Speaker 1: Last week was Halloween, and this week equally as unnerving.
Speaker 1: Those of us in the United States have a major
Speaker 1: choice to make on Tuesday. There are those who believe
Speaker 1: that they have an eternal being telling them how to
Speaker 1: run their lives, and because of that, they have the
Speaker 1: right to tell others how to run theirs. Don't believe them.
Speaker 1: There are those who believe that they get to declare
Speaker 1: God's rightful candidate or policies, and they have a divine
Speaker 1: right to make others obey. They are wrong. There is
Speaker 1: no higher power and control of the election. No matter
Speaker 1: how it ends up, we are the ones who impact
Speaker 1: the outcome. We are both free to decide our futures
Speaker 1: without the interference of some mystical being, and responsible for
Speaker 1: how the future ends up. So, no matter what we
Speaker 1: wake up to on Wednesday, know that the future is
Speaker 1: up to us, and I for one am not giving up.
Speaker 1: So do you think what I said is damnable? Heresy?
Speaker 1: Do you think I should have the right to be
Speaker 1: a heretic? Give us a call because the show is
Speaker 1: starting now.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome. It is Sunday in twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 2: am your host, objectively Dan and joining me today is
Speaker 2: our very own Sophia for another episode of Talk He Theen.
Speaker 2: This is a live call in show and it is
Speaker 2: a product of the Atheist Community of ass Day five
Speaker 2: oh one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion
Speaker 2: of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of
Speaker 2: religion and government. And we would love to talk to
Speaker 2: you today if you'd like to talk to us in
Speaker 2: our damnable heathen ways, the number for that is five
Speaker 2: one two nine nine to one nine two four two,
Speaker 2: or you can call through your computer at tiny nott
Speaker 2: cc slash call thh and again I'm here with Sophia.
Speaker 2: Today's Sophia. What's going on? How's how's it hanging?
Speaker 1: This is going all right? You?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no foreseeable consequences to the future of this country
Speaker 2: in the nearby, say next couple of days or so, right,
Speaker 2: No big events or anything. We're a nonprofit organization. Politics
Speaker 2: don't exist in this space.
Speaker 1: We're just you know, we're just speaking very abstractly about
Speaker 1: when people need to make decisions, the things that maybe
Speaker 1: impact their decision making a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, here's here's here's a here's our policy statement.
Speaker 2: People should make informed decisions. That's that's what we say.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, everything's going great, going good. Life is
Speaker 2: happening at an accelerating rate, and I don't like it.
Speaker 2: It seems to be the running theme of just being
Speaker 2: an adult, I guess.
Speaker 1: But you know, I also think it's a theme of
Speaker 1: the last couple of months of the year, Like once
Speaker 1: you hit October, there's just break connect till January and
Speaker 1: then yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: A busy time of year for everybody, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but anyway, we have, we already got callers out the
Speaker 2: gate ready to talk to us. But first before we
Speaker 2: do that, we should talk about our talk Heathen to
Speaker 2: Me segment where we got questions that we ask you
Speaker 2: guys are prompts that we want you guys to answer
Speaker 2: in the comments below. And last week we asked why
Speaker 2: is God so jealous? Why is he so jealous? And
Speaker 2: we're going to figure out why or our top three
Speaker 2: answers here. Number three is coming from Belter g l J,
Speaker 2: who says, why is God jealous? Because Jesus gets to
Speaker 2: marry all the nuns? That's true. Did you know this?
Speaker 2: Did you notice That's the thing.
Speaker 1: I think I did at one point know this I've
Speaker 1: actually been to like the I forget the name of
Speaker 1: the process when nuns officially become nuns, when they've they're
Speaker 1: done with their probation nunnery. Yeah it is.
Speaker 3: It's not as much alcohol, but yeah, yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: lot of Jesus gets a lot of wives that scenario.
Speaker 2: I don't know how people feel about that, but anyway.
Speaker 1: I spend time with all of them.
Speaker 2: Just an observation, Just an observation. Number two comes from
Speaker 2: x million, who says God is jealous because even though
Speaker 2: women cry out his name in the bedroom, he's not
Speaker 2: who they've chosen to be with, except for the nuns apparently,
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's that's also a great funny observation, nick
Speaker 2: million is. Number one comes from Less than Lucid, though,
Speaker 2: who says, why is God jealous? Because humans get free
Speaker 2: will and God has to pay for it, which is
Speaker 2: just that's a great dad joke that I am surprised
Speaker 2: I've never heard of before, But I really like that
Speaker 2: a lot He's got. We got free will and he
Speaker 2: has to pay for it. That's so funny. I don't
Speaker 2: know those are good. It's pretty good. We got some
Speaker 2: good ones this week, so thank you. Guys for giving
Speaker 2: your answers for this week, be prompt for this next week,
Speaker 2: there is going to be what would a modern day
Speaker 2: plague be? And yeah, okay, don't say COVID. Okay, that's obvious.
Speaker 2: Come on, I want you guys to be creative with
Speaker 2: this one, Okay, So uh, answer your answer below in
Speaker 2: the comments and we will read the top three answers up.
Speaker 2: But before we move on, Sophia, what would a modern
Speaker 2: day plague be? What's a good mon day plague?
Speaker 1: Christian content farms on TikTok, I think that's a modern
Speaker 1: day plague.
Speaker 2: You're too real for that. You're too real for that,
Speaker 2: Sophia saying.
Speaker 1: I'm staring at the camera with a verse figure you.
Speaker 2: Well, for me, it's a taktok videos where they have
Speaker 2: like two different things playing at once. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: talking about where they got like a game of subway
Speaker 2: surfers on one thing and then the actual person speaking.
Speaker 2: It's like, this can't be good for us. That's not
Speaker 2: that's not great. But yeah, leave your best answers below
Speaker 2: and we might read yours next week if it's good
Speaker 2: enough to be in our top three. So with that,
Speaker 2: I want to quickly, very quickly go to the crew
Speaker 2: camp that helps make this show happen every single week,
Speaker 2: and thank the folks for working behind the scenes because
Speaker 2: we always love our crew here and an upside down
Speaker 2: view of the we are the Stranger Things world at
Speaker 2: the Atheist Community of Austin. I have no idea if
Speaker 2: that's on purpose. Yeah, that's definitely on purpose.
Speaker 3: That's Vern just fucking around at the studio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good bit. That's a good bit. Thanks
Speaker 2: for that, Vern. But yeah, you know, the crew is
Speaker 2: the real the real heroes that help put us on
Speaker 2: the air for some reason so we can talk for
Speaker 2: you know, an hour and a half every week. So
Speaker 2: thank you crew for doing that. That being said, at least,
Speaker 2: like I said, I mean a Sophia, we got lots
Speaker 2: of lots of calls ready for us to go.
Speaker 1: You ready, I'm ready. I mean I'm as ready as
Speaker 1: I'm going to be. What am I going to do now?
Speaker 2: So yeah, let's do it. Let's see is there anybody
Speaker 2: you want to talk to? You first? I know you
Speaker 2: got that call Q open because I see a couple
Speaker 2: of good ones.
Speaker 1: I feel like I want to be I'm going for
Speaker 1: faith in myself right now.
Speaker 2: Okay, surprise me. Uh, I think Jackie, you want to
Speaker 2: do Jackie? Sure, Okay, let's talk to Jackie Jackie from Mississippi.
Speaker 2: You are live on talk Heathen today. What's going on?
Speaker 4: Hey, how's it going. I'm doing well?
Speaker 5: How about you?
Speaker 2: Doing well? Doing well? Again? It's a fine Sunday evening
Speaker 2: with no immediate consequences for the future of this country
Speaker 2: coming up the next few days, whatsoever. Everything is great,
Speaker 2: no anxiety on my end or any of the other
Speaker 2: hosts or anybody. So it's really fine, Jackie. How about you.
Speaker 5: I'm going pretty good. I don't took a treat, but
Speaker 5: I did do have a little bit of candy, not.
Speaker 2: That much fantastic. I would hope you don't trick a treat.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting when I had. Okay, so, okay, sorry,
Speaker 2: we're going to tangent here. But you know, Halloween was
Speaker 2: the other day. There was a couple and I'm not
Speaker 2: judging here, but there was a couple that came by
Speaker 2: with a wagon of like kids that two kids that
Speaker 2: could not have been older than like one years old,
Speaker 2: and the mom and the dad were dressed up and
Speaker 2: they came to the door. They had three bags that
Speaker 2: they wanted us to give to One was for one kid,
Speaker 2: one was for the other kid, and one was for
Speaker 2: the adults. And I was like, I'm pretty sure those
Speaker 2: kids are too old to be even eating candy, and
Speaker 2: I think you guys are just running a scheme here.
Speaker 2: But I did go given to their ploy because it's Halloween.
Speaker 2: We got to get rid of all this candy. But
Speaker 2: that was a very strange experience. So anyway, I just
Speaker 2: thought i'd share that even classic too young, It's like,
Speaker 2: I don't think you should be given your one year
Speaker 2: old kid cats. Maybe that's just me, but I don't
Speaker 2: think that's a thing. I don't think you should do that.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, Yeah, I think you know it
Speaker 1: would just do the play. Oh sorry, go ahead, Jackie.
