

1174
01:00:53,840 --> 01:00:57,199
one's ever tried to tell me like, oh, you can't

1175
01:00:57,239 --> 01:01:00,519
gather people together. That's like cultural appropriation of religon right,

1176
01:01:00,559 --> 01:01:03,719
Like I, in fact, I had religious friends tell me

1177
01:01:03,800 --> 01:01:06,199
to take this job because they were like, you know what,

1178
01:01:06,199 --> 01:01:08,960
what Catholicism gives me, like a community and a set

1179
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:12,320
of values. I want other people to have that too.

1180
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:14,880
I want you to go build that for people, and

1181
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:19,480
so I think that we get so scared about reproducing.

1182
01:01:19,679 --> 01:01:22,400
I agree with you, we get scared of producing the

1183
01:01:22,559 --> 01:01:26,760
negative valances of religion. But let's just be clear about

1184
01:01:26,800 --> 01:01:28,920
what the bad parts are, right, Like, we don't believe

1185
01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:31,920
in authoritarian, top down moral codes. We don't believe in

1186
01:01:32,159 --> 01:01:36,360
coersive social control or shame as a tool of behavior improvement.

1187
01:01:36,559 --> 01:01:39,639
We don't believe in like gender essentialism and like saying

1188
01:01:39,639 --> 01:01:41,960
that there are only some jobs men and women can do.

1189
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:46,320
We don't believe in like intense self denial or like

1190
01:01:46,639 --> 01:01:49,360
you know, sexual shame. Okay, Like I feel like I've

1191
01:01:49,519 --> 01:01:51,760
listed most of the things that are bad about religion

1192
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:53,079
and we can just agree all the rest of the

1193
01:01:53,119 --> 01:01:53,880
stuff is okay.

1194
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:58,880
Speaker 5: I really think that ultimately that kind of attitude comes

1195
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:01,880
from the baggage that a lot of people carry out

1196
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:02,719
with them when.

1197
01:02:02,519 --> 01:02:03,519
Speaker 4: They leave religion.

1198
01:02:04,079 --> 01:02:09,559
Speaker 5: Like, maybe you have not been told that, you know,

1199
01:02:09,639 --> 01:02:13,559
religion has a monopoly on community, But within the very

1200
01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:17,760
Protestant Evangelical Protestant space, I was told that there is

1201
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:18,480
a there's a.

1202
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:22,199
Speaker 4: True dichotomy out there. You're either in church, you're.

1203
01:02:22,079 --> 01:02:25,800
Speaker 5: Living in a communal way, and you are submitting your

1204
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:29,480
will to everybody else, and you just get bossed around

1205
01:02:29,519 --> 01:02:31,280
and you don't get to make any decisions for your life,

1206
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:33,559
and you're living in shame all the time. Or you

1207
01:02:33,599 --> 01:02:38,159
can be a true radical individual to where everything you're

1208
01:02:38,159 --> 01:02:40,559
doing is pretty much alone, but you get to make

1209
01:02:40,599 --> 01:02:43,559
your own decisions and you get to be your own

1210
01:02:43,599 --> 01:02:46,719
God and all of these things. And you know, the

1211
01:02:47,039 --> 01:02:52,400
way that the Evangelical Protestants put it to me was that, well,

1212
01:02:52,559 --> 01:02:56,480
with the communal model, yeah, you're gonna have.

1213
01:02:56,440 --> 01:02:59,199
Speaker 4: Plenty of neighbors who nag you, and that might be annoying.

1214
01:02:59,159 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 5: But you get order, you get structure, you get true morality,

1215
01:03:03,079 --> 01:03:06,039
and you never lonely. But on the other side, in

1216
01:03:06,079 --> 01:03:12,280
the individualist side, frankly, I was told that this led

1217
01:03:12,280 --> 01:03:14,519
to suicidal nihilism, and it always did.

1218
01:03:15,199 --> 01:03:18,360
Speaker 4: And I think that there is a set of atheists.

1219
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:19,639
They tend to be men.

1220
01:03:20,199 --> 01:03:24,599
Speaker 5: There are atheist men that hold on to that dichotomy,

1221
01:03:25,320 --> 01:03:29,800
and they just think that being over here on the true,

1222
01:03:29,880 --> 01:03:35,880
completely and totally radically individualist side of that dichotomy is best,

1223
01:03:36,199 --> 01:03:40,719
and that for them they can resist the suicidal nihilism,

1224
01:03:41,679 --> 01:03:45,639
and so living there is the best. The thing for

1225
01:03:45,679 --> 01:03:52,280
me is that that ends up motivating people saying that

1226
01:03:52,679 --> 01:03:57,519
getting together with people is bad. Getting together with community

1227
01:03:57,519 --> 01:04:00,840
in order to do like effective political action, Well, that's

1228
01:04:01,239 --> 01:04:06,760
not only bad but also impossible, and they end up

1229
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:10,239
being severely disempowered. They never get their political will like,

1230
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:12,440
they never get their way, They never actually get to

1231
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:14,840
be a part of any kind of effective social force

1232
01:04:14,880 --> 01:04:18,320
to make society better. They end up wallowing in their

1233
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,840
own loneliness for forever. I'm sorry if I'm stepping on

1234
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:22,719
any toes here.

1235
01:04:22,599 --> 01:04:25,599
Speaker 3: But nope, that you are describing a thing that happens.

1236
01:04:26,800 --> 01:04:28,239
Speaker 5: What I think that we need to get out there

1237
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:31,960
is that this dichotomy in the first place is a

1238
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:37,559
construction of oppressors. Yep, there is no dichotomy between being

1239
01:04:37,719 --> 01:04:42,039
able to live as your authentic self and having community.

1240
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:43,800
Speaker 3: No, and you can do both at the same time.

1241
01:04:43,920 --> 01:04:47,559
You can't live as your authentic self, I would argue

1242
01:04:47,679 --> 01:04:51,280
unless you have community. I think that part of living

1243
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:54,639
an embodied life is having people around you who you

1244
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:57,320
love and who love you. I think you are. It's

1245
01:04:57,360 --> 01:05:00,559
almost like cutting off an appendage to not and you

1246
01:05:00,599 --> 01:05:02,679
don't need to get it through an explicitly secular or

1247
01:05:02,719 --> 01:05:06,280
religious community, right, But having a community of people that

1248
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:09,119
you trust, that you can go to for support, that

1249
01:05:09,239 --> 01:05:12,400
you can provide support to is part of living a

1250
01:05:12,400 --> 01:05:15,360
full life and often helps us understand who we are.

