Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
not because I put my hand on a book and
made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 3: Before I play the audio of a conversation that I
had on video recently, and that YouTube link is in
the description box in case you want to watch it,
and I encourage you to do so when you are
done listening here. But Dave Warnock, former minister hardcore evangelical,
comes out of the faith right he's an atheist, and
then a few years ago he is diagnosed with a
terminal disease. Doctors tell him he's going to die of
als in short order, and so he committed himself to
accumulating as many life experiences as he could in the
time he had left before his body essentially failed him.
And so I mean he traveled the world, and he
flew over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter, and he
went sky diving, and you know, he did all these
things encouraging other people to maximize the moments. Right tomorrow
is not guaranteed. His hashtag was Carpe the fucking DM
right sees the day, and he was popular and sought
after speaker on the conference circuit. He was co hosting
call in shows until about a year ago. I think
it's been a year in the he just disappeared, like
where's Dave? I didn't know. I mean I sent him
a text every few months, just checking and I got
a response. I'm still around doing okay. But beyond that
even I didn't know anything. But because people knew that
Dave and I were friends, they were asking me, you know,
did he die? Is he still with us? And I
mean I didn't have a good answer rather than well,
I got a reply to a text. So recently, I
was in Nashville, Tennessee for the Nashville Nuns Conference none
meaning no religion, not Catholic, none, right, And I'm the
keynote on Saturday. So I'm there at the end of
a long day of speaker and panels. But I noticed
in the morning scheduled is Dave Warnock as a speaker.
And so I'm like, Okay, you know he's back, but
where's he been and how and why is he back
and what the hell's going on? And Dave and Bevin
drove me to the airports after the conference and we
had a chance to talk a little bit. We grabbed
a bite to eat. We're sitting over lunch and I
had a few hours before I had to be at
the airport, and I said, hey, you know, Dave, I mean,
I don't know if you're up for this, but you know,
if we can find a little nook somewhere, I got
my camera, rig I mean, we could just set something
up totally impromptu, informal, you know, just shake and bake,
and we can just set you on camera and I'll
sit across from you and we can talk about all this.
And Dave said, let's do it, and so we rushed back.
It was in his apartment building and they had a
little room upstairs. It wasn't optimal. If you watch the video,
you'll see I'm sitting in front of a window and
the sun's blaring in behind me, but there weren't a
lot of options in the room. And most importantly, Dave
looks good. You know. There he is Dave Warnock in
four K right there sitting in his chair is motorized chair.
And we did about thirty minutes just talking about his journey.
And a lot of folks are going to want to
hear this because it answers some questions as to where
he has been. So this is the audio of the
chat that I had just a few days ago with
Dave Warnock. And after the interview itself, I'm going to
make a small request, so hang on for that. So
I had the opportunity in Nashville, Tennessee to have a
conversation totally unplanned. We just found a room to talk
with someone that many would consider to be a ghost,
and yet this apparition has appeared before me, Dave Warnock, Dave,
where you been? So you've been?
Speaker 2: I've just been around. I've been here. I've been Nashville.
I'm still here, not dead, not dead yet. Didn't know
I'd be here for this many years when I got
diagnosed with this thing. I just turned seventy, So that's
a big number that. I don't know if I like
the idea of being seventy, but the alternative is not great.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm going to say things and ask questions.
I'm going I'm going to let the audience participate vicariously
through me, and I'm going to say this stuff that
they might be thinking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know hous.
Speaker 3: To say this, But your past your expiration day, right,
I mean the doctor said you had how many years?
Speaker 2: The standard diagnosis is three to five years. They tell
you you've got ALS, You've got three to five years.
That can vary wildly with ALS patients from six months
to twenty years. Twenty years is an outlier, but many
people go in six months, two years, whatever. It's just
every case is completely different. So I've been at it
over six years, almost seven. Now.
Speaker 3: I feel like there are some believers praying for you
that think this is a miracle.
Speaker 2: It has been said to me. Has it such that,
as one person put it recently, perhaps God has given
you some extra time so that you can reconsider your
deconstruction apostasy ways, sure.
Speaker 3: To see the error of your ways and come back
to the fall.
Speaker 2: As though God couldn't do that quickly he needs a
little extra time extend my suffering a few years.
Speaker 3: I have to do my due diligence here because there
are some who are being introduced to you for the
first time.
Speaker 2: How could this be?