Speaker 5: Basically, I just wanted to say, so forty argument I
Speaker 5: would like to present today. I'm going to be presenting
Speaker 5: Saint Thom's Aquinas's argument for the distance of God from degrees,
Speaker 5: So argues of you guys familiar with the argument, or
Speaker 5: do I have to rehash to syllogism.
Speaker 2: It's been a minute since I've talked about Thomas Aquinas.
Speaker 2: But for the sake of the audience, it's probably great
Speaker 2: to give a summary.
Speaker 5: So basically, the premise one is objects have properties the
Speaker 5: greater and lesser degrees. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2: I love Thomas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we would. I think
Speaker 2: it's better instead of asking us if we agree for
Speaker 2: each premise that you go ahead and give the full
Speaker 2: argument and maybe we can talk about it from there.
Speaker 5: Okay, So promise one, objects have properties, delate less and
Speaker 5: greater degrees. Promise too. If there is an object with
Speaker 5: the lesser degree, there has to be an object with
Speaker 5: the greatest possible degree. Premisterry is because there has to
Speaker 5: be an object with the greatest possible degree. There has
Speaker 5: to be an object with all greatest possible degree of
Speaker 5: properties and time before God must exist because of this,
Speaker 5: God being defined as something with the greatest possible degrees
Speaker 5: or of the greatest possible properties.
Speaker 2: What are the greatest possible properties?
Speaker 5: So there's things like degrees of goodness, so something very bad,
Speaker 5: something medium, something really good, and then the greatest possible
Speaker 5: good is God. So God is the manifestation of the
Speaker 5: greatest possible of these properties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can't believe people are convinced by this
Speaker 2: back at Aquinas's time, and I'm very confused why people
Speaker 2: are still convinced by this day. It's a very subjective argument,
Speaker 2: don't you think, to talk about, like what's the greatest
Speaker 2: degree of good and the greatestgree of all these different properties?
Speaker 2: And like properties can be a lot of different things
Speaker 2: like it it can include yeah, things like omnipotence, I guess,
Speaker 2: but it can also include like invisibility or like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, what's who's to say that non existence is
Speaker 2: a is the greatest property? What if? What if God
Speaker 2: just has the greatest property being non existence? Like, I
Speaker 2: don't know. It's very subjective, it's very weird. I don't
Speaker 2: find it, say, I don't know. What do you think, Sophia, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that one you run into the fact that
Speaker 1: you're attempting to define things like good outside of the
Speaker 1: realm of God. So when you say, like, God is good,
Speaker 1: that cannot be possible if you're still trying to say,
Speaker 1: like I if you're trying to define goodness as outside
Speaker 1: of God. So we're saying we as humans can understand
Speaker 1: goodness to a degree, right, and that God, we can
Speaker 1: apply that to God essentially, and that we can understand
Speaker 1: God as being good, but doesn't that mean it's really
Speaker 1: resting on our conception of God. So even if we
Speaker 1: were to sort of buy into that, it doesn't specify
Speaker 1: as objectively Dan said, what these properties are. But if
Speaker 1: we were to take any particular property, then we're making
Speaker 1: up our own God by just deciding whatever it is
Speaker 1: that he would be the most of. And it's sort
Speaker 1: of as I'm hearing, it feels like God equals just
Speaker 1: the most stuff. God is the most stuff of all
Speaker 1: the stuff, and I find that not particularly compelling. We
Speaker 1: also have an amazing comment from our backup hoots today, Kelly,
Speaker 1: but in the chat that doesn't that imply also there
Speaker 1: would be greater or lesser gods, that if it's just
Speaker 1: a rung of being ness, that you would have things
Speaker 1: that are greater than us and lesser than us. And
Speaker 1: it just feels like it opens into this bizarre and
Speaker 1: confusing realm of God's are stuff, they are more stuff
Speaker 1: or less stuff, and we get to define what that
Speaker 1: stuff is.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, yeah, go ahead, Jack.
Speaker 5: Do you just disagree with the premise that do you
Speaker 5: disagree with the premise that if there are degrees of
Speaker 5: goodness or it have the greatest possible goodness.
Speaker 1: I don't think we even have the ability to define goodness.
Speaker 1: So to get degrees into the something we don't even
Speaker 1: have the ability to define is how would we even
Speaker 1: move on from there? How do we reason from that point?
Speaker 2: The only thing we can define into existence or social constructs.
Speaker 2: And unless we're arguing that God is a social construct,
Speaker 2: which I don't think is what you're arguing, and I
Speaker 2: don't think what people who follow this argument are arguing,
Speaker 2: it's not very convincing. I can't just say I can't
Speaker 2: say that volcanoes exist through these games of definitions, right,
Speaker 2: Like most people would say that's pretty absurd, So why
Speaker 2: would I Why would I say it could do the
Speaker 2: same for God? Like, it doesn't make sense to me
Speaker 2: that somehow, through this sort of logical, you know, belly
Speaker 2: button stearing, we can just kind of figure out that
Speaker 2: God exists just by you know, saying, oh, well, he's
Speaker 2: the greatest of all possible stuff, because there has to
Speaker 2: be the greatest of all possible stuff. I just don't
Speaker 2: find that convincing.
Speaker 5: I mean, fair enough, but it's just a matter of definitions.
Speaker 5: God is defined as that with the most greatness making qualities,
Speaker 5: then if there's something with the most warning to who properties,
Speaker 5: that would have to be God by definition.
Speaker 1: And isn't this entire argument just an argument of definitions?
Speaker 1: So to disagree with us on the premise that our
Speaker 1: definitions are somehow worse than the definitions and the basic
Speaker 1: like in the I guess syllogism of Thomas Aquinas Like Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess we just don't like the same definitions, but
Speaker 1: it's still not convincing.
Speaker 5: You know, Well, so you would disagree that God is
Speaker 5: traditionally defined by religious people as you know, the greatest
Speaker 5: possible being or greatest basis for being.
Speaker 1: I would disagree with that. I think we have a
Speaker 1: lot of different particularly religions with many different gods, because
Speaker 1: then they actually have wars with each other, so there
Speaker 1: isn't sort of an assured outcome. I think even if
Speaker 1: you're looking at the Old Testament, God seems to rely
Speaker 1: on human instruments a whole lot, and it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like he's capable of doing everything. So no, I don't
Speaker 1: really get the impression that God is defined as the
Speaker 1: greatest of all possible beings ever, or consider even Mormons
Speaker 1: where you can become a god of your own planet.
Speaker 1: So is there a mega God of all the gods?
Speaker 1: Or is it just the God of our planet that
Speaker 1: we're actually beholden to. So yeah, I just don't think
Speaker 1: that that's true.
Speaker 2: This is Thomas Aquinas's understanding of God. But Thomas Aquinas
Speaker 2: is a medieval philosopher. They had different ideas about God
Speaker 2: before the Renaissance, right before we had the inspirations of
Speaker 2: the Greek, you know, ideas of God and putting him
Speaker 2: into these kinds of syllogisms, right, there were all kinds
Speaker 2: of ideas of God before Thomas Aquinas decided, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: going to make I'm going to make the real best
Speaker 2: argument though, So yeah, I don't even think most people
Speaker 2: in Christian history have followed this, and even those that
Speaker 2: do have followed obviously, Aquinas being one of the most,
Speaker 2: if not the most influential Christian theologian of all time. Still,
Speaker 2: he ask the average Christian, Hey, what do you think
Speaker 2: about Thomas Aquinas his case for the years of God.
Speaker 2: They're going to stare at you, wonder what the heck
Speaker 2: you're talking about. I just don't think most people think
Speaker 2: about God in these kinds of ways only academics, and
Speaker 2: even then a limited sort of those I do appreciate.
Speaker 1: Gotta say, I mean, go ahead.
Speaker 5: So it's basically what you're saying is, even if there
Speaker 5: is the greatest possible being, you would disagree that it
Speaker 5: would have the attributes that classical theism puts on God.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that I can't know anything about his attributes
Speaker 2: if there is the greatest possible being, just by saying
Speaker 2: to these kinds of logic games, it doesn't really tell
Speaker 2: me anything about them. These are just kind of human
Speaker 2: concepts that we're just kind of thrown around with our words.
Speaker 2: If in order for me to really know something about
Speaker 2: a being and its properties in its existence, I have
Speaker 2: to make observations, and I have to infer through reason
Speaker 2: but also through other people's observations, right, and their own
Speaker 2: conclusions what kinds of properties that thing has. It can't
Speaker 2: come from just the mind, right, That's not how I
Speaker 2: can really know things, at least things that don't exist
Speaker 2: as social constructs, as I mentioned, right. So yes, no,
Speaker 2: I mean that's that's really all I had to say
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of like saying, you know,
Speaker 1: if I can conceive of a unicorn. If I lean
Speaker 1: into the fact that unicorns exist, doesn't imply there'd be
Speaker 1: the greatest possible unicorn. It would have every perfect attribute
Speaker 1: that I could ever give to unicorns. Like that's really
Speaker 1: dependent upon my opinions. If I believe in ghosts, then
Speaker 1: there's the greatest possible ghost possibly out there.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, But those.
