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Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,

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an idea.

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Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.

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Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I

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tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.

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Speaker 3: I put my hand on a book and made a wish.

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Speaker 1: And working together for a more rational world.

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Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness. Truth,

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Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.

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Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the

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Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.

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Speaker 2: Recent data indicates that there are about five hundred active

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podcasts in the world. My guest today is on about

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half of them. He's just on shows everywhere. He is

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the puzzle in the thunderstorm. He is the scathing in

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the atheist. His keen intellects surpassed only by his snark.

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He writes, he tours, he loves his Lucinda and his cats,

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and he joins me today, no illusions. How you doing, brother,

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Good to see you.

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Speaker 4: I'm doing great man.

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Speaker 3: After that intro, I'm not sure I can fit my

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head in the frame, but I appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: That's what I do. You know, I'm like, you're Tony Robbins.

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Actually used to be a better reference to the motivational speaker,

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and then somebody told me that Tony Robbins is kind

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of creepy, and I thought maybe I shouldn't say that.

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So you and I are just a quick plug before

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we talk about real stuff. We're taking the stage together

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for the first time ever in Cincinnati July the eleventh.

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Why you agreed to do this is a mystery, but

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I'm glad you said yes. So is it spilling the

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beans of I ask what you're going to bring? Like,

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we're doing a whole bunch of audience stuff, but you're

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doing thirty something minutes on the stage. Do you want

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to talk about what you're talking about? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: So you know, a couple of years ago, I had

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a heart attack and I did it in South Georgia,

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which where I live, and it occurred to me as

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I was going, you know, there are two separate things

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I'm fighting against. One is the heart attack and one

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is sort of the religious nature of the way it's treated.

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And so I'm going to be presenting a talk that

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I call how to Die Like an Atheist, where I'm

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going to talk a little bit about the way that

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a medical emergency is different if you're a non believer,

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especially if you're a non believer in a really religious

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part of the country.

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Speaker 2: Did you end up in one of those Catholic hospitals,

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because we've got them all over the place, there's a

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crucifix in every room kind of thing.

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Speaker 4: Oh no, I'm in South Georgia. They don't let Catholics

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around here.

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Speaker 2: Man.

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Speaker 3: No, it was not a religious hospital, but you would

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you know, you'd have to check the name to find

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out for sure, you know.

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Speaker 4: What I mean.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I know that they have some clergy

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kind of bouncing around from room to room saying, would

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you like prayer for your illness? Which is the weird

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double standard? You're receiving science based medical treatment, and we

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would like to call down the magic. Any of that

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go on when you were on death's door, so to speak.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I didn't see an actual chaplain at

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any point, but I was offered prayer by almost everybody

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I saw, to the point where I almost wanted I

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almost asked him to put on the little chart there,

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please don't.

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Speaker 4: Pray for me. But you know, I didn't want to

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antagonize anybody too much.

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Speaker 2: I'm thinking about doing a speech that I've been touring.

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I was always a pretentious word. That's why I use it, Noah,

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but about white Jesus, the American perception of Jesus, and

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what would happen if I took the Middle Eastern or

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Black Jesus or Asian Jesus depictions into a typical Protestant church, Like,

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how quickly would I get my ass kicked? That's been

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a fun one. Sum I may do that, or I

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may do one where we talk about all the shit

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advice that we were given growing up in much of

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which we hear today. And it's sort of that coffee table,

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you know, dinner table stuff where they're like, don't speak

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ill of the dead, and you and I are like like,

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why not? Right?

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Speaker 4: I have a segment on my show called Son of

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Obituary you.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, hang on, I got to write that down.

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I'm stealing. I will give you credit. Son of Obituary

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is also what was another one, never go to bed angry.

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I was like, well, sometimes you need to go to

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bed angry. You know. It sort of places this burden

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on people to resolve what may not be irresolvable, and

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there's a whole litany of this type of shit. So

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I thought, well, that might be kind of fun to

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go through all the armchair advice and not just not

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psychology but pop psychology that you and I see. You know,

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the meme verse is filled with inspirational stuff posted mostly

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by people whose lives are in the shit or I

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don't know if you've noticed that or not. Right, Yeah,

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Now we're going to talk a lot of religion and

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politics and the culture and whatnot, but I want to

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talk first about geography. You are in Georgia. Is this

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Atlanta or what?

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Speaker 1: Oh?

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Speaker 3: No, no, no way south of Atlanta. Now we're in a

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completely different universe. The part of North Georgia that Marjorie

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Taylor Green used to represent, that's the progressive part of

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Georgia compared to where I am. But you know, I'm

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here for family reasons. My father in law got sick

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a few years ago. My wife and I moved down

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to take care of him in the last years of

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his life, and since then we've sort of gotten roped

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into where my wife is the primary babysitter for my

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niece and her three kids, and you know, we've got

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so many family obligations that would be really hard to

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step away from here at this point.

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Speaker 2: Well, that was one of the questions from one of

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my listeners. Michael said, ask Noah, why Georgia, Like, what

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the hell is he doing down there? So I mean,

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is that it you just sort of came down to

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take care of family, And the anchor held.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think it's true for so many people.

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You know, I'm fortunate in that I could take my

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job anywhere like you, right, you could. You could theoretically

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take your job to some other location and.

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Speaker 4: It wouldn't matter.

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Speaker 3: You're working online, and so people often ask, why don't

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you just go to the most atheist friendly place, But

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that's not how living works, right. You have to live

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near the people that matter to you, the friends that

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matter to you, and stuff like that. So, you know,

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as tempting as it would be to just go somewhere

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that's already better, sometimes the only choice is to try

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to make the place that you are better.

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Speaker 2: I was reading about the city of Atlanta. It's the

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whole blue dot phenomenon ride because Georgia itself is about

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as red as it comes. I'm not telling you anything.

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Somebody made this joke. If you're in Atlanta, you're also

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two hours from Atlanta. The city is just I found

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a challenge to navigate. But I mean, we're talking about

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the birthplace of doctor Martin Luther King Junior, the civil

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rights icon, and I have to wonder if he materialized today,

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he would think it was still nineteen sixty four, right.

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Speaker 3: Well, especially after the recent Supreme Court decisions VIASA the

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Voting Rights Act. Yeah, absolutely, I would wonder if you'd

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think we were moving forward or backwards.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the SPLC said that, Georgia, I think

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you're just behind Florida. So look great on Florida's resume,

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but you're up there near the top of the list

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for hate groups, whether it's white supremacy groups or ANTILGBT

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groups or those types of things. Do you have the

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pulse of that kind of thing in the South? No.

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Speaker 3: You know, one of the nice things about the job

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that I do is that I am able to mostly

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unplug from the community around me. I'm able to travel

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a lot and get away from it a lot. So

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I don't really socialize with a lot of people in

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the area outside of my Fami family, which you know,

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for I what I know of South Georgia, I'm not

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missing much when I say that. That being said, though,

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when I went to you know, my town had the

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No King's rallies, which you know, there's fifty or sixty

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people in a town like that, which is still impressive.

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But and I, you know, met a lot of people

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at those rallies that were you know, I mean, no

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matter how red the place is, there's still some blue there.

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And I met a lot of people there that did

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kind of make me wish that I was a little

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bit more plugged in.

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Speaker 4: But fortunately it.

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Speaker 3: The benefit of being as insular as I am is

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that I do get to avoid the hate groups by

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and large.

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Speaker 2: You're One of the things I like to point to

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people is that, well, there are two reasons for me

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beyond the fact that you know, my social circle here,

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you know, is within twenty miles. But the cost of

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living is part of it. I mean, okay, fine, I'm

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going to go to a big city, a blue dot. Well,

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if I was to try to buy my house there,

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I'm totally priced. Especially with the interest rates where there are,

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It's just no freaking way. And the second thing is

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I do take a kind of satisfaction being a rogue

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heathen atheist in Jesus Town. It's so rare for people

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here to see an atheist in the wild, right.

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Speaker 3: Well, especially one that can say I'm an atheist, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'd love to see the expression. I was

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at a tennis match. I was watching Natalie play a match,

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and there were some people gathered around, and you know,

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everybody's pinballing around going, oh, what do you do for

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a living? What do you do? Well, I'm an engineer

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and I work over here and I'm in marketing, and

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I knew I was next. And then I have that

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cost benefit discussion. Do I really want to go here? Like?

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Is this? I'm not here for this? Do I really

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want to have a moment? I thought, I'll screw it.

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What do you do? Oh? I host a website, online community,

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and podcast for atheist agnostics and secular humanists. And she

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literally froze and then she just turned around and watched

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the rest of the MA didn't say a syllable to

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me for the rest of the day, you know, but

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I thought, this is healthy. She needs to know we exist,

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you know, absolutely.

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Speaker 3: And are in your area as well, yeah, you know,

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I was in Austin a couple of weeks back for

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my nephew's graduation, and I'm with his very very Catholic family,

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my sister in law's family, and what do you do

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for a living?

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Speaker 4: Question came up.

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Speaker 3: Now I have a little bit of an out that

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you don't have, because, like you said, I'm on a

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bunch of different podcasts, So I can say, well, I'm

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a podcaster. Well what's your podcast? But oh, I do

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a bunch of them, a bunch of different things.

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Speaker 2: How many so wait a minute, let me jump in.

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How many shows are you won?

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Speaker 4: Five at the moment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so, and one of them is sort of like

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a history trivia show we do with the guys from

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Cognitive Dissonance called Citation Needed. So if I don't feel

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like having the discussion, I'll push people that way, you know,

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I'll say, well, I host a bunch of shows. You

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should probably start with Citation Needed if you want to

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check them out, because that doesn't have the word atheist.

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Speaker 4: But as often as not.

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm actually really happy, like you say, for

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the opportunity to tell somebody like, hey, yeah, I'm an

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atheist and we're out there and we exist. And you know,

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if somebody's job was pastor or priest, they wouldn't hesitate

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to say that in public, So why should I?

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Speaker 2: I use true stories in the same way, I don't

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get to populate the show as much as I used to,

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just for bandwidth. Of course, now that I hear that

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you're doing five and I just have the two, I

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feel shame and inadequacy.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Noah, Well, I have two co hosts too, well

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five on one of themselves.

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Speaker 2: Do you use producers? Do you have people who can

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go through I have this, It's the classic we call

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it the e myth dilemma. Anybody in business knows with this.

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But if you don't duplicate yourself, you limit how much

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you can grow. But I'm a control freak. I know

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exactly where I want the edits to be. I know

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the tone, the temperature, I know the topics, and I'm

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terrified of releasing too much of it because I'm afraid

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someone else is going to I don't know, post the

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wrong thing, or they won't get where to, you know,

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hit the inflections. And then I think, well, Natalie says,

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I'm a control freak in that way, I don't know,

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do you go through that?

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Speaker 4: No, I'm absolutely with you.

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Speaker 3: The advantage that I have is that I have co hosts, right, So,

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like when it came to we have an editor that

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does the sort of first pass edit on everything, and

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it was so hard for me to give that up.

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But luckily I had two other guys saying, hey, man,

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here are other things that only you can do that

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we'd much rather have you doing, and so they were

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able to push me into offloading some of that.

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Speaker 4: But yes, absolutely, I.

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Speaker 3: Didn't want to give up anything because, like you know,

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like you, this all started us just an idea in

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my head and then it was just an idea in

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my bedroom. And the idea of you know, sending off

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you know, like pushing the edit out of the nest

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or whatever it is, it's terrifying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you've gone from that too. Like speaking in other countries,

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it's right, not just in your bedroom, not just in

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your state, not just in the USA, but you're international.

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I mean you do you travel alone or with the

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god awful movies guys, or what a.

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Speaker 4: Little of both?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we've goneofful Movies is now headlined at the biggest

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atheist conference in Australia, England, and the United States. I've

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actually never spoken in Canada at a Canada show before,

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but I'm going to take care of that in August

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at Baja Khn.

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Speaker 4: Really excited about that.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, we've been regulars in England for quite a

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while with a QED conference that unfortunately they don't do anymore.

