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.
Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a.
Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: 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 2: I struggle sometimes with how much I want to vent
about my frustrations in regard to the world, because most people,
I don't think, tune into a podcast or a live
stream because they want to feel bad. They feel bad enough.
They are doomed scrolling every day, they're confronted with the
worst of the worst. I saw a meme or a
quote or something that said it is a terrible time
to be remotely intelligent. I don't know if that's true
as much as it's a terrible time to be remotely empathetic.
It's hard on the heart. It just kills you inside.
Speaker 3: I saw a meme.
Speaker 2: It is a meme about memes, and it talks about
how maybe we share these frivolous memes on the internet
to try to stay above the big sad. I feel
the big sad? Do you feel the big sad? I
feel the big sad? How do you deal with it?
How are you feeling about it? I welcome your calls,
and when you dial in, we convent about the horrible,
But I really want to hear about how you are dealing,
what you are doing to distract yourself, how you are
managing to cope with the insanity of humanity and the
cruelty all around us, this cancer of cruelty that pee.
I swear to you that Jesus followers are killing me.
They are killing me. You know all the time they
go to church and it's like love and charity and
blessed are the poor, and blessed are the meat and
turn the other cheek and vengeance is mine, and you
know whatever, Donald Trump shows up and does the most
horrible shit on the planet, and they're like, hell, they
just drool over the guys. Somebody explain this to me.
God killing me. I'll go through just a few of
the things that I have been browsing as we populate
the calls. By the way, I was on the line
just recently co hosting with Matt Dillahunty, and we were
talking about distraction, and I told him that I got
hooked on this show called Embarrassing Bodies. I cannot defend it.
It is so trashy, it is so tabloidy. Natalie calls
it bubblegum for the brain, but even she, we watch
it like you would watch a car wreck. Let me
set it up for you, and I appreciate a couple
of things about it. First of all, the UK, as
I understand, it is much less of a shame culture
when it comes to the human body. They just show
shit on television all the time. I think they the
camera does not look away, especially on Embarrassing Bodies. Where
here in the Puritan United States, you know, everybody's clutching
their chastity belt and talking about how you know you
must cover the nipple, you know, the penis may not
see the light of day, kind of thing because Jesus
or whatever rationalization they've got save the children.
Speaker 3: In the UK, they're like.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, people have nipples and penises and it's on
our bodies. One of the taglines for the show is
there is no shame. We are all the same. And
I kind of appreciate that. Let's demystify it, let's deshame it.
It's the body. It is what it is. And who
arbitrarily decided that certain parts of the body are to
be banned? I wrote about this in Fox News Christian
one of the books that i'd read. Maybe it was
Christianity made me talk like an idiot. Where you put
a Christian down and you show them part of a
televised or film scene, and I use the woman's breast
in the examples. So all right, well you can show
how much of the breast until it becomes obscene? Well
you can't show the nipple? Well why not? Who determined
the nipple was the forbidden part? Where did that rule
come from? There is the word nipple in the Bible anyway,
someone explained that. Who came up with the rule? But
there is obviously a rule the same with a penis?
And you were able to show a woman's body a
hell of a lot more than you were able to
show a man's body, especially the penis. In the United States,
who came up with the rules. Well in the UK, apparently,
as they broadcast this type of stuff, they're like, there
is no shame, We're all the same. So I'm watching
embarrassing bodies, tabloidy, trashy in a way. They bring people
in with these embarrassing quote unquote conditions into what is
obviously just a set. It's not a doctor's office. It's
this sort of white room and they have those sort
of stock photo esque vials of bright colored, scientific looking
liquid that you know is just food coloring, but will
impress people who don't even think about science and medicine.
Or they've got, you know, a stethoscope lying on the
table in the foreground. Ah, well, this must be a
medical examination. There's a stethoscope, and yet the whole room
itself is the least practical room that you would see
in a medical context. You know, the doctor and they're
legitimate doctors. There's three hosts, I think, and one of
them's typing on their laptop as if they are filling
out of form I must update this patient record, And
all of a sudden, the patient walks in and the
doctor looks up. Well, hello, bob, welcome, Welcome to your consultation, Hobb,
a seat, Bob, what is the nature of your condition?
And this is then when it gets interesting and a
little more legit. So I shit, you not, I am watching.
I don't even know what season one episode, but this
is the kind of stuff that I cannot look away from.
There were two people back to back on the same episode.
Natalie and I are glued to the screen. One guy says,
for some reason, my penis is shaped like a horseshoe. Okay,
I gotta know more about this one. So so the
doctor who looks like he was carved out of marble
and has had a shit ton of work done him,
and he doesn't even look real, you know, it's like
zero percent body fat, you know. And he's like, well,
let's take a look Bob. So he sits Bob on
an actual table and Bob drops trou He literally just
pulls his freaking pants down and the camera goes right,
penis cam, it's right there.
Speaker 3: For someone who was.
Speaker 2: Born and raised in the United States, this is like
a foreign planet to me, Oh my god, And there
it is. It's like a penis. It's just been all
the way around. How does this happen? So the doctor says, hmm,
it appears that at some point along the way, you
have suffered a kind of injury. Okay, what what what
is the nature of the injury? Not to be base,
but was he erect? And then he sprinted into a wall?
What happened? So then he goes through a procedure which
they show and I'm not going to be too graphic,
but it does involve a scalpel and notches and bending.
I couldn't look away. And then he comes back at
the end of the show, he pulls his pants down.
Penis cam. There it is, and it's fixed. A woman
came in with something I'd never heard of. This called
tubular breasts, where her boobs were shaped like like tubes.
It's some genetic thing or I don't know what it was.
They just they shot out they were they were they
look like tubes. Natalie and I are like, oh my shit,
it's tubular breasts. Cameras right there, tube cam. So and
the woman just I'm guessing these people must get free
treatment in exchange for going so hard on, you know,
like showing everything, or maybe they just don't care.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And so they they're like, hmm, well, you have an
option here, and the option is almost always surgery in
cases like this. And the camera goes in and they
do a whole reconstruction. And at the end of the show,
she pulls her shirt off and there it is. There's
some scarring, but she has like more proportional, attractive, happy boobs,
and she says, doctors, thank you. My body is no
longer embarrassing, and then she goes off into the rest
of her life. This is the show they do, like
I don't know. They must do eight or ten things
every single show, and it's often stuff that we don't
like to talk. They do a parent that they put
a plastic bag around people's torsos in their midsection and
they collected a day's worth of farts, and then they
measured the farts how much how much did someone expel?
They put people on different diets do see how much
gas would be created. I think they measured the potency
of the gas. I don't know what kind of mechanisms
or machines do this, but there are fart measuring devices
that have been used on this show. I cannot look away.
I cannot look away. One lady came back. I'm almost
done but I got to talk about the shit that
I'm using to distract myself from the horrors that are
happening all around us. One lady came in. She had
like a not to be gross, but she had an
ingrown toenail, Okay, it's a common thing. Rather than have
it treated, she put a sock on. She didn't change
the sock for six months. I guess she showered with
the sock. I mean at some point apparently she put it,
took it off, and she put another one on. Didn't
even look at it. No treatment, She just didn't want
to deal with it, like out of sight, out of mind.
So then she goes into this studio that's supposed to
be a doctor's office that is absolutely not because it's
only white walls and colored water in a stethoscope and
a laptop that does nothing. And the doctor, who is
a legitimate doctor, says, let's take a look, sit them
on the bed. Out comes the sock. Jesus Christ. Even
the doctor is like, what, you just decided to wear
the sock for six months and do nothing. Put her
through the treatment and the foot gets better. This is
what I've been doing.
Speaker 3: It's so trashy.
Speaker 2: I cannot defend it anyway. British television has all kinds
of gems like this. Apparently they have game shows. A
friend of mine's from London, so we talk about this stuff.