1251
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:19,400
But we understand ourselves in relation to other people. Right,

1252
01:05:19,440 --> 01:05:21,400
There weren't other models of the self, there being no

1253
01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:25,519
self to understand, Right, Like I have become the person

1254
01:05:25,559 --> 01:05:27,360
that I am. We have all become the person that

1255
01:05:27,400 --> 01:05:29,880
we are through the other people who have shaped us.

1256
01:05:30,119 --> 01:05:32,159
And I think there is this I would agree it's

1257
01:05:32,159 --> 01:05:36,239
this weird dichotomy between the idea of authoritarian control and

1258
01:05:36,280 --> 01:05:38,960
being completely alone. And the truth is that's just another

1259
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:42,599
form of authoritarian control where you're the authority. The opposite

1260
01:05:42,719 --> 01:05:47,880
of a social system that is authoritarian control is not loneliness.

1261
01:05:48,159 --> 01:05:51,360
It is a social system where there is reciprocity and

1262
01:05:51,400 --> 01:05:54,000
shared norms and people are taking care of each other

1263
01:05:54,599 --> 01:05:58,639
and there's a balanced democratic way of understanding, you know

1264
01:05:58,679 --> 01:06:00,320
what is right and what is wrong, and how we

1265
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:04,960
take care of multiple people's needs. It's not church versus

1266
01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:09,400
being alone. It's communities formed around authoritarianism as the moral

1267
01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:13,880
structure versus believing everyone deserves dignity. And we're going to

1268
01:06:13,920 --> 01:06:15,559
come to the ways to do it. Together, which is

1269
01:06:15,599 --> 01:06:16,480
what humanism is.

1270
01:06:16,559 --> 01:06:16,960
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1271
01:06:17,079 --> 01:06:18,440
Speaker 5: One of the things that people like to say in

1272
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:20,880
my comments when I advertise for like the atheist community

1273
01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:23,760
of Austin is, oh, well, you're just giving into group think.

1274
01:06:24,360 --> 01:06:26,480
You need to protect yourself from group think. That's what

1275
01:06:26,519 --> 01:06:29,559
being a true skeptic is. And I heard somebody put

1276
01:06:30,320 --> 01:06:32,679
put a response to this in a way that I

1277
01:06:32,719 --> 01:06:37,559
really liked, and that was Okay. Yeah, when we're in church,

1278
01:06:38,119 --> 01:06:40,440
you do there is a lot of group think going on.

1279
01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:42,920
And then when you leave and you think that you

1280
01:06:43,039 --> 01:06:47,119
have to be a complete you know, island as a man,

1281
01:06:47,719 --> 01:06:51,360
then you end up being a part of group think.

1282
01:06:51,559 --> 01:06:55,039
Still you're still interacting with other people, you're still consuming

1283
01:06:55,159 --> 01:06:59,239
media especially, you're still you know, having an identity that

1284
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:02,039
is formula based on the inputs of other people, comparing

1285
01:07:02,079 --> 01:07:03,320
yourself against other minds.

1286
01:07:03,360 --> 01:07:06,239
Speaker 4: That still does exist. Yes, it's just.

1287
01:07:06,159 --> 01:07:09,880
Speaker 5: That when you're in that really extreme uh, when you're

1288
01:07:09,880 --> 01:07:17,320
in that really extreme like isolationist, individualist place, you have

1289
01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:21,519
group think, but you don't acknowledge that the group exists.

1290
01:07:21,920 --> 01:07:23,360
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's what's going on.

1291
01:07:23,480 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 5: You don't acknowledge your influences, and in that way, you

1292
01:07:26,559 --> 01:07:30,119
become just as susceptible to group think as people who

1293
01:07:30,119 --> 01:07:32,280
are in an authoritarian communal structure.

1294
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:35,239
Speaker 3: I think about you've seen this thing with Richard Dawkins

1295
01:07:35,320 --> 01:07:37,400
talking to Claude, right, we were talking about.

1296
01:07:37,320 --> 01:07:38,760
Speaker 4: You just told me about that.

1297
01:07:39,079 --> 01:07:43,960
Speaker 3: This is like you can you can try so hard

1298
01:07:44,119 --> 01:07:46,719
to say, I'm going to try and isolate myself off

1299
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:51,199
from all these resources, all these ways of shaping the

1300
01:07:51,239 --> 01:07:55,320
way you think. But ultimately the people, the psychosis that

1301
01:07:55,360 --> 01:07:59,320
we're most vulnerable to is convincing ourselves bullshit and getting

1302
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:02,760
high on our own supply. Yeah right, Yeah, good communities

1303
01:08:03,199 --> 01:08:07,920
will challenge our thinking and encourage us to develop more

1304
01:08:08,079 --> 01:08:11,280
nuanced ways of thinking and belief. Right. Sure, communities that

1305
01:08:11,320 --> 01:08:14,320
stress ideological conformity are gonna tell us you have to

1306
01:08:14,320 --> 01:08:17,119
think X, Y, and Z and beat those over your heads.

1307
01:08:17,119 --> 01:08:20,079
But most good communities are going to free you from

1308
01:08:20,119 --> 01:08:23,720
the tyranny of only talking and listening to yourself, which

1309
01:08:23,760 --> 01:08:28,760
makes you arrogant and diluted, and force you to engage

1310
01:08:28,760 --> 01:08:31,159
with people who think differently about the world. That to

1311
01:08:31,199 --> 01:08:34,319
me is like, that's why I go to humanist communities,

1312
01:08:34,399 --> 01:08:36,880
That's why I go to Unitarian church like I like

1313
01:08:37,079 --> 01:08:40,399
as an atheist hanging out with theists and understanding how

1314
01:08:40,439 --> 01:08:43,079
they see the world, not because they're trying to convince

1315
01:08:43,119 --> 01:08:45,920
me of anything, not because I want to share their beliefs,

1316
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:49,600
but because it helps me understand who I am, to

1317
01:08:49,760 --> 01:08:52,520
talk with people who have differences. Yeah, we shouldn't be

1318
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:53,159
scared of that.