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They just had their big finale last year. But yeah, yeah,

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it's it's uh, it's really something to think that, you know,

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an idea that started as just you know, me scratching

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out a few ideas on a blog eventually became something

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that would you know, pay for tickets to Australia and whatnot.

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Speaker 2: Well, I got to do the Barbara Walters question, why

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did you have a fire in your belly because you

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were raised religious? Where does this scathing come from?

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Speaker 3: You know, it's it's really not my scathing anymore. I

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was not raised religious. My parents were nominally religious, but

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they weren't church goers. So when I would ask questions

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very often, they'd give me religious answers. But then when

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I had follow up questions, they had no idea where

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to go with them.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 3: But when I was living in New York, which you

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think of as this sort of secular bastion New York

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City as this you know, very progressive place, like you

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said this blue dot. But the reality of it is

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you see the entire sum spectrum of religiosity in New

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York City from the very very conservative to the very

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very liberal.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 3: And I in the job that I did, I was

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an entertainer, I was a juggler. I worked a lot

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of bar mitzvahs, and I saw a lot of the

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very very far right Jewish religion, and that sort of

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led me down a series of rabbit holes about the

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more repressive forms of Christianity, of Judaism, of Islam. And

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you saw bits and pieces of that everywhere. The the

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thing that I've reflected on most when I get this

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question is a single moment I had in a subway

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where I watched a young girl from an orthodoxe Jewish

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family get berated for reading a book that was only

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intended for boys. And the rage and the fury I

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felt on behalf of that little girl, knowing how limited

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she was going to be in her life if she

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couldn't escape from that. You know, I felt like she

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was impotent in this There's nothing that she can do

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about it. But there's something I can do, There's something

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I can say, And that same I believe it was

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that same day I came up out of the subway

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and I saw for the first time there was some

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organization or another that was running atheist signs on the

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sides of buses in Manhattan at the time. And it

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was just something as simple as you know, I'm good

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without God, something that simple. And I remember seeing that

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and putting all that together and realizing that I could

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be a voice for a lot of those people that

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you know, Unfortunately they are not going to have an

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opportunity to find their own voices.

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Speaker 2: I was in Denver, Colorado. This was many years ago,

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and we had a night off and I'm walking around

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downtown and they had I want to say, they were

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legit Harri Krishnaz, right with the robes and the bald

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heads and the literature, and they're dancing and chanting. And

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I mean, forgive my ignorance, I'm not well versed in

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the hardy Christnas. But picture in your mind right right now,

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you've got that mental picture, this is what I was

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looking at. And in the crowd was she must have

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been a sixteen year old girl head shaved, handing out booklets,

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but she had a surrendered look on her face. She

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was smiling, but she was kind of vacant, like she

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had never been given the opportunity to develop a personhood

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of her own. And there were some who would walk

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by and they'd see this sort of peaceful, happy, happy,

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joy joy, singing group of believers, saying, Oh, they've got

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their own culture, How wonderful for them, live and let live.

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I saw it, and I thought, this poor girl never

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had a chance. And I guess that's the vibe of

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what you were maybe you were thinking at the time,

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like you grieve because you're like, this person almost certainly

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has never been introduced to the much wider, grander world.

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Speaker 4: Right absolutely.

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Speaker 3: You know, people think of you know, very often you

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hear the Amish culture listed as this exemplar of simplicity

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and the old life and everything like that. And of course,

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if you look into it, if you learn anything at

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all about what it's like to grow up in the

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Amish culture, you lose that very quickly, especially if you

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look at what it's like to grow up as a

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girl in the Amish culture.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I can't have a reviewer of god awful movies

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and god awful video games on this show without talking

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about god awful movies and video games. So we're going

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to take a relatively if not a deep dive. We

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are going to dive into that subject and more. Next.

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Thanks so much for supporting me in this broadcast on Paytreon,

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Patreon dot com, slash Seth Andrews. If you'd like to

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become a supporter, makes a huge, huge difference, and if

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you choose, you can get the show early and commercial free.

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Talking here with Noah Lucianz, who is host of The

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Scathing Atheist, co host of God Awful Movies, Citation Needed,

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and other shows. So you walk up or you are challenged.

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You're not a costing Christians. But let's say somebody walks

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up and they're kind of adamant about their faith. The

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Bible is a good book. And you've done a lot

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of diatribes, I mean, you call them diatribes on your

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show about Christianity. Is there a Bible story that you

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at least fantasize about leading with Okay, all right, fine,

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you want to talk Bible. If you really want to

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talk Bible, I'd like to talk about this story. Do

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you have any favorites, anything that pops to your head.

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Speaker 4: Uh, well, you know, it depends on what you want

384
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out of it. Right.

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Speaker 3: If you want to prove that the Bible is not

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a good story, of course you go straight to God

387
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telling them to kill the men and keep the young

388
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women for themselves or whatever. But if I just want

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I'm scratching their heads, I go to the story where

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Moses mooned everybody, or sorry, where God mooned Moses on

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the mountain, and they just refuse to believe it's in there,

392
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you know, because I think very often what I'm trying

393
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to do when I'm engaging with a Christian about the

394
00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:35,279
Bible is I'm trying to get them to realize how

395
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little they actually know about that book. Right, So if

396
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you're able to be like, well, you know, God mooned

397
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Moses at one point, and they're like, no, he didn't, Well,

398
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then you know, if they if they go back and

399
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they look at that passage or passage reader, and that's

400
00:19:48,319 --> 00:19:50,720
exactly what happened, look at that passage, well that's a

401
00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:53,039
good that's a good phrasing. I guess if they look

402
00:19:53,039 --> 00:19:56,000
at that passage about looking at that passage. Then they're

403
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:58,319
going to realize that, hey, maybe there's other stuff in

404
00:19:58,359 --> 00:20:00,119
this book that I'm not aware of. Maybe I I

405
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haven't really been told all of the stuff that's in here.

406
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So that's usually the goal if I am going to

407
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:07,799
engage about that.

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Speaker 2: And maybe I'll bring a Seth Andrews teaches Sunday School

409
00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:14,359
to Cincinnati. You just I've done that on the air,

410
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but it might be fun to do from the stage

411
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because I'm thinking about, like I like to lead with, well,

412
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I mean, beyond the typical atrocity slavery and talking donkeys

413
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and all that stuff, and talking donkey's not an atrocity.

414
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It probably is an offense to logic, but you know

415
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what I mean, just the wacky shit. But it's out

416
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of Ezekiel, where apparently God commands him to lay on

417
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his side for a year. Yeah, and then he's commanded

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to cook with his own feces and he has to

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beg God, please don't make me cook using my shit

420
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as fuel, and then God has to change his mind

421
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and people are like, come on, and I'm like, all right,

422
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chapter verse, chapter verse. I don't know any other gems

423
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you like to talk about.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's the one where he has to eat

425
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the scroll as well.

426
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Speaker 4: Isn't it awesome?

427
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Speaker 2: It's awesome.

428
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Speaker 4: I actually i'd got off of movies.

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Speaker 3: We recently watched a really really low budget movie where

430
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they had tried to re enact that the guy.

431
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Speaker 4: Eating of the scroll. It was. It was amazing to see.

432
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Speaker 3: It was like a when you play tea party with

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a kid and they give you plastic food to eat,

434
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you know.

435
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Speaker 4: He just basically went with that on it.

436
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Speaker 2: Awesome. What was do you remember the name of the movie.

437
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Speaker 4: It was called Key of the or Keys of the Kingdom.

438
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Speaker 2: Is this like Pure Flicks or Angel Studios thing?

439
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Speaker 4: Oh no, it's way below pier flicks level.

440
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Speaker 3: This is Yeah, this is entirely made on this guy's

441
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green screen in front of him. I don't know that

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there's a production company involved at all.

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Speaker 2: Awesome.

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Speaker 3: Oh I'm really mad that I can't remember the guy's

445
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name that made it, because it was absolutely hilarious the

446
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way he described the film as a such and such banger.

447
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Speaker 4: But I can't remember his name.

448
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Speaker 2: We've got to talk Christian media. I just recently streamed

449
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the I Am Jesus Christ video game. I lasted about

450
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forty five minutes. You're familiar because we talked about this.

451
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I didn't think it was ever going to release. I thought, oh,

452
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this is a crowdfunding scam and they're just going to

453
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tease it forever. I think the trailer has been out.

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I don't know how many years, but apparently. I mean,

455
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I don't know if the whole game release, but enough

456
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a playable version of the game at least the beta

457
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is out. You've seen I Am Jesus Christ.

458
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so they had the first chapter of it playable

459
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for a couple of years.

460
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Speaker 4: I'm with you.

461
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Speaker 3: I honestly, I have a talk that I give on

462
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Christian video games, and I've ended the talk with for

463
00:22:31,039 --> 00:22:33,839
years with talking about this game and about how it

464
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:36,599
was never coming out, and now so I have to

465
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totally revamp the talk now. But yeah, First person Messiah Simulator.

466
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I'm amazed that it took so long.

467
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Speaker 2: It's amazing in the worst sense of the word. I

468
00:22:48,599 --> 00:22:50,359
don't know if there have been a lot of recent

469
00:22:50,599 --> 00:22:53,559
Christian video games, but in your speech about some of

470
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the retro games, there's some gems in there, So come on.

471
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Greatest hits Christian video games over the past thirty some years.

472
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Speaker 3: Oh wow, Yeah, So the thing about Christian video game

473
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is very much like the thing about Christian music or

474
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Christian movies.

475
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:10,279
Speaker 4: Right.

476
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:13,319
Speaker 3: These are people who couldn't really get it done in

477
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,880
the secular version of the thing, and so they turned

478
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,759
to Christianity because they had this sort of captive audience

479
00:23:19,799 --> 00:23:24,480
that was underserved. So a lot of the games you

480
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:26,440
a lot of the best of the retro games were

481
00:23:26,599 --> 00:23:28,440
just Christian version of X right.

482
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:28,519
Speaker 4: Like.

483
00:23:28,559 --> 00:23:30,559
Speaker 3: There was a game called Spiritual Warrior that was the

484
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:31,640
Christian version of.

485
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:32,640
Speaker 4: The Legend of Zelda.

486
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:32,839
Speaker 2: Right.

487
00:23:32,839 --> 00:23:35,799
Speaker 3: It was very clearly patterned after that, except all the

488
00:23:35,839 --> 00:23:38,240
puzzles sucked in. The game was no fun right, Like

489
00:23:38,279 --> 00:23:41,880
you said, they're just awful games to begin with. There

490
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:44,680
was a game called Sunday Fun Day that was quite

491
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:48,440
notorious because it was just a direct remaking of an

492
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,519
existing game. They just threw in some Christian tropes and

493
00:23:51,759 --> 00:23:53,759
they didn't even try to make it make sense with

494
00:23:53,799 --> 00:23:55,680
the Christian tropes, right, So the game went from I'm

495
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:59,000
trying to rescue my girlfriend from a gang to I'm

496
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,960
trying to get to Sunday's school. They never explained why

497
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:03,960
a gang is trying to stop you from getting to

498
00:24:04,039 --> 00:24:07,519
Sunday School though, right, a gang that includes Bears by

499
00:24:07,559 --> 00:24:09,640
the way, it's a hell of a very inclusive gang.

500
00:24:09,839 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 2: Wow.

501
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:13,559
Speaker 3: But I think my absolute all time favorite is a

502
00:24:13,599 --> 00:24:18,559
game called Captain Is it Captain Bible? I mean it's

503
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,480
Captain Bible in the Dome of Darkness.

504
00:24:21,279 --> 00:24:24,559
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety four. Yeah, I saw that one crazy.

505
00:24:25,279 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 4: It's a classic.

