Speaker 1: Symbolism is a funny thing, isn't it, Finding inference and
Speaker 1: meaning in the things that we see and on a nerd,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love finding all those little references
Speaker 1: in the things that I watch in the media I consume. Now,
Speaker 1: as you may know, at the Summer Olympic Games this year,
Speaker 1: part of the opening ceremony was a tableau a feast
Speaker 1: or meal depicting people of many different creeds and colors,
Speaker 1: centered around I believe a drag queen or transgendered person Haload,
Speaker 1: and in the foreground a near naked man in blue
Speaker 1: wreathed only in a few bunches of grapes. Christians immediately
Speaker 1: jumped on this, staying that it was blasphemous and that
Speaker 1: they were draping the satanic and the degenerate on the
Speaker 1: classic imagery of da Vinci's depiction of the Last Supper. Now,
Speaker 1: we have to be careful when we interpret things that
Speaker 1: our biases do not overly color our interpretations. And later
Speaker 1: it was clarified by the organizers that it was actually
Speaker 1: a reference to a Genderbila painting called Feast of the Gods,
Speaker 1: depicting the Roman god backer Sorr. If you prefer the
Speaker 1: original Greek Dionysus, god of wine, merriment, and madness. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how about you, but I don't remember
Speaker 1: a half naked blue bloke photo bombing that picture of
Speaker 1: the most auspicious of evening meals, depicting people that probably
Speaker 1: looked the way that they did, doing something that we
Speaker 1: can't prove actually happened. So to me, this is just
Speaker 1: another example of the reactionary persecution complex of Christian fundamentalists.
Speaker 1: It highlights their need to have these sacred things that
Speaker 1: cannot be countenanced, and the hypocrisy of calling atheist degenerate
Speaker 1: and drag queens satan while claiming offence themselves. And so
Speaker 1: what if it was the Last Supper drag Race edition,
Speaker 1: Why should we hold these things so sacred? Why can't
Speaker 1: we make fun? It may not have happened at all,
Speaker 1: It certainly didn't look that way if it did, So
Speaker 1: why can't we have a little bit of a jape?
Speaker 1: Is God so emotionally sensitive? So if you can think
Speaker 1: of any reason why we can't poke a little fun
Speaker 1: at any piece of artwork, religious or otherwise. And I
Speaker 1: encourage you to call the show because it's starting now. Hello,
Speaker 1: and Welcome to Talk Heathen. It is a balmy Sunday,
Speaker 1: the fourth of August, and I am coming to you
Speaker 1: from my little hovel and I'm joined to you today
Speaker 1: by Helen Green. Hello, Helen, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jamie. I'm really excited to be here. I'm
Speaker 2: all like, I'm all about it, so I'm really excited.
Speaker 2: I hope the show today is going to be really interesting,
Speaker 2: and I hope we get some really cool calls and
Speaker 2: have some really great conversations.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I believe we actually already have a couple a
Speaker 1: call or two in the in the que already, but
Speaker 1: there's a few things we have to go through first.
Speaker 1: As ever, talk He is a product of the Atheist
Speaker 1: Community of Austin, a five OZHO one c three nonprofit
Speaker 1: organization dedicated to atheism, secular humanism, and rational thinking in
Speaker 1: the separation of religion and government. And if you want
Speaker 1: to get involved, like these people who are currently patiently
Speaker 1: waiting online are you can either call us Old School
Speaker 1: at the number five one two nine nine one nine
Speaker 1: two four to two, or if you're a bit new
Speaker 1: or new fangled, do go to the website tiny dot
Speaker 1: c C Forard slash call t H so fantastic. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to get started with We've got a couple
Speaker 1: of things to get sorted first. And first of all,
Speaker 1: I would like to enlist your help in going over
Speaker 1: our talk even to me segment last week we post
Speaker 1: posted or posed picky poison. Post you a question, why
Speaker 1: is God so angry? And if you do the honors
Speaker 1: in reading our top three answers.
Speaker 2: Yes, So the wrong answer is only there we got
Speaker 2: number three from and if I mispronounced your name, I
Speaker 2: am very sorry, Sarah Lee. Why yahweh is so angry
Speaker 2: because the Paris Olympics was in fact celebrating Dionysius and
Speaker 2: not making fun of the Last Supper persecuse. Some complexes
Speaker 2: are hard, yo, they are.
Speaker 1: I promise you. I came up with the Cold Open
Speaker 1: before I saw these. It's just it's so obvious.
Speaker 2: It's a theme now. Number two comes from Scott M.
Speaker 2: Gods Ay because he only gets sloppy seconds. Only those
Speaker 2: who let Jesus enter them reach the Father.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen. I won't I won't repeat the sign
Speaker 1: because of the inferences were I'm not more than ten
Speaker 1: minutes into it. I don't want even bod Dey monetized.
Speaker 1: But there are certain phrasings that are used around Jesus
Speaker 1: that could be construed the I know a.
Speaker 2: Dirty joke that I can say, But again I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get in trouble in the first
Speaker 2: ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the after show. For sure, I have had a
Speaker 1: top one.
Speaker 2: And one comes from Steve row God is ariy because
Speaker 2: Satan gets more tale which is true.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So also Satan really doesn't have that much of a
Speaker 1: rap sheet personally, like he seems to just be a
Speaker 1: guy doing his job.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so we have a problem for next week.
Speaker 2: So for you all your wonderful people that love to
Speaker 2: engage in our comics section, please give us your answers
Speaker 2: to next week prompt, which is what is a sub
Speaker 2: of clue that you picked the wrong religion? Again, the
Speaker 2: best top three answers will be read out and next
Speaker 2: week's show. So Jamie, let me pose that question to you.
Speaker 2: What makes you think you pick the wrong religion?
Speaker 1: If I mean the religion I'm in the wrong one
Speaker 1: because they let me in. How about yourself? You got
Speaker 1: to answer to that one.
Speaker 2: Weird sex stuff, there's always there's always weird sex stuff
Speaker 2: and now like like you know, like consensual fun sex stuff,
Speaker 2: stuff that makes you go is this legal?
Speaker 1: I'm just a reminder do put those in the comments
Speaker 1: down below, not in the live chat, because we won't
Speaker 1: see them. If they're in the live chat, they will
Speaker 1: not come excellent. And just a couple more things to go.
Speaker 1: If you want to get involved with the show live
Speaker 1: as well, you can feel free to bomb us with
Speaker 1: super chats and as long as they are appropriate for air,
Speaker 1: we will read them out. We have very little in
Speaker 1: the way of shame, so as long as it's tos,
Speaker 1: you can make us say basically anything. And lastly, before
Speaker 1: we get on with the rest of the show, I'd
Speaker 1: like to see a little bit behind the curtain because
Speaker 1: we're not the only ones here. We have a wonderful
Speaker 1: crew who make us look good. And there they are,
Speaker 1: aren't they fantastic?
Speaker 3: Ye?
Speaker 2: Crew?
Speaker 1: You love our crew and not I mean, we do
Speaker 1: it every week, but they really do deserve to be
Speaker 1: praised because for one person in front of a camera,
Speaker 1: there's five behind it. And for every five people in
Speaker 1: the production crew, there's another five behind them doing things
Speaker 1: like moderation and email checking and all kinds of really
Speaker 1: important stuff and nobody really gets paid for this. We're
Speaker 1: all volunteers, So thank you very much. Crew. We appreciate
Speaker 1: you for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, are you ready to get this
Speaker 2: show on the road.
Speaker 1: Have a call ready. I'm ready to rock. So we
Speaker 1: have Benjamin him calling in from Alabama. He wants to
Speaker 1: explain how evil is good. I'm going to bring you
Speaker 1: on Benjamin here. Okay, Doky, sir, that is a bold
Speaker 1: ass claim. Please do explain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I wanted to go on over one or
Speaker 3: two times first before I got started. So I called
Speaker 3: in last week about slavery, and people in the comments
Speaker 3: was it was pretty funny the comments I got on it.