1319
01:08:53,439 --> 01:08:55,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I totally agree.

1320
01:08:55,720 --> 01:09:01,319
Speaker 5: Okay, let's just say a hypothetical America embraces is what

1321
01:09:01,399 --> 01:09:02,279
we're talking about here?

1322
01:09:02,359 --> 01:09:05,039
Speaker 4: Ooh, Like, let's swin.

1323
01:09:05,239 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 5: Let's say that like three and a half four percent

1324
01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:13,640
of people embrace something like this, you know, humanist communities

1325
01:09:13,680 --> 01:09:16,399
where they're going to things in real life, they're interested

1326
01:09:16,439 --> 01:09:19,039
in political action that's based on protecting human dignity and

1327
01:09:19,119 --> 01:09:22,840
maybe some economic democracy as well as like tooral democracy.

1328
01:09:23,279 --> 01:09:23,760
Speaker 3: What is that?

1329
01:09:24,079 --> 01:09:24,960
Speaker 4: What do you think happens?

1330
01:09:25,560 --> 01:09:28,199
Speaker 3: So there is some research that says that when you

1331
01:09:28,199 --> 01:09:30,199
get to three and a half percent of a population

1332
01:09:32,039 --> 01:09:34,520
working collectively for something in some way, that's when you

1333
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:37,680
get to a civilizational tipping point on an issue. I

1334
01:09:37,720 --> 01:09:40,359
think that ultimately, once humanists start to be able to

1335
01:09:40,399 --> 01:09:43,960
get together and build the same kind of trust and

1336
01:09:44,039 --> 01:09:48,760
closeness and mutual support that church offers to people, you're

1337
01:09:48,760 --> 01:09:52,079
gonna start getting people saying, wait a minute, I never

1338
01:09:52,239 --> 01:09:55,319
thought really seriously about what I believe, but you're telling

1339
01:09:55,359 --> 01:09:57,680
me I can get the same sense of community, the

1340
01:09:57,720 --> 01:10:00,880
same sense of meaning, the same sense of belonging, with

1341
01:10:00,920 --> 01:10:03,760
a different set of stories and a different set of

1342
01:10:04,159 --> 01:10:07,079
practices that aren't so top down. Maybe I want to

1343
01:10:07,079 --> 01:10:10,520
start taking a look at that. I think ultimately, a

1344
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:14,159
lot of people stay in religious communities because it connects

1345
01:10:14,199 --> 01:10:17,800
them to family, it connects them to opportunity. You know,

1346
01:10:17,840 --> 01:10:19,640
when I was living in West Virginia, the church was

1347
01:10:19,680 --> 01:10:22,039
the food bank, and the church was the you know,

1348
01:10:22,119 --> 01:10:25,199
the clothing closet, and the church was childcare, and ultimately,

1349
01:10:25,239 --> 01:10:27,880
if you were opting out of that environment, you had

1350
01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:29,119
better have a lot of money.

1351
01:10:29,279 --> 01:10:31,399
Speaker 4: Being the church was probably the chamber of commerce too.

1352
01:10:31,520 --> 01:10:33,840
Speaker 3: The church was the chamber of commerce, and the church

1353
01:10:33,960 --> 01:10:37,680
was the dating app and the church with and so ultimately,

1354
01:10:38,239 --> 01:10:40,920
you know, what I'd really like to see is more

1355
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:42,920
and more of these functions of taking care of each

1356
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:47,119
other done, you know, societally, so that they're equally accessible

1357
01:10:47,119 --> 01:10:48,920
to everyone and you don't have to belong to a

1358
01:10:49,000 --> 01:10:51,039
church or a humanist group to know you can get

1359
01:10:51,079 --> 01:10:53,960
health care or food or childcare when you need it, right.

1360
01:10:54,039 --> 01:10:57,840
That's why humanists have come up with concepts like medicare

1361
01:10:57,880 --> 01:11:01,159
for all because like, we don't want people to be

1362
01:11:01,359 --> 01:11:05,920
dependent on, you know, the voluntary association to be able

1363
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:07,279
to get the things they need. We want it to

1364
01:11:07,319 --> 01:11:10,079
be provided to people as a matter of right. But

1365
01:11:10,880 --> 01:11:14,079
you know, when we can create our own communities that

1366
01:11:14,560 --> 01:11:17,760
provide belonging and meaning and love in the same way

1367
01:11:17,880 --> 01:11:20,920
religion has for centuries, that's when I think we'll start

1368
01:11:20,960 --> 01:11:24,199
to see you might call it a mass migration to

1369
01:11:24,560 --> 01:11:26,479
something that can end up having some of that same

1370
01:11:26,479 --> 01:11:27,279
cultural power.

1371
01:11:28,159 --> 01:11:33,199
Speaker 5: How many people in the US like identifies humanist? Now

1372
01:11:33,399 --> 01:11:35,880
do you happen to know that figure or know it?

1373
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:36,840
Like a rough estimate?

1374
01:11:37,039 --> 01:11:41,479
Speaker 3: So right now, when Pew polls, so Pew Charitable Trust

1375
01:11:41,560 --> 01:11:43,920
does these big poles thirty five thousand people and they

1376
01:11:43,960 --> 01:11:47,039
ask about religion, and they say less than one percent

1377
01:11:47,079 --> 01:11:50,720
of people, when you know, asked to state what they are,

1378
01:11:51,199 --> 01:11:54,399
identify as humanist. But when you go into the cross

1379
01:11:54,479 --> 01:11:57,479
tabs and you actually look at the answers people selected

1380
01:11:57,520 --> 01:11:59,680
and you add up all the people who say, you know,

1381
01:12:00,159 --> 01:12:03,520
I don't believe in God or I'm not sure and

1382
01:12:03,640 --> 01:12:05,960
I think science is the best way to explain the world.