Apparently there are game shows where contestants sit on the
other side of a board or a wall, and the
wall has holes in it, and people on these dating
shows will stick certain parts of their bodies into the
hole or through the hole. It could be your ass,
your ass, cheeks, or it could be I don't know,
could be your belly button, it could be boobsy chest,
it could be penis, it could be anything. They stick
him in there. And apparently the contestant will choose a
date or a blind date. Am I getting this right?
Based on the body part? That's just wow? Wow? Can
you imagine the moral panic that.
Speaker 3: Would go on in the United States if they tried them.
Speaker 2: What's this contract coming to? Strange men inserting the schlungs
into the holes of the dating game? Oh God, disgrieved
by the way. Speaking of Puritans and the hypocrites, I'm
sure you read that Jimmy Swaggert died at the age
of ninety. He will not be missed. The Median goodness
of the species has probably improved for the very few
who may not know who Jimmy Swaggert was. He was
one of many of these prominent televangelists, and this was
back when televangelism was really big, during the Satanic Panic.
There was a Robert Chilton, Peter pop Off, and a
bunch of others. Benny hen was on there. And they're
all just so full of how did Hitch say it,
They're so full of shit that if you were to
give them an enema they would just disappear. Now you
could marry, you could bury the rest of them in
a matchbox, right, I think that's what Hitch said. These
were totally full of shit people. And Jimmy Swaggert would
go and he would he would preach to Lamassos and
he would cry those tears because he was so concerned
that people were going to hell in their wickedness. Oh looky,
guess who gets caught repeatedly with prostitutes in hotel rooms.
It's Jimmy Swagger And it happened over and over and
over again. Okay, it's like Ted Haggard in that church
in Colorado megapastor who was bitching about homosexuals. And then
it turns out that he's texting pictures of himself to
some dude in the congregation. I think it was or
he was receiving pictures that they were having some sort
of an exchange and appropriate conduct. Oh so Jimmy swaggered.
He gets busted, and he does what these preachers do.
He comes out and the oh, I have sinned against
the Lord. I'm just a flawed man.
Speaker 3: Who was in the flesh.
Speaker 2: Oh, I throw myself at your mercy, and I'm going
to Now I'm going to go and refocus myself. I'm
going to seek the Lord again, and I'm going to
return a better man. Well, this is the pattern. So
you disappear for I don't know a few months, and
you wait and you hope everybody forgets or just stops caring.
And then you come back and here you are again.
You are renewed in the Lord, washed clean by the
blood of the lamb, preaches again, making millions of dollars,
and look who gets caught with a prostitute again. Jimmy swaggered,
and this became his legacy. He finally croaked at the
age of ninety. Bye bye, I just get so tired
of living in a world where horrible people have gotten
away with it. I mean, society made him rich, they
made him rich and influential, and come on, I'm just
so tired. And that's part of why I have been
trying to distract myself with frivolous stuff and going out
on the tennis court and maybe you know, we want to.
I'm trying to get out to the movies. You know,
let's go spend a couple hours in the theater. That's
a little bit problematic these days because people in the
theater are just as stressful as anything else. They're talking
real loud and using their cell phones, and so it's
sometimes it's easier just to stay home. But that's a
whole other show. Anyway. Distraction, how do you cope with
all of the awfulness? Because there is so much of it?
Did you read the Paramount Global aka CBS News sued
by the Trump administration because sixty minutes aired this interview
with Kamala Harris, and Trump has a shit fit and
says this was unfairly edited. So they file I think
a twenty million dollar lawsuit, and CBS and Paramount Global
at first say fuck off. This is legitimate journalism. We
stand by our product, sue us all day long, and
we're like yes, and CBS in sixty minutes, then do
a series of stories exposing the Trump administration and what
it has been doing to try to crush any critical
journalists out there, any legitimate reporting out there. And I
stand by sixty minutes that this is one of the
more prestigious fact checking news organizations and shows over the
past half century. All right, Paramount Global just settled with
Donald Trump for like fourteen million dollars.
Speaker 3: What the fuck?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 2: Legal experts everywhere said they don't have a case. This
is going to set a precedent. This is messaging for
the rest of journalistic America and the world. Stick to
your guns, stand by your people, stand by your reporting.
They do not have a case. Paramount Global says we'll
out fourteen million dollars, which threatens the ability of journalists
everywhere to do their job. Elon Musk and Donald Trump
are squabbling. Now I'm kind of here for this one. Okay,
I'm kind of here for this one. Hey, let me
pull this headline up real fast.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk vows to start a new political party after
Trump feud well, I think this is first of.
Speaker 3: All, it's a horrible idea. Whatever.
Speaker 2: As this is according to CBS News. As billionaire Elon
Musk feuds with President Trump over his signature tax and
domestic policy legislation, Musk has re upped his calls to
launch a new political party. Can you imagine how chaotic,
disorganized and dishonest that would be? How much has Elon
lied about?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: How many promises has he made that have just And
I swear the Elon bros Are killing me whenever I
talk about him. And I used to think he was
this boy genius dude. And there's there's a lot that
space X has done that I like, there's a lot
that Tesla as an organization has done that I admired.
I actually I have a suspicion that a shit ton
of people at Tesla are horrified at what their CEO
is doing and they're trying to figure out how the
hell to deal with him. I mean, how many promises
that he made about about the Tesla bought and what
was the tube? The transit tube in Vegas that that failed?
And now the Robotaxi is apparently having all kinds of problems.
The Tesla taxi or Tesla cab. What do they call
that thing where it's sunlight is screwing up the NAB
systems and people are now saying, well, you know it's
or there has to be a human in the car
to help guide the Tesla taxi. You know what I'm saying,
I over and over. He wants to go to Mars,
which is the dumbest idea in a long litany, one
of the dumbest ideas. All Right, the humankind is not
going to be sustainable on planet Earth. Let's go to
Mars and then we will terraform Mars and we will
colonize that planet. And I'm like, well, why don't we
just terraform Earth and don't tell me there's a population
crisis with eight billion people on this planet. He thinks
there's a population crisis. He's telling people to procreate and
you need to breed like rabbits. It's almost like the
biblical thing, be fruitful and multiply eight billion people on
this planet. Are you shitting me? We are resource black holes.
We are literally torching our own home because there were
so freaking many of us and we are all acting
so irresponsibly. And he was like, well, you know what,
let's all go to Mars. J boy genius my ass.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so in he and Trump are are buddies and
it's all Kumbayan dosh and everything, and Trump's selling Tesla's
on the White House lawn and nobody blinks. It's just insane,
and all of a sudden there's a falling out it.
We knew it was going to happen with people with
egos this size, two man children with egos this size.
We knew as a matter of time. I thought it
was going to happen a whole lot sooner. I told
Natalie February, I said, I'll bet you a coffee it
happens by February, and instead it happened last month, and
it continues today. And so then Elon calls Trump a pedophile,
says he's got smoking gun information in the Epstein files,
the Jeffrey Epstein files, where Trump was apparently having sex
with miners on Epstein Island, and it's all locked away
in these documents that for some reason the White House
doesn't want everyone to see, which essentially says this. Elon
comes forward and he says, aha, I've got the smoking
gun I've got the papers, I've got documents that prove it.
What he just admitted is that for all of the
time that Elon and Trump were buddy buddies, he already
knew that Trump was a pedophile, a child rapist, and
he said nothing until the two bros had a falling out.
Every accusation is an admission. Then Elon sees that his
stock prices are continuing to plummet and his options are
starting to become few, and he comes back and he says,
I may have overstepped when I was talking about Donald Trump.
Donald Trump says screw you, doesn't return his calls, calls
him persona non grata. So Elon then decides, Okay, well
that didn't work. So now he's back on the anti
Trump side. He's going after this horrible, horrible quote unquote,
big beautiful bill and he's saying, I'm in a primary.