Speaker 3: I explained the post of slavery last week. The reason
Speaker 3: I was calling a good time is to, uh, it's
Speaker 3: playing how evil is good? And I know that sounds
Speaker 3: like a double negative, but I was going to try
Speaker 3: to explain. So whenever stuff happens to people, whether it's
Speaker 3: hurricanes or tornadoes, which I have personal experience for tornadoes,
Speaker 3: but and the other taines that natural disasters or even
Speaker 3: just everyday events losing her keys, uh, the the outcome
Speaker 3: of that, it can teach people lessons, it makes people stronger,
Speaker 3: even crude grief for deaths or there's always a purpose
Speaker 3: to all of it. Death for example, if it's that
Speaker 3: person's time to go, then there's that. If you get sick,
Speaker 3: it makes your body stronger. So there's a lot of
Speaker 3: polls to actual what would be considered bad or evil.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, so so that's often what's called the theodicy
Speaker 1: of the greater good, like the things that are apparently
Speaker 1: evil in fact serve greater good purpose. I have some
Speaker 1: thoughts on that, but I'd actually like to throw over
Speaker 1: to my co host Helen first. You have any thoughts
Speaker 1: on this to get us started, So.
Speaker 2: Let me post your question. Do people have to go through,
Speaker 2: you know, catastrophic events to learn lessons? Like, like, what
Speaker 2: is the purpose of like people going through like really
Speaker 2: terrible things so they become a stronger person? Like is
Speaker 2: there some like can't you do those things without losing
Speaker 2: your house and a hurricane? Because there is a little
Speaker 2: bit of a problem with that premise, And indeed that
Speaker 2: you know, if terrible things happen to people, there's been
Speaker 2: they're supposed to somehow grow out of it. But there
Speaker 2: are people that go through very challenging events and it
Speaker 2: actually makes their lives much worse and they can't get
Speaker 2: back from it. They don't get the help that they need.
Speaker 2: So to me, it all depends on circumstance and what
Speaker 2: type of person you are. So is it worth to
Speaker 2: go through a terrible event to become a stronger, better person?
Speaker 3: So two trains I was. I didn't want to interrupt you, so, uh,
Speaker 3: the the bad things that happen to people, there's different
Speaker 3: levels to uh bad things that happen to people. So
Speaker 3: for example, losing car keys, you know, would teach somebody
Speaker 3: to hold on to the car keys more better, you know.
Speaker 3: The second point that I wanted to make on that
Speaker 3: was that and losing the house. Example, even if somebody
Speaker 3: loses their house due to a hurricane that's not in
Speaker 3: their control, it might have happened for a good reason.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was.
Speaker 1: Time for them to move away.
Speaker 3: Have better opportunities someplace else. And my case, here in
Speaker 3: my town, we got destroyed by tornadoes. There was three
Speaker 3: tornadoes and one day back in April or twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: and my whole town got destroyed downtown and a lot
Speaker 3: of people I knew left but they also left and
Speaker 3: got better jobs and more opportunities, because even here there's
Speaker 3: not much here to do, and we're slowly we're building downtown.
Speaker 3: But it's a process and it teaches people patients.
Speaker 1: So so I'm I'm gonna step in with a couple
Speaker 1: of thoughts here. Firstly, I'm strongly of the belief that
Speaker 1: people flourish in spite of trauma, not because of it.
Speaker 1: Trauma often does leave us permanently damaged, and a lot
Speaker 1: of traumas do not have an upside. For example, I
Speaker 1: don't care how much personal strength and fortitude and debility
Speaker 1: to deal with stressful situations better comes from a pair
Speaker 1: of parents losing their child to early onset cancer that
Speaker 1: takes them before they reach their second birthday. I can't
Speaker 1: think of any lesson worth paying that price. And it's
Speaker 1: a circular argument. We suffer to get better at dealing
Speaker 1: with suffering, so we can do it better when we
Speaker 1: suffer more. Why is all that suffering necessary?
Speaker 3: I wasn't find to fall into a social argument that's
Speaker 3: while much more going on our way that keeps its
Speaker 3: people's stuff.
Speaker 1: But are the lessons worth the price of the other
Speaker 1: lessons worth the price of admission. I don't think they
Speaker 1: are in a lot of cases. Yeah, losing your keys
Speaker 1: doesn't really have much in the way of consequence, But
Speaker 1: losing your life or the life of someone you care about,
Speaker 1: or everything that you hold dear, or your dignity or
Speaker 1: your sanity or your agency, these are prices that should
Speaker 1: not have to be paid, whatever the outcome.
Speaker 3: Well, I weren't going to bring up what I know
Speaker 3: some Christians would say and which time I'm considered, I
Speaker 3: guess Christianity, but I'm like the old version of it,
Speaker 3: like that died off hundreds of years ago to the
Speaker 3: belief system that it was. But I would say, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to say what other people would probably say
Speaker 3: to that, and say that in the Bible, it talks
Speaker 3: about how the devil is a test of fates and
Speaker 3: anytime that something happens bad, and I know your example
Speaker 3: that is pretty bad, the loss of a child. But
Speaker 3: there's always a reason for even the the extreme bad.
Speaker 3: There's always a reason for it, whether it's to teach
Speaker 3: a lesson or to make somebody emotionally stronger.
Speaker 1: So let me let me cut you off there for
Speaker 1: a second, of Benjamin, is your God.
Speaker 3: Good not completely. I don't believe God is all good
Speaker 3: because okay, well again then then he's he's a monster.
Speaker 1: And I hope therefore, like a lot of the I
Speaker 1: want to know what's true, and if that God exists,
Speaker 1: I'd like to know if he does, and if you
Speaker 1: can prove it, you give us evidence, that's fine. But
Speaker 1: I hope, beyond all hope, that that megalamonoia call bully
Speaker 1: doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: And I have a question, if God isn't all good,
Speaker 2: what's the point of having a devil? Because if God
Speaker 2: is the arbiture of what is you know, what people learn,
Speaker 2: you know, like if they if he does bring some
Speaker 2: kind of tragic event into somebody's life, to be like, well,
Speaker 2: this is the last thing you have to learn. Rather
Speaker 2: than just coming down and saying, hey, you know what,
Speaker 2: instead of you going through a horrific event, let me
Speaker 2: tell you, you know an opportunity that might come along if
Speaker 2: you move away from your town. Instead of setting a
Speaker 2: tornado in to force people to move out, you could
Speaker 2: have just come down and said, hey, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't stay here because there's no job or opportunities. I'm
Speaker 2: going to tell you where to go get a job.
Speaker 2: Or fix what's happening right in that community. If you
Speaker 2: are all powerful and you have the ability to do
Speaker 2: this and you don't, then there is then to me,
Speaker 2: I'm like, then you're just as evil as a devil,
Speaker 2: and you've already admitted that your God is not all good.
Speaker 2: So what's the point of having Satan? What's the point
Speaker 2: of having a deity that's capable of creating change but
Speaker 2: refuses to do so. It makes no sense.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I don't think the devil's
Speaker 3: the bad guy, and here's why. So originally, Lucifer was
Speaker 3: the most wisest, beautifulest angel in all the creation. And
Speaker 3: when he fail, even while he's here on earth, which
Speaker 3: there's a couple of times that I'll say to that too,
Speaker 3: but his job was to test people's faith. That's why
Speaker 3: I believe it was job. God told the devil to
Speaker 3: kill his livestock, give them boils, you know, murder his family,
Speaker 3: and see if he still plays as God. The other
Speaker 3: flip side of that is that the devil is not
Speaker 3: able to do anything that God doesn't allow him to do.
Speaker 3: So if the devil wanted to the cause chaos, cause destruction,
Speaker 3: whatever the case, might be God is the one that's
Speaker 3: allowing that it's not the devil.