506
00:24:26,039 --> 00:24:27,839
Speaker 3: It's one of the point and click ones and the

507
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,480
whole the way that the gameplay works is that you

508
00:24:30,519 --> 00:24:34,359
go around finding Bible versus and then you run into

509
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:36,720
enemies who will tell you lies about what's in the Bible,

510
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,759
and then you have to find the verse that contradicts

511
00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:42,279
that lie. That's the gameplay. That's what you do throughout

512
00:24:42,279 --> 00:24:45,720
the game. So like, you know, if the Giant Spider

513
00:24:45,759 --> 00:24:49,519
will say, well, no, God could love an insignificant piece

514
00:24:49,559 --> 00:24:52,279
of protoplasm like you, and then you've got to find

515
00:24:52,279 --> 00:24:54,000
the God loves Everybody verse.

516
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 2: There was a Noah's Our game, and I think they

517
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:02,000
licensed the Doom engine, yes, from it to or either

518
00:25:02,079 --> 00:25:05,359
that or the engine license expired and they just grabbed it.

519
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,160
I think maybe it had moved on. I don't know

520
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,319
the story. Noah's Ark. Have you seen that one.

521
00:25:10,839 --> 00:25:13,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was this what would they called it,

522
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:16,480
Super Noah's Arc three D I believe was the name

523
00:25:16,519 --> 00:25:18,200
of the game. But yeah, they had licensed the engine

524
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:19,839
because the engine would you know, they had moved on

525
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:25,160
to the newer engine and they so they remade the game.

526
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,400
It wasn't just that they licensed the engine. They actually

527
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:31,079
remade the game Castle Wolfenstein three D, but they just

528
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,680
changed the graphics out, so now you're in Noah's Ark

529
00:25:33,759 --> 00:25:37,880
instead of a Nazi castle. And that ended up you

530
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:40,960
had some interesting choices there, right, because like, for example,

531
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:42,880
if you ever played Castle Wolfenstein three D, you know

532
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,200
there are pictures of Hitler everywhere, right, because you're in

533
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,200
this Nazi castle. So who would there be pictures of

534
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,519
in Noah's Ark everywhere? Well, we're to believe that Noah

535
00:25:51,599 --> 00:25:56,079
went out and commissioned thousands of self portraits beforehand to

536
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,400
hang them up on the arc so the animals would

537
00:25:58,400 --> 00:25:59,279
know who was boss.

538
00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 4: I guess awesome.

539
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:03,519
Speaker 2: He just walks from room to room in the boat

540
00:26:03,559 --> 00:26:09,640
going me, yes, me, more, me, also me. There was

541
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:14,559
another one, much more serious, titled that Dragon Cancer.

542
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,279
Speaker 4: Now I'm not super familiar with that one.

543
00:26:18,319 --> 00:26:20,559
Speaker 3: I know this story behind it is that a Christian

544
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:24,119
couple had a child with a terminal illness and they

545
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,720
made a video game that was sort of in a sense,

546
00:26:26,759 --> 00:26:29,960
it was like a second person having a kid with

547
00:26:30,039 --> 00:26:34,440
cancer simulator, which I mean, it's as fun as it sounds.

548
00:26:35,319 --> 00:26:37,279
I'll be honest that there are from what I know

549
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:41,799
of it, there are some really like beautiful artistic choices

550
00:26:41,839 --> 00:26:42,920
that they made with the game.

551
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 4: It's very like. It was very well reviewed.

552
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 3: It's often the answer I give when people ask are

553
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,720
there any good Christian games? Like I haven't actually played it,

554
00:26:51,759 --> 00:26:53,880
so I don't know that it's a good game, but

555
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,079
it's definitely got some beautiful moments in it. It's a

556
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:58,880
really interesting statement as to what can be done with

557
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,559
video game storyteller. I read an interview years ago with

558
00:27:04,759 --> 00:27:07,039
it was a couple that created I can't remember if

559
00:27:07,039 --> 00:27:09,319
it was the husband or wife that that was interviewed.

560
00:27:09,599 --> 00:27:12,240
They were talking about showing the game at at a

561
00:27:12,279 --> 00:27:15,039
video game expo. And there's one moment in the game

562
00:27:15,079 --> 00:27:19,319
where you've got the kid who has cancer, and the

563
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:21,319
only interaction you have is you can push a button

564
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:23,960
to push him on a swing, and that's it. And

565
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,000
then you just keep doing that until you're done with that,

566
00:27:26,039 --> 00:27:27,680
and then you press that I'm done with this scene.

567
00:27:28,039 --> 00:27:31,880
And the developer talked about the way people would linger

568
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,680
on that sequence in the game, even though all you're

569
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:37,599
doing is pushing one button and making the kid swing,

570
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,440
because they knew that when you moved on from that moment,

571
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:42,839
you weren't going to have another moment like that with

572
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:45,279
the kid. And and so I think, you know, one

573
00:27:45,279 --> 00:27:49,400
of the beautiful things about video game storytelling that really

574
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,400
came up, if you're familiar with the game Mistape that

575
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,160
just came out a couple of weeks ago, really came

576
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,799
out in that one in an incredible way, is that,

577
00:27:56,039 --> 00:27:59,440
unlike movies or television, video games can be told in

578
00:27:59,519 --> 00:28:02,119
second So this isn't what happened to me, this isn't

579
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:04,400
what happened to him, It's what happened to you. And

580
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,960
it can give you this sense of agency that makes

581
00:28:08,039 --> 00:28:12,119
certain aspects of the story far more impactful. And I

582
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,079
think that that's a game that really took advantage of that.

583
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,799
Speaker 2: This is one of the places where I really am

584
00:28:18,079 --> 00:28:20,640
super charitable when it comes to people who hold a

585
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,880
religious belief when they are going through suffering or when

586
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,920
they've lost a loved one when they're navigating fear and pain.

587
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:31,559
You know, there is a happy ending to that story,

588
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:33,839
and there is a kind of bomb, and we can

589
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,359
have the discussion about whether it's a healthy bomb, you know,

590
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:41,160
But it's medicine for some people. I tend to think

591
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,519
they're better served by rooting themselves in the real world.

592
00:28:44,599 --> 00:28:46,440
But I think we have to approach those types of

593
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,920
things with compassion. I don't know your thoughts on that.

594
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that when I see somebody trying to

595
00:28:53,839 --> 00:28:56,160
use religion to cope with a tragedy, I very often

596
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,920
feel sorry for them because it's not a good coping mechanism, right,

597
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,440
if you look at it, just statistically, right, people who

598
00:29:02,599 --> 00:29:05,759
are super religious are not better at coping with death,

599
00:29:05,799 --> 00:29:09,400
and they'd be far better off with secular therapy I

600
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,880
think most often. But in the moment, when that's what

601
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,920
you've got, you know, like if somebody's drowning, I'm not

602
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,640
going to criticize what a crappy life raft they've built,

603
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:19,319
you know what I mean.

604
00:29:19,519 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 2: Well. I also that takes us into the conversations about

605
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,119
the efficacy of prayer. They say prayer makes you feel good.

606
00:29:26,119 --> 00:29:29,799
There's a meditative aspect to it. You've got people around you.

607
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,880
They're you know, laying hands on your shoulder. There's human contact.

608
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,119
But I'm like, all of this stuff could be done

609
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:41,279
without mythology and superstition. Plus, there have been studies that

610
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:43,200
many of the people who are prayed for in the

611
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:47,720
hospital actually do worse after they've been prayed for if

612
00:29:47,759 --> 00:29:51,279
they know about it, possibly because they feel pressure to

613
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:55,119
get better and they don't, you know, or when they don't.

614
00:29:55,519 --> 00:29:57,640
So and there's a lot of counterintuitive stuff. You know,

615
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,640
all prayer makes people feel better, Heaven makes people do better,

616
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:04,559
but I think that's only true on the surface. If

617
00:30:04,599 --> 00:30:07,519
you scratch beneath, the story's much different, right. Well.

618
00:30:07,519 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 3: And the other thing too, is that if religion is

619
00:30:09,799 --> 00:30:11,839
just a means of like if prayer's a means of

620
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,559
getting human contact and getting people to work together, et cetera,

621
00:30:15,599 --> 00:30:17,599
et cetera, well, then prayer is getting in the way

622
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,680
of those goals by not being forthright about them. Right,

623
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:22,880
Because if we set out and we say, hey, our

624
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,720
goal here is to have physical contact with the person

625
00:30:25,799 --> 00:30:28,400
who's suffering, we can do it in a much less

626
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:29,559
convoluted way.

627
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:34,799
Speaker 2: I feel the same about alcoholics Anonymous. I appreciate a

628
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,119
support mechanism and community for people trying to overcome addiction.

629
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,400
But the higher power thing, I think strips people of

630
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:47,880
agency and cheats them out of a journey they're taking themselves.

631
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:49,960
And I don't know if there are a lot of

632
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,680
secular alternatives out there, but you know, alcoholics Anonymous might

633
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:54,880
be a great example of that.

634
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:56,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

635
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,119
Speaker 3: You know, whenever I talk shit about Alcoholics Anonymous on

636
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:03,200
our show, I do quite often somebody will reach out

637
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,119
to me and say, hey, man, you know I was

638
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,759
or am involved with AA and it did wonders for

639
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:09,599
me and all of this, you know, tell me all

640
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:11,200
of the great stuff about it. And I know that

641
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,240
some AA groups go out of their way to be

642
00:31:14,319 --> 00:31:17,920
secular or as secular sup possibly can be within that framework.

643
00:31:18,839 --> 00:31:21,359
But again, you know, it's a case of like, look,

644
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,079
if there are things that are effective within it, let's

645
00:31:24,119 --> 00:31:27,160
find out what those things are, and let's distill those

646
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:29,720
things and let's do the best version of that, which

647
00:31:29,759 --> 00:31:30,599
isn't what they do.

648
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:31,119
Speaker 4: Right.

649
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 3: Instead, AA refuses to release any statistics unrecidivism, right, so

650
00:31:35,519 --> 00:31:37,799
we don't know how effective it is. And if we

651
00:31:37,839 --> 00:31:39,559
don't know how effective it is, how the hell can

652
00:31:39,599 --> 00:31:41,880
we figure out which elements are the most effective?

653
00:31:42,359 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 2: I want to talk with Noah about a deeply personal

654
00:31:45,039 --> 00:31:49,039
subject and it has to do with cigarettes and addiction.

655
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,400
So we're going to get into that and more and

656
00:31:51,720 --> 00:32:03,200
just a moment. Thanks so much for listening today. I'm

657
00:32:03,279 --> 00:32:07,240
in a conversation and there's video of this conversation which

658
00:32:07,279 --> 00:32:09,640
is linked in the description box. But I'm talking to

659
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:16,279
podcast activist, author and scathing atheist No Illusions. You've been

660
00:32:16,319 --> 00:32:20,319
pretty forward facing about overcoming addiction in your own life.

661
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:23,400
Can we talk about cigarettes? You want to go there?

662
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 4: Yeah?

663
00:32:24,559 --> 00:32:24,799
Speaker 2: You know.

664
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 3: I I started smoking back when I was a kid

665
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:33,519
because it was cool back then. But years ago, I

666
00:32:33,519 --> 00:32:39,200
guess it's been almost five years now. We did a

667
00:32:39,279 --> 00:32:43,079
charity fundraiser. The charity turned out to be awful. The

668
00:32:43,119 --> 00:32:46,319
guy just recently pled guilty for embezzling from the charity

669
00:32:46,319 --> 00:32:48,400
that we raised a lot of money for. But as

670
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,599
part of the charity fundraiser, I said, if we reached

671
00:32:50,599 --> 00:32:53,599
a certain amount, which I was fairly confident we wouldn't reach,

672
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:57,720
I would quit smoking. And we reached it, so I

673
00:32:57,799 --> 00:33:00,640
was obligated. And I found that, you know, of all

674
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:02,839
that I did a bunch of different stuff to help quit.