I will fund primaries for every Republican office that voted
for this, and I may start a new political party. Well,
I'm all about the rattlesnakes turning on each other. I'm
all about that. Let them chew each other to rhyb
just let them. Yes, there's no soul. If souls exist,
the Republican Party hasn't not a soul.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: The Party of Lincoln is long dead. There's this whole
laundry list of on the record video clips, interviews, speeches
of right wingers talking about how Medicaid and Medicare are
off limits. Oh, it's off limits. How dare they? How
dare it even be suggested? Big beautiful bill stacks the deck,
tax breaks and wealth for the upper one percent. And
look what's going to get sliced away, Medicare and Medicaid.
These people, there's no bottom. There's no bottom. Every time
you and I think there is a floor, one day
they're going to smash against it and they can go
no lower. Now the floor keeps getting lower, and then
I have to go and do something else. I'll walk
the dog. I've been putting audio books in my ears
as I walk Linus around the neighborhood. I'm currently listening
to the new audio book by Egene Carroll, who just
won her legal case and an appeal where two Jerry's
was it to a jury and a judge or two
Jerys confirmed that she had been raped by Donald Trump
and that he had defamed her by calling her a
liar in every name in the book. She won across
the board, and she's written a book about So I'm
listening to that, which is probably not a good distraction,
but it's interesting, and I'm interested in Donald Trump's claim
that he didn't do it because he didn't say. What
a horrible thing to say. I respect women, and I
respect egene and even though we have our disagreements, I
would never have raised a hand or a finger because
I find this sort of behavior atrocious, this kind of predation,
especially in the context of so many women who have
been assaulted. I think this type of thing is atrocious.
I stand against it. I will have my day in
court because I would like to have my story told
as well. But I want this in no way to
diminish the legitimate cases of women who have been assaulted.
And know that this is my character. This is who
I am, and it is because of that character that
I resist the accusation against me. I am pro woman
in the best sense of the word. We expected that,
we were hoping, well, we didn't expect we were hoping
for it. You know what is you know what is?
His protest was, eh, she's not my type. And what's
the subtext of that that didn't raper? I mean not
my type? What about the people that are his type?
I mean, who thinks like that. This is the same
guy who when the Twin Towers fell on ninety eleven
people are dead. The world is watching in horror. Much
of the world, the United States devastated. We are not
going to be the same country from that moment on.
It is murder. What's first thing? Donald Trump says on
Live TV, looks like I've got the tallest building in
New York. Now I gotta sit back and watch a
bunch of Bible thumping, chest banging, pious Jesus warriors. Tell
me that this is God's man or the Lawrence sometimes
uses flawed people to carry out his wham. Short break
back with more ramps and your calls, and we're going
to do another hour together, so hang on. I appreciate
so much your support on Patreon. It makes a big difference.
If you want the show early and commercial free, or
if you just want to support the work, you can
go to patreon dot com slash Seth Andrews and thank you.
Here is some good news. So Ryan Walters is the
superintendent of public instruction in the state of Oklahoma, where
I live. He is a nightmare. He a few years
ago posted a video of his favorite books. Among them
are The Bible and a history book by David Barton. Now,
if you don't know who David Barton is, David Barton
is one of those.
Speaker 3: Guys who was so full of shit.
Speaker 2: If you gave him an enema, you could bury the
rest of him in a matchbox. David Barton is a
history revisionist. He has lied about how the Founding Father
supposedly wanted Judeo Christian values in a Christian nation. This
was their desire all those hundreds of years ago. That's horseshit.
I did a whole speech about this, called Jefferson's Jesus,
where I dismantled these claims. David Barton is the guy
who published a book through Thomas Nelson Publishing, which is
a massively Christian organization, and his book was so full
of lies that Thomas Nelson Publishing yanked the book out
of bookstores, just nixed it, And so Barton is now
selling it on his own. A Christian publisher pulled his
book because it was so full of crap. And this
is the book that is on Ryan Walter's shelf that
he should going to the state of Oklahoma. He's had
his head so far up trumpsass he could check for cavities.
He's obviously pining for a federal position somewhere. His lips
are so orange, I swear looks like he's been eating
Cheetos since January. So he has been injecting right wing
evangelical Christian revisionist mythology, nonsense, bigotry, conspiracy, I mean January
sixth type conspiracies into Oklahoma public education as most of
the Republican Party sits there like Captain Pike in Star Trek.
You know. Just so, a lawsuit has been filed. Oh
oh yeah, let's talk about the lawsuit. Check this out.
This is out of the Oklahoma which is the biggest
new newspaper or online news in the Oklahoma City area,
probably in the whole state. A second lawsuit is attempting
to block Oklahoma's plan to have public school teachers educate
children about Christianity and the twenty twenty presidential election. Who
writes this shit? Why would you use the word educate there?
Why not put it in quotes? Educate? I'm so pissed
at the media these days. The new social studies standards
touted by Republican state school Superintendent Ryot Walters were approved
by the Oklahoma State Board of Education and allowed to
take effect by the GOP motherfuckers controlled Oklahoma legislature.
Speaker 3: I just added that in there.
Speaker 2: A group of Oklahoma parents, teachers, and religious leaders are
now asking the Oklahoma Supreme Court to throw out the standards.
They contend the state Education Board violated religious freedom protections,
the law requiring accurate and age are propriate content, and
the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act. Let me see if they
list some of the stuff that's in here. The news
standards have been widely criticized as possible political propaganda, with
students being asked to quote identify discrepancies in twenty twenty
election results. I swear the standards also include dozens of
references to Christianity in the Bible, far more than are
mentioned in the current framework. Walters has repeatedly pushed for
a Christian Bible to be in every Oklahoma classroom. And remember,
it wasn't long ago he wanted the Trump Bible, sixty
dollars Bible, which is, by the way, made Donald Trump
millions and millions and millions of dollars. All the while,
you can go down to the corner store and buy
a Bible for six dollars ninety nine cents. Or you
can go to Biblegateway dot com Oropenbible dot com or
any of these websites. You can read the damn thing
for nothing, totally free. And the grift is going on.
And everybody swear the mag is in my zip code
or they're literally drooling orange God. I just love this guy.
He love the Oklahoma, he loves God. So he's being
sued students, I think a few teachers. It's not the
ACLU Americans United is involved in that lawsuit, and so
they're going to take Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma Department
of Education to court because this is, as they say,
in legal jargon, absolute horseshit. Donald Trump refuses to attend
the funerals of the assassinated politicians in Minnesota. Won't even
call Governor Tim Waltz, won't even make phone call. He
goes golfing, you know where he does attend. He goes
to the Alcatraz Tour, what they call Alligator Alcatraz in Florida.
It's a concentration camp that was put together in just
a few days that they are going to use to incarcerate,
aka torture pretty much anybody that they deem an enemy
of the state or illegal. And now he's talking about
taking naturalized legal residents of the United States and calling
them illegal and locking or deporting them. I swear to you,
it's just crazy. And again I'm surrounded by people who
are like, I did love that guy. He did love
the America, he loved people. J jeevu loved Donald Trump.
How bad can it get? And how do we deal
with the big sad? Natalie was asking me about the midterms.
What do you think is going to happen? Jesus, I
don't know. I will survive to the midterms. I mean
it's in the midterms seem like a millennium away, this
untraversible distance. And then we watch Embarrassing Bodies and the
Yorkshire Vet. We got hooked on a show called The
Ugliest Houses in America. Holy schnikes, there are some ugly
houses in America. They just go from region to region
and people who for some reason paid a ton of money,
I mean five six hundred thousand dollars for I can't
even describe it. People taping shattered mirror and are calking
shattered mirrors all over the walls. There are people with
shag carpeting around their toilets. There are color schemes that
would make your eyes scream and protest. And they paid
for these, or maybe they inherited them, or and they thought, well,
we can fix it up, or they thought it was
cool in the moment, and then they woke up the
next day after the first three mortgage payments arrived, and
they thought, what have we done? So they submit their
houses to Ugliest Houses in America on HDTV, and they
are profiled on television, and then the winner of the
Ugliest House and it's usually not the ugliest house. I
think it's usually the one that's most palatable for renovation.