Speaker 5: Things assume that goes or unicorns exist. But the greatest
Speaker 5: possible beings, Well, the thing is, we know there are
Speaker 5: degrees of greatness, clearly.
Speaker 2: So how do we know how do we know that
Speaker 2: the greatest possible being exists?
Speaker 5: Well, clearly murder is worse than not murder, and clearly no, it's.
Speaker 1: Not just legally defined, it's just.
Speaker 2: So it's a legal yes, yes concept, Yes, thank you
Speaker 2: for saying that. And also, God kills people all the time, right,
Speaker 2: and also violates human laws on people's deaths. Right, So
Speaker 2: God has committed murder straight up, right, he has violated
Speaker 2: the the the states at the time, right concepts of
Speaker 2: what it means to take someone's life away, lawfully or not. Right,
Speaker 2: you can say whether it's justified or not. It wasn't lawful,
Speaker 2: So there you go, right, so it's not clear to
Speaker 2: me which one is the other based on that.
Speaker 5: So so you just disagree that there are degrees of properties.
Speaker 1: Basically unless there's something to measure them, I guess. I mean, no,
Speaker 1: we can say something is smaller than another thing, because
Speaker 1: that's something that we can measure. But I think that
Speaker 1: it's you can't how do how does one measure greatness
Speaker 1: without getting into a definition like slash?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Yeah, I don't disagree that there are
Speaker 2: degrees of things. I do disagree on what the heck
Speaker 2: greatest means. That's that's always going to be subjective. You know,
Speaker 2: how many greatest hits, how many greatest song charts and
Speaker 2: stuff are out there, and people are finding about that
Speaker 2: stuff all the time. Like that, nobody can agree on
Speaker 2: even that stuff, let alone what the heck of greatest
Speaker 2: being is supposed to be. That's that's clearly a very
Speaker 2: subjective thing. Okay, I have.
Speaker 5: Sent I'll also consider your argument, and I'll probably look
Speaker 5: into counter arguments about two a cliance's arguments and degrees.
Speaker 5: But you do have an interesting perspective about you kind
Speaker 5: of go circular into your definition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that I appreciate the point you make
Speaker 1: here of looking into counter arguments. That's how I always
Speaker 1: choose to understand things. If I'm learning an argument, particularly
Speaker 1: if I get excited about it, If I get really
Speaker 1: attached to an idea, it's important for me to start
Speaker 1: looking into people who critique that idea because I know
Speaker 1: that I'm getting emotionally invested in this notion and I
Speaker 1: need something to balance that out. So, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's a good idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that. Call Jackie, anything else you want
Speaker 2: to have before we let go?
Speaker 5: Just one final question, So on that question about looking
Speaker 5: kind of arguments, do you have any recommendations for philosophers,
Speaker 5: specifically continental philosophers, that you think would be good for
Speaker 5: me to read upon.
Speaker 2: If we're talking about continental philosophers, I mean, there are
Speaker 2: lots of responses to Aquinas, but in particular, you're probably
Speaker 2: going to be more interested in theologians responses rather than
Speaker 2: just general continental philosophers. I think like most of the
Speaker 2: time when we talk about continental philosophy, we're talking about
Speaker 2: philosophy that's examining other things besides like general theology. I
Speaker 2: guess kirkit Guard is the first thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 2: I think that directly references Aquinas and maybe Nietzsche, but
Speaker 2: Nietzsche's more interested in Christianity as a whole and not
Speaker 2: really Aquinas as whole shtick. So yeah, Kirker Guard, go,
Speaker 2: kirk Guard, there you go. That's my recommendation. All right,
Speaker 2: we'll let you go now. Thanks, Jackie, have a good one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a great call actually, because short sweet to
Speaker 2: the point, he had a point of view. We disagreed,
Speaker 2: and he was like, all right, I'm gonna look into it.
Speaker 2: That's it, that's the ideal. That is the greatest talk
Speaker 2: heathen call. Actually, hold on, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not a philosopher person as much, so
Speaker 1: it is fun for me to be like, all right,
Speaker 1: give me the argument. Let's just go with what comes
Speaker 1: to mind. And so I appreciate that you do know
Speaker 1: so much and do have recommendations right off, because I'm
Speaker 1: like the follow your own logic, see what comes. But
Speaker 1: that's not my recommendation all the time. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, like like general, philosophers just aren't covering theology
Speaker 2: as much because like the other theologians are covering theology,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I mean they do count as philosophers in
Speaker 2: a way. But that's like a very particular kind of philosopher, right,
Speaker 2: it's just not the same thing. I guess folks who
Speaker 2: study that kind of sts So I don't it's it's
Speaker 2: it's interesting and there's a lot of depth to it.
Speaker 2: But like Aquinas is, like definitely there's a lot of
Speaker 2: responses to Aquinas and stuff. There's a lot of Christians
Speaker 2: today that say, yeah, Aquinas's arguments are like garbage, which
Speaker 2: I think they're also garbage, you know, to just give
Speaker 2: perspective there, But I don't count because I'm not a
Speaker 2: real theologian anyway. No, it was a great call, actually
Speaker 2: the greatest of calls. I think if we were if
Speaker 2: we were to logic our way out of this one
Speaker 2: Sofia and we were to figure out what the greatest
Speaker 2: of talking thing calls, I think we would point to
Speaker 2: that call with Jackie just now. So that's my take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think did do it. I guess I treat
Speaker 1: it like, you know, greatest in you know, it hasn't
Speaker 1: made my heart feel like swell as much, but that's
Speaker 1: so subjective that if I use that as a as
Speaker 1: a method for greatness, like Diesel's heart swell percentage, the
Speaker 1: anti grinchiness of a call. I feel like that's that's
Speaker 1: a hard fie. So yeah, it makes your heart grow.
Speaker 2: That's a good man. That's good meter. We need a
Speaker 2: meter for that. On screen. I think good graphic, you know,
Speaker 2: is this call making Sophia's heart grow, you know? And
Speaker 2: a little graphic that gets bigger and you can like
Speaker 2: change it. These are ideas.
Speaker 6: Crew.
Speaker 2: We need to talk. We need to talk after the show. Okay,
Speaker 2: we need to talk. Let me get this out of
Speaker 2: the way. I want to talk to you guys about
Speaker 2: our brick fundraiser. You guys have been hearing about this
Speaker 2: if you've been watching the last few weeks. We are
Speaker 2: in phase two of our brick fundraiser and we're giving
Speaker 2: on some highlights for some of our standout orders we received.
Speaker 2: This week's featured brick comes from Rosalind from Virginia and
Speaker 2: it is in honor of Dave Warnock and we want
Speaker 2: to thank you for your purchase. And I did mention
Speaker 2: this on Truth Wanted. I actually went to Nashville recently
Speaker 2: because I went to Sidney Davis Junior Junior's wedding shout
Speaker 2: outs and I talked to some folks who are also
Speaker 2: there in the community because Dave's that kind of in
Speaker 2: the close to the area. And Dave's doing fine. I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people ask how's Dave doing. He's
Speaker 2: just off the internet right now. He just doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be on their d But he's doing okay. So
Speaker 2: you know, any updates that he wants to give, that's
Speaker 2: his business. But please don't send him messages asking if
Speaker 2: all right, because he gets those every day and the
Speaker 2: people that are close to him they know they're they're
Speaker 2: in the loop. So but he does say thank you.
Speaker 2: I think to everyone who who has been concerned about him,
Speaker 2: he's just he's getting I think he's getting annoyed. I
Speaker 2: think he's he annoyed by all the people messaging him,
Speaker 2: which I would to But this fine. It's out of love.
Speaker 2: And so thanks to folks who've been keeping up with
Speaker 2: Dave's situation. With that being said, you can get your
Speaker 2: own brick if you want to support the ACA and
Speaker 2: help literally build the building, turning down CC slash ACA
Speaker 2: bricks for that. Also, another way you can support the
Speaker 2: show is by becoming a channel member. If you click
Speaker 2: join below the button below below the video. Not below
Speaker 2: the button the button is the joint button. But anyway,
Speaker 2: you'll get custom chat emotes, early access to clips and shorts,
Speaker 2: and you will help perpetuate the mission of Tom Keithan
Speaker 2: in the atheist community of Austin. And what what greater
Speaker 2: mission is that? If we're going to have greater missions,
Speaker 2: I would say that's the that's the best one. Go
Speaker 2: to all missions exactly. We will read super chats today,
Speaker 2: by the way, if you have a question or comment,
Speaker 2: as long as it's cut appropriate. So get those super
Speaker 2: chats in if you like. And of course you know,
Speaker 2: liking and subscribing it's also that's the whole YouTuber thing.
Speaker 2: You should probably do that if you want to help
Speaker 2: us out. If you don't want to help us out,
Speaker 2: don't do those things, but maybe do them anyway, just
Speaker 2: because I don't know, I won't tell you what to do.
Speaker 2: Last thing, last thing, last thing before we move on.