675
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,559
I used the patch, and I did a lot of

676
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:07,960
cognitive behavioral therapy and things like that. But the thing

677
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:09,559
that was most effective to me is that I was

678
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,680
very public about it. I'd made the commitment publicly, and

679
00:33:12,759 --> 00:33:15,319
I quit publicly. I started a blog where I talked

680
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,200
every day about my experiences and things like that, and

681
00:33:18,279 --> 00:33:21,400
so I felt this like enormous obligation to all the

682
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:23,599
people that were listening to the show, that were following

683
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:25,960
the blog, that were quitting along with me. A bunch

684
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,759
of people quit along with me, and so you know,

685
00:33:29,759 --> 00:33:32,519
I'm certainly not going to say that quitting smoking was easier,

686
00:33:32,559 --> 00:33:35,880
but thanks to the amount of online support I had,

687
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:37,160
it was a hell of a lot easier than I

688
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:38,400
ever expected it would be.

689
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,319
Speaker 2: You can take this as far as you want, if anywhere.

690
00:33:41,359 --> 00:33:44,960
How hard was it? I mean, we're talking about withdrawals

691
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:49,079
and symptoms and sleepless nights, and you know the psychology

692
00:33:49,119 --> 00:33:50,759
of addiction. Did you go through all that?

693
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 3: Not as again, not as much as I thought I would.

694
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,759
I think that there's you know, there are two ways

695
00:33:57,759 --> 00:34:01,519
that people overcome addiction. One is when people really want

696
00:34:01,559 --> 00:34:04,799
to write when you when you realize in your own heart,

697
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,279
like I'm done with this addiction and I don't want

698
00:34:07,319 --> 00:34:08,880
it to be a part of my life anymore.

699
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 4: And that one is far easier.

700
00:34:11,039 --> 00:34:13,079
Speaker 3: The other one, of course, is when you have to

701
00:34:13,159 --> 00:34:15,119
when you realize that, you know, I do still want

702
00:34:15,119 --> 00:34:17,840
to drink, but it's ruining my life. I do still

703
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,039
want to, you know, take this drug or or smoke

704
00:34:21,079 --> 00:34:23,920
this cigarette, but I can't do it because of a

705
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,639
health issue, or because of a social issue, or because

706
00:34:26,679 --> 00:34:30,320
of a financial issue or whatever. And I and lumping

707
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:34,119
those two types of overcoming addiction together, I think, is

708
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:35,679
it probably isn't fair.

709
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:37,079
Speaker 4: I had the former.

710
00:34:37,119 --> 00:34:39,599
Speaker 3: I had the much easier, I really don't want to

711
00:34:39,639 --> 00:34:43,639
do this anymore type of addiction. And you know that

712
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,480
combined with the I mean, yes, there were some sleepless nights.

713
00:34:46,599 --> 00:34:49,440
Yes I gained a bunch of weight, you know, a

714
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:51,559
lot of those things. But it wasn't sort of the

715
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:57,320
existential misery that so many people have to suffer through

716
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,760
when they're overcoming addiction. So I don't I feel like

717
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,559
comparing mind to theirs is almost like stolen valor.

718
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 2: Man, if you know he got cranky, how would you

719
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:09,960
be able to tell the difference. I mean, he's well

720
00:35:10,039 --> 00:35:12,920
got agitated in this crazy climate, you know. I mean,

721
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,360
how would you really know he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

722
00:35:16,639 --> 00:35:20,800
I'm just saying I want to come back quickly to games.

723
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,159
It's an awkward segue, but I had in my notes

724
00:35:23,679 --> 00:35:28,920
that there is a Christian Game Developers conference scheduled for

725
00:35:29,119 --> 00:35:32,679
November of this year, and I in my brain am

726
00:35:32,679 --> 00:35:36,039
trying to figure out how we get crowdfund your travel

727
00:35:36,079 --> 00:35:42,519
expenses and no honorarium to send you do a Christian

728
00:35:42,679 --> 00:35:45,920
gamers conference to I don't know, report from the field,

729
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,559
do a live stream interview people. This is a fantasy

730
00:35:50,599 --> 00:35:53,719
of mine. Would you go? I mean, I'm not putting

731
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:55,199
you on the hook, but would you attend?

732
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 4: Dude? That sounds amazing. Nobody would have to Where.

733
00:35:59,639 --> 00:36:03,760
Speaker 2: Is it it is? Oh gosh, it's in Orlando, Florida

734
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:05,079
in November of this year.

735
00:36:05,679 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's driving distance. So yeah, I just

736
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:09,360
I might have to make that.

737
00:36:09,639 --> 00:36:13,880
Speaker 2: Oh the Lord works in mysterious ways, doesn't he doesnety.

738
00:36:14,199 --> 00:36:16,880
Have you seen that new I'm going to segue to politics.

739
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,239
There's that group what are they called? They're called Secret

740
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,119
Handshake and they always pull a bunch of Shenanigans in

741
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,719
DC to tweak the Trump administration. And they put a

742
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:33,440
couple of console games called Operation Epic Furious Straight str

743
00:36:33,599 --> 00:36:36,840
Ai t Straight to Hell, and you can play it

744
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:42,079
online at Epic Furious dot com. Have you seen this one?

745
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:43,320
Speaker 4: Noah, I have not.

746
00:36:43,639 --> 00:36:48,079
Speaker 2: It is a gift. It is a gift. It is

747
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:53,119
produced in the classic eight bit theme. And you are

748
00:36:53,199 --> 00:36:56,679
Donald Trump and you spawn in the White House in

749
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:01,199
the Oval Office, and you just pinball around and just

750
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:04,880
a few of the experiences. You can talk to JD.

751
00:37:05,119 --> 00:37:08,880
Vance about why oil should be referred to as lube.

752
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,639
There is a couch store, which also of course relates

753
00:37:13,679 --> 00:37:17,119
to Vance. You can burn Epstein files. You can order

754
00:37:17,199 --> 00:37:20,320
diet cokes if you're not in the mood for declaring

755
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:24,039
war on another nation. Vladimir Putin shows up and he's

756
00:37:24,039 --> 00:37:27,719
a centaur. He's got a horse. His whole half of

757
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,679
his body's a horse, and he's naked from the waist up.

758
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,280
You can meet Matt Gatz in a creepy locker room.

759
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:40,280
You can fight Iranian schoolgirls. You actually go to Iran

760
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:44,000
Gone and anyway you can go. Anybody can go to

761
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,239
epic Furious dot Com and play this and the way

762
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,199
the game ends, I think you go to Milania and

763
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:57,440
you ask to hold hands and the game's overly is

764
00:37:57,679 --> 00:37:59,920
you know what, beautiful? It's beautiful.

765
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 3: One of the worst things I've ever had to do

766
00:38:02,119 --> 00:38:04,280
in my professional life. On god awf of movies, we

767
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:08,280
reviewed the Milania movie recently, and I'll tell you the

768
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,679
one big takeaway from that. I mean, we all know

769
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,199
that there's no love in that relationship, but the biggest

770
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:17,320
takeaway in that entire movie for me is there's a

771
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,119
moment where he calls her and he's just delivered it's

772
00:38:20,119 --> 00:38:22,719
not his inauguration speech, but it's some really big speech.

773
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,280
It's a big deal thing. And she's like and he

774
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,440
calls and he's like, Hey, did you watch my speech?

775
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,079
And she's like no, no, and he goes, oh, you

776
00:38:30,079 --> 00:38:31,800
should really watch it. It was really good. And she's like,

777
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:34,159
I'll see the highlights on the news. This is in

778
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:38,280
her fucking movie that he's financing.

779
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,760
Speaker 2: Which was directed by Brett Ratner, who has a shit

780
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,760
ton of sexual allegation the sexual misconduct allegations. He's been

781
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,000
a pariah in Hollywood, the guy behind Rush Hour. I

782
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,800
think he did X Men three. Yeah, and now he's

783
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,239
doing I heard it was like sominex. I'd like it

784
00:38:56,280 --> 00:39:02,119
is God, the longest commercial in the world is what

785
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:03,920
I heard. So is that accurate?

786
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 4: It is staggeringly boring. You know it's funny.

787
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 3: I uh, my co host Eli boskiy, you made a

788
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:12,239
great point throughout the whole thing, because the entire thing is,

789
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,239
you know, we go from one fitting to another and

790
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,639
listen to Milania complain that the that the caller is

791
00:39:18,679 --> 00:39:21,440
a quarter of an inch too fat or whatever, and

792
00:39:22,159 --> 00:39:25,000
he says, He's like, can you imagine if they made

793
00:39:25,119 --> 00:39:30,400
this documentary about Jill Biden no shit right, where she's

794
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,440
just going to different balls and getting fitted for different

795
00:39:33,559 --> 00:39:34,760
hats the whole time.

796
00:39:35,039 --> 00:39:36,639
Speaker 4: It's just it's incredible to that.

797
00:39:37,079 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 2: I heard the same riff on Kamala Harris. They're like,

798
00:39:39,519 --> 00:39:45,920
imagine Kamala Harris insisting that she have a billion dollar ballroom, right.

799
00:39:46,199 --> 00:39:49,400
Fox News would lose its mind over it.

800
00:39:49,519 --> 00:39:50,199
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

801
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:54,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had somebody named Tim ask this question. This

802
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:58,800
is in regard to today's political climate. Do you get

803
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:03,800
a guilty pleasure out of watching the pro leopards eating faces?

804
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,599
Party get their own faces? Eaten when when magas see

805
00:40:07,639 --> 00:40:11,159
the shit fall back on them and they pay. Is

806
00:40:11,199 --> 00:40:13,679
there some Shoden Freuda going on with you when you

807
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:14,400
see that happen.

808
00:40:15,199 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 3: Oh, I live for it now. So there's two levels

809
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:20,920
of this, right. So when it's just faceless guy on

810
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,079
the internet, I absolutely love it. When it's like, you know,

811
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,159
members of my family, it's a lot less fun, right

812
00:40:28,159 --> 00:40:30,920
because you know, I've just watched my niece and her

813
00:40:31,159 --> 00:40:33,920
whole family lose their health insurance thanks to Donald Trump

814
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:38,159
and their their elimination of the Obamacare subsidies, right, And

815
00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:41,599
so there's no Shotenfreuda in that. But yeah, in terms

816
00:40:41,599 --> 00:40:44,480
of the folks online yelling about this ain't what I

817
00:40:44,639 --> 00:40:47,679
voted for, well, yes it is. It's exactly what you

818
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:48,400
voted for.

819
00:40:48,679 --> 00:40:52,079
Speaker 2: I see the headlines, and our media continues to fail

820
00:40:52,199 --> 00:40:57,719
us utterly. You know. It was like Donald Trump's polling

821
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:03,840
numbers are tanking. It's only thirty eight percent, and I'm like, no,

822
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:09,679
the headline is thirty eight percent of Americans polled say

823
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,880
they still support this motherfucker. That's the headline. Right.

824
00:41:14,599 --> 00:41:17,800
Speaker 3: Absolutely, It's just crazy to me that we're still in

825
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,360
this horse race mentality. But a guy who's just actively

826
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:28,599
dismantling democracy, aligning us with autocrats and tyrants, openly taking bribes,

827
00:41:28,639 --> 00:41:32,119
openly taking billions of dollars of bribes and not even

828
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,719
pretending otherwise. And the media is talking about like, well,

829
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:37,719
you know, the rhetoric on the left is getting a

830
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:38,719
little violent.

831
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 4: You know, why are we still talking about this.

832
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:44,519
Speaker 2: I'd like to make note here as well. I use

833
00:41:44,559 --> 00:41:47,400
the word motherfucker to keep Noah comfortable. You got to

834
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,360
throw those in from time to time, you know, don't

835
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,920
let him be the only one who uses it. Do

836
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:55,960
you swear as much in real life? I swear a

837
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,199
lot more in real life than I do on the air.

838
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:00,480
People like to call me, you may be host of

839
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,320
the scathing atheist. I'm kind of the gateway atheist. So

840
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:07,840
when people know somebody they're coming out, or they're you know, doubting,

841
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,320
or they're curious, or maybe they know someone who is

842
00:42:11,679 --> 00:42:14,679
I'm a pretty easy referral because I tell a lot

843
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,000
of stories and we do a lot of in general

844
00:42:18,039 --> 00:42:21,679
info and I'm not, you know, I'm not too abrasive.