Speaker 1: But all that does deal with a lot of the
Speaker 1: problems that we usually have with the triominy God, and
Speaker 1: that's fantastic that you're aware of those issues. My question
Speaker 1: is like, do you do you worship this God? And
Speaker 1: if so, why.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I. I would say I believe in
Speaker 3: a God. Whether or not that God is on the
Speaker 3: present for all good is irrelevant because even and I
Speaker 3: don't want to go into.
Speaker 4: The the I'm drawing a blank on it now, the
Speaker 4: thread of hell, I'm sure you can tell me what
Speaker 4: the name of it is.
Speaker 3: I can't think at the moment.
Speaker 1: The threat hell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So the people would believe in God just
Speaker 3: in case with I guess I'm kind of that way,
Speaker 3: but not really, because I believe that Jesus was the
Speaker 3: son of God. But Jesus also was a God in
Speaker 3: human form. And that's why I said my belief system
Speaker 3: died off a long time ago, because the one that
Speaker 3: that is was more Middle Ages to a leads uh,
Speaker 3: I want to say so the fourth century and then
Speaker 3: after the one took over a burned half to bits
Speaker 3: in the Bible and sounds every say, every time that
Speaker 3: screwed up.
Speaker 1: Anyway, what I would say, Benjamin, let me let me
Speaker 1: just jump in here. So let me just let me
Speaker 1: just quickly jump in. What I would say, Benjamin, is
Speaker 1: that I would recommend that you look at the reasons
Speaker 1: why you believe what you believe, because it sounds like
Speaker 1: you're a good, reasonable, and quite logical person like you.
Speaker 1: You recognize some of the flaws in some of the
Speaker 1: depictions and outlooks of Christians and the Christian God. And
Speaker 1: I would say that recognize maybe that it's fear that's
Speaker 1: driving you to want to believe these things, not just
Speaker 1: fear of Hell, but fear of or a preference that
Speaker 1: you'd rather have a malevolent intelligence than actual just nature
Speaker 1: for the unpredictability and the seeming randomness of nature. So
Speaker 1: I don't see malevolence in the universe. I see nature
Speaker 1: running its course for good or real, and ascribing these
Speaker 1: things too an intelligence good or real. I find that
Speaker 1: the that tends to be the recourse of people who
Speaker 1: are afraid of the unknown. They'd rather have an evil dictator,
Speaker 1: the no leader at all.
Speaker 3: Well, No, I believe I believe in God based on
Speaker 3: personal experience and events in my life. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, I'm not afraid of God, and I know
Speaker 3: a lot of Christianity depending on the denomination, they believe
Speaker 3: that you're supposed to fear of God. But yet God
Speaker 3: is loving and that's contradictory, which I'll point that out anyway.
Speaker 2: But so I have a question though, if you said
Speaker 2: that you don't have a fear of God. But I
Speaker 2: think what Jamie's getting at that you know and correct
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong that it's not. The actual fear
Speaker 2: of a god is the fear that the universe is
Speaker 2: random and it doesn't give two shits about you, doesn't
Speaker 2: give two shits about me, doesn't give it. There is
Speaker 2: no purpose and nature is just going to nature. There
Speaker 2: is no predetermination, There is no purpose for the way
Speaker 2: things kind of happen, and that can be very scary
Speaker 2: if there is no grand scheme to anything. It is
Speaker 2: just like you know, sometimes hur you know, hurricanes topple
Speaker 2: people's houses. Sometimes, you know, people are are faced with
Speaker 2: very catastrophic things and through that they are, you know,
Speaker 2: if they have the ability and will and get help
Speaker 2: to progress, do and become better. But that comes down
Speaker 2: to choice and doesn't come down to some divine providence.
Speaker 2: And so I'm wondering if it's that fear that it
Speaker 2: is all random. There is no grand purpose to everything,
Speaker 2: it's just the way that things are.
Speaker 3: My belief system is pretty old fashioned. I believe in limbo,
Speaker 3: which not a lot of denominations believe in limbo anymore.
Speaker 3: But I believe in limbo, heaven and hell. I believe
Speaker 3: that the devils on earth. I believe that he has
Speaker 3: control over certain things that God allows him to do,
Speaker 3: whether that's to test people's states or just toss destructs
Speaker 3: and either answer to that would be sufficient. But that's
Speaker 3: my belief system. I also believe that God isn't entirely good,
Speaker 3: because if he was, there wouldn't be evil in the
Speaker 3: first place.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so again no a triomny. But the telling
Speaker 1: scene you said that makes sustinct thiss in Helen, you
Speaker 1: are correct about my standpoint on this. You said everything
Speaker 1: happens for a reason. No, he doesn't. Things happen because
Speaker 1: they happen of causes. There's such a thing as causality,
Speaker 1: but it's not like for an end, you know. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing. One of the things that I find
Speaker 1: most disturbing about ascribing these things to a higher power,
Speaker 1: be it malevolent or benevolent. Like wonderful things happen to
Speaker 1: people all the time. We meet people that we fall
Speaker 1: in love with for the rest of our lives. We
Speaker 1: have wonderful experiences that change us in positive ways. It's
Speaker 1: not all evil in this world. There's plenty of good too.
Speaker 1: But ascribing that to some higher power, we lose our agency.
Speaker 1: We are giving it away and saying well, it can't
Speaker 1: be helped, nothing we can do about it when the
Speaker 1: it is. If we just said well, it's the will
Speaker 1: of the gods, we wouldn't have done things like discover penicillin.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't have learned medicine, we wouldn't have learned telecommunication.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't have tried to better ourselves. Knowing that we
Speaker 1: are all we have and our effort is all we
Speaker 1: can do. We have one life, and we have one
Speaker 1: chance to make it as good as we can, and
Speaker 1: there's no big Daddy in the sky. I twiddled in
Speaker 1: the knobs and that's what gives my life meaning to
Speaker 1: know that if I want this world to be better
Speaker 1: than it is now, I have to get off my
Speaker 1: ass and do something about it and encourage other people
Speaker 1: to do so. Know God's involved when you think about that.
Speaker 3: Well, so the way that you look at it, you
Speaker 3: have one life. I still believe in an after life.
Speaker 3: But if you look at life and the lens of
Speaker 3: I only have one life and after that I'm going
Speaker 3: in the dort and we're turning into nature and dust
Speaker 3: to dust, then that kind of puts you in a
Speaker 3: position where you have to worst or try to accomplish
Speaker 3: all your goal's bucket list, whatever you want to call
Speaker 3: it before you die, because you do not knowing when
Speaker 3: you're going to die.
Speaker 1: That complicated yeah, and also come to the acceptance that
Speaker 1: I'll never get everything done never, I will never be
Speaker 1: able to do everything I want. There isn't There is
Speaker 1: never going to be enough time. It's what's those existing
Speaker 1: cental horror, like the understanding of how small and weak
Speaker 1: and insignificant we are as compared to the rest of
Speaker 1: the universe, can really cause you some mental trauma. Those
Speaker 1: whole swaths of philosophy and even fiction about that feeling
Speaker 1: of things so small. But when you accept your place
Speaker 1: in the world and the scale of your life, you
Speaker 1: understand that yeah, you might be a microscopic spect on
Speaker 1: a tiny blue ball in an insignificant part of an
Speaker 1: unremarkable galaxy, but you have friends and family and time
Speaker 1: to have wonderful experiences. And I urge you, I urge
Speaker 1: everyone to let go of the fear of some internal
Speaker 1: judge lagging his big finger at you and enjoy what
Speaker 1: you can and have a good life and improve things.