1383
01:12:06,199 --> 01:12:09,279
And I believe in civil rights and the environment and

1384
01:12:09,319 --> 01:12:13,319
protecting all people equally, regardless of who they are. You're

1385
01:12:13,359 --> 01:12:16,319
looking at in America right now, we're about forty six

1386
01:12:16,399 --> 01:12:20,319
percent or I'm sorry, forty six million American adults. Sixteen

1387
01:12:20,359 --> 01:12:24,199
percent of people believe the same things we do, and

1388
01:12:24,319 --> 01:12:28,079
they are Here's what's interesting. They are just as likely

1389
01:12:28,199 --> 01:12:30,479
as religious people to want to be a part of

1390
01:12:30,479 --> 01:12:35,520
a community group or want to volunteer. But outside of

1391
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:40,000
a couple places like Austin, Denver, Phoenix, there's not even

1392
01:12:40,039 --> 01:12:42,640
a space for them to go to, to say nothing

1393
01:12:42,680 --> 01:12:45,159
of the experience they have when they come into the space.

1394
01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:49,640
And so there's this sleeping giant in America right now

1395
01:12:49,720 --> 01:12:53,279
of so many people who share our belief that science

1396
01:12:53,319 --> 01:12:55,760
tells us what's real and compassion tells us what's right.

1397
01:12:56,199 --> 01:12:58,600
And there's also a sleeping giant of people who are

1398
01:12:58,640 --> 01:13:00,960
just like I am so tired of my entire life

1399
01:13:01,479 --> 01:13:04,640
being lived in my apartment mediated by a screen. And

1400
01:13:04,680 --> 01:13:08,199
I am old enough to remember as a kid what

1401
01:13:08,239 --> 01:13:10,880
it was like when people used to not spend all

1402
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:13,039
their time on their phone. God damn it. I'm looking

1403
01:13:13,039 --> 01:13:16,840
for a community. I think that movement is coming whether

1404
01:13:16,920 --> 01:13:18,760
we like it or not, and it's up to us

1405
01:13:18,800 --> 01:13:20,600
to rise to meet that moment and give people a

1406
01:13:20,600 --> 01:13:21,279
place to belong.

1407
01:13:21,439 --> 01:13:24,600
Speaker 5: Absolutely, now, the religious right has really tried to put

1408
01:13:24,600 --> 01:13:28,439
out this totally bullshit story about, Oh, people are returning

1409
01:13:28,479 --> 01:13:30,920
to God, people are going coming back and flocking at churches,

1410
01:13:30,960 --> 01:13:35,039
and then they'll show like this footage of a relatively

1411
01:13:35,039 --> 01:13:38,319
empty youth group, and then somehow think that that's convincing,

1412
01:13:39,159 --> 01:13:41,479
and then you know, they'll fudge statistics to say that like,

1413
01:13:41,800 --> 01:13:44,159
the religious right is growing, and then you know, we're

1414
01:13:44,199 --> 01:13:48,000
in a religious revival, a Christian revival in America if

1415
01:13:48,039 --> 01:13:49,720
you look at the actual data, though.

1416
01:13:49,600 --> 01:13:51,199
Speaker 4: No, that's not happening.

1417
01:13:52,079 --> 01:13:53,239
Speaker 3: We are.

1418
01:13:54,039 --> 01:14:00,479
Speaker 5: The non religious group of Americans is the lion share

1419
01:14:01,039 --> 01:14:06,640
of the American religious experience at this point. There are

1420
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:09,399
more people who don't identify with a religion, and there

1421
01:14:09,439 --> 01:14:13,319
are people who identify with a specific sect, any specific sect.

1422
01:14:13,119 --> 01:14:16,000
Speaker 4: Of like Christianity or any other religion.

1423
01:14:16,199 --> 01:14:18,439
Speaker 3: Absolutely, if you broke up all the different Catholic and

1424
01:14:18,439 --> 01:14:21,920
Protestant traditions, non religious people would be the largest religion

1425
01:14:21,960 --> 01:14:24,279
in America. Even if you lump it all together. We're

1426
01:14:24,319 --> 01:14:28,359
still the largest religious minority in America. Yeah, And you know,

1427
01:14:28,479 --> 01:14:32,760
and that has been a steady trend line over about

1428
01:14:32,800 --> 01:14:36,079
twenty years that that's been growing. And then there was

1429
01:14:36,239 --> 01:14:40,079
one year where it didn't grow, and the narrative was

1430
01:14:40,319 --> 01:14:43,079
everyone's coming back to church. Well, no, everyone's not coming

1431
01:14:43,079 --> 01:14:47,600
back to church. Nobody en mass moved away this year.

1432
01:14:47,800 --> 01:14:50,640
But also, you know, I read a study once that

1433
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:54,760
said one in four people will tell you they go

1434
01:14:54,840 --> 01:14:58,000
to church every Sunday. But then when the sociologists went

1435
01:14:58,079 --> 01:15:00,560
and they actually went into church out of the number

1436
01:15:00,560 --> 01:15:02,439
of people in the pews, and they did this over

1437
01:15:02,720 --> 01:15:05,359
at a representative number of churches over a reasonable sample

1438
01:15:05,399 --> 01:15:09,319
of time, eighty percent of those people were lying. Yeah,

1439
01:15:09,319 --> 01:15:12,399
but it was actually one in twenty Americans who goes

1440
01:15:12,439 --> 01:15:14,920
to church every week. And it's the same phenomenon. You

1441
01:15:15,000 --> 01:15:19,119
do see more young men say self identifying as Christian.

1442
01:15:19,640 --> 01:15:22,239
This is offset by the fact that far more young

1443
01:15:22,279 --> 01:15:25,239
women in gen Z are saying they are not religious. Yeah,

1444
01:15:25,319 --> 01:15:30,840
but these young men are generally not going to church, right.

1445
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:33,760
It is. It is a signaling tool to say like

1446
01:15:33,840 --> 01:15:36,960
I am part of this group, as opposed to active

1447
01:15:37,000 --> 01:15:40,800
engagement in a community. An active engagement in a community

1448
01:15:40,840 --> 01:15:43,399
is what makes identity sticky. Any anyone can put anything

1449
01:15:43,399 --> 01:15:45,239
in their Instagram bio for a couple of weeks.

1450
01:15:45,479 --> 01:15:47,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I think that's I think that's totally right.