845
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,559
And you seem to be the place where they land

846
00:42:26,079 --> 00:42:28,920
when they're a little more I don't know, I don't

847
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:30,679
even know how to praise the question, but you know

848
00:42:30,679 --> 00:42:33,039
what I'm talking about, Noah, you get that vibe?

849
00:42:33,679 --> 00:42:35,199
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I mean I do that. Man.

850
00:42:35,199 --> 00:42:37,639
Speaker 3: When I tell people who are religious that I do

851
00:42:37,639 --> 00:42:40,159
an atheist podcast, they're like, oh, I'd like to check

852
00:42:40,199 --> 00:42:41,480
it out. I'm like, why don't you start with my

853
00:42:41,519 --> 00:42:42,079
friend Seth.

854
00:42:42,199 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 2: You're kidding me? That's a lie. Oh don't you don't

855
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:46,360
do that? Really?

856
00:42:46,519 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Yeah, No, I don't want them to go straight

857
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:49,760
to me. No.

858
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 3: It's funny because there are two different trajectories there. One

859
00:42:53,519 --> 00:42:56,519
is like Seth to Noah, and the others that Noah

860
00:42:56,519 --> 00:42:58,000
to Seth. Right, because a lot of people come out

861
00:42:58,039 --> 00:43:00,840
of religion and they're super angry and they're really mad,

862
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:02,800
and they want somebody to yell about all of the

863
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,280
injustices that they've suffered and all of the things that

864
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:07,639
they missed out on, in which case I'm great. And

865
00:43:07,679 --> 00:43:10,000
then as they calm down, they move on to you

866
00:43:10,119 --> 00:43:12,079
and they're like, Okay, now, what can we do about it?

867
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:13,800
But I think that, you know, they also go the

868
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:15,920
other way sometimes, when people are just kind of doubting

869
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,880
and not so sure, they start with your stuff and

870
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,199
then and that gets them angry, and they're like.

871
00:43:21,119 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 4: Well, I need somebody with more fucks in their show.

872
00:43:25,119 --> 00:43:28,079
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well and you meet that quota and you and

873
00:43:28,119 --> 00:43:32,360
the god awful movies guys have such good chemistry. So

874
00:43:32,519 --> 00:43:37,239
that's another jumping off point. How many films have you reviewed?

875
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:38,000
Two dates?

876
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 3: Uh, five hundred and we're going to be doing reviewing

877
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,960
our five hundred and fifty seventh today this afternoon.

878
00:43:46,679 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 4: But that's not counting.

879
00:43:47,519 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 3: We also do secular bonus episodes for our patrons, and

880
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,199
that's another I think one hundred and twenty or so,

881
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:54,039
one hundred and fifteen.

882
00:43:54,079 --> 00:43:56,199
Speaker 2: At this point, I'm just doing the math on the

883
00:43:56,440 --> 00:44:02,920
hours invested in these films. Is it still fun? I mean,

884
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:06,280
are they still bad in a good way after all

885
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:06,920
this time?

886
00:44:07,639 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 3: Well, you know what's amazing is that the technology of

887
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:14,960
making terrible movies has been moving up right this whole time.

888
00:44:15,079 --> 00:44:19,639
So like the accessibility of filmmaking, you know, like you

889
00:44:19,679 --> 00:44:22,159
go back to the terrible movies of the seventies, terrible

890
00:44:22,199 --> 00:44:24,559
Christian movies of the seventies, there's like nine of them,

891
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:26,639
you know, there's I mean there are there are quite

892
00:44:26,639 --> 00:44:29,000
a few, but there it took a lot to make

893
00:44:29,039 --> 00:44:32,280
a movie. In the seventies, right, you had to talk

894
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,840
a lot of churches into investing a lot of money

895
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:37,840
into your production to make even the worst of films.

896
00:44:38,079 --> 00:44:41,559
But now, you know, especially now with the advent of AI,

897
00:44:42,079 --> 00:44:44,960
anybody can go in their room and spend a couple

898
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:45,880
hours and walk.

899
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 4: Out with a movie. And believe me, that's all that

900
00:44:48,079 --> 00:44:49,559
goes into a lot of these.

901
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:54,159
Speaker 2: So I remember I did a running commentary on the

902
00:44:54,199 --> 00:44:56,599
Thief in the Night films. This is a peak into

903
00:44:56,599 --> 00:45:01,960
my pathetic world. So I stream are produced an entire

904
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,480
commentary showing the film Steve in the Night, Distant Thunder,

905
00:45:05,519 --> 00:45:08,039
Image of the Beast, and there was a fourth one

906
00:45:08,079 --> 00:45:12,199
I can't remember, Prodigal Planet or something, yep. And so

907
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,480
I'm going through all of these and I'm down in

908
00:45:14,519 --> 00:45:17,639
the little thumbnail window and I'm doing commentary on everything

909
00:45:17,679 --> 00:45:20,920
that's happening. Well prepped, you know, all of this time

910
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,360
I spent and I posted it all and three days

911
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:26,000
later I get a copyright strike and YouTube says you

912
00:45:26,039 --> 00:45:27,920
do this again, We're going to delete everything you do

913
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,760
and make you a pariah. And online I was like,

914
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,400
oh my god, So you guys, how do you dodge

915
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:35,679
the copyright stuff.

916
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 4: So we don't show clips of the movies.

917
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,360
Speaker 3: We don't, you know, we just describe what happens in

918
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,239
the movies, because yeah, there's a couple of them that

919
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:48,159
are crazy litigious, right the a couple of the big

920
00:45:48,599 --> 00:45:53,719
Christian film producers and makers. So yeah, we avoid showing clips.

921
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,320
We don't even show stills or anything like that of

922
00:45:56,360 --> 00:46:00,119
the movies. We just describe how they turn out. And

923
00:46:00,199 --> 00:46:02,360
we have had a couple of people make noise about

924
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:06,159
suing us, but I think that in every case to

925
00:46:06,199 --> 00:46:08,199
this point, once they actually talk to a lawyer, if

926
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:10,000
they talk to a lawyer, the lawyer explained to them

927
00:46:10,039 --> 00:46:12,079
they've got you know, there's just no way in.

928
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 2: Oh, I've guessed it on the show, and we get

929
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,719
the privilege of sort of, I mean, it's almost better

930
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:23,159
when they're described like you know, apocalyptic militarized group shows

931
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:27,559
up in jeeps wearing plastic hats and fake guns and

932
00:46:27,639 --> 00:46:29,559
you know, there's a monster. And the more you know,

933
00:46:29,639 --> 00:46:32,239
you get you and Eli and Heath describing the shit,

934
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,239
it's actually better than the actual film.

935
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 3: Right, certainly, hope so and and you know, like one

936
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,119
of the things that we do on the on the

937
00:46:40,679 --> 00:46:44,239
because I love terrible movies. I'm a big fan of

938
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:48,920
watching people fail miserably at creative endeavors. So a lot

939
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:52,159
of times when we watch these movies, we're encouraging people

940
00:46:52,199 --> 00:46:54,960
to watch them, you know, like the the the one

941
00:46:55,119 --> 00:46:58,000
place where potentially we could be open to a lawsuit

942
00:46:58,119 --> 00:47:00,440
is if we're discouraging people from watching them movies that

943
00:47:00,679 --> 00:47:03,920
we're costing these guys' money. But we're constantly We'll constantly say, hey,

944
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:05,840
this is a fun one to put on with your friends,

945
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:10,599
you know. So, you know, in a sort of a

946
00:47:10,599 --> 00:47:13,960
weird perverse way, we're actually helping out a lot of

947
00:47:14,039 --> 00:47:17,320
these filmmakers in a way, to be honest, that I'm

948
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,280
not entirely comfortable with, but for legal reasons is apparently

949
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:20,960
very important.

950
00:47:21,079 --> 00:47:24,119
Speaker 2: It's almost like when I published something on the Thinking

951
00:47:24,159 --> 00:47:28,880
Atheist YouTube page and a religious organization's ad pops up,

952
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:32,559
you know. Yeah, I'm like, some people are like, doesn't

953
00:47:32,559 --> 00:47:34,400
this bother you? And I'm like, well, first of all,

954
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:38,440
good luck converting this audience to whatever religion you're selling.

955
00:47:38,639 --> 00:47:41,119
And sometimes it's even Christian films. I may have even

956
00:47:41,199 --> 00:47:43,360
seen a Pure Flicks ad. I'm like, yeah, you let

957
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,400
me know. How that's working out. Secondly, thanks for the money,

958
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:49,559
Thank you for investing in my work.

959
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 3: So Liberty Universities put out an episode or two of

960
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:53,280
our show.

961
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's lovely. I was on, did you guys we

962
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,800
were talking about bad movies. These aren't religious movies. But

963
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:01,360
I'm trying to think and I'm going to come back

964
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,440
to sort of the battlefield earths of Christian films, like

965
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,639
you know, they're really bad ones. But did you guys

966
00:48:06,679 --> 00:48:09,840
ever review the car? Because I was We were talking

967
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:13,039
on your show about this nineteen seventies film. There's this

968
00:48:13,159 --> 00:48:17,280
blacked out like Lincoln something, and it's all murdered out

969
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:20,239
and it's like a demon car with no driver and

970
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:23,360
it just drives around the town running people over. But

971
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:26,440
it won't go into a cemetery because that's holy ground.

972
00:48:26,519 --> 00:48:28,559
Did you guys ever go there with the car?

973
00:48:29,679 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 1: You know?

974
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:31,880
Speaker 3: The honest is like, I think we may have on

975
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,920
an episode I wasn't on, but I can't remember for sure.

976
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:37,719
I remember you recommending it and we got really excited

977
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,679
about it. If we've somehow let that slip through the cracks,

978
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:41,719
I am.

979
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 2: Somebody check it. Okay, I'm gonna I hate it. This

980
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:48,800
is almost like what's your favorite song kind of thing,

981
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:52,400
but give me one of the worst in the Christian realm,

982
00:48:52,679 --> 00:48:55,960
and then overall in the culture, like a non religious

983
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,360
film or piece of media, something that's just on the

984
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,199
hall of shame. Anything come to mind.

985
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 3: Well, So, honestly, the movie The Keys of the Kingdom

986
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:08,079
that I mentioned earlier is one of the most delightfully

987
00:49:08,199 --> 00:49:11,000
horrible things that I've ever watched in my life, So

988
00:49:11,039 --> 00:49:15,159
I can't recommend that highly enough. My normal answer here

989
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:18,079
is a movie called If Footmen tire you, then what

990
00:49:18,119 --> 00:49:20,639
will horses do? But I've talked about that on your

991
00:49:20,639 --> 00:49:22,480
show before, so I didn't want to go back to that.

992
00:49:22,599 --> 00:49:26,159
Speaker 4: Well, so you could do a lot worse than that.

993
00:49:26,519 --> 00:49:29,960
But if you want an absolutely terrible secular movie, I

994
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:35,280
think possibly the worst movie ever made with real cameras

995
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:39,800
and real lighting was a movie called Blackbird by the

996
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,960
guy who started River Dance Flatley, Michael Flatley.

997
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the story behind us is absolutely amazing. The

998
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:50,239
Irish government enacted all these laws, as many countries do,

999
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,800
to try to encourage Hollywood productions to come and make

1000
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:55,239
their movies in Ireland, and part of this is like,

1001
00:49:55,679 --> 00:49:59,199
if you hire Irish people to work on your movie.

1002
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,599
The government will imburshi fifty percent of their salary if

1003
00:50:02,639 --> 00:50:07,760
you hire locations. If you rent out locations in Ireland,

1004
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:08,840
the government will give you.

1005
00:50:09,039 --> 00:50:10,039
Speaker 4: A certain reimbursement.

1006
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:12,800
Speaker 3: So Michael Flatley came up with this great scam where

1007
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:16,039
he was making a fake movie and renting Irish locations

1008
00:50:16,079 --> 00:50:19,800
from himself and then getting the government to reimburse him.