They win. Ooh uh, you now get one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars renovation. Buy a esteemed renovator, and in
my opinion, genius Allison Victoria who comes in and is
able to look around a house, the but ugliest of
houses and say, oh, I know how to fix this.
And they rip out walls and ceilings and shelves and
kitchens and tiles and everything else. And they rewire and
they replumb, and they put this in and they do that,
and they transform these ass ugly houses into something magical.
I am hooked ugliest houses in America. That's more bubblegum
for the brain. It's more of how I gope? How
do you cope?
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 2: I am most interested? How long was that rant? I
didn't mean to go that long. I'm so sorry. Who
got me worked up? Somebody did? Five oh two? Hi,
you're on the air. Can you hear me? I can,
Welcome to the show. What's on your mind?
Speaker 5: Well, I'm a sixty two year old gay man and
to say that all of this is very, very concerning.
So you asked the question, you know, what do we do?
How do we cope? And I'll be honest with you.
My method of coping is in the leading. I have
worked all my life trying to advocate for the rights
of others, and after you know, recent events, that's just
not working. I have looked at different countries in the
world and formulated a project where you know, I had
a contractor in Adham do some work on the house.
I'm you know, slowly packing up. I intend to find
a job that is an online job and do a
digital nomad visa in either Spain or maybe Uruguay, which
are amenimal countries for gay people. So for me, it's
focusing on the project because quite frankly, I've seen this
movie before and I know how this one ends.
Speaker 2: Does it help being able to disconnect or do you
find yourself still thinking about it when you're doing other things.
I have a hard time pratitioning totally off, Like I'm
aware that I'm I'm now doing this to distract myself
from that, So I'm still thinking about that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a weird psychology. Does that happen to you?
Speaker 5: It does, But honestly, I've got to stay laser focus
because it's not just me and my husband, it's also
my mate and his husband as well, and I'm focused
on saving both families, and we do absolutely believe that
our lives are at risk.
Speaker 2: Get some point, what do you mean by digital nomad
I've known people who do that, But describe what your
definition is for people who are wondering what you mean.
Speaker 5: So, a digital nomad visa is a visa extended to
people who can and do work online all the time
for a company, usually outside of the country that you're
living in. So what you do is you apply for
a job, you start working, and sometimes some countries have
a requirement that you work in that job for a
certain amount of time. But then you can apply for
a visa that says I'm going to work outside the
country for this online job and work completely online, and
therefore they will extend a visa to me and I
will be able to live and exist, you know, within
that particular country. So digital nomad visa is for online workers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I want to say it was Thomas
Westbrook Holy kool Aid, who was a digital nomad for
a long time. Obviously, you know, he's like me. We
do a lot of our work that broadcast online. I
could probably take my setup anywhere in the world, almost
anywhere in the world and do what I do. And
I think that was his thing.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Natalie and I are fantasized about leaving, like where would
we go, who would have us, what would it be
like to even try to get dual citizenship or any
of those types of things, And then we get overwhelmed
and then we go have tacos. Does that get overwhelming?
What was your solution? Is it a bureaucratic nightmare to
get three of those types of things?
Speaker 5: It definitely is overwhelming from time to time. And you know,
and not just for me, but for them also. I'm
the organizer and so like I said, I try to
stay focused on the goal. But certainly for them, they
see the news articles and it's just one thing after another,
and they're doing the best they can with the guidelines.
But you know, we've got two families, two houses that
have to be made ready and have to be sold,
and you know, of course we have to all find
jobs and stuff like that. We've got one of one
of us that are actually retired at this point, so
that's good, you know, yeah, but the rest of us
were still working.
Speaker 2: They're going to come for us all. But I'm going
to be lower on the list. And I hear about
you and your immediate I mean, I was reading just
a few weeks ago about how the Southern Baptist Convention,
and I think they're one of the more forward facing.
I think there is a culture of people that are
aching to pile on, but they want to make LGBT
marriage illegal. They want to delegitimize non heterosexual relationships in
that way.
Speaker 3: And I know there's a.
Speaker 2: Whole culture project twenty twenty five types and just straight
up bigots who would love for a national mandate along
those lines. And I think you're just right in the crosshairs.
My heart breaks for you. But you do have friends
and family here, and you know, whatever happens, I hope
that you land in safety and with goodness all around
you and keep us in your loop. Let us know
how that journey goes.
Speaker 5: Okay, I definitely appreciate it. Thanks so much for hearing
me today.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's an honor to speak to you. Take
care of yourself. Just which brings me to another headline.
This is out of Gallop polling posted you in the
thirtieth American Pride slips to new low. Jeffrey M. Jones
posted this a few days ago. A record low. Fifty
eight percent of US adults say they are extremely are
very proud to be an American, nineteen percent say they're
moderately proud, eleven percent only a little proud, nine percent
not at all proud. The combined twenty percent on the
lower end of the pride scale essentially ties the record
twenty one percent, measured in twenty twenty. I don't know
what the correlations are for the dates I count. I'm
on the very low end.
Speaker 3: Why would I be.
Speaker 2: Proud of what we are? Who we are, what we've become.
What would give me pride? What in the world is
there to be proud of? What are we doing to
make us proud? We are the laughingstock of the world.
The rest of the world is looking, most of the
rest of the world looking at us in horror. What the.
Speaker 3: Don't want to get worked up again?
Speaker 2: Hang on four three four. You've been on hold for
about a half hour. Most patient. Thank you very much.
What's your name? It's Tim dam Glad you're here.
Speaker 3: Let's talk. What's on your mind?
Speaker 6: Well, you really inspired me the last couple of times
I talked to you. But before that, I do want
to say being your age, brown orange and mustard yellow
are a wonderful color combination for a home.
Speaker 7: It's beautiful.
Speaker 6: You know exactly what I'm talking about to my way
of coping is you really challenged me to think about
activism and being more outspoken. And the reason I called
is and I'm going to tell you something that's going
to kind of outbeat everybody. I used to be a
watch commander at a Department of Corrections facility and I
worked at a road camp. I did covered all the
day to day operations of the camp, and I thought
about this alligator Alcatraz, and I was trying to think
of what you could do or anybody could do to
keep that in the limelight. And I was thinking, as
a watch commander, if everybody in a very short period
of time was to mail items to the facility, they
will not let them in. However, if enough people did it,
it would make the news and it possibly could change things.
And what I was thinking was, pick a short time
period and anybody who feels compassion in their heart go
to Amazon send it to the address for that place,
and if we inundated them, it would definitely be newsworthy
and maybe they'd have to tell the news, Oh, we
can't take this stuff, we can't provide it. But I
also think it shows an outpouring of love and support
for the people that are there.
Speaker 2: I think that's good. Trouble. It's almost like and I
like the clever stuff like this. It's almost like when
Jeff Bezos tried to rent out all of Venice for
his wedding, and of course he's just an oligarch piece
of anyway. So he goes there and people don't want this.
So what they do is is they I guess that
we're going to put fake crocodile heads in the river
or something. I look the story up and there was
so much of a blowback that he had to change
his wedding plans. I like that, you know, in the
UK and Trump visited the Queen and they flew those
big blimps of the big Trump and the diaper right,
diaper down. I love that kind of stuff, and I
love the idea of people overwhelming a horrible system.
Speaker 6: I am not a well connected individual. I'm just an
old retired guy. But you have a lot of connections.
There's a lot of channels, a lot of people that
you know, and maybe you guys be that think tank.
And like I said, if you inundated them, I would
love to see what the reaction. I'd love for them
to let the stuff in, because hey, they're gonna need bottles,
they're gonna need pacifiers, they're gonna need blankets, they're gonna
need things like that. And especially if it comes from
the secular community.
Speaker 4: Wow, what would that say?
Speaker 2: Oh I misunderstood. I was thinking you overwhelmed the people
at the system with like bullshit stuff you're selling. Oh no, no, no,
you're sending them rubber chickens and copies of those.
Speaker 6: Anything you I mean, yeah, you could do it that
way if you want to. My thought was is, hey,
we give donations to Goodwill, put them in a bag.