1451
01:15:47,840 --> 01:15:51,439
Speaker 5: And I you know, I think that that's also why

1452
01:15:51,479 --> 01:15:55,000
it's really important that we don't put humanism out there

1453
01:15:55,079 --> 01:15:56,399
as just a label to take.

1454
01:15:56,720 --> 01:15:59,000
Speaker 4: It's probably the least important part, you know.

1455
01:15:59,079 --> 01:16:03,239
Speaker 5: We don't want to fight the rise of the religious

1456
01:16:03,279 --> 01:16:07,720
rights power and their signaling strategy with our own signaling strategy.

1457
01:16:07,760 --> 01:16:10,960
It's ultimately not a signaling strategy. It's an organizing strategy

1458
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:13,960
to protect human dignity at the most fundamental level.

1459
01:16:14,840 --> 01:16:17,520
Speaker 4: And so what we have to do, like we've been saying,

1460
01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:17,960
is we have.

1461
01:16:17,880 --> 01:16:21,079
Speaker 5: To actually organize in person rather than just convince people

1462
01:16:21,159 --> 01:16:24,920
take on the label of humanist. And having shared label,

1463
01:16:24,960 --> 01:16:29,840
shared identities. Obviously they're important, but at base, it's not

1464
01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:30,760
about the word.

1465
01:16:31,119 --> 01:16:32,199
Speaker 4: It's about the actions.

1466
01:16:32,479 --> 01:16:36,680
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Humanism isn't something you can just call yourself. It's

1467
01:16:36,680 --> 01:16:38,880
something that you are because of what you believe and

1468
01:16:38,880 --> 01:16:42,319
how you behave. And I think right now, I think

1469
01:16:42,359 --> 01:16:44,800
people are tired of labels. I think people are tired

1470
01:16:44,840 --> 01:16:47,199
with the obsession of the signifiers that you use to

1471
01:16:47,199 --> 01:16:49,399
call yourself. I think people care a lot more about

1472
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:52,920
how you show up and you know, so you know

1473
01:16:52,960 --> 01:16:56,800
when I say, like Thomas Pain is indisputably a humanist, right,

1474
01:16:56,880 --> 01:16:59,800
Like everyone who has studied humanism agrees like Thomas Pain,

1475
01:17:00,000 --> 01:17:03,319
Thomas Jefferson, we're humanists, but they didn't use that word

1476
01:17:03,399 --> 01:17:06,039
because the language of humanism came onto the scene and

1477
01:17:06,079 --> 01:17:09,840
evolved in like nineteen thirty three. You can be a

1478
01:17:09,920 --> 01:17:13,399
humanist even if that's not something you tattoo on your forehead,

1479
01:17:13,960 --> 01:17:16,079
if you focus on living your life in the way

1480
01:17:16,119 --> 01:17:19,119
a humanist would. And that's the thing, Like, we don't

1481
01:17:19,119 --> 01:17:22,039
need people to read loyalty oaths off to feel like

1482
01:17:22,079 --> 01:17:24,399
they're a part of the group. That's never what this

1483
01:17:24,479 --> 01:17:27,479
has been about. What we care about is helping people

1484
01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:30,960
live lives they can be proud of. And ultimately, I

1485
01:17:30,960 --> 01:17:33,680
think people are excited about That's why you're seeing such

1486
01:17:33,720 --> 01:17:37,920
growth at ACA. Right. People are excited about being part

1487
01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:40,800
of communities that support them to live in line with

1488
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:45,520
their values. And nobody has to brand themselves as anything

1489
01:17:45,560 --> 01:17:47,760
to come here. You just have to say you agree

1490
01:17:47,760 --> 01:17:50,359
with the goals of the ACA, and you're ready to

1491
01:17:50,479 --> 01:17:53,680
work towards a secular society where people are treated well.

1492
01:17:54,439 --> 01:17:55,520
This to be is exciting.

1493
01:17:55,800 --> 01:17:58,439
Speaker 4: This is our power. I think. When I've you know,

1494
01:17:58,479 --> 01:17:59,359
advertised I'm going to be.

1495
01:17:59,319 --> 01:18:02,279
Speaker 5: At the ACA, super involved with the ACA, some people

1496
01:18:02,319 --> 01:18:06,119
have said like, oh, like, don't proselytize.

1497
01:18:06,159 --> 01:18:08,399
Speaker 4: That's just doing what they're doing. And I'm like, hey,

1498
01:18:08,479 --> 01:18:10,840
look at what I said. I didn't proselytize.

1499
01:18:10,840 --> 01:18:13,840
Speaker 5: I did not say you need to become this and

1500
01:18:13,880 --> 01:18:17,880
then join my community. What I said is you probably

1501
01:18:17,960 --> 01:18:21,960
already are this, and the community is here for you

1502
01:18:22,159 --> 01:18:26,359
and what you want already. The true power that we

1503
01:18:26,479 --> 01:18:30,720
have in this moment in history is that the crazy

1504
01:18:30,760 --> 01:18:33,079
shit that is going on in our world is pushing

1505
01:18:33,199 --> 01:18:36,239
people to think more in the way that we are

1506
01:18:36,319 --> 01:18:42,159
articulating right here. People are being converted to this way

1507
01:18:42,199 --> 01:18:46,039
of thinking by the material conditions that exist in the

1508
01:18:46,079 --> 01:18:50,960
country already. We don't need to proselytize at all. All

1509
01:18:51,000 --> 01:18:53,319
we need to do is build the communities so that

1510
01:18:53,359 --> 01:18:55,560
people can plug into them and have their needs met.

1511
01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:56,399
Speaker 3: That's it.

1512
01:18:56,800 --> 01:18:59,640
Speaker 4: They have to do both, and they're failing at both.

1513
01:19:00,119 --> 01:19:04,520
Speaker 3: Absolutely. People ultimately are sick of living in a world

1514
01:19:04,560 --> 01:19:08,239
where they have to work harder to afford less. They're

1515
01:19:08,319 --> 01:19:11,199
sick of living in a world where we're constantly being

1516
01:19:11,239 --> 01:19:15,000
divided from each other by algorithms or whatever culture war

1517
01:19:15,079 --> 01:19:18,239
issue the religious right wants to cook up. People are

1518
01:19:18,359 --> 01:19:20,560
sick of living in a world where they're told that

1519
01:19:20,720 --> 01:19:23,960
it being cruel is actually good, and being empathetic is

1520
01:19:24,000 --> 01:19:27,640
actually a weakness, and people are looking at things as

1521
01:19:27,680 --> 01:19:30,760
they aren't saying, my god, this is also screwed up.