1009
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:23,400
Right and he was hiring his own restaurant staff during

1010
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,239
the restaurant or the restaurant scene and getting the government

1011
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:29,880
to reimburse him. And he did this for years and

1012
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:31,480
the only thing they had to show for it was

1013
00:50:31,519 --> 00:50:33,440
this preview, because he had to like at least keep

1014
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:35,079
up the pretense that this was a real movie.

1015
00:50:35,119 --> 00:50:36,760
Speaker 4: But eventually the government.

1016
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:38,719
Speaker 3: Kind of came to him and said, hey, man, if

1017
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:40,880
you don't make a real movie out of this, at

1018
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:43,440
some point you have to give the money back. And

1019
00:50:43,519 --> 00:50:47,639
so they put this hurried nonsense thing together to try

1020
00:50:47,639 --> 00:50:50,880
to string the scenes from the preview into a real movie.

1021
00:50:51,199 --> 00:50:55,880
And it's just such an afterthought of a disaster. If

1022
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:58,960
you love bad movies, this one should absolutely be on

1023
00:50:59,000 --> 00:50:59,440
your list.

1024
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:03,159
Speaker 2: It sounds that you've a bull model. He made Blood

1025
00:51:03,199 --> 00:51:06,239
Brain and some others, and I guess he got government subsidies.

1026
00:51:07,039 --> 00:51:10,519
And it has been argued that the worst the film

1027
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,119
was somehow he was able to get a kickback, so

1028
00:51:13,199 --> 00:51:15,239
he made shitty movies on purpose. I don't even know

1029
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:18,559
if that's true. I need it to be true. That

1030
00:51:19,679 --> 00:51:21,119
sounds similar, right.

1031
00:51:21,559 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very similar to his model, Okay, I would

1032
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,320
I would say worst movies though, Yeah, there was.

1033
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:30,440
Speaker 2: Any time you make a video game film, you're probably

1034
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:33,360
in shaky territory, you know, because that's rarely done well

1035
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,119
at all. But he did. I think it was called

1036
00:51:35,199 --> 00:51:37,599
House of the Dead or Island of the Dead, where

1037
00:51:37,679 --> 00:51:39,800
these people are on a boat and they end up

1038
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:42,920
on a zombie infested island and then all of a sudden,

1039
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:47,519
they all somehow miraculously know how to do martial arts,

1040
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:51,719
so they're flying through the air doing all these ninja

1041
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:56,320
moves some yea, you know, the rave music's playing as

1042
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:58,760
that kind of classic film kind of deal.

1043
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,039
Speaker 3: Yeah, not Sega's proudest moment there. It's right beneath the

1044
00:52:02,079 --> 00:52:05,800
time that Sonic the Hedgehog's balloon guide in the middle

1045
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:07,719
of the Mazy S Day Parade, And I think I

1046
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:10,280
think we reviewed that one on got awful movies at

1047
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:10,679
some point.

1048
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,679
Speaker 2: I know there's a new Mortal Kombat film. Those have

1049
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,079
been kind of hit and miss. But you've watched the

1050
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:21,679
challenge of taking a gaming experience to the big screen

1051
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:25,159
and how rarely it works. It's not that it's never worked,

1052
00:52:25,599 --> 00:52:27,719
but I guess I have a two part question. Do

1053
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:30,800
you have thoughts as to why the translation is so hard?

1054
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,320
And do you have like a best and worst of

1055
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:35,599
video game films?

1056
00:52:36,119 --> 00:52:36,239
Speaker 1: Well?

1057
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:38,039
Speaker 4: I think the House of the Dead is a pretty good.

1058
00:52:39,519 --> 00:52:41,800
Speaker 3: Nominee for worst of them, but I think actually the

1059
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:46,159
Super Mario Over the first Super Mario Brothers movie, would probably.

1060
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:47,519
Speaker 4: Have to take the cake there. I think.

1061
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 3: You know, the biggest problem that you have most of

1062
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:52,840
the time is the same as the biggest problem that

1063
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:55,280
you have in video game writing. Right. It's a thing

1064
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:58,679
called loudo narrative dissonance, which is the fact that what

1065
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,519
the gameplay demand of you and what the story demands

1066
00:53:01,519 --> 00:53:05,000
of you are almost always two completely different things. Right,

1067
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:08,360
So there are very few stories where the next logical

1068
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:09,880
thing in the story is for you to go out

1069
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:14,159
and kill six hundred more orcs right or upgrader bags

1070
00:53:14,159 --> 00:53:18,039
so that you can put more arrows in it or

1071
00:53:18,079 --> 00:53:19,719
what have you. And it's very often in a game

1072
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,280
you're like, well, if the entire universe is at stake here,

1073
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:24,519
you would think that this merchant would just give me

1074
00:53:24,599 --> 00:53:27,880
the largest available quiver for my arrows and not make

1075
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:29,960
me go out and you know, get my own leather.

1076
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:35,119
And so whenever you're writing for a game, you have

1077
00:53:35,159 --> 00:53:37,760
to take all of that stuff into account, and those things,

1078
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,800
those things that are created to make the game work,

1079
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:44,920
end up becoming canonical elements of the story, right, Like

1080
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:49,480
so with the Assassin's Creed games. Originally one of the

1081
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:52,760
clever things that Assassin's Creed did is they said, well,

1082
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:55,079
these are all memories, and the reason you can't go

1083
00:53:55,159 --> 00:53:57,519
into that part of the town is because that person

1084
00:53:57,559 --> 00:53:59,599
never went there and he doesn't remember what it looks like.

1085
00:53:59,679 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 2: Right.

1086
00:54:00,079 --> 00:54:02,519
Speaker 3: So this was all developed early on as a reason

1087
00:54:02,559 --> 00:54:04,840
why there would be artificial limitations on the city that

1088
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:11,199
you're walking through. Of course, as the Assassin Screed game

1089
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,679
franchise continued to get more and more popular, that element

1090
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:17,760
had to stay with it. So that's a weird accumulation

1091
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:20,960
that the game has that serves no narrative function, but

1092
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:23,119
that anybody who wants to make a movie about it

1093
00:54:23,199 --> 00:54:25,000
is now stuck with so And.

1094
00:54:25,199 --> 00:54:29,039
Speaker 2: The list is long and indistinguished. But I remember, and

1095
00:54:29,119 --> 00:54:32,039
some of these are pretty old. The Super Mario I

1096
00:54:32,119 --> 00:54:35,320
remember watching I bought a ticket for Super Mario Brothers,

1097
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:38,440
the movie with Bob Hoskins, and I remember thinking, this

1098
00:54:38,519 --> 00:54:42,800
film is so disconnected from the gaming experience. It was dark,

1099
00:54:43,039 --> 00:54:46,000
it was dystopian. It was kind of grimy, like I

1100
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,599
felt kind of gross, and I'm like, the game is clean,

1101
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:53,159
happy colors and Boeing buying, buying, and you're getting coins

1102
00:54:53,159 --> 00:54:55,119
and doing all this stuff, and instead it was like

1103
00:54:55,559 --> 00:54:58,480
it's like somebody had a really bad Blade Runner and

1104
00:54:58,519 --> 00:55:01,079
you know, they threw a few mon A characters in,

1105
00:55:01,159 --> 00:55:02,920
but I just felt like I was I felt I

1106
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:06,920
left depressed. It was just sad. And then the Street

1107
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:10,519
Fighter that was a piece of crap. I wanted to

1108
00:55:10,639 --> 00:55:13,960
like the Resident Evil films. I wanted to like him

1109
00:55:14,639 --> 00:55:18,519
Wing Commander Doom was awful. Prince of Persia blood rain.

1110
00:55:19,079 --> 00:55:22,559
My problem with Doom was this beyond the fact that

1111
00:55:22,599 --> 00:55:24,840
the Rock was in it, and I'm like, why why

1112
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:29,000
would you do that? But they didn't use real demons

1113
00:55:29,039 --> 00:55:32,519
like isn't Doom. You're opening the portal to Hell and

1114
00:55:32,559 --> 00:55:34,800
you're battling demons. Wasn't that the game?

1115
00:55:35,039 --> 00:55:36,079
Speaker 4: That's the whole concept.

1116
00:55:36,199 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they're like they took the easy way out,

1117
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:41,480
and they're like, wow, you know, we don't want to

1118
00:55:41,559 --> 00:55:44,079
use hel on real demons, so they ended up using

1119
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:49,639
creatures from another dimension. Just oh, just took to That's

1120
00:55:49,639 --> 00:55:53,239
weak sauce. Noah, that's weak sauce. Did you see Doom?

1121
00:55:53,599 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 4: I didn't see the movie.

1122
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:58,920
Speaker 2: No, Wow, fine, fine, I subject myself to the bad

1123
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,719
video game movies. Well you subject yourself to the bad

1124
00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:05,400
religious movies. Maybe this all evens out. So any other

1125
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:08,119
any other worsts on your list?

1126
00:56:09,360 --> 00:56:12,559
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think of, Uh, yeah, like the Resident

1127
00:56:12,639 --> 00:56:14,639
Evil ones. I mean, the Resident Evil is some of

1128
00:56:14,679 --> 00:56:16,880
the silliest writing in the history of video games. So

1129
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:19,280
that was a pretty big uphill battle that they had

1130
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:22,280
to fight there. I it would be very hard for

1131
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:25,440
me to hate the newer Super Mario Brothers, the Chris

1132
00:56:25,519 --> 00:56:29,920
Pratt Super Mario Brothers movies more than I do. Why

1133
00:56:29,559 --> 00:56:34,039
there's just strike me as just meaningless fan service. There's

1134
00:56:34,079 --> 00:56:37,000
just no no real story going on there. It's just like,

1135
00:56:37,039 --> 00:56:39,320
oh look, here's another thing from that game, you like.

1136
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:41,280
Speaker 2: You know, just a big commercial kind of thing.

1137
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just no real effort at at at telling

1138
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:48,760
a story within this world. Just just more an effort

1139
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:51,599
of throwing as many Easter eggs as they possibly can

1140
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:52,079
at you.

1141
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:57,679
Speaker 2: Do you get the cynical about the disnification of major franchises.

1142
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:00,480
A lot of people flipped out about Star Wars. I don't.

1143
00:57:01,079 --> 00:57:04,559
I'm not, you know, I'm not a purist. Like, if

1144
00:57:04,599 --> 00:57:07,079
they've got resources and can tell a good story, I'll

1145
00:57:07,079 --> 00:57:11,000
probably go see the new Mandalorian Grogu film. I mean, yeah,

1146
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:13,440
I don't know. Do you feel like it's all been

1147
00:57:13,519 --> 00:57:18,079
kind of I don't know, homogenized by the big corporations.

1148
00:57:19,199 --> 00:57:19,599
Speaker 4: I don't know.

1149
00:57:19,719 --> 00:57:22,239
Speaker 3: It seems to me a little bit of a weird

1150
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:27,079
argument to be arguing that Star Wars has gotten too commercial, right,

1151
00:57:27,199 --> 00:57:30,360
Like it's sort of the whole point of it. I mean,

1152
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:33,559
I take issues with the way that Disney has handled

1153
00:57:33,559 --> 00:57:36,119
the Star Wars franchise, you know, I don't think they've

1154
00:57:36,159 --> 00:57:38,440
done a great job with it, although I'm super excited

1155
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:43,639
about Mandalorian and Grogu as well. But yeah, I mean,

1156
00:57:43,719 --> 00:57:46,239
you know, look, I'm not going to complain about anything

1157
00:57:46,239 --> 00:57:48,199
that brought us Rogue one and and ors, so.

1158
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 2: Really, I mean, we really enjoyed them. And it's almost

1159
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,719
like when somebody likes an indie band that makes it

1160
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:57,679
big and they're like, if they have a hit song, man,

1161
00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:01,360
I'm never going to listen to them again. They're commercial now.