If they're usable, send them in.
Speaker 2: I actually like the idea of not only are we
being we're not being snarky, just snarky to overwhelm a
horrible system, but we are then putting in humanitarian materials
because we care about the people who are there, which
might be if it if on the rare chant, it
actually does make it two of them, benefits them. But
it also demonstrates that we want to be not just
those who curse the darkness, but spread some light. I
like that even better.
Speaker 6: I actually that's one of the reasons I wanted to
talk to you is I knew you'd be able to
think tank it. And I know that, like I said,
you have you and so many.
Speaker 4: Other voices out there. If you all put.
Speaker 6: Something together and say, hey, you know on this day,
we all go to the post office. We all, you know,
spend a dollar to put something in a box that
could help somebody out and see what the outcome is
and you know, connections that you have in media. I
know that's hard to say nowadays, but I mean, if
you knew somebody that was in the media, invite them
out for this, you know, tell them about it and
see if you could get news coverage on it, because
it does put politicians on the spot and it does
make them have to explain their ideology a little bit more.
Speaker 2: I'm interested in my mind as to what return address
I put on that envelope, because you know, that's a
whole nother database that I might end up on, which
is fine. I'm probably on it anyway. Right before long,
I'll be declared an enemy of God, which means I'm
an enemy of the state, which means I hate America
and I'm a trader, and maybe I end up somewhere.
I don't want to be on an ods. I think
about that.
Speaker 4: One, Seth.
Speaker 6: I'm an ordained minister and an atheist. Just I think
day two as well, because you have performed marriages, it's
one of those they're coming one way or another, one
way or another. Yeah, but no, I would highly encourage
you to reach out and think tank it. You are
the ones that could pick the day. You're the ones
that could explain it in a way better than maybe
I could. And I think that one it shows a
lot of love and support for those people because I
know what those conditions are and even when they say
an forget it, absolutely forget it. It's one of those
you ever tried to air conditioned a tent? I live
in Virginia. Down here, I can't air condition my pop
up camper. It doesn't blow out enough cold air to
make it cold. So I know those tents get hot.
And it shows that we're not forgetting about those people,
that there's still our neighbors and people that we care about.
Speaker 2: I wish I could clone your empathy. I love the
attitude behind what you brought to the show today.
Speaker 3: That is so good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like the idea, let's make some good trouble. Let
me ch you on that one, Okay, bro, I.
Speaker 6: Will, And I'll close on this. That's actually what I
use for my counter apologetic for morality is people, go,
where do you get your morality from? I said, it's
really simple. It's just empathy for all parties involved. It's
trying to really understand other people in seeing it from
their perspective.
Speaker 4: And I guess I'll leave it on that.
Speaker 6: And as always, I appreciate you. You know, I will
keep you in my prayers as a minister and as
an atheist. I'll tell you keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 4: Brother.
Speaker 2: Okay, who are you praying to? I'm not the only
one asking if is it just that with you?
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna take George Carlin's on I think it was
George Carlin on this. I pray to Joe Pesci because
he's a man who gets things done. He's a man
who gets things done.
Speaker 2: You can quote Carlin anytime on this show. Thanks for calling.
Be safe out there.
Speaker 6: Thank you all right, We'll see you later.
Speaker 2: For those who may not know what he means by
Alligator Alcatraz, let me pull up real fast. One more primmer.
Speaker 3: For everybody, because I want to do my due diligence.
Speaker 2: President Trump visited Florida Tuesday to tour what has been
dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, a controversial migrant detention center in the
Everglades that officials say is poised to start filling its
bed in a matter of hours.
Speaker 3: And again, this is days ago.
Speaker 2: The President joined by Homeland Security Secretary Christine Noam Ron
desantas blah blah blah, and he praised the facility. It's
so professional, it's.
Speaker 3: So well done. Well.
Speaker 2: His joke was that it is in proximity to the
predators of the Everglades, from pythons to alligators to mosquitoes.
Desanta says, what will happen is you'll bring people in here.
They ain't going anywhere once they're there, unless you want
them to go somewhere, because good luck getting to civilization.
So the secure is amazing natural and otherwise Donald Trump says, yeah, well,
if they escape, maybe they'll get eaten by an alligator.
I'm paraphrasing, but that was the vibe. The people bust out. Fine,
good luck for that gator will eat them and it'll
be their own fault and that'll make another great press conference.
So while he is laughing about the concentration camping of
people in this horrifying facility, he's also laughing about the
idea that they.
Speaker 3: Will be eaten alive by alligators.
Speaker 2: And it has been called casually now alligator Alcatraz. The
cruelty is the point Susie at eight five zero high,
you're on What's up?
Speaker 8: I said, I'm glad to talk to you. The title
It's a hard time to have a heart really touched
me because I'm an atheist and a secular humanist, and
I have a very big heart. I'm a very compassionate person.
I mean, you know, I'll cry at TV commercials, you know.
But the cruelty of this administration and this bill that's
being passed that cuts out health care and snap benefits,
and they're so pro birth, but they don't want children
fed and getting medical care and their families, and I
have a hard time wrapping my head around it. I
was an elementary teacher for thirty years and at many
low income schools, some students would come late by no
fault of their own, it was their parents' fault, and
breakfast was closed and they had not eaten. Maybe they
didn't eat dinner the night before as well. But I
always kept breakfast bars and juice in my classroom, or
cereal and milk so that they could eat as soon
as they came in my room, and be ready to learn,
and the gutting of the education system and medicaid and
Medicare and food benefits. It's like they just want to
keep people sick and hungry and uneducated. Is that the
goal of this cruel administration?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there are so many motivations fed by
so many I mean a lot of gears in that machine.
And I'm not a mind reader, but I think you
can infer what makes a lot of people tick by
what they say and what they do. I think dehumanization
is a way to excuse doing the inhumane to other people. Right,
you remove their personhood, you make them a thing, an
object to This is the calling card of the cruel, authoritarian,
dictator types, the oppressor throughout human history. I myself am
overwhelmed by the cruelty, and the only thing that keeps
me going outside of the occasional distraction is a reminder
that we are seeing a pushback from those tens of
millions of people, and many of those people are demonstrating
now in the streets to say no, we reject we
want love to win. We are all brothers and sisters
on this planet, and they are good medicine for me,
But it's still hard to wake up in the morning
because you know how awful it's probably going to be.
So I don't know. I feel your pain, Susie.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's very difficult. And I only watch midas news
for my news. I don't like the cable news media anymore.
And I like hearing the laws, all of the laws
that Trump is breaking or has broken, and unconstitutional things
he's doing. And I'm just hoping that one day karma.
I'ms calling for him and his unqualified administration, especially the
puppy killer Christine. My heart just hurts every day. And
what gives me solace is I listen to your podcast,
I listen to The Scaping Atheist, I listen to the
shows on the Line, I listen to Justin on Deconstruction Zone,
and I'm having to believe that humanism and kindness and
love can win over the hate. And maybe I'm a
cynical idealist.
Speaker 7: I guess.
Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of people can relate to that.
Thank you, Susie for your perspective today.
Speaker 8: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak on
your wonderful topic. It's a hard time to have a big,
compassionate heart, lady.
Speaker 2: Thank you, bye bye. That line. First they fascinate the fools,
then they muzzle the intelligent. Skeletor in the chat said, no,
one's going to educate the people enough to overthrow the system.
Keep them distracted, Throw bright, shiny, horrible, strange, bizarre, crazy
shit at them so that they're always distracted and disoriented,
and then we'll be able to get other stuff done
over here. This is a tactic. Plenty of calls lined
up in the queue. I will be right back and
we will talk to you next. Don't forget my second podcast,
True Stories with Seth Andrews. It usually releases three times
a week. Things have been kind of nuts, so it's
been it takes a lot of time to prep it
and produce it, but it is still a show that
I love, approaching its third anniversary. If you want to
check out these short form true stories, you can just
search the show True Stories with Seth Andrews on all
major podcast apps. Let's try a web call out of
San Diego, California. Richard welcome, Yes, you're on what's on
your mind?