Speaker 2: We do have merch okay, so tying out cc slash
Speaker 2: merch aca. If you want to see the new pins, backpacks, onesies,
Speaker 2: youth teas, you name it. If you want, you know,
Speaker 2: to celebrate your little heathens in your life, why not
Speaker 2: consider it a onesie for Christmas huh so uh. Anyway,
Speaker 2: that's that's all the announcements I think I got right now, Questions, comments,
Speaker 2: or concerns, Sophia.
Speaker 1: I just love that there's onesies. I feel like the
Speaker 1: dripping bloody letters does feel like giving birth. So that's good.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really representative of the experience of creating
Speaker 1: a little heathen.
Speaker 2: At gift for your grandma. Yeah, give me your grandma
Speaker 2: a talk heathen shirt. Yeah, I love it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I know that we have some super chats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you want to read those? Sure?
Speaker 1: So first we have Kelly Laughlin, our wonderful backup post today.
Speaker 1: He's been a member for two years, spent five dollars,
Speaker 1: and is a cruel, cruel person. Because this is the
Speaker 1: super chat, I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.
Speaker 1: Where she shines, she sits, and where she sits, she shines.
Speaker 1: Love you both, at least will love you both.
Speaker 2: You did really good though, that was you got ninety
Speaker 2: percent on that, I think.
Speaker 1: So I really used to read a lot of like
Speaker 1: Shakespeare in plays and whatever, and so I like read
Speaker 1: ahead with my eyes and my mouth usually will get it,
Speaker 1: but I have to like go into sort of a
Speaker 1: like blank mind and state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were literally practicing talking to us just before
Speaker 2: the show, at least I was. And I'm going to
Speaker 2: try this one right now too. Ready, I saw Susie
Speaker 2: sitting in a suit. Fuck, I already messed up. I
Speaker 2: saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop. Where she shines,
Speaker 2: she sits, and where she sits, she shines. Okay, I
Speaker 2: got it at the end there, But damn, that's a
Speaker 2: hard That's a tough one, Kelly. You're evil for that. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we do have more super check. Do you want to
Speaker 2: read the other one?
Speaker 1: Yes, Eliah Shana silver Bow. I hope I said that right,
Speaker 1: sent five dollars. So three sixty degrees is a full circle.
Speaker 1: Seven hundred and twenty degrees is two full circles. The
Speaker 1: greatest possible degrees is just going in circles. Yeah, finally
Speaker 1: got into existence. That is a very good point, you know.
Speaker 2: What they say? You know? Okay, so there used to
Speaker 2: be a thing, and this is how you know I'm
Speaker 2: a dude. They grew up in the two thousands, But
Speaker 2: there used to be a war between Xbox and PlayStation three.
Speaker 2: It was a big deal. Okay, and people you say, yeah,
Speaker 2: when you when you look at the Xbox three sixty,
Speaker 2: it makes you want to turn three sixty degrees and
Speaker 2: walk away, which is like it doesn't make sense because
Speaker 2: you would just like turn back and looked at the thing.
Speaker 2: But that was like a thing people said. And I
Speaker 2: just I just that's just what my brain goes to.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to go on a tangent about
Speaker 1: love is blind and how there was sort of a
Speaker 1: thing about that, but just I just want everyone to
Speaker 1: know I could I just you all know if that's
Speaker 1: a threat or what.
Speaker 2: But you know, I don't know if that's a threat
Speaker 2: or not either, But I'm intrigued. And well, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: Back to the next super chat NERO and I R
Speaker 1: R who sent five dollars and said, so by Thomas
Speaker 1: Aquinas argument, does that mean God has the greatest possible
Speaker 1: degrees of maliciousness and non existence?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I bring up the non existence thing. I guess
Speaker 2: they would say maliciousness doesn't count because they have the
Speaker 2: grace theories of good, But then why not have the
Speaker 2: gray series of malicious It's like it's it's very arbitrary,
Speaker 2: very arbitrary. I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would also sort of imply that there must
Speaker 1: be a complete counter God, like a fully a being
Speaker 1: as powerful as God that is fully evil or fully
Speaker 1: non existent. Right, you have like a spider.
Speaker 2: Web, why not have the least degrees? Right, the grace
Speaker 2: degree exists, why not the least degree?
Speaker 1: And just thinking about like, yeah, it's a really cool
Speaker 1: premise for a fantasy novel, but it is something I
Speaker 1: really feel like. It's a compelling argument for belief. And
Speaker 1: then we have Miranda Renzberger who we love member for
Speaker 1: six months, who sent five dollars and said God can't
Speaker 1: defeat iron chariots. Humans can build iron chariots. Who's greater now?
Speaker 1: And I imagine like a mic job here, like woo,
Speaker 1: Who's greater now?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a deep cut. That's a real thing. Book
Speaker 2: of Judges, very being Book of Judges. They say that
Speaker 2: God's the army of people for the Israels were defeated
Speaker 2: because of iron chariots, which is the implication that God
Speaker 2: can't deal with them. And there's a lot of reasoning,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of study as to why it is,
Speaker 2: but that's for a different time. So anyway, and.
Speaker 1: They say atheists don't read the Bible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, to be clear, I mean I haven't really.
Speaker 2: The only time I read it now is directly in
Speaker 2: response to people. So I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: There is something that I was a great Bible read
Speaker 1: at a time. I got a lot of candies from
Speaker 1: memorizing versus like you did back in the day and
Speaker 1: Sunday School, and I remember, we're getting tired of knowing
Speaker 1: more versus and understanding more of their context than the
Speaker 1: people leading the yeasty are part of. So you know,
Speaker 1: that's a little stuck there after all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew people that were really into the whole
Speaker 2: you got to memorize. If you memorize the whole verse,
Speaker 2: you get to compete in Bible verse competitions and probably
Speaker 2: get more candy. And I hated that stuff. I don't
Speaker 2: know why that was like the least appealing thing to me.
Speaker 2: It's just like memorizing it word by word, and it.
Speaker 1: Kind of creates this this pedantry that I'm a better
Speaker 1: Christian because I can throw out more christian e sounding
Speaker 1: things than you know you've watched.
Speaker 2: I go ahead, you Christian peasants that don't know not peasants.
Speaker 2: I know, but I know, but like you're you're creating
Speaker 2: a peasantry because there is an upper You're part of
Speaker 2: the upper class of well, I know, Revelations twenty verse
Speaker 2: thirty nine, my head, can you. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we become like little riddlers.
Speaker 2: I think the Shakespeare thing you mentioned earlier kind of
Speaker 2: subconsciously infiltrated my brain a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm a nerd and a door come
Speaker 1: all of those epithets.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you'll beset on all sides by those who
Speaker 2: see you. Now. I can't remember the rest because I'm
Speaker 2: bad at that ship. Anyway, let's keep going. Let's talk
Speaker 2: to Edouardo, who is calling to us from Brazil. Shout
Speaker 2: outs to Brazil. Brazil mentioned on the stream What's happened
Speaker 2: in EDWARDO.
Speaker 4: I'm from Brazil, and uh, what I wanted to talk
Speaker 4: to you about, by the way, the thing of love
Speaker 4: love being blind. I got a kick out of it
Speaker 4: because I actually am blind, so oh.
Speaker 2: Love for you. Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4: I got a hello kick out of it. Anyway, Uh,
Speaker 4: what I'm what I would talk about, I would probably
Speaker 4: be hated by his seers and ass but uh, it
Speaker 4: is a he is a philosophy sort of sort of
Speaker 4: a hybrid bets philosophy and religion that cause spirit spiritism.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you've heard about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I specifically have, at least not
Speaker 1: in the way that you're discussing it.
Speaker 2: So, yes, I'm going to Wikipedia. I see spiritism which
Speaker 2: links to a spiritismo, which is a term used in
Speaker 2: Latin America and the Caribbean referred to the popular belief
Speaker 2: that evolved and less evolved spirits can affect health l
Speaker 2: other aspects of human life. Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 4: Yes, somewhat because oversimplification. So the thing is uh spirit
Speaker 4: is alanc which is the French guy who came up
Speaker 4: with that. He claims to have this third revelation. But
Speaker 4: what is extraordinary about his his his claim is this
Speaker 4: he experienced away everything every every, not every, but all
Speaker 4: sorts of contradictions the Bible, you know, the display holding
Speaker 4: the miracles, and he actually says there are no miracles,
Speaker 4: and there are no miracles because everything that happens is natural.
Speaker 4: What happened and we didn't know are things that we
Speaker 4: don't have the scientific knowledge yet. So for example, Lazarus,
Speaker 4: he came back from the dead, but he didn't actually
Speaker 4: came back from the dead.
Speaker 6: He was.
Speaker 4: I think it's called narcole epsi. People seem to be
Speaker 4: bad and then they stay for sometimes for days like that,
Speaker 4: and people didn't know all the time, so they wrote
Speaker 4: about you know, so obviously it says.
Speaker 2: That not interrupt but like, at least what you're saying
Speaker 2: so far, that's not super controversial, at least for antheists.
Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of atheists that explain
Speaker 2: away stories like that. More broadly, specifically for the Jesus narrative.