Speaker 2: I will say this.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to coat you off, but I will
Speaker 3: say that I've been here for a long time. I've
Speaker 3: lived in this town for about forty years. I grew
Speaker 3: up in the seventies and eighties and nineties. With that,
Speaker 3: I've always been a kid at heart, so I watched
Speaker 3: cartoons art throughout the decades. But a lot of stuff
Speaker 3: the way that the outlook on sin and Gaze and
Speaker 3: a bunch of other stuff back in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 3: It's completely upside down now to what it used to
Speaker 3: be thirty forty years ago, you know. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if that's because of the way the world has
Speaker 3: changed or outlook on sayings had changed. I was also
Speaker 3: going to ask you if you cared if I went
Speaker 3: into the pose of slavery, just to get your take
Speaker 3: on it, because I went into it last week with
Speaker 3: the other two hosts.
Speaker 1: I actually was a backup host of that of that show,
Speaker 1: so I could already answer you.
Speaker 2: I watched the show, so I heard the argument.
Speaker 1: I have an answer for you, and you can and
Speaker 1: you can refusee you saying with slavery is wasn't all
Speaker 1: bad and that there was advantages to the slave, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially the indentured servitude. And my answer to that is
Speaker 1: that part of the price for being a slave or
Speaker 1: being a servant is the abrogation, the removing of my
Speaker 1: agency in free will. You can't quit, you can't run away.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter how shitty my job is, how awful my
Speaker 1: boss is. I can give him the finger and tell
Speaker 1: them to get fucked. You can't do that to your master,
Speaker 1: because if you do, they'll beat you. And that's why
Speaker 1: I don't like slavery as a concept. Even if you can,
Speaker 1: even if I granted that I'm getting a roof over
Speaker 1: my head and food in my barey and work experience
Speaker 1: or whatever, like a really really harsh internship.
Speaker 3: What would the alternative be starving to best not having selter?
Speaker 1: I mean you ask every slave rebel that ever broke
Speaker 1: their chains whether they prefer slavery or death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the thing, is that and that, like men,
Speaker 2: I heard you argument last week, I'm and I just
Speaker 2: don't understand the need to want to make slavery, Okay,
Speaker 2: I do not understand it and any context in any
Speaker 2: way over time. Slavery is horrible because it is basically
Speaker 2: saying that other groups are human beings, are subsets, They're
Speaker 2: not complete people, and we have and other people have
Speaker 2: the right to own them and use them for all
Speaker 2: sorts of things, whether it be sexual slavery, labor, slavery,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, is basically saying I get to decide
Speaker 2: what you do and what you what I can can
Speaker 2: and cannot what to use your body for. That is
Speaker 2: slavery and no way over time, any argument that somebody
Speaker 2: makes is going to make that. Okay.
Speaker 3: I disagreed with the way that slavery with slaves was
Speaker 3: treated in that video. I've said that as it is
Speaker 3: twenty one women says that you can beat your slaves.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with that, and I've said that in
Speaker 3: the video.
Speaker 2: I know that, But what I'm saying is is the
Speaker 2: why but why even try to make even benevolent slavery,
Speaker 2: you know, like argue for that slavery slavery. That's the
Speaker 2: way it is, slavery, slavery. I'm saying I have the
Speaker 2: right basically, like I could make you my slave. Do
Speaker 2: you want to be my slaves? Do you want me
Speaker 2: to tell you what to do and not do and
Speaker 2: me and like make you take care of my house
Speaker 2: and mow my lawn and not pay you and you
Speaker 2: can't leave. You have no choice. You don't have agency,
Speaker 2: even if I'm super nice.
Speaker 3: Well, I my point was is that in some ways
Speaker 3: benefit I mean posing cons wearing the posing cons to
Speaker 3: the other person's point. What they said is that even
Speaker 3: an indented servitude, if it provides housing and you won't
Speaker 3: for the person for a certain amount of time to
Speaker 3: pay off a debt with this is what I so
Speaker 3: what I was always told, inventive servitude is paying after
Speaker 3: debt from somebody.
Speaker 1: And and to reiterate the point that was made last week,
Speaker 1: which I agree with, it's usually predatory and this and
Speaker 1: you're trapped. This is the thing if you're an indented servitude,
Speaker 1: In indented servitude, it's usually you are you are doing
Speaker 1: orders of magnitude more labor for what you get, and
Speaker 1: you can't leave. There's no doubt. You can't run away,
Speaker 1: you can't quit, you can't even say no. That's one
Speaker 1: of the wonderful things about an actual job is if
Speaker 1: someone tells you to do something that you are morally
Speaker 1: against or physically incapable of, or something that's super dangerous,
Speaker 1: you can just quit. You can say no, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do that. And so all of the downsides
Speaker 1: to slavery that you say, oh, well, if you take
Speaker 1: away that you talk about that, you're just describing work.
Speaker 1: You just described me an internship and unpaid internship.
Speaker 2: Like and Ben, have you ever been a slave? H No, not,
Speaker 2: so you're talking from a place of privilege.
Speaker 3: Have you.
Speaker 2: I bet if you talk to anyone that's been an
Speaker 2: indentured servant or ever been a slave, and say, hey,
Speaker 2: do you prefer being a slave even though you got
Speaker 2: a roof and food in your belly or the ability,
Speaker 2: even though it might be harder to make your own
Speaker 2: choices and to have agency over your own life, I
Speaker 2: guarantee one hundred percent of those people would probably say yes,
Speaker 2: I prefer having my freedom I can't maybe ninety nine
Speaker 2: point nine percent, okay, I want to say one hundred percent, okay,
Speaker 2: because that's you know, I want to make absolute proofs.
Speaker 2: But a majority of people, a good portion love all
Speaker 2: of us, really like having agency, and we really like
Speaker 2: having the ability to make decisions for ourselves and not
Speaker 2: for anyone us to hold us to their will.
Speaker 3: I was going to make a point on kind of
Speaker 3: the little poles and the Bible force slavery after seven
Speaker 3: years and you let the slave go free. I know,
Speaker 3: I believe that was for Hebrew slaves only, and then
Speaker 3: the and I was going to debate mad on this,
Speaker 3: percause Matt loves to debate slavery.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't. We don't actually love to debate slavery
Speaker 1: because we feel that the subject is closed, there is
Speaker 1: no defense, because I don't care if I'm going to
Speaker 1: be let go in seven years, if I'm tired of
Speaker 1: being used as farm equipment after seven days, I should
Speaker 1: be able to leave. So the whole oh, you must
Speaker 1: release your slaves, and also this whole two tiered racism
Speaker 1: basically in slavery as well, that's bad. That's a that's
Speaker 1: not a feature, that's a bug. That's still bad. So
Speaker 1: I really would discourage you from trying trying at all
Speaker 1: to defend slavery, because the only way you ever get
Speaker 1: to defend it is what happened last week, is to
Speaker 1: stand the edges off so much that you're basically describing
Speaker 1: work rather than slavery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I also said it benefits of the economy
Speaker 3: at the time, which.
Speaker 1: Is never ever a justification for something. You know what
Speaker 1: else benefits an economy? Fucking stealing shit, invading countries. My
Speaker 1: forefathers stole the world. It was great for the economy.
Speaker 1: We built so much colt shit. It's brilliant, apart from
Speaker 1: all of the horrific, horrific things we had to do
Speaker 1: to hundreds of thousands and millions of people to get
Speaker 1: that economy. No, economy is never a justification.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious, why are you trying to justify this
Speaker 2: in any way? Like why, what's the point? Because we
Speaker 2: know it's bad, So I don't understand why we're trying
Speaker 2: to do these mental gymnastics and trying to explain away slavery,
Speaker 2: Like what then, I'm really trying to understand why you're
Speaker 2: trying to make an argument for this.