1522
01:19:30,800 --> 01:19:34,119
I want something different. And the truth is that when

1523
01:19:34,159 --> 01:19:37,520
they go looking for a lot of people, humanism will

1524
01:19:37,560 --> 01:19:39,840
be what they find where they belong, and it won't

1525
01:19:39,880 --> 01:19:42,800
be for everybody, and that's okay. But people are never

1526
01:19:42,920 --> 01:19:45,039
going to know that we're out here doing this kind

1527
01:19:45,039 --> 01:19:47,279
of work at ACA doing this I mean, we've got

1528
01:19:47,319 --> 01:19:49,560
two hundred and fifty chapters around the country. Not all

1529
01:19:49,600 --> 01:19:51,960
of them are as big as ACA, but they could

1530
01:19:52,039 --> 01:19:54,600
be of more people going. The only way people are

1531
01:19:54,600 --> 01:19:56,600
going to know that this different way of thinking is

1532
01:19:56,600 --> 01:19:58,800
out there is if we tell them. And if that

1533
01:19:58,800 --> 01:20:01,319
feels like cross litization, I don't really care, because the

1534
01:20:01,359 --> 01:20:04,119
truth is I would be I would happily make this

1535
01:20:04,199 --> 01:20:08,720
train if the Christian. If the evangelical Christians proselytized twice

1536
01:20:08,720 --> 01:20:12,439
as much and worked to and spent half as much

1537
01:20:12,479 --> 01:20:15,079
time working to end abortion, that would be a good

1538
01:20:15,159 --> 01:20:17,920
deal for me. It's not proseatization that bothers me. Right,

1539
01:20:18,159 --> 01:20:20,800
If you think that your worldview is good and you

1540
01:20:20,840 --> 01:20:23,199
want to go shout it from the mountaintops, you know what,

1541
01:20:23,279 --> 01:20:25,199
Maybe I might find that annoying, but that's the price

1542
01:20:25,239 --> 01:20:27,199
you pay for living in a country with free speech.

1543
01:20:27,640 --> 01:20:30,560
I think that ultimately we shouldn't be scared of going

1544
01:20:30,600 --> 01:20:33,960
out and saying what we believe. We're not denigrating people

1545
01:20:33,960 --> 01:20:36,079
who believe differently. We're trying to show the people who

1546
01:20:36,119 --> 01:20:39,119
are out there like us and alone that there are

1547
01:20:39,199 --> 01:20:42,520
people like them who want to invite them in. Because

1548
01:20:42,560 --> 01:20:44,319
I think there are a lot of people who are

1549
01:20:44,319 --> 01:20:48,479
feeling hopeless right now, and not having hope comes from

1550
01:20:48,479 --> 01:20:51,159
not having community. And I think the value of going

1551
01:20:51,199 --> 01:20:53,279
out and saying, hey, if you felt these things and

1552
01:20:53,279 --> 01:20:54,840
you felt the world is screwed up in these ways,

1553
01:20:54,840 --> 01:20:57,920
there are people just like you, and they want you

1554
01:20:58,000 --> 01:20:59,800
to come and meet them and we can get through

1555
01:20:59,800 --> 01:21:04,079
this together. I think that's the only thing that is

1556
01:21:04,359 --> 01:21:05,800
going to lead us out of the wilderness.

1557
01:21:05,960 --> 01:21:09,119
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm right there with you, and I will be

1558
01:21:09,279 --> 01:21:13,760
with you on whatever the AHA's next projects are. Do

1559
01:21:13,800 --> 01:21:17,000
you want to say anything about what might be coming up,

1560
01:21:17,039 --> 01:21:17,960
what the AHA.

1561
01:21:17,640 --> 01:21:18,279
Speaker 4: Wants to do?

1562
01:21:19,079 --> 01:21:23,560
Speaker 5: What does the future of humanism in America look like?

1563
01:21:23,600 --> 01:21:25,039
If you guys have anything to say about it?

1564
01:21:25,119 --> 01:21:25,439
Speaker 2: Oh?

1565
01:21:25,600 --> 01:21:26,279
Speaker 3: Absolutely.

1566
01:21:26,399 --> 01:21:26,479
Speaker 2: So.

1567
01:21:27,039 --> 01:21:30,199
Speaker 3: The AHA has been around for basically eighty five years.

1568
01:21:30,199 --> 01:21:33,840
It's our eighty fifth anniversary this year, and we are

1569
01:21:34,079 --> 01:21:36,680
larger than we've ever been because we've been growing tremendously,

1570
01:21:36,760 --> 01:21:39,680
in part Drew, because of you and I teaming up

1571
01:21:39,720 --> 01:21:44,560
to build this Creator fund that has been bringing lots

1572
01:21:44,560 --> 01:21:47,119
and lots of new young people into the AHA. So

1573
01:21:47,399 --> 01:21:49,760
we've almost doubled our staff in the last year and

1574
01:21:49,800 --> 01:21:53,359
a half. We've you know, fundraising about seventy five percent

1575
01:21:53,399 --> 01:21:56,119
more than we used to, and we've seen close to

1576
01:21:56,279 --> 01:21:58,760
a you know, about a twenty percent jump in membership

1577
01:21:58,920 --> 01:22:01,479
over for an or organization that's been around a long time.