Speaker 2: I don't even account most of those as even being
Speaker 2: real events. I just don't think a lot of the
Speaker 2: Bible describes like actual reality. But if you want to
Speaker 2: go that route and try to explain away, like oh,
Speaker 2: what really happened with like the Red Sea Party, for example,
Speaker 2: some people do like there are some naturalistic you know, uh,
Speaker 2: explanations you could point to for sure. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't think you're being that controversial.
Speaker 4: Honestly, Well, well, heres you we are sort of a
Speaker 4: three percent of people who believe that. But the thing is, well,
Speaker 4: it tends that everything happened. But we we evolved with
Speaker 4: spirits evolved. And the thing that the language that was
Speaker 4: explained to us is because we were not soficically evolved.
Speaker 4: And people nowadays explain things like, for example, nobody one
Speaker 4: hundred years ago would understand if we explain what a
Speaker 4: knyphone is, Yeah, that we can talk quite for example
Speaker 4: from Rosil to the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So they read that and then they they wrote it
Speaker 4: as as they understood it. So and and uh. The
Speaker 4: reason for the the the evil being together they good
Speaker 4: is the question of free will. But interestingly enough, he
Speaker 4: doesn't think that uh adam and existed what he says
Speaker 4: that we are we were exiled and people were exiled
Speaker 4: and uh and we were and the issues also we
Speaker 4: were somewhat evolved, but it came to displanet that's primitive
Speaker 4: and everything was he had to be explained. I mean,
Speaker 4: if God didn't want to take our free will and uh,
Speaker 4: and and that's that's how it came up.
Speaker 2: The Bible came up.
Speaker 4: And uh, some of some of some of the spirit
Speaker 4: is they don't even study the Bible, which is which
Speaker 4: is not a very good feeling in my opinion, because
Speaker 4: if it's the first heavy revelations, that's the first and second.
Speaker 4: So she has a book called the Gospel according to Spiritism,
Speaker 4: and uh, that explains that. And and that's that's the
Speaker 4: kind of click for me, because yeah, you tell me that.
Speaker 2: Another thing, what what what makes you? What about this
Speaker 2: ideology or this belief system appeals to you? What makes
Speaker 2: it convincing to you?
Speaker 4: What appears to me is that it doesn't have a hierarchy.
Speaker 4: I mean there's no there's no priests, there are no uh,
Speaker 4: no releagious hierarchies. So because we've been reincarnate, just believe
Speaker 4: in reincarnation. So it's very possible that our person that
Speaker 4: is just beginning has more, which is don't there's somebody
Speaker 4: who lives their whole life used by those dystoption and uh.
Speaker 4: And they not only not only say that we shouldn't
Speaker 4: have blind face, they actually count them by face. They
Speaker 4: they actually says that have two. We are here to
Speaker 4: improve our intellects and our morality. And in the cities,
Speaker 4: for example, the part that they say, oh you know
Speaker 4: a good man, I was studying that last week. Actually,
Speaker 4: and it's basically we can't for example, I can't do
Speaker 4: it you for being a Nazist. I can't do it.
Speaker 4: I can't chose a Moslim for being Muslim. I mean,
Speaker 4: everybody has the best.
Speaker 7: To go in life.
Speaker 4: That's that's why it clicks to me. That's that's that's
Speaker 4: quite click to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I definitely have some thoughts. I know, Sophia,
Speaker 2: if you want to talk, because I have some thoughts.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think my initial thought is that to me,
Speaker 1: it sounds like there are aspects that feel cool to you,
Speaker 1: that makes sense to you from an emotional level maybe,
Speaker 1: And I know that you're mentioning blind faith is bad,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I don't see any compelling reason
Speaker 1: to actually believe this. To me, it seems like another
Speaker 1: angle of I like this idea it makes life make
Speaker 1: sense to me, or makes these aspects of life feel
Speaker 1: all right, I'm going to choose to believe it. So
Speaker 1: I still am not getting to any you know, I
Speaker 1: am trying to listen carefully to see like, is there
Speaker 1: where is the evidence for this? Is this evidence even
Speaker 1: come into play here? But it just kind of seems
Speaker 1: like another one of those beliefs that's just like, nah,
Speaker 1: I want to believe something. This this seems cool. I
Speaker 1: don't know why your thoughts there.
Speaker 2: I think, oh, sorry, you were asking him, not me.
Speaker 3: Probably anybody anybody answer well, I just found out because,
Speaker 3: like I said, a spiritism, a spiritismo, but that is
Speaker 3: actually the different thing is this carts spiritism.
Speaker 2: I found it because he mentioned the Gospel according to spiritism,
Speaker 2: and that is what this is referring to. So this
Speaker 2: is a sort of new religious movement that was as
Speaker 2: most popular in Brazil, which makes sense because you're calling
Speaker 2: from Brazil, that kind of I mean, everything seems to
Speaker 2: match up here with what you're talking about as far
Speaker 2: as like, Okay, there's it's a different sort of view
Speaker 2: on traditional Christian theology, but there still definitely is a
Speaker 2: belief in God. And I'm also seeing some other interesting
Speaker 2: things here, like the belief that mediums can talk to
Speaker 2: the dead and stuff like that. So there is still
Speaker 2: some kind of interesting spiritual elements. I guess that's why
Speaker 2: it's called spiritism. And the thing is, like, I agree
Speaker 2: with some of your criticisms of traditional Christianity, right, like,
Speaker 2: there's definitely some better explanations for what we see. For example,
Speaker 2: and you start off by saying, hey, Lazarus say there's
Speaker 2: maybe this is explained by a narcoleptic. I agree. I
Speaker 2: think a naturalist explanation is probably better for some of
Speaker 2: the stuff we see. But the difference between your beliefs
Speaker 2: and what my beliefs are is, Look, I apply that
Speaker 2: to the whole of Christianity. I don't even need to
Speaker 2: believe that there is a God, right, Why do I
Speaker 2: have to even start with that? It seems like we
Speaker 2: kind of start with this presumption that Okay, well maybe
Speaker 2: some Christians or Muslims or these other people they have
Speaker 2: different ideas, they have different interpretations, but let's get to
Speaker 2: the real stuff. And I kind of say, well, maybe
Speaker 2: it's all bullshit from the very beginning. Maybe we don't
Speaker 2: have have to look at the real Christianity because maybe
Speaker 2: there is no real Christianity or real God or real
Speaker 2: God beliefs around it that that are more true than others,
Speaker 2: because maybe there just isn't a God. Right, So that's
Speaker 2: where I think I start off with this. It's just
Speaker 2: like all this stuff is kind of predicated on I
Speaker 2: got even being there in the first place, and if
Speaker 2: I can't even get that far, I can't get into
Speaker 2: this other stuff.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, I got it. I
Speaker 4: got it, And I just wanted to put it out
Speaker 4: there to see your reaction because it's not only the
Speaker 4: United States on to see what you guys think. But
Speaker 4: here's the thing. It doesn't bother me that you don't
Speaker 4: believe actually, because.
Speaker 2: Well that's good it shouldn't you know?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, of course that's what I mean. That's exactly
Speaker 4: what I mean. I put it out there because I
Speaker 4: have to somewhat where not that there are many people here,
Speaker 4: but somewhat where a combination of being fluent in English
Speaker 4: and know his sense about this releasions. I just want
Speaker 4: to put it out there and and.
Speaker 7: No to preach.
Speaker 4: Like I said, I'm trying to make you believe that.
Speaker 4: I'm just to make people think about that you are
Speaker 4: somebody else because if I if I, if I, well,
Speaker 4: if I told you that you should believe, be going
Speaker 4: I guess my religion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we appreciate that you believe that. We appreciate that
Speaker 2: you know you wanted our takes, you want our reactions.
Speaker 2: We gave you our reactions right there. You go like I,
Speaker 2: I you know, I appreciate and respect that you may
Speaker 2: have more progressive ideas of Christianity that maybe it includes
Speaker 2: being more accepting of other people and not trying to
Speaker 2: preach and do stuff like that. I just think that
Speaker 2: you don't even have to be a Christian or even
Speaker 2: be spiritual to even have good values either. Like I
Speaker 2: just think if it's more about hey, I like that
Speaker 2: this belief system is anti hierarchical and like allows me
Speaker 2: to live independently and do these things. I think you
Speaker 2: can do that as an atheist even better than then
Speaker 2: a spirituist, because I don't even need a gospel. You
Speaker 2: can just do what you want. But that's my take, right,
Speaker 2: so perhaps, but yeah.
Speaker 4: But let me just say, well, well I seek just
Speaker 4: well I see, uh like to provoke you guys.
Speaker 2: Your your provocus.
Speaker 4: I mean it's is actually the the you know, the
Speaker 4: human is actually comes from the Christian morality, but without God,
Speaker 4: so it can maybe you just believe in God now,
Speaker 4: but some accessors of yours had to because it's not
Speaker 4: it's only Western society that think about tolerance and things
Speaker 4: like that. It's it's starry to come out there. But
Speaker 4: if you if you, for example, in Japan, not in
Speaker 4: nineteen forty five Peo believe the emperor the live. Emperor
Speaker 4: was a god, he could do anything.