Speaker 3: I was doing get more to help Christians that you know,
Speaker 3: because a lot of the Christians that call into this show,
Speaker 3: they try to bend those are back words and protect
Speaker 3: the words of you know, the slavery in the Bible
Speaker 3: at this twenty one Levidicus. And so they call in
Speaker 3: and then Matt or somebody else points out all the
Speaker 3: flaws that they have. And so one of the reasons
Speaker 3: I was going to try to debate slavery last week
Speaker 3: was because I was trying to make a case that
Speaker 3: it was more good than bad, to try to appeal
Speaker 3: to a larger audience. I mean, it was also my
Speaker 3: take on it as far asude, well, you.
Speaker 1: May have actually done what you're set out to do,
Speaker 1: because if any Christians watching these calls, and again I
Speaker 1: don't mean to dump on your Benjamin, I appreciate your call,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that you've been a very reasonable interlocutor,
Speaker 1: like you seem like a very very reasonable person. But
Speaker 1: your arguments are bad, and if a Christian sees that
Speaker 1: they're bad, they go, well, I won't want to argue
Speaker 1: those arguments. Actually, slavery is probably just shit all around.
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't defend it. Ever, you're awesome, man. I
Speaker 1: really like how you take these things in good humor.
Speaker 1: I appreciate I appreciate your Benjamin, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Well. Other than that, that's I mean that pretty much
Speaker 3: is the Carl. I was gonna try to point out
Speaker 3: how evil is good and just teaching people lessons blast
Speaker 3: lessons and making their mental stronger. Mental capacity is stronger. Now.
Speaker 3: I get there's a difference between losing your car keys
Speaker 3: and losing your house, obviously, but I was still trying
Speaker 3: to make the point that some bad turns are good
Speaker 3: in the long one.
Speaker 1: And just again to reiterate, I think that the good
Speaker 1: that comes from it does not outweigh the bad in
Speaker 1: most circumstances, and in some circumstances there is no good.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to have to bring this call to
Speaker 1: a closer Benjamin. Again, I'd like to thank you, and
Speaker 1: I assure you that people watching this call will find
Speaker 1: it educational. You got any last words, I am.
Speaker 2: No, this is this is a really good call. I'm
Speaker 2: glad that you know. I hope we give you some
Speaker 2: a little bit more stuff to think about, ben And
Speaker 2: in regards to your argument and maybe reconsider some of
Speaker 2: the positions, maybe we should just get rid of the
Speaker 2: idea that slavery is good in any way. You can
Speaker 2: do both. You can believe in a god and also
Speaker 2: think slavery is bad. You can't. They are not mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1: Thank you all, Chief. We take care.
Speaker 2: Man Lobe.
Speaker 1: Okay, again, a very constructive call. I'm not joking when
Speaker 1: I say I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the call last week.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that call this week. Like he's coming from
Speaker 1: he's like trying to defend pretty abhorrent things, but he
Speaker 1: obviously knows that the depictions are bad. And yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: So moving on. We've got a few announcements to me
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Speaker 1: And we have also had in some superb chats that
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Speaker 1: It depends on which era I mean, because in certain
Speaker 1: areas he was a friend to the people, and sometimes
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Speaker 2: He will destroy go Jira is a band, are They're
Speaker 2: a metal band Godzilla?
Speaker 5: So I mean, so if it would be cool if
Speaker 5: God's a little bit the Olympics, you know, I don't
Speaker 5: think there would.
Speaker 2: Be much of some sports going on, but Goji is
Speaker 2: a metal band, and I'm all for all metal bands
Speaker 2: opening every sporting event.
Speaker 1: I still remember when metal won the Eurovision Song Contest
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Speaker 1: to the next call. Quantum Ancer has been a remember
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Speaker 2: I am ready, Freddy okay.
Speaker 1: So we have a nontheist pagan d pronounce her in Ayr,
Speaker 1: arguing for existence of spiritual realm that exists alongside the physical,
Speaker 1: can be accessed through meditation and ritual. Welcome to Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 6: D Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to immediately hand you over to Helen
Speaker 1: on this one because I think she's got quite a
Speaker 1: lot to talk to you about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, go ahead, d So tell me your why
Speaker 2: you think there is a spiritual realm.
Speaker 3: The I call now.
Speaker 6: I want to make sure you guys understand I did
Speaker 6: not call in to give you true but I did
Speaker 6: want to argue for, you know, the possibility that the
Speaker 6: spiritual realm does exist. I I am a practicing pagan.
Speaker 6: I'm a non theist, so I do not believe in
Speaker 6: any gods. I believe that the spiritual is a realm
Speaker 6: that responds to meditation and ritual and will I have
Speaker 6: have experience interacting with this realm. I do not interact
Speaker 6: with spirits or personalities at all. This is a realm,
Speaker 6: is the only word that I can kind of come
Speaker 6: up with. I feel that it is, you know, by definition,
Speaker 6: non physical but accessible.
Speaker 3: Is that makes sense?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: So I was involved in the pagan community for thirteen
Speaker 2: years and as a high Pricistan for ten. So this
Speaker 2: is something that I also used to believe. And I'm
Speaker 2: curious as to what experience did you have to you know,
Speaker 2: kind of make you feel that this thing, you know,
Speaker 2: the spiritual realm is something that is part of our reality.
Speaker 2: Like what was the experience that you're like, huh, maybe
Speaker 2: there maybe there's something here.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: So I've been solitary and I've been part of the coven.
Speaker 6: I not wickan.
Speaker 3: I believe, uh.
Speaker 6: Maybe you might be able to apply the word animists
Speaker 6: to me as well. So I've had several experiences, but
Speaker 6: one in particular I can share with you. Several years ago,
Speaker 6: I needed to have a surgery, and when I reported
Speaker 6: forward the pre op process, they found that my iron
Speaker 6: level was severely low, very low. So we couldn't do
Speaker 6: the surgery at that time. And the doctor told me,
Speaker 6: I mean, of course, I took you know, iron supplements,
Speaker 6: but the doctor told me he did not expect me
Speaker 6: to be able and my levels were so low and
Speaker 6: not cause problems too, But my levels were so low
Speaker 6: he did not expect that I would be ready for
Speaker 6: surgery for another six to eight weeks. I did, I
Speaker 6: did some research, I took my supplements, and I did
Speaker 6: a ritual that I won't board you with details there.
Speaker 6: But my levels increased to normal within three weeks and
Speaker 6: I was able to get my surgery sooner than the doctor,
Speaker 6: you know said. The surgeon said he could not explain
Speaker 6: why my levels had come up so fast.
Speaker 1: So the question that comes across my mind with that
Speaker 1: day is that I mean, you were following doctor's orders,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic. One of the things that really gets
Speaker 1: me about certain people who believe in the supernatural is
Speaker 1: that they will use it and only it and ignore
Speaker 1: the things that we know about medicine and science. And
Speaker 1: thank you for taking those I supplements. But let me
Speaker 1: ask you this, is it possible that the doctor was
Speaker 1: just being a bit conservative and maybe you were a
Speaker 1: bit more resident, your body was a bit more resilient
Speaker 1: than it thought. Because these things do happen. People recover
Speaker 1: faster than they think than they initially think. I personally
Speaker 1: work in a health adjacent field and a charity, so
Speaker 1: I hear stories all the time people seem to make
Speaker 1: almost miraculous recoveries. But also I hear stories of people
Speaker 1: suddenly going downhill with no explanation. And my question is,
Speaker 1: how could we tell whether it was just a bit
Speaker 1: of a coincidence and a perfectly natural explanation for your
Speaker 1: iron levels suddenly recovering faster than thought, or a supernatural intervention.
Speaker 6: And I agree with you, you know, I cannot discount
Speaker 6: that possibility absolutely, Okay, I can only say that that
Speaker 6: is only one experience among many that has returned to.