1162
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:03,000
It's almost like we want to keep stuff in our

1163
00:58:03,079 --> 00:58:06,679
back pocket. If you enjoy it, you enjoy it, so

1164
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:09,800
and hopefully we'll have a culture in which we can

1165
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:13,679
enjoy things. And our final segment, I'm going to see

1166
00:58:13,679 --> 00:58:16,599
if I get No Illusions to sound off do a

1167
00:58:16,719 --> 00:58:20,800
Dia tribe about the state of politics and perhaps the

1168
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:23,519
future of the United States given all the stuff that's

1169
00:58:23,559 --> 00:58:25,800
going on around us. I know he's got an opinion

1170
00:58:26,079 --> 00:58:35,400
and we'll hear it next. Continuing now, a conversation with

1171
00:58:35,519 --> 00:58:42,480
podcast host, author, activist, humanist, and nice guy No Illusions.

1172
00:58:43,079 --> 00:58:45,559
I don't know I got to end on a heavier note,

1173
00:58:45,639 --> 00:58:48,239
but as we head into the last half of twenty

1174
00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:52,079
twenty six, every moment is a no shit moment. You're

1175
00:58:52,119 --> 00:58:58,239
a cultural commentator. Do you have any predictions, hopes, fears

1176
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:01,840
about you know, just what the United States is even

1177
00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:04,440
going to look like in the next few months.

1178
00:59:05,599 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm really hesitant to say anything optimistic

1179
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,639
because a it's sort of against my brand, right, I'm

1180
00:59:13,639 --> 00:59:16,599
supposed to be the pessimist and be there's just nothing

1181
00:59:16,639 --> 00:59:20,519
to get optimistic about. I mean, I have a perverse

1182
00:59:20,599 --> 00:59:23,480
hope that all of this redistricting that the Republicans are

1183
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:28,199
doing underestimates the amount of shift there has been towards

1184
00:59:28,239 --> 00:59:33,840
Democrats as Trump has fucked the economy. So my hope

1185
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:36,119
is that a lot of these safe Republican districts that

1186
00:59:36,159 --> 00:59:40,639
they think that they're creating actually aren't safe. But given

1187
00:59:40,679 --> 00:59:43,159
the fact that they've sort of given up any pretense

1188
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:47,280
of democracy, and given the fact that the Court has

1189
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:51,159
given up any pretense of justice, I I find I

1190
00:59:51,159 --> 00:59:53,440
find it very hard to see anything positive in this

1191
00:59:53,519 --> 00:59:54,360
country's future.

1192
00:59:54,679 --> 00:59:57,679
Speaker 2: I have shifted in my own mind, and I can't

1193
00:59:57,679 --> 01:00:01,159
tell if it's right. You know, We're all like, we

1194
01:00:01,199 --> 01:00:03,559
need to play by the rules, and we need to

1195
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:07,760
obey established norms, and we need to take the high road.

1196
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:11,719
And meanwhile they're scrambling and bending and breaking every rule

1197
01:00:12,199 --> 01:00:15,960
in the book in their favor and it's working. And

1198
01:00:16,039 --> 01:00:19,239
so I kind of come to this point where I'm like, fine,

1199
01:00:19,760 --> 01:00:22,840
you want to redistrict, Fine, let's go in a redistrict

1200
01:00:23,239 --> 01:00:25,599
and let's go and just sort of change the whole

1201
01:00:25,639 --> 01:00:27,960
freaking map. You want to set those rules, Fine, we'll

1202
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:30,440
play by your rules and let's just see how it

1203
01:00:30,519 --> 01:00:33,559
shakes out, regardless of what the law says, or you know,

1204
01:00:33,599 --> 01:00:36,159
whether or not they aberated the law. I don't know.

1205
01:00:36,199 --> 01:00:39,639
I feel like we're in a street fight, and that's

1206
01:00:39,719 --> 01:00:40,679
kind of where I've landed.

1207
01:00:40,679 --> 01:00:43,400
Speaker 3: Noah, Yeah, No, We're very much in a street fight

1208
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:46,880
where we're going well, nothing below the belt. But the

1209
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:49,159
scary thing about that is, of course, if both sides

1210
01:00:49,159 --> 01:00:52,000
abandoned that at the same time, you never know what

1211
01:00:52,079 --> 01:00:53,679
you're where you're going to land, right. You look at

1212
01:00:53,679 --> 01:00:55,960
something like the Iranian Revolution, which was started for all

1213
01:00:56,039 --> 01:00:59,559
kinds of really good reasons, but because you know, they

1214
01:01:00,159 --> 01:01:03,039
because everybody had sort of abandoned the norms, abandoned the rules.

1215
01:01:03,079 --> 01:01:04,639
Then at the end, when there was sort of a

1216
01:01:04,719 --> 01:01:08,960
scramble for power, something even worse grew in instead. So,

1217
01:01:09,639 --> 01:01:13,599
you know, the the value of the rules based order

1218
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:16,360
is that you know what you're getting at the end

1219
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:19,159
of the day, at least, you know, to some degree,

1220
01:01:19,239 --> 01:01:23,480
and if everybody abandons it, you know, it's just a

1221
01:01:23,519 --> 01:01:26,480
complete crapshoot as to what we wind up with if

1222
01:01:26,800 --> 01:01:29,719
if we have to burn the house down to save it,

1223
01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:33,440
you know, that's we haven't really saved much.

1224
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:37,599
Speaker 2: It's messy. It's so messy, and I don't I think

1225
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:39,760
people some of it will call me seth, what do

1226
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:43,079
you think the answer is, like, you're calling the wrong guy.

1227
01:01:43,519 --> 01:01:48,159
Like I'm as alarmed and overwhelmed and confused and frustrated

1228
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:51,079
as anybody else. And then we've got all of these

1229
01:01:51,119 --> 01:01:54,000
effigies and statues and posters. Have you ever seen a

1230
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:57,840
man who has masturbated publicly as much as Donald Trump?

1231
01:01:57,880 --> 01:02:01,039
I mean, oh my god, God, that guy can, I mean,

1232
01:02:01,119 --> 01:02:04,320
and we're doing it. His face is on the park pass,

1233
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:06,480
and he's got the golden statue at mar A Lago,

1234
01:02:06,519 --> 01:02:08,840
and he's got the banner off the DOJ which is

1235
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:11,719
supposed to be an a political organization, and he's I mean,

1236
01:02:11,719 --> 01:02:14,519
he literally is hanging his face everywhere. And I didn't

1237
01:02:14,519 --> 01:02:17,159
hear someone say this, and I don't know, I think

1238
01:02:17,199 --> 01:02:20,239
it may be true. There's no statue or poster or

1239
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:24,039
banner or whatever that he can establish that we cannot

1240
01:02:24,079 --> 01:02:27,840
eventually tear down almost you know, I have that mental

1241
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:31,280
picture after the Iraq War, and we can have that discussion.

1242
01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:34,639
But when they put the ropes on the Saddam statue

1243
01:02:34,719 --> 01:02:37,320
and ripped it to the ground, I don't know, do

1244
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:39,199
you you feel like that way? I mean, he can

1245
01:02:39,239 --> 01:02:41,360
put up the stuff and then we can go and

1246
01:02:41,360 --> 01:02:43,800
we can just all strip it down whenever it's all

1247
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:44,639
over kind of thing.

1248
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:49,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the phrase, if I recall correctly in

1249
01:02:49,079 --> 01:02:53,920
Latin's damnatio memoriam, where we damn the memory, we rub

1250
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:56,280
the face off all the statues and just try to

1251
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:58,280
erase him from the history books.

1252
01:02:58,480 --> 01:03:00,559
Speaker 4: And I have a lot of high hope about that.

1253
01:03:00,599 --> 01:03:03,639
Speaker 3: You know, I have watched this country completely lose its

1254
01:03:03,679 --> 01:03:05,800
mind and then wake up ten years later and go,

1255
01:03:06,280 --> 01:03:08,559
what the hell were we thinking with the Patriot Act?

1256
01:03:08,679 --> 01:03:09,079
Speaker 4: Right, So.

1257
01:03:10,719 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 3: That's possible. It's possible that we have that kind of

1258
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:17,199
a shift ahead. But I think we've learned so much

1259
01:03:17,239 --> 01:03:20,719
about what Americans really are from the Trump administration. I mean,

1260
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:22,320
keep in mind, you know, you were talking about that

1261
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:24,800
thirty eight percent approval rating, and some people have him

1262
01:03:24,840 --> 01:03:27,119
down as low as thirty. But like, the reason that

1263
01:03:27,159 --> 01:03:31,079
people lowered their opinion of him wasn't because of.

1264
01:03:31,079 --> 01:03:33,599
Speaker 4: All the awful stuff he did. It's because the incompetent

1265
01:03:33,639 --> 01:03:34,320
stuff he did.

1266
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:39,320
Speaker 3: Right, Like, these people wouldn't have stop if the economy

1267
01:03:39,400 --> 01:03:41,840
was doing better, if gas prices weren't high, if the

1268
01:03:41,880 --> 01:03:44,920
Iran war had been more successful, his approval rating would

1269
01:03:44,960 --> 01:03:46,760
still be hovering in the high forties.

1270
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:49,119
Speaker 2: We didn't mind if he did it to other people

1271
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:52,599
when he did it to us, Well, now it's all right.

1272
01:03:52,679 --> 01:03:56,039
You know, when our bank accounts are affected, or when

1273
01:03:56,079 --> 01:03:59,159
our rights are infringed, or whenever we're getting screwed at

1274
01:03:59,199 --> 01:04:02,800
the gas pomp pot. Well now now it's on, and

1275
01:04:03,599 --> 01:04:06,000
it has been a black light at the crime scene

1276
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:09,440
for sure. And I'm still pissed at non participants in

1277
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:14,199
twenty twenty four, those sort of idealistic protest non voters

1278
01:04:14,239 --> 01:04:16,760
who told me that the high road was not to

1279
01:04:16,760 --> 01:04:19,119
participate in the game. If you play the game, you've

1280
01:04:19,159 --> 01:04:21,960
already lost. I'm livid at those people and they come

1281
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:24,239
after me in the comments section. You're not going to

1282
01:04:24,360 --> 01:04:27,679
shame me into participating in the political process, And I'm like,

1283
01:04:27,920 --> 01:04:30,280
I don't think you're going to participate. I just think

1284
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:32,880
you're an asshole. I was just kind of where I fall.

1285
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:34,719
Do you feel that at all?

1286
01:04:34,840 --> 01:04:36,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was this meme that was making its way

1287
01:04:36,960 --> 01:04:39,480
around a little while back that says, I'm going to

1288
01:04:39,519 --> 01:04:41,760
script the wording, but it said something along the lines of,

1289
01:04:41,800 --> 01:04:45,719
you know, if you're blaming our non participation for your loss,

1290
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:49,000
then obviously you've got to put somebody that we like

1291
01:04:49,119 --> 01:04:51,440
in next time, Right, it would make no sense to

1292
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:53,480
blame us for the loss and then not listen to

1293
01:04:53,559 --> 01:04:57,719
us next time. And my response to that was just like, wow, Yeah,

1294
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:01,000
if you don't learn my lesson, who will the.

1295
01:05:01,039 --> 01:05:03,159
Speaker 2: Perfect is the enemy of the good. I mean, the

1296
01:05:03,199 --> 01:05:07,039
house is on fire. I just think, you know, and

1297
01:05:07,079 --> 01:05:09,000
I get it. I mean they on the border in

1298
01:05:09,000 --> 01:05:11,199
Palestine and Kamala and all those things that they would

1299
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:14,159
just stick right there. And I understand Gaza was a

1300
01:05:14,159 --> 01:05:16,599
big sticking point, and I understand, but I'm like, all

1301
01:05:16,639 --> 01:05:20,199
things are not relative. And I'm also angry that I think,

1302
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:24,239
how freaking blind or delusional did you have to be

1303
01:05:24,320 --> 01:05:27,119
in twenty sixteen when you saw him coming? I saw

1304
01:05:27,159 --> 01:05:29,440
him coming. Tens of millions of people saw this con

1305
01:05:29,519 --> 01:05:32,719
man coming. Hell even people in his administration. I'm thinking

1306
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:35,920
about Vance and Marco Rubio and all the other people

1307
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:37,960
who came forward and said, this man's a gruptor and

1308
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:40,360
a con man and a showman. No one should believe

1309
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:42,360
his shit. And then he gets elected and they're like,

1310
01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:44,239
we love you, and they stick their head right up

1311
01:05:44,239 --> 01:05:45,639
his ass, right.