Speaker 1: You know, idea, But think about I think it's hard
Speaker 1: to provoke people with arguments they've heard again and again.
Speaker 1: In this instance, the idea that atheist morality is somehow
Speaker 1: borrowed from specifically Christianity is something that if you're an
Speaker 1: atheist you hear a lot. I think it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: if you read literature throughout time, or global literature. That's
Speaker 1: where I kind of come to this belief is that
Speaker 1: people have had very similar feelings about morality throughout time
Speaker 1: throughout the world. We love similarly, we feel pain similarly,
Speaker 1: and our morality is an outgrowth of the fact that
Speaker 1: we're a social species. We like to be together, we
Speaker 1: love each other, and we feel pain, and so there's
Speaker 1: no need to borrow a particular moral system. You know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned tolerance being something that was specific to Europe. Well,
Speaker 1: why is tolerance inherently the only morality that we need
Speaker 1: to be concerned about. I think equality matters too, And
Speaker 1: I think you saw a lot of calls in Eastern
Speaker 1: religions or in oftentimes more indigenous religions that focus on
Speaker 1: things like sharing, like communal welfare. I think those are
Speaker 1: good things too, and they don't necessarily come from European
Speaker 1: styles of Christianity. So yeah, I think we're open to
Speaker 1: being provoked, but I think that particular argument is one
Speaker 1: that's pretty easily dispensed with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, a couple of things there. One,
Speaker 2: there is a common misconception that atheism is a Western
Speaker 2: development and is a Western idea, and that's like a
Speaker 2: very Eurocentric idea of thinking, because actually it's as old
Speaker 2: as Indian philosophy, like Indian silas beat by centuries when
Speaker 2: it comes to thinking about this stuff, and it's obviously like,
Speaker 2: you know, we haven't had that produced in like the
Speaker 2: modern philosophical consensus until like much later, because mostly when
Speaker 2: we talk about philosophy, it's it's pretty much always been
Speaker 2: what white guys thought about somewhere in Europe. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's something to consider there that it's not just a
Speaker 2: Western idea, right, that it exists by you know, even
Speaker 2: by that standards, but if you even want to include
Speaker 2: like just the broad non belief that technically goes back
Speaker 2: even further than like human civilization, right, because yeah, there's
Speaker 2: animism and sort of spiritual beliefs that existed amongst humans.
Speaker 2: But like, there's definitely been groups of people that have
Speaker 2: no God belief, for at least God in the traditional
Speaker 2: sense kind of belief. So it definitely exists for a
Speaker 2: long time. Whether or not that leads you to a
Speaker 2: better outcome morally is a separate question, right. But the
Speaker 2: truth is, like you know, there is there is a
Speaker 2: conception that morality stems from Christianity or Christianity and religious
Speaker 2: constructs in general are the basis of moral foundations. And
Speaker 2: you know, we've talked about this time and time again,
Speaker 2: how it's not true. How we can definitely live lives
Speaker 2: that are moral and you know, obviously produce outcomes that
Speaker 2: are good most traditionally defined as good. Are they consistent?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: But when is religion ever been consistent? Right, Like, that's
Speaker 2: just the matter of being a human being and how
Speaker 2: you sort that out. So anyway, that's enough I think
Speaker 2: from me. But you didn't say that was the last
Speaker 2: thing you want to say. I will let you go here, Eduardo,
Speaker 2: unless you had anything else you want to add before
Speaker 2: I let you go.
Speaker 4: No, I'm gonna yeah, I'm just saying, uh, yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: talking about your specific I mean, I know they if
Speaker 4: it isn't comes from long ago and all that, but uh,
Speaker 4: that's the thing. But we learned, we learned that when
Speaker 4: you don't have tolerance, and actually a lesson that you
Speaker 4: have to learn by pay, when you don't have tolerists
Speaker 4: to start to tolerate genocide and things like that. That's
Speaker 4: why I say that's the most important moral principle.
Speaker 2: I mean, I agree, I don't support genocide. I'm also
Speaker 2: an atheist, so I don't know what you will do
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, listen, no, no, sorry, sorry, I'm not
Speaker 4: saying that because you are. It's not the provocation that
Speaker 4: I was going to say. Is that what led you
Speaker 4: to the the loss of that too?
Speaker 2: You you are part today.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to be careful for my wordship was was
Speaker 4: I mean your specifically from the foundation you know, the
Speaker 4: seccul line and the church separated from the state, to
Speaker 4: the church deparate from the state. It's it came because
Speaker 4: of because people start passion christian the Christianity, because you know,
Speaker 4: if they are if they for example, we start to
Speaker 4: sink musicians and what's that.
Speaker 2: And I think that you don't have just clarify, are
Speaker 2: you saying that secularism originates from Christianity. I think that's
Speaker 2: what you're saying, because I disagree with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I'm not I'm not saying but yeah, but
Speaker 4: I'm not saying that to say that no, you are,
Speaker 4: you are wrong. I don't see you know why, and
Speaker 4: might even not be wrong, might be right about that.
Speaker 4: But I just I just think I don't. I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you were so few specifically has
Speaker 4: that problem with people? Don't if you start, don't even
Speaker 4: acknowledge that money, I mean it.
Speaker 2: Just agree that acknowledge the possibility.
Speaker 1: So like the idea that if you know, there can
Speaker 1: I guess I'm happy to say that there can be
Speaker 1: very moral religious people. And I am a product of
Speaker 1: the West, and Christianity had a major impact on the West.
Speaker 1: I think that those are all things that I can
Speaker 1: absolutely concede. I think that when we're talking about the
Speaker 1: idea of like morality, I have found that every step
Speaker 1: I take away from faith and incorporate non Western Christian traditions,
Speaker 1: I find myself living more in tune with other people
Speaker 1: with I find myself living with more integrity the further
Speaker 1: away I step from it. So I think that it's
Speaker 1: when it's presented as though we have to have been
Speaker 1: influenced by Christianity to be moral, and that our morals
Speaker 1: come from that. I think that that's what people start
Speaker 1: taking issue with. Additionally, I think when we're talking about
Speaker 1: on a societal level, things like tolerance, every step toward
Speaker 1: tolerance has been a step away from the Church. So
Speaker 1: I think it's very difficult to say that the secularism
Speaker 1: and so that humanism and human rights in general have
Speaker 1: been something that came from the Church, when historically that
Speaker 1: just isn't true.
Speaker 2: So I am.
Speaker 1: Definitely happy to see that. Yep, I'm a product of
Speaker 1: the West. I have a lot of Christian family members
Speaker 1: that I consider people who are seeking to do right
Speaker 1: and their religion is grounded in European history. Like that's
Speaker 1: just that's just actually true. It's also factually true that
Speaker 1: all goodness doesn't come from Christianity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand your frustration. I'm going to say this.
Speaker 2: I'm going to let you go afterwards, because I didn't
Speaker 2: say I let you give one more thing, and but
Speaker 2: you know, you brought up an interesting point. But I
Speaker 2: think is a common criticism that people have, which is like, look,
Speaker 2: atheists aren't open minded? Why can't atheists be open minded
Speaker 2: towards the spiritual, towards the God, towards all these other things.
Speaker 2: And the truth is I am a product of an
Speaker 2: attempt at open mindedness. If I had stayed a Christian,
Speaker 2: by the way, which is the idea that, oh, you
Speaker 2: have the truth and the life right, you don't need
Speaker 2: these other ideas. I mean, that's Christianity's whole thing, is that, look,
Speaker 2: don't worship these other gods, don't follow these other paths,
Speaker 2: only follow through me. That's not an act of open
Speaker 2: mindedness if I had stayed a Christian. It is my
Speaker 2: attempt to circumvent that ideology that I have come to
Speaker 2: the place that I am today, right, And that's not
Speaker 2: true for all the atheists. Some people grow up broadly
Speaker 2: setuler and don't have godlieves, and that's fine. But for
Speaker 2: many of us, that's our reality and that's our choice.
Speaker 2: Christianity did not promote ideas of open mindedness and tolerance
Speaker 2: and exploration. And I think that is the burden that
Speaker 2: Christians need to understand, that that's what they need to follow,
Speaker 2: not atheists. It's not atheists that need to be more
Speaker 2: open minded. It's the religious folks that grew up in
Speaker 2: the majority religious nations and the majority religious cultures that
Speaker 2: they grew up and that they need to learn tolerance
Speaker 2: and figure out what other people believe and not just hey,
Speaker 2: I need to figure out what the most people, what
Speaker 2: a third of the planet believes. I know what they believe,
Speaker 2: I got that right. Do they know what I believe though,
Speaker 2: or don't believe? I think that's a that's a harder
Speaker 2: question for a lot of Christians to actually answer. And
Speaker 2: I know that you're a different kind of Christian than
Speaker 2: most Christians, but that's what we broadly talk about, right,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the majority consensus. But I am when
Speaker 2: you go EDWARDO. So thank you for that call. Another interesting,
Speaker 2: interesting call today.
Speaker 1: Appreciated it. I now know more about something I didn't like.
Speaker 1: I learned something which is which is really cool.