Speaker 1: Me and have you ever had a ritual fail ritual fail?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I have experienced there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so it doesn't seem particularly reliable, and people
Speaker 1: tend to count the hits. So I'm actually a proponent
Speaker 1: of of of secular practice of religious things, you know,
Speaker 1: like going through the motions for your own regargnissance without
Speaker 1: believing that they have power. I think it's perfectly fine,
Speaker 1: especially as a way to sort of honor tradition and
Speaker 1: keep up these things. But believing that these things have
Speaker 1: power without having any any evidence of it, and in
Speaker 1: fact seen and fail as fun as they succeed, it
Speaker 1: does puzzle me sluntly that people would still continue to
Speaker 1: believe some of these so hitting miss.
Speaker 6: Sure, sure, And and I have you know, I know,
Speaker 6: I know. One fallacy is listening to you guys and
Speaker 6: people like Matt and Forrest and Eric. I'm learning about.
Speaker 3: How logic works.
Speaker 6: And I you know, definitely having you know, listened to
Speaker 6: you all, I'm seeing, you know, the holes in my suppositions.
Speaker 6: I very much believe in, you know, following doctor's orders,
Speaker 6: driving on the right started road, not sticking my finger
Speaker 6: in the you know.
Speaker 3: Electrical socket.
Speaker 6: But I've found that my pagan practice enhances my experience
Speaker 6: in the physical world.
Speaker 2: So so what you're doing from a psychological aspect is
Speaker 2: that you are priming your brain to do when you
Speaker 2: do a ritual, like you're doing a ritual for your
Speaker 2: health or for anything that we would call manifestation in
Speaker 2: the paking community, what you want to bring into your life.
Speaker 2: What you're basically doing when you're doing these meditative ritual
Speaker 2: practices is that you're priming your brain. And like this
Speaker 2: is done through people that do mindfulness meditation, it's the
Speaker 2: same thing where you want to bring your consciousness more
Speaker 2: aware of your environment to you know, be aware of
Speaker 2: certain things that you would like to see happen. You know,
Speaker 2: this is why they always say, like, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're going to do a ritual, you're for your health.
Speaker 2: Also do what your doctor says. But this might be
Speaker 2: but if you're going to do any sort of ritual,
Speaker 2: even if it has no supernatural process to it, it
Speaker 2: does bring a calming effect to the body and it
Speaker 2: can also help us psychologically deal with the stress of
Speaker 2: these events in our lives that feel kind of overwhelming,
Speaker 2: like health crisis and he is losing a job, you know,
Speaker 2: financial changes, family changes, relationship changes. But this is all
Speaker 2: a psychological effect. There's nothing really external going on. It
Speaker 2: is all kind of happening within the brain and what
Speaker 2: and this is what and this is not that different
Speaker 2: from prayer. You know, we're putting that we like, we
Speaker 2: want to kind of separate it because like, well, it's
Speaker 2: a spiritual realm or there's some kind of you know,
Speaker 2: the secret where you can just you know, if you
Speaker 2: ask for something and think about it enough, it will
Speaker 2: manifest into your life. No, this is this is a
Speaker 2: form of psychological priming. You are getting your brain prepared
Speaker 2: to associate things that you think have supernatural significance when
Speaker 2: really you've tricked your brain to recognize it, and it
Speaker 2: feels profound, it feels like something that was supposed to
Speaker 2: happen because you already have that expectation that it is,
Speaker 2: when really it's just some Because you've gone through the
Speaker 2: process of doing the ritual psychologically priming your brain, you
Speaker 2: are now prepared you on a on some kind of
Speaker 2: subconscious level, to associate things that's seeing profound, seeing supernatural
Speaker 2: seem to be coming from a source outside of ourselves.
Speaker 2: That are we're bringing it to us, when really we
Speaker 2: have just done psychological triggery. We do this all the time,
Speaker 2: and it can because we are as Jamie said, you know,
Speaker 2: hitting the miss I mean at counting the counting the
Speaker 2: hits and ignoring the misses. They feel significant, they feel
Speaker 2: really really deep and profound, and it feels like every
Speaker 2: thing kind of came together. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: I do agree rituals are very important. I still do ritual.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed doing ritual, but I also recognize that that
Speaker 2: this is something I'm doing to myself and there's nothing external,
Speaker 2: supernatural or anything that's happening. This is not this is
Speaker 2: the power within myself to bring about change that I
Speaker 2: want to see, but using my brain power to do it,
Speaker 2: not doing anything nothing external. There's nothing outside, you know,
Speaker 2: there's no gods, there's no spirits, there's nothing. It's just
Speaker 2: me and also ask and getting the help from other
Speaker 2: people along the way, like a doctor or whatever.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, that all sounds yeah, I can get with that.
Speaker 6: And the phrase timing of brain is actually a very
Speaker 6: apt description of how I have felt about ritual because
Speaker 6: with you know, in the group that I practiced with,
Speaker 6: our definition of ritual was the process of preparing your
Speaker 6: mind to be open to the spiritual possibilities. So in
Speaker 6: a way, you know, I guess that I'm looking at tryming.
Speaker 6: I'm still looking at priming your brain as being part
Speaker 6: of you know, the ritual. But I and before you
Speaker 6: you you brought me live on the on the poll,
Speaker 6: I was thinking about the missus and you know, understanding
Speaker 6: that when it's the internet process getting your brain ready, it's,
Speaker 6: you know, like anything else, practice makes perfect. That that
Speaker 6: was kind of the way I felt about it. But
Speaker 6: I definitely understand. Yeah, what what you're saying about, you know,
Speaker 6: the brain.
Speaker 1: And we would say, or would say, is that I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that especially in sort of it like atheism,
Speaker 1: space and the discourse, there's a reputation for people to
Speaker 1: start like really picking holes in people's you know, things
Speaker 1: and almost belittling them, and we don't want to do
Speaker 1: that here. It seems that you're yeah, and it seems
Speaker 1: that whether you believe they actually have actual supernatural power
Speaker 1: or not, you're not letting your beliefs get in the
Speaker 1: way of things that are proofable, which is fantastic and
Speaker 1: they have some benefit to you. So all we would
Speaker 1: ask is you don't have to stop doing them. I've
Speaker 1: done rituals in context before. I used to do martial arts,
Speaker 1: and we would we would bow to our weapons and
Speaker 1: and and thank them. I didn't believe that my sword
Speaker 1: was alive, but it did make me concentrate on the
Speaker 1: task at hand, which is a really good idea when
Speaker 1: you swing around a three foot long razor blade. And
Speaker 1: so continuing the rituals is not a problem. All we
Speaker 1: would ask is, use look, examine your epistemology. Why do
Speaker 1: you believe what you believe, and are the reasons actually good?
Speaker 1: And talk to people. Feel free to come onto the
Speaker 1: discord and chat to people on there and examine. We
Speaker 1: have practicing pagans on there as well. It's not just
Speaker 1: atheists on there, and people at all stages of their
Speaker 1: their deconstruction journey. So you might want to just bounce
Speaker 1: some ideas off some folks.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: One last thing that I would say is that you
Speaker 6: were talking about, you know, the mindset type of meditation.
Speaker 6: That's I've taken a lot of stuff from Buddhism.
Speaker 2: Sorry about that, I mean, yeah, no.
Speaker 6: I you know, when I usually when I identify myself,
Speaker 6: I use I do say that I'm a Pagan Buddhist,
Speaker 6: but I didn't want to do that because I didn't
Speaker 6: want to confuse the issue. But you will give me
Speaker 6: some very good things to think about and different ways
Speaker 6: of thinking, and definitely studying my systemology is a good idea.
Speaker 6: I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1: And if you do end up coming to the conclusion
Speaker 1: that you were believing in things for less than ideal reasons,
Speaker 1: please don't beat yourself up about it. We are all
Speaker 1: susceptible to fallacy. We are but human, and it takes
Speaker 1: people decades to the program themselves from beliefs that they've held,
Speaker 1: especially ones that they hold very Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I very long ago, I was a fundamentalist Christian.