Speaker 4: Well? A few things. Number one, we're going to see
you again in August and Canada been there the last
couple of times. Very good programming. I think you gave
a wonderful speech there.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Well, what's on my mind is you're in Oklahoma, so
you know what's going on there with the religious right
wing trying to take over the schools at the same
time as we have the mega Republican Party taking over
the wealth of the nation and giving it out to
their special few folks. I mean, they have basically taken
the American dream and turned it into a nightmare for
everybody except the really rich people. And it's really sad.
You know, you go back in history. I've been politically
active and religiously active for a long time, many many years,
decades and if you remember, during George Bush's term they
justified they called it enhanced interrogation. It was torture. Yeah,
And we've been creeping towards this kind of stuff all
along the way, and we didn't scream loud enough every
time that they moved the goalposts a little closer to authoritarianism.
And now it's really right in our case. People have
to organize, we may need to have a general strike.
There's just a lot of things. One of the things
that I think would be A good thing to do
if we do get to have another election in twenty
six is get out there and register all the people
who got cut off Medicaid, because they will all be pissed,
and I don't blame them.
Speaker 2: Do you find yourself and I'm not proud of this necessarily,
but do you ever surrender to your more base feelings
about those who voted for this insanity? I mean, if
somebody enabled the awful this and oh shit, I just
lost my Medicaid. Oh my workers are now gone, and
I don't know what I'm going to do in my
business may go bankrupt. Oh I've got a major medical event,
and I'm not able to like if calamity meets that.
I don't believe in karma, but I do like the
idea of cause and effect. Do you ever think I
would like the people who are causing suffering to suffer?
Do you ever think that?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 4: Because I think what really happened to a lot of
those people. First of all, the ones that grew up
in religious families got brainwashed not to think correctly. They
got to believe in some one person who knows everything,
and they translate that over at Trump, and they were
not taught to think critically. I mean, our education systems
is much responsible for this. You know, when I went
to high school, we had classes on civics and everything,
and some twenty years ago they got rid of all that.
Most places, you know, interview people all the time. I
listened to your program, I listened to the line, I
listened to, you know, a variety of those shows. And
the kind of ignorance that people call up with to
try to say, well, this is why I believe in Jesus.
And they haven't got even a shred of evidence for anything.
It's just really what they've been indoctrinated into and that
they want to believe it so they can avoid the
quote hell thing which doesn't exist. And you know, it's
really unfortunate. I'm working on some writing which is going
to be encouraging that we need in Enlightenment two point zero.
The first one took us out of the dark ages
and got us into a democratic policy, which wasn't really
very democratic in our constitution early on, but at least
they'd got God out of there. Didn't get rid of slavery.
But in any case, we need to get to where
people are, you know, and I think your program's doing,
and I think a lot of these programs are doing
it to get people to stop and think, how are
they making decisions? Are they looking for evidence? Are they
just going with their you know, confirmation files and what
they were brainwashed?
Speaker 2: And when they're a kid, Richard, what do you do
to deal? What's your medicine? Your mental medicine do you have?
I guess writing is probably part of this, or I
spreading some light, anything else that you do to kind
of help get yourself through the day.
Speaker 4: I was involved in the June fourteenth demonstration where I
live well. I was one of the security monitors, and
you know, we all need to get out there and
chip in in any way we can. I mean, I
have a long history of involvement from civil rights to
Vietnam to the Iraq War and all these other places
we've been lied to, probably this one. But basically, what
a lot of people are saying is people need to
get off their ass. A lot of people are comfortable
so it doesn't bother them. But you know, the company's
going to disappear because I just retired after forty one
years of law practice.
Speaker 2: Yes, Richard, can you hear me? I think we may
have a bad connection. I grieve that I wouldn't be
able to hear the end of this. Retired after law practice, Richard,
are you there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 2: Okay, he's back. Please start me at the beginning of
that thought. You're retired after forty one years of law practice,
and right, and.
Speaker 4: What I've seen, you know, well, there's a couple of
themes with the religious thing. What I see with the
Supreme Court's doing is they're putting mythical beliefs above harm
to actual human beings over and over and over again.
Is there creeping towards you know, a Christian theocracy with
their five or six people majority. But get involved, you know,
participate in things, go out and help get people registered
to vote, particularly those that lost They're going to lose
their Medicaid and their snap benefits. They should have a
strong desire to boute these people out. Hopefully. But you know,
I remember during the Vietnam War we on college, we
had teach ends. Maybe we need to do some more
of that kind of stuff where we get people in
community together and explain to them what this means. But
what I was saying, the most important thing from my
law background is due process is the dividing line between tyranny,
gestapo SS and democracy. It's already shown when they shipped
off those first two groups of people to El Salvador.
They didn't get one minute of due process. They just said, oh,
you've got tattoos.
Speaker 3: And he's gone, I'm back. Ah.
Speaker 2: So they didn't get one minute of due process and
they've gone tattoos and.
Speaker 4: They're Hispanic, so obviously you're guilty and we're sending you away,
and they did. And the whole pitiful argument about Garcia
and not being brought back, Oh nothing we can do.
Oh bullshit. Can you imagine if Trump said to the
guy the head of El Salvador, if you don't send
him back here tomorrow, we're going to bomb the shit
out of your country like they just did with Iran,
he would have been back in ten minutes. The lies
that you know. And one of the guys in Congress
this was really blew me away, stood up and said,
we're making medicaid better. One of the Republican centers, I
think it was Brasso from Wyoming. There is that doesn't
seem to be any sense of truth is important anymore
in this country.
Speaker 2: You know, as a lawyer, it must be or an
ex lawyer must be maddening to watch the Supreme Court
and the system in general. My god, it just must
keep you up at night.
Speaker 4: I follow those things very courtly, and I'm on several
sub stacks and i comment on them regularly to try
to open people's eyes when they don't see what's really
going on behind the scenes, because yeah, it's you know,
I spent.
Speaker 2: And he's gone. Richard, I beg your forgiveness. It sounds
like we got disconnected, which is just happens when you
do online shows like this, and the online web calls
sometimes get a little sketched. But Richard, you're much appreciated
and standing up for the letter of the law. It
has to be something that's maddening for a whole lot
of people who are advocates for the law. I mentioned
that I was going to be in Canada. Let me
real fast digress and tell you about the events that
are coming up. There is Nano Kant the Nashville Nuns Conference.
Not none as in Catholic, but none as in no religion.
We are we identify as having none religions. That's going
to be July twenty sixth, that's a Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee,
and I'm going to be there with a whole ton
of people. Warnock is back, Dave Warnock. I haven't seen
that guy, and over a year I was worried. You know,
he's got als and people have been wondering is he
you know, is he is he still with us? Well
he's back. So I sent him a text like four
months ago.
Speaker 3: I'm like, dude, are you okay?
Speaker 2: And he said, yes, he's dealing. I think he's pasted it.
He wouldn't mind me saying it this way. He's passed
his expiration date, like he was given just a few
years to live, and while his body has certainly been withering,
he is still kicking and he is going to be
on stage at Nanocon in Nashville. So I'm looking forward
to giving that guy a big hug and catching up
with him. Baja Khn the Bluewater Atheist Humanist Agnostics event
that's coming up the weekend of August eighth three the
tenth in Sarnia, Ontario. This is ninety minutes north of Detroit.
So what we do is we fly in to Detroit
and then we just hop in a carpool and we
just go and the hotel the venue is right on
the US Canada border, separated by the river, which the
name escapes me all of a sudden, But we're so
close to the border that from the hotel, like if
you get up in the second floor, you can actually
see the United States, you can see the border crossing station,
and so you're right there. So a lot of folks
are going up just skipping right over the border. It's
an easy drive for a lot of folks up there,
and it is a fantastic event. I mean, they just
do such a good job.
Speaker 3: At Baja Con.
Speaker 2: I am bringing one of the hottest speeches.