Speaker 2: I mean cartisicist spiritism. That's cartassist with a K. You
Speaker 2: don't know anything about this big Wikipedia article though. Nice. Thanks? Yeah,
Speaker 2: very cool, cool show we're doing today. Thanks for your great,
Speaker 2: awesome calls. I hope we can keep up this great
Speaker 2: pace of cool calls and not go into lane calls, right,
Speaker 2: because that would that would suck.
Speaker 1: It is better to be cool than lame.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's better to It is greater to be cool
Speaker 2: than lame. Therefore, the coolest of calls does exist and talk?
Speaker 2: He then, is is it the coolest of callin shows?
Speaker 2: So obviously, I don't know. I don't know. There's other
Speaker 2: cool shows out.
Speaker 1: There, but hey, cool but not cool.
Speaker 2: Who's the greatest?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And if it's greatest, it has to exist, right anyway,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We're getting cost of all call in shows.
Speaker 2: That's right, and I think maybe we're on it right now.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but he we should do our top
Speaker 2: five patrons for we should the greatest of Colin shows.
Speaker 2: I think, Sophie, you want to do top five? Sure?
Speaker 1: All right? Well I said sure, and now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me get this ship out. I can do
Speaker 2: it if you're not okay, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, God, consider things before I agree to them.
Speaker 4: Problem.
Speaker 2: I totally get it, because it's like when you're alive
Speaker 2: and you're like you're you just start talking just to
Speaker 2: fill the void because we can't have we can't have
Speaker 2: no noise going whatsoever. That's crazy, are you thing? But yeah,
Speaker 2: I totally understand.
Speaker 1: Yep, all right, I found them. So our top five patrons.
Speaker 1: Number one, we have oops All Singularity, which is just
Speaker 1: such a good name too. We have Dingleberry Jackson. Three
Speaker 1: is this is what I can't think about. I just
Speaker 1: have to say, you got this, you.
Speaker 2: Got this, you got this.
Speaker 1: Now I haven't even less.
Speaker 2: Come on, you got this. Yeah, you got it?
Speaker 1: Hell me, hell baddy?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I think I just have to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The next is left in the leaves. And then number
Speaker 1: five we have Neil the six o four atheist with
Speaker 1: an honorable mention today from Bethany p. That's a good name.
Speaker 1: That's an easy name to say. Bethany is normal human name.
Speaker 2: Wait, hold on all of our oops I'll say I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure oops All Singularity is taken offense okay, because
Speaker 2: that's I'm sure that's their government name. All right.
Speaker 1: You just.
Speaker 2: How awesome would that be? That'd be sick, Actually that
Speaker 2: would be pretty pretty cool. But anyway, Yeah, thank everybody
Speaker 2: that donates. You guys are all great, And if you
Speaker 2: want to be in the top five and maybe an
Speaker 2: honorable mention, you should do that a tiny out c
Speaker 2: c slash, Patreon, t H or you know, just be
Speaker 2: a regular patron too. You got to be top five ce. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there she's got she's pointed to that lower third. So
Speaker 2: thanks for doing that. And and just a reminder as well,
Speaker 2: we are going to be doing an after show and
Speaker 2: we're having both of us and then after show today.
Speaker 2: So if you're watching this live, come check out the
Speaker 2: Discord after show and uh, that's what we call it
Speaker 2: the after show because it's after the show.
Speaker 1: Just here after the show.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm all about it, you know, I'm all
Speaker 2: about it. So yeah, go check that out if you
Speaker 2: want to hang out with us. But hey, let's get
Speaker 2: to some more calls for now. We oh man, we
Speaker 2: got some good ones. We have two Stevens online right now. Actually,
Speaker 2: that's a good question. I think I want to talk
Speaker 2: to Steven from Florida first. Can we do that? All right,
Speaker 2: let's do Stevens from Florida. Stephen from Florida. You are
Speaker 2: alive on Talk Heathen today. What's going on?
Speaker 7: Hey, guys, I just wanted to talk a little bit
Speaker 7: about deconstructing Hell. Yeah, first of all, just listening to
Speaker 7: the show, to just listen into the show today. I
Speaker 7: wanted to say that the the idea that atheists aren't
Speaker 7: open minded is not supported throughout history. I mean, we're
Speaker 7: open to proof. Like my Christian friends asked me a
Speaker 7: lot what would change my mind? And I tell them proof.
Speaker 7: But what would change your mind is nothing, because you've
Speaker 7: already had your mind made up and your God, you know,
Speaker 7: is a substitute for this knowledge, which is something that
Speaker 7: you'll never surpass because it always comes to your God
Speaker 7: and nothing's above that. So the answer will always be that.
Speaker 7: But during my deconstruction deconstructing, I wanted to talk about
Speaker 7: I feel like I was a worst person when I
Speaker 7: was a Christian. You know, it's hard, it's hard to admit,
Speaker 7: but when you're a Christian you read things in the
Speaker 7: Bible like slavery, and then you say, well, I'm going
Speaker 7: to rationalize this to that was the times back then,
Speaker 7: and so it was accepted and therefore these people deserved
Speaker 7: it because you know what I mean, And so you
Speaker 7: get this just you know, demonic or of a way
Speaker 7: of putting it, a way of thinking that's just very evil, hierarchy,
Speaker 7: way of thinking that you're better than everybody else, simply
Speaker 7: because you have this imaginary friends who says so and
Speaker 7: this book, you know what I mean, tells you that
Speaker 7: these things. So I wanted to call about deconstructing and
Speaker 7: just how it changed my life completely. Of I feel
Speaker 7: like being human, you can hear things that you know
Speaker 7: contradict what even your beliefs, and instead of just being like, well,
Speaker 7: my God has an answer for this, or my preacher
Speaker 7: just hasn't told me what the answer is yet, is
Speaker 7: not the best way of going, you know. So I
Speaker 7: like to challenge my Christian friends and even give them
Speaker 7: their Jesus story, and I like to ask them what
Speaker 7: tangible evidence even if we were to say that Jesus
Speaker 7: died for you and for me and for all of
Speaker 7: our sins, why are we going to die? Why did
Speaker 7: our grandparents die? If Jesus died for these people, why
Speaker 7: are they still experiencing death? Is this a clear sign
Speaker 7: that even if Jesus did these things, that they weren't
Speaker 7: accepted from his God. I mean, in the Bible, it
Speaker 7: even tells you a sacrifice has to be a female offering,
Speaker 7: and a flawless female. Jesus was not a female, and
Speaker 7: he was not flawless.
Speaker 2: He was cut up.
Speaker 7: In the Bible tells you, you know, now to a cross,
Speaker 7: and you know, a sacrifice is supposed to be in
Speaker 7: a temple, not onn amount. So there was a there's
Speaker 7: a bunch of things that you could even argue about
Speaker 7: Jesus's sacrifice that doesn't even meet biblical you know standard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what the greatest red pill you experience as an
Speaker 2: atheist is when you realize that Christianity is the Judaism,
Speaker 2: what Mormonism is to the general Christian population, which is
Speaker 2: that Christianity. Right, this idea of Jesus being this fulfillment
Speaker 2: of prophecy and stuff is not obviously what Jews today
Speaker 2: broadly speak and think of in the same way that
Speaker 2: we don't think so smith is a continuation of writing
Speaker 2: any of the books of the Bible. Like, that's what
Speaker 2: Jesus was doing to Jewish people at the time, right,
Speaker 2: was Hey, here's my interpretation and here's my culls of
Speaker 2: personality sort of you know, turning into this whole other religion.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's really what it was. But yeah, there's
Speaker 2: so much to say there about this. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: you bring up a lot of great points. I was
Speaker 2: also a worst person when I was a Christian, Right,
Speaker 2: I was homophobic I was. To be honest, I didn't
Speaker 2: really think a whole lot about trans people. They just
Speaker 2: wasn't as much visibility when I was younger. But I
Speaker 2: was probably transphobic. If I met a transfers, and I'd
Speaker 2: probably be a transphobic towards them. And why because I
Speaker 2: thought I was justified in that. I thought that being
Speaker 2: gay was a sin and that God had specific gender
Speaker 2: rules for people, and then we had to apply by that.
Speaker 2: That wasn't you know? Yeah, are there atheists that are
Speaker 2: transphobic and homophobic? Absolutely, but broadly speaking, right, that culture
Speaker 2: of homophobia and transphobia is fueled by Christianity and Islam,
Speaker 2: and you know, you know, maybe some minority religions, but
Speaker 2: Christianity in America absolutely one percent is where a lot
Speaker 2: of that's coming from. And I don't I'm not a
Speaker 2: Christian anymore. So therefore I'm not homophobic anymore, because why,
Speaker 2: I don't care about God's opinion. I don't think God's real, right,
Speaker 2: So there's an interesting thing that happens where I do
Speaker 2: think I'm a better person because I'm not a Christian anymore.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people say, well, you don't even
Speaker 2: know what right and wrong is, And that's gas lighting,
Speaker 2: because yeah, human beings have always always, let me, let
Speaker 2: me say this again, always been the arbiters for right
Speaker 2: and wrong. I don't care what you think God's opinion is.