Speaker 6: You could have almost told me a Christian nationalist in
Speaker 6: some ways, so I've wrong a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's an amazing journey you've been on, and
Speaker 1: you been doing that. You've exhibited mental fortitude and strength
Speaker 1: and and and like, I'm kind not jealous as such,
Speaker 1: but I'm slightly in all I had, I haven't had
Speaker 1: to question myself quite as quite as thoroughly as that.
Speaker 1: So well done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and also too, like I want to point
Speaker 2: out that I'm like I am an atheist, but I
Speaker 2: still find a lot of enjoyment in pagan rituals and
Speaker 2: sudden the teachings of them. I just let go of
Speaker 2: all the supernatural things, and and I want to emphasize
Speaker 2: if you are a non believer, but there are still
Speaker 2: things that you really like to do as far as rituals, holidays,
Speaker 2: things like that. Don't stop doing them if they bring
Speaker 2: you joy, if it makes you feel connection to things,
Speaker 2: but also realize that this is just something we've been
Speaker 2: doing since people be people, and it's okay. You can Again,
Speaker 2: they're not mutually exclusive. You can have ritual and enjoy
Speaker 2: doing ritual and also be an atheist. You can do both,
Speaker 2: so you know, and they do have benefits, you know.
Speaker 2: But I always say, like you know, as Jamie was
Speaker 2: saying about, you know, question epistemology. You know, why do
Speaker 2: I think this is true? Why do I you know,
Speaker 2: why do why do I have this belief? And then
Speaker 2: you know, and then walk yourself through those questions, and usually,
Speaker 2: like I have found, now that there is nothing supernatural,
Speaker 2: those rituals actually hold a little bit more significance because
Speaker 2: it's something that I'm choosing to do, and it's something
Speaker 2: I'm not worshiping anything. It's just a part of my
Speaker 2: life and giving meaning to my existence. And I think
Speaker 2: that can be just as powerful. You know, you know
Speaker 2: as people that claim that you know if they go
Speaker 2: to church every Sunday, you know that, you know that
Speaker 2: Jesus really likes say when they show up.
Speaker 6: Thank you, guys, thank you very much for the discussion, and.
Speaker 1: Don't hang. What I'm going to do is I'm going
Speaker 1: to pop you back into the screen room, into the
Speaker 1: queue so the moderators can give you the details for
Speaker 1: the discord if you want to get involved with that,
Speaker 1: because I personally would love for you to get involved
Speaker 1: with the community. I think you would be a valuable addition.
Speaker 1: I think you could teach a lot of people some lessons.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go ahead and pop you back
Speaker 1: in there and thank you honestly for calling you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, yeah, thank you do. This is
Speaker 2: a really great conversation I hope to see in the discord.
Speaker 2: I'm there so.
Speaker 1: And speaking of the discord, just for everyone else there,
Speaker 1: there will be an after show. I'm a badare our
Speaker 1: backup host Kelly often will be there. I believe you're
Speaker 1: going to be there too, helenful years. And if you
Speaker 1: want to get involved with that nonsense, oh it's not nonsense.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's nonsense. You can go to tiny dot cc
Speaker 1: forward slash ACD discord at ACD discord and get yourself
Speaker 1: signed up. I promise we don't swear too much, and
Speaker 1: I'm only drunk sometimes.
Speaker 2: I mean you, you don't swear very e much. You
Speaker 2: speak for yourself there, sir.
Speaker 1: Say all the words, the J word, the Q. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Speaking of words, words are also names, and I would
Speaker 1: like you to read out a very special list of
Speaker 1: names that we do each week, and that is our
Speaker 1: top five patrons. These are people who give very much
Speaker 1: of themselves to the community and we literally couldn't do
Speaker 1: what we do with that their wonderful contribution. So if
Speaker 1: you would do the honors.
Speaker 2: Yes again, if I say your name wrong, I apologize,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to read our top five patrons again. Also,
Speaker 2: thank you very much for all our wonderful patrons. Number
Speaker 2: one is try and Trude Dingleberry Jackson. Number two is
Speaker 2: oops All Singularity. Number three devo devo vulge, and I
Speaker 2: told you I'm I'm not that great. Number four is
Speaker 2: Khalive Helvetti and number five is left in the leaves
Speaker 2: and and our honorable mention this week is Ahmed k Handy.
Speaker 2: So thank you to all of my patrons. So if
Speaker 2: you want to give us money and become a patron
Speaker 2: and get all the little perks that comes with being
Speaker 2: a patron, you should go to tiny dot cc dash,
Speaker 2: patreon thh and become a patron because that'd be really
Speaker 2: great and you can get all kinds of like get
Speaker 2: all the little perks that comes with a patron, and
Speaker 2: then you can also join us in the discord afterwards
Speaker 2: as well, and it'd be super fun indeed.
Speaker 1: So that's that's fantastic for the patriots. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And I think I have Speaking of people giving us money,
Speaker 1: we have another super chat Todd Green new member. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of us, one of us ten dollars looking fabulous, wifey, wifey,
Speaker 1: wife you and the bald bearded bloke putting on a
Speaker 1: quality show. I'm also reminded of Bill Badies saying his
Speaker 1: head resembles an egg and hair falls down like a
Speaker 1: shower curtain.
Speaker 2: Jimmie, Well, my husband is also a ball bearded bloke,
Speaker 2: So three cheers for the ball beard blogs out there.
Speaker 2: Thank you, husband has been I love you. And oh
Speaker 2: thank you everyone that's giving us super chats and in
Speaker 2: the chat and talking and engaging. We love all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So thank you all for being here. It's really really wonderful.
Speaker 2: Thank you for all of you that participating in the
Speaker 2: show what it is. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Indeed, indeed, now we've got a little thing we do
Speaker 1: most weeks. I wanted to just sort of get them
Speaker 1: up because some people are brave enough to calling, like
Speaker 1: our friends Benjamin and Die who have had fantastic calls
Speaker 1: with us today. Some people are a little bit more
Speaker 1: indirect with their commentary on what we do. We do
Speaker 1: get comments on the clips that we put on our
Speaker 1: social media, and so I'd like to ask the crew
Speaker 1: to put up a couple of those, if they could
Speaker 1: bring up screenshot one that's my chid face saying that
Speaker 1: I use pronouns. I'm going to remind myself of exactly
Speaker 1: what it says. Bear with me a moment, because it's hilarious.
Speaker 1: This clown, Hankhag uses pronouns that should disqualify any word
Speaker 1: that he speaks.
Speaker 2: Don't we all use pronouns?
Speaker 1: I'm confused, Well, actually, actually, Helen Green, I would like
Speaker 1: to get Helen Green's perspective on this comment. If Helen
Speaker 1: Green would be so good as to give Helen Green's perspective,
Speaker 1: it would be very interested.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Jamie. I will give Helen Green's opinion
Speaker 2: on this particular comment because Jamie asked me to. So, Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't know who said this, and if you're watching,
Speaker 2: we all use pronouns. Guess why you use the pronoun
Speaker 2: in that comment. So I am confused on how if
Speaker 2: you use pronouns and make it disqualifies you from having
Speaker 2: an opinion. Please explain, because that's how language works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's kind of nuts. And you hear
Speaker 1: all the same arguments like, oh, they doesn't refer to
Speaker 1: one person. It's like, yes, it's been used in use
Speaker 1: for more than six centuries as a singular pronoun, and
Speaker 1: it's not tough to call people by their preferred pronouns.
Speaker 1: I may very very very very slightly understand someone getting
Speaker 1: a bit confused with neo pronouns, but they are so
Speaker 1: exceptionally rare. He hears she her, they them, it's not
Speaker 1: that hard, and you're basically again getting bent out of
Speaker 1: shape because you want to be offend. You want to
Speaker 1: be offended, you want to be offended. It's just that
Speaker 1: it's that simple for being accused of being reactionally snowflakes,
Speaker 1: as we are often here in the more progressive side
Speaker 1: of the spectrum. It's amazing how easy it is to
Speaker 1: fucking trigger a Christian.