Speaker 3: I know everyone should know your name. You are a legend,
a man among men, all those things, the hero we need.
Good man, Dave, you have ALS? Can you tell everybody
what is ALS? And when are you diagnosed?
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to pronounce it correctly. Ameotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Most people know of it more commonly as lou Gerrigg's disease.
I've had it well. I was diagnosed February twenty six,
twenty nineteen. The diagnosis followed what I can look back
at and realize were symptoms that I'd had for six
to seven months prior. I just didn't know what they were.
So clearly, I've had the disease in my body for
over seven years. So I'm on the long end of
things in terms of how long this stuff takes to
kill you. It is a terminal disease. There's no cure,
there's no treatment. They don't know what causes it. They
don't know anything about it. It's this mystery disease. So
I've been told I have a slower progressing version of it,
which has been good. I've been you know, a lot
of people if they had seen me at a conference
a few years ago, I was still walking around, they
could see I was affected in my arms some I think,
you know, the last time we hung out, you could
see that I had trouble feeding myself and stuff like that.
But I was still walking up and down off the
stage or whatever around the conference or wherever I was.
But now I can't. I really can't walk more than
a few steps.
Speaker 3: Now I see the chair. So are you chair bound? Now?
Speaker 2: I would say, well, chair bound means you have to
be lifted out of it onto a bed or a
shower or something. I don't have to. I could still
transfer myself, which is the medical term for get from
one place to another without assistance. So I can get
up out of this chair and waddle over to the couch,
or waddle to my bed and get in it. So
that's my limitation though, so but I can, like, for instance,
we'll go somewhere in a portable wheelchair, go to the car,
get myself into the car seat and not car seat
like a kid. But into the passenger seat, so to speak,
and I can. Yeah, so I've got that ability still.
Speaker 3: So in the time we've hung out, we had lunch together,
I've noticed I haven't seen you move your arms. Are
you able to move your arms like cameras? You're able
to raise it up? Just at even that effort, is
shoulder muscles doing it? I see, I'm not using any
hand or arm muscles. Dexterity of the fingers and all that,
that's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, almost no hand strength left, because that's where it started.
Speaker 3: It was my hands neuropathy kind of thing or no pain.
Speaker 2: Just the muscles are the nerves tell the muscles what
to do, and the muscles say, well, hell no, I'm
not doing that.
Speaker 3: Is that again? I'm still learning? But does that create
a conflict in your brain? Your brain says, this should
make the fingers the digits move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the nerves. I don't know if it's it's a
neurological disease, so motor neurons that the neurons aren't firing
and the muscles don't ever get the signal pretty much
and so the atrophy. So my muscles are gradually dying.
And I had I guess the reality that I wasn't
aware of at the time. I had strong leg muscles
to begin with, so they've taken longer to deteriorate.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're thankful that you're still with Yeah, yeah, no,
I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm not trying to say your past, your
expiration date?
Speaker 2: What the hell? I like? So it's long ago. Say,
hadn't they been Dying out Loud for ten years now
or something like that?
Speaker 3: Is dying out Loud?
Speaker 2: Was your Is it still a webs so to speak?
Speaker 3: Is it Dave out Loud or Dying out Well, well,
the Dying out.
Speaker 2: Load website was taken, so I went with Dave out
Loud dot org. So it's still there. It's a little outdated.
I haven't done a lot lately because it's just harder
to do, but it's still there. You can find all
my stuff I've done for years on.
Speaker 3: There some people who think you're full of shit, Like
Dave said he'd be gone in two years and he
was doing all this activist thing and he wrote a
book and he did the speaking circuit. You know, do
you feel like there's some people that think this is
all theater.
Speaker 2: So it was Dave in the wheelchair. You just did
that for sympathy and attention. No, I don't. I don't know.
I haven't had anyone directly say that, but I you know,
like I said earlier, in the first couple of years,
I would see in the comments of some show like
hasn't they been dying out out for ten years or
something like that. I you know, honestly, when I got
diagnosed seth, I thought I may have a year or two,
so I'm going to make the most of it. And
then it, you know, went longer and went longer and
went longer, and I thought, okay, I'm going to be
around a little longer than I thought. Can be good,
can be bad.
Speaker 3: We've talked about this, but when you got the diagnosis,
like day.
Speaker 2: Of yeah, you terrified. I don't know, Oh, I guess
numb was a better word. I don't remember being afraid.