Speaker 3: I've ever given.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you about it in a second, and then
I'm not going to be at FFRF. But for those
who are curious, the Freedom from Religion National Convention happening
the weekend of October seventeenth through the nineteenth. That's going
to be at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Now I have
links for all of these on the main website at
the Thinkingatheist dot com slash events. So a lot of
folks are like, hey, how do I get there and
what's going on? How do I get tickets. Do you
even need tickets, et cetera. You can go do the
Thinkingatheist dot com and it's all listed right there on
the events page. There's also the store and I've got
mugs with the icon on it. I've got the cat
mug with the cat drawing that Matt Dillahunty had tattooed
onto his leg. It is now a mug. Some other
stuff's on there. It's a great way to support The
channel links to tons of other pages and podcasts and
video channels, et cetera. I need to update it, but
it's pretty good. Lots of stuff the Thinkingatheist dot Com.
The speech I am working on and I've been writing
it this week. You know, I don't My stuff is
it's usually really what's the word accessible, so that almost
anyone anywhere can tune in and they're not put off.
It doesn't have an anti theist vibe or I'm not
too nasty about people and circumstances. I mean, I go
hard at religion. I did do blood cult about Christianity
a couple of years ago and had some walkouts. I mean,
but I was talking about Christianity. It is a blood cult,
and so I took some of the major tenets of
Christianity and I applied them to other religious models, and
I'm like, why is it bad shit and horrifying over
here and it's totally acceptable and normal over here. We
prayed to a God that I made up and asked
to be covered by the blood and washed in the blood,
and we talked about how culty communion is and all
these other things. And I was pretty hot. I went
pretty hard at Christianity, and I had some people who
got pissed off. I was in Saint Louis, I.
Speaker 3: Think was it Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: I was somewhere and somebody they just walked out. One
guy demanded a refund for the whole conference, and I
was just one speaker. This is not why. I bet
you take it.
Speaker 3: You get it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, did they google my name before they showed up?
He did not get a refund, by the way, But
it's rare that I am that hot on the stage,
that I go that heart. I am writing easily the
most barbed I just but I have to give this speech.
I am going to give it as two people. I
am giving the speech as if I'm trying to describe
the state of things to the aliens. So the aliens land,
they're like, hey, what are you like? What is your
system of government? Can you take us to your leader?
And I sit them in a lawn chair and I'm like,
hang on just a second. Let me explain this shit
that's going down. And I explain it as two people,
and I separate those two people by like a buzzer
or a bell. I'm going to have something kind of
funny where there's happy, clappy mister Rogers, let's all sing
songs together and hope and be optimistic about their future, Seth.
And then I go hard and I speak the darkest
thoughts in my brain, Seth. And then I switch back.
But maybe it's going to be okay, Oh my god,
we're freaking screwed. And I'm gonna give it this way
because I think a lot of people can relate. I
think they can relate to that duality, the desire for good,
the spreading of hope. We want love to win, but
you gotta be just can't. But how bad? Well if
what's the matter with that? Yeah? And then you just
you want to put your hands around somebody's throat and
you go back and forth. We all have. I'm convinced
we all have that duality. So I'm going hard and
I'm writing the speech, going, oh man, I'm not going
to have any walkouts at Nanocon. I don't think there
will be some Christians there. I mean, I think there
may be Christians in attendance. It's the Nashville un Conference
that's no religion. And then Baja Khan Bluewater atheist humans.
I'm not worried about that one either, but I'm going
to get pushed back when it eventually maybe goes online
later on in the year. I'm gonna we'll be interested
to see what the feedback is. I'd meant to bring
this up earlier. How am I doing for time? So
we were talking about good trouble and how do we
disrupt in a positive way. I just read this story
on KTLA news as immigration operations continue across southern California.
Who writes this shit? Immigration operations is a phrase. It's
a term that legitimizes the awfulness I swear to the
media is failing US immigration appy making across Southern California
and the US. A new app that allows users to
report sport sightings of ICE agents in their area is
gaining attention and controversy. The platform is called ice Block,
launched in April in response to President Donald Trump's crackdown
on immigration and the mass protest that followed. According to
the app's creator, Joshua Aaron, the app allows users to
report sidings of immigration and Customs enforcement ICE activity, and
what Aaron said is an effort to protect bystanders from
physical confrontations. I think that's bullshit. Protecting the bystanders may
be part of it, but I think this is good trouble.
We take good people, many of whom who have been
in this country for decades and raise their families and
worked their asses off and pose no threat, who are
now being targeted because, let's face it, they're brown or
black or whatever, because they have been dehumanized and they're
going to be stripped out of their lives and sent
to who knows where, some torture prison, be it Alligator
Alcatraz or El Salvador or whatever. Right, I think this
app is a way to rally people. It allows, first
of all, those who are targeted to get small, to
get away, to become invisible at best they can, and
it also empowers people to be able to resist ice
and we've all seen the videos where people are coming
forward and denying them access. Granted, things get really sticky.
There's always the threat of violence. But these people who
are walking around playing soldiers dressed in camo with masks
over their face, you know, they're playing out every freaking
sandbox army man fantasy they have ever had in their lives.
Many of these people don't tell me they have a
background in law enforcement. And then what keeps other people
who aren't ICE from just putting on camo and masks
and sunglasses and showing up and they have the authority.
These could be militia people, they could be terrorists, they
could be white supremacists, they could be anything. And the
excuse is, well, we don't want them to show their
faces because we are worried about their safety. You gotta
be shitting me. I'm all about ice block, I'm all
about it. I'm all about a seth just an enemy
of law and order. Then it's an immoral law. These
are practices put in place by an immoral person running
an a moral dictatorship, a kingship, an oppressive non democracy
at war with its own people. Your damn righters support
ice Block, and apparently it's the number three most popular
app downloaded on Apple and it's one of the most
popular apps on the other phone platforms as well. It's exploded.
It's massive ice Block, ice Block. I see a couple
of super chats Laura, thank you for your two dollars
of support and five bucks from Is it or Ganique
or is it or a hard time to have a heart? Indeed,
when our current administration is piling up chitaki that we
couldn't catch up your podcast, Seth is a good reliever.
I don't know. I mean, people are so kind, but
I mean I go off on a tangent sometimes I
think I'm wearing you out? Am I wearing you out?
Or am I able to articulate in effective language what
you are thinking and feeling? Which takes me full circle
back to the beginning of the show. When you listen,
is it like, h shit, I can't do any more
of this? Or is it like yes, that's exactly what
I'm thinking and it's Catharsis it feels good? You tell me?
I was told when I was a believer my spiritual
gift was the gift of the gab. I'll take that oh,
someone earlier in the show mentioned I was a minister.
I guess the word minister works. I'm ordained in two
different organizations because yes, I do officiate weddings, and I'm
honored to be able to go and do that around
the country. I am, first of all, I'm a Dudaist priest,
so I am an am I three I maybe I
think my monkship has expired. I became an ordained monk
ten twelve years ago. There's a website you can go
and you can just fill out a form and I
think it's ten bucks or whatever, and you can become
a monk. I'm like, well, I got to do that.
I want to be a monk. So I told Natalie, hey, honey,
you are married to father Seth. I am an ordained monk.
I'm now going to get the brown robe with the
rope around the center, and I'm going to shave the
top of my head and I'm going to go and
we're going to live in a castle because I am
not a monk. And course, can monks be married. That's
a logistical question I'll have to navigate. I then became
a Dudast priest. So for those of us who are
a fan of The Big Lebowski, which is one of
the greatest movies that has ever been made ever. Ever,
there is a religion that is wrapped up around Jeff
Lebowski's character, The Dude played by Jeff Bridges. The Dude, right,
and he's just chill, and he's kind of centered and
he doesn't let things jack him up and freak them.
Walter occasionally makes his life hell, but overall there's a
philosophy behind The Dude, which is just find your chill vibe.