1578
01:22:01,880 --> 01:22:05,800
People are coming on board because we're talking openly about

1579
01:22:05,880 --> 01:22:09,359
humanism as something new that people can belong to, and

1580
01:22:09,520 --> 01:22:11,880
we're going out as we did with the American Empathy

1581
01:22:11,880 --> 01:22:15,960
Project and fighting to solve people's real problems. Now we're

1582
01:22:15,960 --> 01:22:18,560
going to be taking this group, this larger group of

1583
01:22:18,560 --> 01:22:21,319
people that we've built through the American Empathy Project, and

1584
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:24,199
using that to push back on what the religious right

1585
01:22:24,279 --> 01:22:26,239
is trying to do in the halls of power. Because

1586
01:22:26,720 --> 01:22:29,720
the whole point of building community so you can organize

1587
01:22:29,760 --> 01:22:33,079
that community to win power. Right a. Philip Randolph who

1588
01:22:33,159 --> 01:22:35,119
was one of my favorite humanists. He was the chairman

1589
01:22:35,159 --> 01:22:37,520
of the March on Washington. He said, power is the

1590
01:22:37,520 --> 01:22:41,319
product of organization. Organization is the product of unity. Unity

1591
01:22:41,399 --> 01:22:43,920
is the product of understanding of a common interest. So

1592
01:22:43,960 --> 01:22:46,439
we're going to take this group of people and we're

1593
01:22:46,479 --> 01:22:50,560
going to fight for We just helped push out school

1594
01:22:50,640 --> 01:22:55,399
vouchers in Nebraska and Kansas, and that we're talking about,

1595
01:22:55,439 --> 01:22:58,520
Like we have members of the AJA that we've trained

1596
01:22:58,520 --> 01:23:01,199
to go bother their state senators and state representatives, and

1597
01:23:01,239 --> 01:23:05,560
we're building that group. We're building the Congressional Free Thought Caucus,

1598
01:23:05,680 --> 01:23:07,840
haven't Meta just had an article this week about the

1599
01:23:07,880 --> 01:23:10,840
two new members we've recruited to join. It's now bigger

1600
01:23:10,880 --> 01:23:14,760
than the Freedom Caucus. Like, we are building real political

1601
01:23:14,880 --> 01:23:17,119
power because that's what happens when you have a big

1602
01:23:17,159 --> 01:23:21,079
movement and The next step will be working to undermine

1603
01:23:21,079 --> 01:23:24,319
the religious rights legal arguments. One thing we're working on is,

1604
01:23:25,359 --> 01:23:28,159
you know, a cool thing about humanism is in a

1605
01:23:28,359 --> 01:23:31,039
Supreme Court case in the sixties, Justice Hugo Black was,

1606
01:23:31,439 --> 01:23:34,960
you know, affirm that humanism in a legal sense is

1607
01:23:34,960 --> 01:23:38,319
a religion. And you know, of course we're not, you know,

1608
01:23:39,520 --> 01:23:44,800
we're we're definitely not Judaism or Buddhism or Hinduism or Islam.

1609
01:23:45,279 --> 01:23:50,119
But humanism ultimately is a belief system that thinks certain

1610
01:23:50,159 --> 01:23:54,159
things about truth and morality, and we deserve the same

1611
01:23:54,600 --> 01:23:57,760
legal protections for our beliefs that were you know that

1612
01:23:57,840 --> 01:24:01,319
Christians have. Yeah, so if they have a religious right

1613
01:24:01,399 --> 01:24:04,960
per the Supreme Court to ignore anti discrimination law and

1614
01:24:05,039 --> 01:24:08,600
discriminate against gay people in their businesses, who's to suggest

1615
01:24:08,720 --> 01:24:11,840
that we don't have a religious right to an abortion right.

1616
01:24:11,880 --> 01:24:14,920
And so, you know, we're planning to Our legal team

1617
01:24:14,920 --> 01:24:17,159
has grown significantly. We're planning to work on a lot

1618
01:24:17,159 --> 01:24:20,800
of creative litigation. And the goal throughout all of this

1619
01:24:20,960 --> 01:24:23,760
is we do this work and our hope is it

1620
01:24:23,760 --> 01:24:26,199
helps us get attention so that we can bring more

1621
01:24:26,239 --> 01:24:30,680
people into these thriving communities. I mean, ACA, how much

1622
01:24:30,720 --> 01:24:31,800
has it grown in the last year.

1623
01:24:32,680 --> 01:24:35,760
Speaker 5: It's hard to say exactly the membership because I definitely

1624
01:24:35,800 --> 01:24:39,359
would want to get with Ben and Vern about those

1625
01:24:39,359 --> 01:24:42,399
specific numbers. But I will say that there was a

1626
01:24:42,439 --> 01:24:45,720
time when our Philosophy Nights had a very dedicated group

1627
01:24:45,720 --> 01:24:48,079
of about eight people, and now we fill up the

1628
01:24:48,119 --> 01:24:53,479
building to the point where we are talking about really needing.

1629
01:24:53,199 --> 01:24:55,880
Speaker 3: To expand our building. So you've gone from eight people

1630
01:24:55,880 --> 01:24:58,640
to having this whole place packed, and like are we

1631
01:24:58,760 --> 01:25:01,680
brought in twenty seven new humanist groups to the AHA

1632
01:25:01,800 --> 01:25:05,479
last year? Nice there is demand for community and it's

1633
01:25:05,520 --> 01:25:08,399
happening as we go out there with a powerful, hopeful

1634
01:25:08,399 --> 01:25:11,560
message about what humanism is. We do real political work

1635
01:25:11,560 --> 01:25:13,600
that makes people feel like they're part of an organization

1636
01:25:13,640 --> 01:25:16,720
that's achieving something, and we provide a place to belong

1637
01:25:17,159 --> 01:25:20,560
that is welcoming and that helps meet the needs that

1638
01:25:20,600 --> 01:25:23,439
people have to feel like they're part of a community

1639
01:25:23,520 --> 01:25:27,000
and feel like they're doing something meaningful in a time

1640
01:25:27,039 --> 01:25:27,960
of total nonsense.

1641
01:25:28,279 --> 01:25:30,960
Speaker 5: Okay, I have to make sure that we shout out

1642
01:25:31,439 --> 01:25:35,479
the places where people can actually go to get involved

1643
01:25:35,520 --> 01:25:37,359
with this, because if people are still with us at

1644
01:25:37,359 --> 01:25:40,520
this point, they're probably pretty interested in actually being involved themselves.