1312
01:05:46,639 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely well.

1313
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:51,239
Speaker 3: And then the one that was so bizarre to me

1314
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:53,280
was in twenty twenty four when we're trying to convince

1315
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:54,400
people of this and we're.

1316
01:05:54,239 --> 01:05:58,079
Speaker 4: Like, where the hell were you six years ago? Right?

1317
01:05:58,239 --> 01:06:00,599
Speaker 3: We had all of these people, all of these non voters,

1318
01:06:00,599 --> 01:06:03,320
all these people who just couldn't be bothered that were

1319
01:06:03,480 --> 01:06:05,480
like pointing out, well, you know, Trump says he's going

1320
01:06:05,559 --> 01:06:06,440
to do X, Y and Z.

1321
01:06:06,639 --> 01:06:08,760
Speaker 4: Well, who gives a ship what he says? You were?

1322
01:06:08,840 --> 01:06:11,719
Speaker 3: He was just there four years ago. You saw what

1323
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:15,159
a liar this guy was. Would you rump still skin

1324
01:06:15,239 --> 01:06:18,000
your not Rumble Skills, whichever one s lept for too long?

1325
01:06:18,079 --> 01:06:22,159
Speaker 2: Given I think it was. I think it was Rumple

1326
01:06:22,199 --> 01:06:22,679
skill skin.

1327
01:06:23,079 --> 01:06:24,840
Speaker 3: Okay I may have gotten that one, right, I'm too

1328
01:06:24,880 --> 01:06:30,519
angry google it, but yeah, it's it's it's just it's

1329
01:06:30,519 --> 01:06:33,800
incredible to be. You know, a lot of people say

1330
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:36,199
American voters have a short memory. Every American voters have

1331
01:06:36,199 --> 01:06:38,159
the memory of a gold fish. It's not that, right,

1332
01:06:38,239 --> 01:06:41,400
It's that they don't care. It's that they don't care until,

1333
01:06:41,480 --> 01:06:46,679
like you said, their uh, personal finances are affected by it.

1334
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:50,519
Speaker 2: All right. In the comments section, it's rip van Winkle.

1335
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:53,639
Don't just don't send the email. Don't send the email.

1336
01:06:53,679 --> 01:06:57,880
We've course corrected. Good science corrects itself when it comes

1337
01:06:57,880 --> 01:07:02,039
across the accurate information. Last thing, and I'll let you go.

1338
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:06,039
So we see, despite all the Christian Nationalism Project twenty

1339
01:07:06,119 --> 01:07:08,639
twenty five, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this

1340
01:07:08,719 --> 01:07:14,199
country totally turned into a far right history revisionist rally

1341
01:07:14,199 --> 01:07:19,760
of zealot and hateful people. But the rise of the

1342
01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:24,079
non religious in the United States cannot be ignored. So

1343
01:07:24,239 --> 01:07:27,039
more and more the government standing in contradiction to the

1344
01:07:27,119 --> 01:07:31,239
values and the culture of everyday people. Do you have

1345
01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:34,760
any thoughts about if they're not atheists, they're certainly not

1346
01:07:34,840 --> 01:07:38,239
all that interested in religion, sort of the core grassroots

1347
01:07:38,239 --> 01:07:40,119
of the United States. You have any thoughts on that?

1348
01:07:41,199 --> 01:07:44,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a really interesting myth that's going

1349
01:07:44,559 --> 01:07:48,920
on right now Visa VI the resurgence of religion amongst

1350
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:49,480
young men.

1351
01:07:50,039 --> 01:07:50,199
Speaker 1: Right.

1352
01:07:50,440 --> 01:07:53,000
Speaker 3: You hear this quite a bit, and there's some statistical

1353
01:07:53,039 --> 01:07:55,760
evidence that maybe this is happening. There's a lot more

1354
01:07:55,760 --> 01:07:58,679
statistical evidence that it's not. But what it's mostly built

1355
01:07:58,719 --> 01:08:03,039
on is this anecdotal evidence that pastors and preachers and

1356
01:08:03,039 --> 01:08:05,920
religious leaders are saying, wow, my congregation is made up

1357
01:08:05,960 --> 01:08:08,360
more and more of young men, Like there's a higher

1358
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:11,000
percentage of young men than there used to be. Now,

1359
01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:13,880
the story here is that young women are leaving the

1360
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:18,960
church and they're not coming back. Right, For so many years,

1361
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:21,520
the church was able to perpetuate itself by appealing to

1362
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:24,680
women and counting on them to come back to the

1363
01:08:24,760 --> 01:08:26,880
church when they had kids and they were ready for

1364
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:30,560
these traditional family values and things like that. And that's

1365
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:34,600
just not happening for him anymore. Now it's possible that religion,

1366
01:08:34,640 --> 01:08:39,840
that the church can sustain itself without that maternal influence,

1367
01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:43,680
without mothers raising their children in the church and pushing

1368
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:46,399
their children towards religious values. But if they're going to

1369
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:48,920
I don't know how the hell they're going to do it.

1370
01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:52,079
It will have to be something entirely new, So if

1371
01:08:52,119 --> 01:08:53,920
you need a hope for the future, that's where mine

1372
01:08:53,960 --> 01:08:54,359
is right now.

1373
01:08:54,359 --> 01:08:57,039
Speaker 2: We saw that during COVID, right, people finally had an

1374
01:08:57,079 --> 01:09:00,640
excuse not to get up on Sunday morning. Ah yeahquarantine,

1375
01:09:00,720 --> 01:09:03,840
you know, social distancing. And then they were sleeping in

1376
01:09:03,920 --> 01:09:05,920
or doing their own thing on Sundays and thought, hey,

1377
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:08,760
this is kind of nice. And then when the pandemic

1378
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:12,680
pretty much ended, they didn't go back, and churches are

1379
01:09:12,680 --> 01:09:14,880
still reeling, and I did find a sense of joy,

1380
01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:18,479
like people are discovering. I mean church has always been

1381
01:09:19,119 --> 01:09:23,239
for most people. I think Christianity, religion, whatever, is really

1382
01:09:23,279 --> 01:09:27,239
more of a social exercise, right. I belong it's an identity,

1383
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:30,159
it's a community, but we don't need religion to do that.

1384
01:09:30,279 --> 01:09:31,840
I do think a lot of people are starting to

1385
01:09:31,840 --> 01:09:32,800
figure that out.

1386
01:09:32,960 --> 01:09:35,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a weird litmus test. I think COVID

1387
01:09:35,640 --> 01:09:36,960
was there were a lot of things that we all

1388
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:39,159
had to stop doing. And then once COVID was over,

1389
01:09:39,439 --> 01:09:41,520
there were certain spells that were broken, right, Like people

1390
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:43,880
just never really went back to the movies like they

1391
01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:46,439
did before COVID. And then there were other things that

1392
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:49,199
we realized that we actually truly missed, right, Like people

1393
01:09:49,239 --> 01:09:51,119
go out to eat a lot more now than they,

1394
01:09:51,199 --> 01:09:53,720
or at least I know in the years immediately after COVID,

1395
01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:55,680
because that's one of those things that we really missed

1396
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:57,520
and that we really wanted back. And I think it

1397
01:09:57,560 --> 01:10:00,840
was a great chance for the whole country to reevaluate

1398
01:10:01,319 --> 01:10:05,640
what mattered and what didn't. And yeah, Church firmly fell

1399
01:10:05,680 --> 01:10:07,760
on the side of didn't for an awful lot of people.

1400
01:10:07,920 --> 01:10:10,560
Speaker 2: I'm good with it. I'm okay with it. No illusions.

1401
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:13,600
How do people find you and your your work? I

1402
01:10:14,000 --> 01:10:15,520
say your work like you're going to send me in

1403
01:10:15,560 --> 01:10:18,199
twenty directions? But how do people find you in your work?

1404
01:10:18,760 --> 01:10:20,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, wherever you get your podcast, just look for the

1405
01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:23,680
scathing atheist or gone awful movies and those shows will

1406
01:10:23,680 --> 01:10:25,159
send you to the all the other ones.

1407
01:10:25,239 --> 01:10:27,479
Speaker 2: Okay, and Noah and I taken the stage for a

1408
01:10:27,520 --> 01:10:31,079
three hour event Cincinnati, July the eleventh. This is going

1409
01:10:31,119 --> 01:10:36,000
to be right before the Arc Encounter protest in Williamstown, Kentucky.

1410
01:10:36,319 --> 01:10:38,760
No have you ever done the ark and counter protest before?

1411
01:10:39,319 --> 01:10:39,600
Speaker 4: I have?

1412
01:10:39,880 --> 01:10:40,119
Speaker 1: I have.

1413
01:10:40,239 --> 01:10:42,920
Speaker 3: I was there with them, I think on the seventh anniversary,

1414
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:43,800
on the seventh one.

1415
01:10:43,840 --> 01:10:45,560
Speaker 2: It's a ton of fun, awesome for those who don't

1416
01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:47,960
know what it is, real, real fast, indulge me everybody.

1417
01:10:48,399 --> 01:10:51,439
So Canahan bills this one hundred and ten million dollar

1418
01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:57,039
paper weight in Williamstown, which is supposedly an exact replica

1419
01:10:57,199 --> 01:11:00,680
of the Arc, except it's not. It's like a building

1420
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:03,560
with an ARC on the front and the woods already deteriorating,

1421
01:11:03,600 --> 01:11:05,520
even though it was built with state of the art

1422
01:11:05,560 --> 01:11:09,279
construction equipment. And he's playing both sides. On one side,

1423
01:11:09,279 --> 01:11:11,760
he says, I'm tax exempt because I'm a church and

1424
01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:14,640
ministry five oh one c three Oh. Look, I'm a

1425
01:11:14,640 --> 01:11:18,119
tourist organization bringing in dollars so now we can operate

1426
01:11:18,159 --> 01:11:21,239
for profits. So he's really got it. He's got it made.

1427
01:11:21,560 --> 01:11:25,640
But I don't know if his Tri State Freethinkers, Kentucky Atheists,

1428
01:11:25,640 --> 01:11:29,000
several groups sort of come together in the They congregate

1429
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:33,159
on the entry area of the ark Encounter and just

1430
01:11:33,239 --> 01:11:37,880
hold up funky signs funny stuff. Genocide and Incest Park

1431
01:11:38,039 --> 01:11:40,560
is one of the signs, and they just sort of

1432
01:11:40,960 --> 01:11:43,840
make some noises. People either drive by or go into

1433
01:11:43,880 --> 01:11:47,079
the Ark in counter. It's kind of awesome that's happening

1434
01:11:47,119 --> 01:11:49,399
on July the twelfth. So if you're going to begin

1435
01:11:49,399 --> 01:11:51,880
in the area you can do both. Details on all

1436
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:58,119
of that The Thinkingatheist dot com slash events Noah, thanks

1437
01:11:58,119 --> 01:12:00,880
for spending over an hour chatting me. I'll look forward

1438
01:12:00,880 --> 01:12:02,680
to seeing you in person here in a few weeks.

1439
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:04,479
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, super excited.

1440
01:12:04,479 --> 01:12:08,119
Speaker 1: Thanks so follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter

1441
01:12:08,359 --> 01:12:11,800
for a complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like

1442
01:12:11,880 --> 01:12:15,199
mugs and t shirts featuring the Thinking Atheist logo, links

1443
01:12:15,199 --> 01:12:19,039
to atheist pages and resources, and details on upcoming free

1444
01:12:19,039 --> 01:12:23,720
thought events and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist

1445
01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:26,880
dot com