Speaker 2: I'm I am constantly baffled when because we do. If
Speaker 2: someone like I'm just gonna use as an example, like
Speaker 2: you're a genie. Let's say you somebody's like, nope, I'm
Speaker 2: going to call you jeans and you're like, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not called jeans. I'm called genie. You would get annoyed,
Speaker 2: and you would and you would feel disrespected because someone
Speaker 2: is insisting on calling you something that is not your
Speaker 2: name and how you want to be referred. This goes
Speaker 2: for every buddy like, no one's gonna start calling me,
Speaker 2: you know, Heather and get and get away with it,
Speaker 2: because I'm like, no, any name is Helen, call me Helen.
Speaker 1: Further to that point, I don't know whether you're psychic
Speaker 1: or something, but yes, that is the only variant of
Speaker 1: my name that I don't that I don't like people
Speaker 1: using call me Jim Jim Jim, jimbo Jim Jum, Jim jid.
Speaker 1: Shame us whatever you like, but James, for these for
Speaker 1: the reason you just gave is someone saying that they
Speaker 1: know me better than I do. And people in my
Speaker 1: life have used it to psychologically bully me. So it
Speaker 1: isn't nice, and you know it isn't nice, and you're
Speaker 1: doing it on purpose to hurt people, and that makes
Speaker 1: you a bad person if you miss miss use people's
Speaker 1: pronouns on purpose. Anyway, Sorry, a little bit emotional there?
Speaker 1: Could we get up at number seven? Is me again?
Speaker 1: It's almost like I've been on the show a few times.
Speaker 1: I swear atheism is a religion all day every day
Speaker 1: worrying about what others people believe obsessively. Okay, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, religion has very much connotations like dogmas
Speaker 1: and dictates and stuff, and atheism is that one answer
Speaker 1: to one question, is there a God? I don't believe them.
Speaker 1: He's God of gods. And secondly, I don't spend all
Speaker 1: day every day worrying about what the people believe. I
Speaker 1: have other thoughts in my head. I do spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time worrying about what people believe, because beliefs
Speaker 1: inform actions and actions matter. So yes, if you believe
Speaker 1: that a person should not be given certain rights because
Speaker 1: of how they live their life, or their sexuality, or
Speaker 1: their ethnic state or their gender identity, then that belief
Speaker 1: is a bad belief because it informs bad actions. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to think about that. What do you think?
Speaker 2: Okay? I always say I don't care what you believe
Speaker 2: in until that belief is causing harm. And yes I'm
Speaker 2: an atheist, and yes I'm an atheist activist. I not
Speaker 2: only volunteer, I volunteer recovery from religion. And the reason
Speaker 2: why I worry about people's beliefs because I hear stories
Speaker 2: again and again and again of how religion has hurt people,
Speaker 2: cause real trauma, real distress in their lives. That is
Speaker 2: why we do what we do, because it's not because
Speaker 2: we are like trying to stick it to the believers.
Speaker 2: You know, if your beliefs didn't cause harm, we wouldn't
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could still have academic conversations about the weaknesses
Speaker 1: in your epistemology or whatever, blah blah blah, but that'd
Speaker 1: be around a couple of years offline. You know I
Speaker 1: only do this in front of the camera because belief
Speaker 1: is doing real harm. So you know also that I'm
Speaker 1: a massive attention horror and ncessity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's health. We're healthy narcissists. That's that's an
Speaker 2: important thing. You give me a narcissist as long as
Speaker 2: it's healthy.
Speaker 1: I'm barely held together shipwreck of impostor syndrome and euroses.
Speaker 1: It's fine.
Speaker 2: I know who I am. You're confident in it. I'm
Speaker 2: an ambity woman.
Speaker 1: And to segue from one person who self deprecates more
Speaker 1: than they should to someone else who absolutely self deprecates
Speaker 1: more than they should. I would actually like to bring
Speaker 1: on our wonderful backup host Kay Laughlin, who continuously says that,
Speaker 1: oh no, it's not I don't do nothing. You're calling.
Speaker 1: So what do you think of the show? Ken?
Speaker 7: You know, Jamie, I took I took something from you
Speaker 7: last week. I wrote down some notes for each of
Speaker 7: the callers. And Ben. Ben is a habit of like
Speaker 7: a redefining words. I think, like is a tornado really
Speaker 7: evil or is it just a piece of nature? I
Speaker 7: mean it's like calling a tree evil or a river evil.
Speaker 7: It doesn't make any sense to me. So it's like
Speaker 7: he's trying to redefine what evil is to make his
Speaker 7: religion look better, just the same way he did with
Speaker 7: slavery last week, trying to redefine it into indentured servitude
Speaker 7: to make it look better for his religion. And I
Speaker 7: think people need to pay more attention to definitions, at
Speaker 7: least Benjamin does. He needs to find out what definitions
Speaker 7: are and that they do actually have meetings and then
Speaker 7: d D great call.
Speaker 3: I feel for you.
Speaker 7: I myself had a miraculous recovery. A few years ago.
Speaker 7: My left foot turned, I mean it really so dark purple,
Speaker 7: it was almost black, and it lasted for months. I
Speaker 7: was misdiagnosed as having a blockage in the micro arteries
Speaker 7: of my foot, and they were going to cut my
Speaker 7: foot off. I almost had my foot ink. And then
Speaker 7: one day I was looking over my own medical records
Speaker 7: and I realized that I might have a B twelve deficiency.
Speaker 7: So I started taking massive amounts of B twelve. About
Speaker 7: seven days before the operation, I have my foot cut
Speaker 7: off and my foot got better. So was that a
Speaker 7: miraculous discovery or was that just recovery? Or was that
Speaker 7: just science? Helping me out. And I had no religious
Speaker 7: leanings at all from it before that, and I still
Speaker 7: have none after it, so it didn't change anything for me.
Speaker 7: And I always wonder when you have people like that
Speaker 7: that think, like, well, I'm doing a ritual and it's
Speaker 7: good for me, how do you know, How do you
Speaker 7: know that it's actually going to do good for you?
Speaker 7: Because I don't always know that any of my actions
Speaker 7: are going to be good for me, even in the
Speaker 7: best intentions, ones are going to be good for me
Speaker 7: in the future. So I think it's really important to
Speaker 7: question what your actions are and what you think about
Speaker 7: your future. And that's about it. That's my thought from
Speaker 7: the show, So I'm quite a few of them.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think that's the you make up a good point, Kelly,
Speaker 2: because just with ritual or prayer that if things work out,
Speaker 2: then it was meant to be. If things don't worked out,
Speaker 2: then there was a blessing you had to learn. There's
Speaker 2: always this explanation away of you know, our actions, because
Speaker 2: guess what, we're very good at reasoning and justifying things
Speaker 2: good or bad, you know, so you know, and really
Speaker 2: that just comes down to a decision. Also, I do
Speaker 2: think some trees are evil. They can look a little shady.
Speaker 1: Dad joke, Well fantastic, I think. I say we had
Speaker 1: some good calls today and thank you everybody for tuning in.
Speaker 1: Just a quick minder once again, back Cruise weekend twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: come along time you not see c Ford slash back Crews,
Speaker 1: get your merch fifteen percent off, not Cee c Ford
Speaker 1: slash merch Aca, don't tell Richard and we are sending
Speaker 1: out lover rings to everyone out there because if you
Speaker 1: don't believe, then this is a place for you. But
Speaker 1: if you do believe, we don't hate you, which is
Speaker 1: just not convinced.
Speaker 2: We want the truth.
Speaker 7: So watch Truth Wanted Live Friday at seven pm Central.
Speaker 7: Visit tiny dot CC slash y t tw and
Speaker 1: Call into the show at five one two nine two
Speaker 1: four two, or connect to the show onmine at tiny
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