I remember like it settled in like a wet blanket,
like this is my new reality and I'm going to
have to adjust to that. And so it was a
sense of like unreal It was like this is this
happening to me? Because you you know, by the time
I've gotten diagnosed. I had a lot of testing and
been online and researched what als is and what it
looks like. You know, there's videos of people in really
bad shape at the end, and I thought, Okay, that's
going to be me, that's my destiny. It was a
surreal feeling. It's more what I remember experiencing. Are you
afraid of death again? I don't know why not, but
I'm really not. I guess when it comes down to
those final moments, I may have a little bit of
a panicky feeling. I don't know, but I don't think
I'm afraid. You know, the process sounds pretty simple. I
go to sleep and I don't wake up, and I
don't think that's a very fearful experience. But again, it's
the thing that none of us have experienced and then
been able to talk about afterwards. So we do it
one time, and my time is approaching. I don't know
how much time I have left. I'm more afraid of
not having a quality of life and being compromised in
such a way that life is no longer worth living.
That's what I'm more afraid of.
Speaker 3: What does that look like? You tell me how much
you want to share have you decided when the time comes,
I decide, I take control, whether it's medical and dying
or I don't know what the even I don't even
know what the laws are in Tennessee. I mean, because
people are really is it like you're playing God?
Speaker 2: Is that the attact they're taking here, that's the approach.
I think that's exactly why most states do not have
a medical aid in dying law in the books. Very
few states do, like Canada has. I think it's because
of the undercurrent of religion that is pervasive in our country,
and there are a lot of people who say those
very words, that's you're playing God and God decides when
to take you home, or you know, God's the one
that decides who lives and who dies. I don't know
what my line is. I've probably moved it already a
couple of times, you know. I think I've probably said
back in the day, whenever I can't walk, I'm out
of here. Whenever I can't do this, I'm done. And
that's okay. I mean, we don't know do we get
up to the edge of the line.
Speaker 3: Isn't that about control? Though? Like when I spoke to
the folks at Final Exit. They were talking about the
fact that people who have control of how they manage
end of life decisions, having that control gave them peace
and it allowed them the flexibility on their terms to
decide the who, what went, and where right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've worked with Final Exit Network in years past,
and I think they told me like fifty to sixty
percent of the people that sign up with them never
use their services. They dislike knowing that it's an option.
So it is about control. It's about me being the
one who decides what I'm comfortable with in terms of
a quality of life. And when you're not encased in
religious ideology, when you don't have a god that you're
answering to, and you know that your own destiny is
in your own hands, then you're free to make those
kind of decisions without any thoughts of am I displeasing
some deity who's going to be upset with me? I
don't even think about that anymore. So I'm completely in control.
And now you know, I want to be sensitive to
those around me, those who care for me, care about
me and care for me. And you know, am I
being purely selfish when I say Okay, I've had enough,
I'm out of here when they may want me around longer,
because there's a benefit to that, and so I have
to consider that as well. I love a clip I
saw years ago where Stephen Colbert is asking Counta Reeves,
what happens? What do you think happens when we die?
It was kind of a gotcha question, and counter Reeves
pauses for a minute and he says, I think when
we die, the people who love us will miss us.
I thought, my God profound, and Colbert, being a Catholic,
he thought, oh, I'm expecting that. Yeah, But Kena kind
of threw it back on him. And that's what I
think about now more than ever, is you know, I
may be tired and ready to let it all go,
But what about those around me who maybe paid a
price to be with me through this journey? Am I
being fair to them? What do they want? And it's
a balancing act and I don't really know the answers yet.
Speaker 3: The playing God thing was always bullshit anyway, right, because
I mean, if I'm diagnosed with an illness and I
intervened with a hospital visit or you know, antibiotics for whatever, or.
Speaker 2: You know, so you don't take medicine, go to the doctor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, are you're not getting chemo for cancer? That's God?
What are you playing God?
Speaker 2: And someone on a show like that that did that
playing god thing, and I turned it back like that.
I said, so when you're sick, you don't go to
a doctor take medicine. No, I don't actually a said,
oh shit, you thought you had a god.