1645
01:25:40,640 --> 01:25:43,680
So as far as the Atheist Community of Austin, we

1646
01:25:43,960 --> 01:25:46,039
are a you know or five oh one c three

1647
01:25:46,159 --> 01:25:49,600
educational nonprofit. We do have places for you to you know,

1648
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:52,880
donate in all of those great things, but the best

1649
01:25:52,920 --> 01:25:56,159
thing that you can possibly do is to actually go

1650
01:25:56,279 --> 01:25:59,600
and get a membership. That's I am sure that we

1651
01:25:59,680 --> 01:26:02,720
have all those links down in the description. Maybe the

1652
01:26:02,720 --> 01:26:05,720
mods can post those things. And it's not just about

1653
01:26:05,720 --> 01:26:08,399
your financial support, but it's also about your energy and

1654
01:26:08,439 --> 01:26:11,680
the time that you can spend helping us increase our

1655
01:26:11,680 --> 01:26:15,399
capacity to bring people in in real life, do real

1656
01:26:15,520 --> 01:26:19,399
political work and organizing, making sure that we are protecting

1657
01:26:19,439 --> 01:26:23,359
people's basic human rights and dignity here in the Austin area.

1658
01:26:23,479 --> 01:26:25,560
Speaker 4: Remember, like, yes, while Austin.

1659
01:26:25,399 --> 01:26:27,920
Speaker 5: Is a liberal city in a sea of you know,

1660
01:26:28,039 --> 01:26:31,000
the blue dot in the sea of red, we are

1661
01:26:31,079 --> 01:26:34,239
surrounded by a and still under the authority of a

1662
01:26:34,279 --> 01:26:39,399
completely hostile political regime, let's say, both in the state

1663
01:26:39,479 --> 01:26:42,159
level and national level. So getting involved with the Atheist

1664
01:26:42,199 --> 01:26:44,880
Community of Austin is a great way to make your

1665
01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:47,880
voice heard, amplify your own voice so that we can

1666
01:26:48,039 --> 01:26:50,039
do the great work we've been talking about together all

1667
01:26:50,039 --> 01:26:52,359
those links in the description. Being a part of the

1668
01:26:52,399 --> 01:26:56,039
atheist community of Austin has been transformative in my life,

1669
01:26:56,479 --> 01:26:58,640
and I think it can be for other people. And

1670
01:26:58,680 --> 01:27:03,039
the AHA is it kind of a national version of

1671
01:27:03,600 --> 01:27:05,479
what I think that at least the best parts of

1672
01:27:05,520 --> 01:27:06,800
the ACA are well.

1673
01:27:06,640 --> 01:27:08,720
Speaker 3: I'd like to hope. So, and if you're interested in

1674
01:27:08,760 --> 01:27:11,680
the work that the American Humanist Association does, whether it's

1675
01:27:11,680 --> 01:27:15,479
our political work, our legal work, our work to promote humanism,

1676
01:27:15,560 --> 01:27:18,199
our work to support communities like the ACA and two

1677
01:27:18,279 --> 01:27:20,560
hundred and fifty of them across the country, go to

1678
01:27:20,600 --> 01:27:23,359
Americanhumanist dot org. You can sign up, you can get

1679
01:27:23,359 --> 01:27:25,159
our newsletters for free, you can get a lot of

1680
01:27:25,159 --> 01:27:28,560
free educational resources on humanism. We've got a program called

1681
01:27:28,600 --> 01:27:31,159
Dose of Humanism where we'll text you humanists quotes three

1682
01:27:31,199 --> 01:27:33,680
times a week. So if you want more humanism in

1683
01:27:33,720 --> 01:27:35,720
your life, you can get that for free. But if

1684
01:27:35,760 --> 01:27:38,319
you want to become a member, you can join our discord,

1685
01:27:38,359 --> 01:27:40,600
you can vote in our board elections. You can even

1686
01:27:40,600 --> 01:27:42,600
get our magazine if you're into that kind of thing.

1687
01:27:42,840 --> 01:27:46,199
So again, that's American Humanist dot org. And let's build

1688
01:27:46,239 --> 01:27:49,880
a community that really has not just the numbers and

1689
01:27:49,920 --> 01:27:52,840
the power, but also the joy to take on the

1690
01:27:52,920 --> 01:27:54,479
religious right and finally win.

1691
01:27:54,880 --> 01:27:57,439
Speaker 5: The way that we cultivate joy in a moment like

1692
01:27:57,479 --> 01:28:01,279
this in history is only by as I think, the

1693
01:28:01,840 --> 01:28:05,840
LGBT movement in the nineteen seventies often said, we protest

1694
01:28:05,880 --> 01:28:08,239
all day and then we dance all night. And we

1695
01:28:08,279 --> 01:28:10,279
definitely do a lot of dancing here at the ACA

1696
01:28:10,399 --> 01:28:11,079
and at the AHA.

1697
01:28:11,199 --> 01:28:13,119
Speaker 3: Right, I saw some pretty good dancing yesterday.

1698
01:28:13,319 --> 01:28:14,039
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true.

1699
01:28:14,199 --> 01:28:16,920
Speaker 5: All right, Well, Fish, thanks for coming on. This was

1700
01:28:16,920 --> 01:28:18,479
a joy to be able to co host with you

1701
01:28:18,560 --> 01:28:19,720
like this is I love this, dude.

1702
01:28:19,720 --> 01:28:21,479
Speaker 3: This was so much fun. Yeah, I've been waiting for

1703
01:28:21,520 --> 01:28:24,279
this day. Good and we're gonna do it again sometime, right,

1704
01:28:24,279 --> 01:28:26,520
Hell yeah, thank you all for tuning in, and thank

1705
01:28:26,560 --> 01:28:30,079
you guys for being either humanist or humanist curious. And

1706
01:28:30,439 --> 01:28:32,079
we're gonna keep going out there and fighting for you,

1707
01:28:33,960 --> 01:28:36,079
all right, Yeah, market.

1708
01:28:36,279 --> 01:28:56,239
Speaker 6: Light, we start already stop around. Welcome Ellen.

1709
01:29:20,640 --> 01:29:23,920
Speaker 4: Watch Talkie than Live Sundays at one pm Central. Visit

1710
01:29:24,000 --> 01:29:26,920
tiny dot c c slash y T t H and

1711
01:29:27,000 --> 01:29:29,439
call into the show at five one two nine nine

1712
01:29:29,560 --> 01:29:32,000
one nine two four two, or connect to the show

1713
01:29:32,039 --> 01:29:35,279
online at tiny dot c C slash call th H