So there's a whole religion. It's an actual religion. You
can get ordained and get a certificate at the Church
of the Latter Day Dude. I am a dudast priest,
so that's two. And then I have an ordination from
a more say legitimate, a more mainstream organization called Universal
Life Church. And essentially they just ordain anybody religious or
not to give them legal power to officiate. So if
you don't want to be a preacher, a priest, you're
not a minister, etc. But you want an ordination so
that you can be a humanist officiant, a secular efficiant
or whatever. Universal Life Church allows anybody and anyone to
do that, and so I am ordained through them. So
I've got my little certificate and I've got my little thing,
and so I am. But that's what they meant by minister,
one last break, more of your phone calls and just
a second. Oh, in this world of cruelty, how do
we keep our kind hearts feeding? How do we continue
to feel when everything feels like scar tissue. That's a
lot of what we're talking about today. David is dialing
in from six to nine. David, welcome, what's up.
Speaker 7: I want to talk about the marquee at my church
that I get to write on. So at the moment
it's got let your outrage fuel clarity and then turn
into action.
Speaker 2: Let your knowledge fuel clarity, and then turn it into action.
Speaker 7: Our age the way outrage is on the marquee, and
then you mentioned fuel and the duality, and that's what
I think is very fitting. It's very fitting right now
that there is a lot of outrage and then we
have to spin that into a space of knowing and
then hopefully act upon that.
Speaker 2: Accordingly, knowledge is power.
Speaker 7: I agree, So I was open just with a little
talk from me, we can pick what's going to be
on the marquee in my church.
Speaker 2: Next, what kind of church is it?
Speaker 7: Well, it's a Methodist church. Man, I'm the only non
believer on the staff, but they're okay with that, and
so am I.
Speaker 2: There's a Methodist church in Austin, Texas that has an
atheist preacher, I asked, Matt. I'm like, how's that even done?
I spoke at that church. I was in the building
under the stained glass as an atheist going hard against religion,
specifically Christianity, and they totally opened the doors and welcomed me.
I mean, I'm selling atheist books and a Methodist church,
so I guess it's not impossible. What would be on
the marquee next time? I'd like to throw this out
to our commenters. I would choose almost anything from Roberts
Green Ingersoll myself, but I don't know. I'd have to
think about it.
Speaker 7: And on the opposite side, because that's the street side,
that's what everyone sees. But on the opposite side it
says be kind dude, which was inspired by Lebowski rate
there himself.
Speaker 2: You've got a dudist kind of a vibe on your church, marquee,
and it's a Methodist church.
Speaker 7: Wow, they're a common value as a recovery theme church,
and that's what brings us together, recovery from additions and substances.
Speaker 2: I like it. Now, let me ask the commenters what
they would put on the marquee. I think this would
almost be a great contest, and so we'll monitor their
wisdom and see what they have to say.
Speaker 7: Okay, I appreciate you telling me Seth, thank you for
all you do. And I want to say that ministry
ministry for me. I still, even as a non believer,
I do consider myself a minister because I think it
is service. It's service to the community.
Speaker 2: I like it, service to our humanity. Appreciate you David
so much. Thank you.
Speaker 4: I don't see you.
Speaker 7: And then oh, con man, I'll be there and I'll
shake your head.
Speaker 3: I'll be there.
Speaker 2: That's a date we'll see you. Then take care. Michael
at five zero five, thanks for your patients here on
what's up?
Speaker 9: Well, sir. I wanted to say that I have been
count Christians in the past and they always ask me
why I betrayed the cloth, and I'm like, well, because
I'm an atheist now, I believe in the pale blue dot.
That's our tiny home world, and I'm like, I can't
believe in God anymore because I'm an atheist for the
fact that we live on a small, insignificant planet, and
I'm I don't know what to do anymore. Honestly, your thoughts.
Speaker 2: My thoughts about how to cope with what's going on
in the world. I'm asking you, what do you think
I'm pretty much coping.
Speaker 9: What I cope with is basically online. I go online
with my friends and play online games like World of Warcraft,
Eve online, Star Trek Online, you know, trying to escape
from reality. But the reality is that people like myself
are isolated from normal people. And I tend to clash
with people, and I try to keep my job as
it is, and I clash with my co workers at
a public school. I'm a food service worker and they
don't like me because I'm an atheist. And when I
recite the Pledge of Allegiance, I leave out God and
I say under freedom and they all look at me
and like I just shot their dog, and they're like,
you're not supposed to say that. I'm like, I'm going
to say it anyway, regardless of how you think.
Speaker 2: Well, we're not on this earth to keep other people comfortable?
Speaker 3: Are we?
Speaker 2: I mean, we can be true to our own value
system and speak about that. We can give ourselves the
latitude that they demand for themselves, right right, I.
Speaker 9: Do understand culture and diversity amongst our insignificant planet. And
you know, I just my hand's shaky.
Speaker 2: I think it makes you human. I think it makes
us human. You and I feel grief and despair and fear.
I just want to sometimes walk off into the forest
and carve canoes for half a decade because I'm overwhelmed
by the fire hose to the face that is today,
and I doom scroll and every time I think it
can't get worse, it does get worse. And the only
thing I know how to do is I've been trying
to be outdoors more. I've been trying to spend time
with the people I love more. I've been trying to
get a little exercise on the tennis court more. I
have been activistic more, you know, whether it's part of
the public protest or doing some writing, or trying to
spread and promote the better ideas. But even those things
are imperfect, and they don't seem like nearly enough. They're
good medicine for me. But all I can do is
say I relate, and I think a lot of people.
Speaker 9: Do yeah, And I feel like our country has lighted back.
I'm scared that my lifestyle will become illegal. I am
one of the ones that are distracted. Like I said,
I play online games for the sake of interaction and
doing something. And when I get on like a platform
called Second Life, people are talking, you know, religiously to
you know, nonsensical stuff, and they're like, why are you
not talking? I'm like, because you're not talking anything intelligent,
you know, there is nothing worth talking about. Then well
you're here, and I'm like, that's a good question.
Speaker 5: I'm bored.
Speaker 9: I'll tell you what. I'm gonna go play something bog
Out and go play like Star Trek.
Speaker 2: Just find, yeah, find what works for you. I think
all I can say is many of us understand what
you're feeling because we are feeling it ourselves. One good
thing is to remember that we're not alone in this.
And the reason we grieve is because the good is
not dead, and there are a lot of people who
still crave for goodness to prevail in this often terrible space.
But you're much appreciate it, and I thank you so
much for calling the show.
Speaker 9: Thank you, sir. I just wish I could talk to
you more often. Do you have Discord?
Speaker 2: I have a Discord account that I use for the
line to be able to get show information. I hate
Discord because I don't understand it. It's like teaching your
grandmother the program the Blu ray Player.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I have it.
Speaker 9: I have Discord and it's a major part of my life.
It's like a web page system and with voice and
you and I'm writing a sci fi fantasy at the moment.
Speaker 2: See, that's good medicine. It's creative. You're engaging your mind.
You're able to separate yourself from the headlines of the day.
That's good medicine. So keep doing that and best wishes
with the project. Okay, okay, can sir, I see you later?
Speaker 4: Thank you yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to like Discord. Everybody's like, do you
have a Discord? Are you on Discord? I got a Discord.
I hate Discord. I don't like the interface. I don't
think it's intuitive. I'm overwhelmed by all the channels. There's
gotta be a better way. And everyone's like, well, you're
not using it correctly. So I ask for a tutorial.
They give me a tutorial, and I'm like, I still
don't like it. I'm out of time. You are good
medicine for me. Chance to just let it out and
get some feedback, to interact with people who haven't lost
their moral mind, to know I'm not the only one
who sometimes Durread's getting up in the morning because I
just can't fucking watch anymore, to try to hold out
some hope that this too shall pass, because you hope
the same thing. What do we have? I not each other,
and if we're going to pu push back, we need
each other. We're better together. That's something.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go around the block. I got to take
care of the dog. Tonight we'll watch some embarrassing bodies
and then we'll get back to the necessary work at hand.
In the meantime, you keep on keeping on, and I
will see you later.
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