Speaker 3: You know, there are those who argue that people who
believe that prayer heals should be denied like medical care
to see what they really believe. I'm not quite that sadistic,
but I take their point right. I mean, we pray
for healing, but we pay for doctors. That's the first
half of my chat with Dave Warnock. We're going to
continue and get more of his story, talking more about
where he's been, what he's doing, and what his needs
are these days. Stand by. This is the second half
of my conversation with Dave Warnock, as recorded a few
days ago when we spoke at the same conference in Nashville, Tennessee,
and had a few minutes to talk afterward. Dave Warnock,
where you've been, Mike. You were hot and heavy, You're
on the speaking circuit. You disappeared. Yeah, everybody said, shit,
Dave died and we no one told us. That is
what I heard on all my pages. Has anyone heard
about Dave? Did he pass away? Where's the service? What
do I do? Is there anything I can do to
help him? Or is he in pain? I mean people
were really speaking with compassion about that. So when I
saw your name on a speaking roster, I was like, Okay,
there he is. But everybody's thinking, Dave, what's hot?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: Where you been?
Speaker 2: I stepped back a year and a half or so
ago rather suddenly. I do know that, and that part
is unfortunately I apologize for that. It wasn't fair to
people as I look back on it, but I needed
to for personal reasons. I'd gotten myself in a bad
personal spot.
Speaker 3: And to be clear, I don't want to peer in
your windows. Man, You know this is really you take
me where you want to go.
Speaker 2: That's fine, all right, I just need you know. I
just got in a place where I wasn't doing well
mentally and I made some bad decisions that hurt people
and actions that hurt people, and I just it kind
of caved in on me and I needed a step
back and get a kind of reboot my own personal
life and not being on a camera, not being on
a show, not being on a stage, just dealing with
my shit and being accountable to those people that I
had hurt and I wanted. I needed to do that,
and I did it, and I'm not coming back, by
the way. I just did a brief speaking thing at nanocon,
a local thing here in Nashville, and it, you know,
just it was not a hard thing to do because
it's here. But I don't really want to do any
more of that publicly, the YouTube shows and things like that.
It would be hard for me physically to begin with
setting up and doing these things. I mean, if a
camera's turned on, like now, I can talk, but even
that you can hear my voice is becoming more difficult
for any length of time.
Speaker 3: So without a crew and all that stuff, it's logistically hard.
Travel would be.
Speaker 2: Travel is getting really really hard. Yeah, yeah, we can
still do it, but it's just it's a lot. And
so I just, you know, I just needed to take
care of personal things and deal with with that part
of me that I'm not real proud of and it
needed some attention.
Speaker 3: You struggle with how much of that to share publicly.
You want to be transparent and you want to say,
you know, we're all human and and acknowledge and go there.
But at the same time, you know you are allowed
a private life, you know. So it's it's a balancing act.
Speaker 2: It is a balancing act. And when you put yourself
out there as I did, as you do as a
public figure so to speak, in this particular world we
dwell in. I know, it's a small pond so to speak,
you know, on the world stage. But when you put
yourself out there as a public person, I think to
some degree you owe it to the public to be
a little more transparent, not just be a complete asshole
and disappear, which I did, which again I apologize for it.
Speaker 3: Does you know people do see them made up for
broadcast version of public figures in many cases. I mean,
it is true that people are people, no matter of course.
Then now people that are out there in the audience
going holy shit, Dave Warnock, is he an asshole? And
so I'm like, well, I had lunch with them. He
didn't seem assholeish to me.
Speaker 2: You know, No, I have been asholish to some people
that are very close to me.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to turn that screw.
Speaker 2: I know what you're saying. I want to do my due.
Speaker 3: Diligence, and you know, I think people care. I think
people care to see you in a good place and
those around you in a good place. I think people
still take you very personally, whether you're on the circuit
or not, which is one of the reasons I was like, day,
would you talk to me today?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 3: Because I think they're asking these questions vicariously through me.
Speaker 2: It's a fair question. You got a guy you're relating
with on a YouTube show or a podcast, you feel
like you know him, and you know he's got a
termal disease, and all of a sudden he disappears, and
you're going, fuck, did he die? All of a sudden?
Speaker 3: Did he get Jesus? Now he's on the church circuit?
What happened?
Speaker 2: I can make a lot more money doing that.
Speaker 3: You would know how to do it for those who
don't know, Dave, And it is true, very few people
watching probably don't know the story. But you were a
like Jesus freak, Minister Pennecostal, your tongue speaker, you really
spoke an other tongue.
Speaker 2: I still can did you.
Speaker 3: Travel when you minister.
Speaker 2: No, I was just I was never a big deal
in the church world. I was always like an associate pastor.
My last ministry Gig was a satellite pastor. If anybody
is in the modern church, you will know that term
of a congregation of a couple of hundred pe people.
And you know I did this preaching every Sunday and
that sort of thing. So yeah, I was a pastor,
did the marrying and the burying and all the things that.
Speaker 3: You haven't done back you you did not Rea, You
didn't go back to Jesus and say, you know, I
want to go to heaven and all that. It didn't happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know how someone does that. I mean, once
you once the genies out of the bottle, once you
see what you see, you can and see it. I mean,
my brother is after me all the time to reconvert,
and he thinks he can convince me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I get that though. I mean someone says
I want to go on, I want to see my
loved ones again. I want to be in a place
where my body has not been impacted by disease. And
I have empathy and sympathy for people who go there.
I'm sure you do as well.
Speaker 2: Of course. So yeah, I just you know, just if
it was believable, i'd try to believe it. I can't.
I mean, I believe it for a long time, but
once that was unpacked, I couldn't pack it back in.
Speaker 3: You at this point, as we draw to a close,
because I've got to run to the airport otherwise we
talk for another hour. My friend, you were at a
point now I've noticed where as your body continues to deteriorate.
I don't know what other word to use, but that's
a good word. You are going to need what adaptations
to the van so that your chair can get in
and out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got a van. We just need to equip
it so that the wheelchair, this powerchair here can get
in and out like on a lift and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Anything else going on that would help. And what I'm
trying to figure out is like if we as a
community were to rally and try to help you, I
think a lot of people want to. They just they
need something specific, like the van would be a big thing.
Speaker 2: That the van's a big one time kind of need.
Ongoing support for caregiving is an issue because that's going
to cost more and more, so that's more like a
monthly thing. Yeah, and that's going to be an increasing
need as time goes on. You know. The balancing act
here is to try to maintain as much independence and
quality of life without it becoming such a financially draining
situation or physically taxing situation where everything you're doing all day,
every day is simply trying to stay alive. That's something
I don't want to do at this point, but I
don't know where the cut off line is and I
don't know how to balance that. So it's just to
figure it out as we go along kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And it's insane to live in a developed country where
a major medical event can bankrupt you and those you know,
and it's stupid.
Speaker 2: I've known of als people who spent hundreds of thousands
of dollars a year on just caregiving. And I don't
fault anyone for whatever decisions they make, but at some
point you're just bankrupting yourself and others to stay alive
and there's no quality of life there. So it's a tough,
tough line to draw it and figure out. It's just tough.
There's no other ways about it.
Speaker 3: Well, Dave, I'm blowing smoke at you when I say
it's I mean, it's good to see you.
Speaker 2: You too, and it's.
Speaker 3: Good to see your face. It's good to see to
hear your voice, and your voice is strong. Still, I
don't care what you say to hear you speak at
a time when I worried if you would have the
ability to speak, and you're still speaking and thinking and
taking your journey, and you're being pretty raw about it,
and I think people can respect that. Some people can
respect that, maybe some not so much. But you're out
there front and center and people know where you are.
Speaker 2: You've been a good friend. So I'll ask you a question.
Uh oh, okay on camera. You can't edit this out.
Speaker 3: I won't edit this out.
Speaker 2: I know how you are with the editor.
Speaker 3: I won't. I know your editor very well.
Speaker 2: All right, hit me when the time comes. I don't
know how far it is in the future. Yeah, will
you speak at my funeral?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes I will. I'd be honored.
Speaker 2: I'd be honored for you to do it. I can
think of no one better.
Speaker 3: That was unexpected. Well, you're a brother. There's no place
I would rather be on that day And I'll be
there for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that request at the end was unexpected. Now as
I finish here, I just was thinking, maybe you and
I could help be a solution to the challenge of
having you know your body deteriorates with the increasing medical
and living expenses. I know that it has been a
burden forum and this could be our chance to help.
So in the description box there is a link go
fund me link if you would like to donate and
help Dave and his support team, which I think is
Bevin mostly. If you want to be a part of that,
I know it would be greatly appreciated. Our chance to
do something good for someone who's going through something that's
really bad. So anyway, that link is in the description box.
Thank you so much for listening.
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