Speaker 2: That's a human being telling you what they think God's
Speaker 2: opinion is. God has not told me himself, and as
Speaker 2: far as I know, hasn't directly told anybody. It's always
Speaker 2: been what human beings have thought of God, and therefore
Speaker 2: have been human opinions of what's right and wrong. And
Speaker 2: that means that it's malleable. That means that we can
Speaker 2: work with it and become better people and figure out
Speaker 2: what it even means to be a better person. Right. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of value that comes with deconstruction, and
Speaker 2: it's one of the main reasons why I do this
Speaker 2: shit because I want other people to experience that and
Speaker 2: be like, hey, there is a way to not just
Speaker 2: lose your faith. I'm not interested in losing faith or
Speaker 2: losing faith's sake. I want people to believe in true things,
Speaker 2: but I also want people to become better people, and
Speaker 2: you can do that definitely by shutting off nonsense that
Speaker 2: comes from beliefs that are religious in nature. Obviously, there
Speaker 2: you go. There's my ted talk, Sophia.
Speaker 1: I glad it well, and I very strongly identify with
Speaker 1: a lot of what you were saying, Stephen, and went
Speaker 1: through a similar process of I was trying to make
Speaker 1: so many things work when I was Christian. The mental
Speaker 1: gymnastics I was doing were insane, and I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that I was doing them until I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to put this down for a little while.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to like take a rest from apologetics
Speaker 1: because I was very much an advocate for my faith.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I did that, I realized how
Speaker 1: I didn't have to work so hard to try to
Speaker 1: make something feel true, look true, seem true. And that
Speaker 1: was sort of the beginning of my road to atheism,
Speaker 1: was I was just like, wait, this is so much
Speaker 1: this makes so much more sense. And when I think
Speaker 1: about I had a big argument with my grandfather once,
Speaker 1: who was a very good man, was a preacher for
Speaker 1: a long long time, and the premise is who is
Speaker 1: your neighbor? You know, that's something that we're told to
Speaker 1: love our neighbors as ourselves. And then I see religious
Speaker 1: people of all stripes but particularly Christians, and we're in
Speaker 1: the context of America right now, particularly in America, who
Speaker 1: go to great lengths to argue that other people are
Speaker 1: not really their neighbor, that the Bible doesn't really mean
Speaker 1: those people that I don't prefer or agree with, or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they use the Bible to make that argument. And
Speaker 1: it's the ability to make an argument based upon your
Speaker 1: feelings and then believe you have God's divine dictate behind
Speaker 1: them that makes a person really dangerous and really hurtful
Speaker 1: and able to do things that just completely disregard the
Speaker 1: humanity of another. Of course, I wouldn't say no atheist
Speaker 1: has ever done that, but what I see every are
Speaker 1: Christians doing that, And so yeah, I fully agree. I
Speaker 1: think the other thing I would say about when I
Speaker 1: was Christian was I was so anxious. I had a
Speaker 1: very hard time thinking about my own morality, being my
Speaker 1: best self, being my most moral self. Because I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this just this week. If I felt like
Speaker 1: I had a little bit of a sniffle, should I
Speaker 1: go to school? Like that was a middle school question
Speaker 1: for me. Is it a demon or the devil trying
Speaker 1: to get me not to go to school? Because if
Speaker 1: I went to school, would I have the ability to
Speaker 1: witness for Christ at school? And then so it means
Speaker 1: I should push myself to go right. But what if
Speaker 1: that's actually the demon talking? And if I stay home,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll have the ability to witness like a Jehovah's
Speaker 1: witness or something at the door, because they sometimes come around,
Speaker 1: So how can I know? And so I would genuinely
Speaker 1: spend time trying to figure this out as this kid.
Speaker 1: And I knew I was never good enough. I knew
Speaker 1: I was wretched and disgusting and awful. And so when
Speaker 1: you're thinking about yourself that way, how could you possibly be?
Speaker 1: You a moral person? You're just an anxious rat. And so, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I agree with you very wholeheartedly. And it clearly connects
Speaker 1: with my own experience quite a lot.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and Jesus himself expressed racism and biased by the
Speaker 7: story we're told when the woman goes to beg for
Speaker 7: her daughter who's crippled, and Jesus says, it's not right
Speaker 7: for me to throw scraps to the dogs. I must
Speaker 7: tend to my own people, the Jews, And so he
Speaker 7: tells the woman that she's a dog, and that she's
Speaker 7: not a Jewish person. And she answers and says, yes,
Speaker 7: you know, yes, but even children throw scraps to the
Speaker 7: dogs sometimes. And then Jesus says, you know, this is
Speaker 7: a good answer. When you get home, your daughter will
Speaker 7: be healed. But you know it wasn't before this girl
Speaker 7: had to explain to Jesus that he was a racist.
Speaker 7: And then the Christians want to be like, praise Jesus,
Speaker 7: he healed that little girl. And you're like, dude, you
Speaker 7: know what I mean, missed the fine the fine reading there,
Speaker 7: and you just come to the conclussion of your Jesus
Speaker 7: is the most powerful being.
Speaker 2: And and and she had to cowtow to the personality
Speaker 2: of Jesus right and beg and say, hey, I know
Speaker 2: I'm not a Jewish person. I'm a Greek woman, right
Speaker 2: is the con is the subtext there. She's not literally
Speaker 2: saying that, but the subtext there, right is that yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not a Jewish person, but you know I still
Speaker 2: have these needs and desires. And He's like, okay, I'll
Speaker 2: allow it then, because you cowtowed to me, and you know,
Speaker 2: and and and and gave into this terrible metaphor, right,
Speaker 2: which that metaphor absolutely in the Bible, right says, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: even the dogs need scraps, right, Like, that's what your
Speaker 2: mercy is from Jesus. Is you are so low you
Speaker 2: don't even get to sit at the table with him.
Speaker 2: You're the dog underneath the table. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 2: truly horrifying passage when you read it with a fuller context,
Speaker 2: something I never understood as a Christian because why would
Speaker 2: you why would you celebrate that?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's true. When you read the Bible of
Speaker 2: a broader understanding, terrible things come up.
Speaker 7: You know, even even there, even they're hymns amazing grace,
Speaker 7: a wretch like me, I mean, you know, the Bible
Speaker 7: calls them sheep. I mean, like, it's it's very degrading
Speaker 7: to you know, and especially if you're a female to
Speaker 7: call yourself, you know, a person of faith. You know,
Speaker 7: in the Middle East you're you're killed if you don't.
Speaker 7: But in America, you know, you have the choice not
Speaker 7: to to follow that, you know, And I say to
Speaker 7: my friends all the time, you know, a female in
Speaker 7: the in the in the Southern States must have a
Speaker 7: really hard time figuring out what parts of her body
Speaker 7: belong to the government, and what parts of her body
Speaker 7: belong to their husbands, and so you know what I mean,
Speaker 7: And so like it's it's really ridiculous to me. But
Speaker 7: like as I'm as I'm you know, learning these things,
Speaker 7: I'm trying not to let you know what was pushed
Speaker 7: upon me my whole life to get in the way
Speaker 7: of truth and facts. I'm trying to you know, see
Speaker 7: these this now that I mean, I was the same
Speaker 7: way as you. I just don't have any trans people
Speaker 7: or or LGBT people in my life. But now that
Speaker 7: I'm opening my eyes to this, where I was homophobic
Speaker 7: to them, I realized that they need a voice as well,
Speaker 7: and you know, and I start regretting all the years
Speaker 7: that you know, I felt justified in in pure hatred,
Speaker 7: you know, And now that I see that what I
Speaker 7: was so afraid of this whole time was actually what
Speaker 7: I thought I believed in this love and compassion, you
Speaker 7: know what I mean, was actually what I was fighting
Speaker 7: against and and trying to hide from and saying that
Speaker 7: I was more justified than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I we were joking about having a
Speaker 1: consumeter where your like heart grows earlier and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I feel like this is one of those for me
Speaker 1: where I fully agree that what I was homophobic too.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that this is sort of you know, this
Speaker 1: seems universal's three of us anyway, that there were people
Speaker 1: that I thought that because God could love me as
Speaker 1: a sinner, I could pull that God, you know, they
Speaker 1: love the sinner hate the sin line, right, And I
Speaker 1: wasn't just saying I actually just hate this big part
Speaker 1: of you and this big part of your identity, because
Speaker 1: that's really what it is. You can't just pick and
Speaker 1: choose the things in a person that you love. And
Speaker 1: I think I've been speaking with a friend of mine
Speaker 1: who is a religious person and is a lovely person,
Speaker 1: and every time she brings up faith, she talks about
Speaker 1: how disgusting and terrible she is and how God God
Speaker 1: loves her in spite of her flaws, When every time
Speaker 1: she talks about it really sounds like God hates her
Speaker 1: and that that's the way that you're taught to believe.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right. Oftentimes, particularly as a woman,
Speaker 1: you can't even you can't even trust your own self.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there is a I mean there are if
Speaker 2: we saw the figure of Jesus as picked it in
Speaker 2: the gospel, particularly in the Gospel of John, but in
Speaker 2: all the gospel today, if we met that person, we
Speaker 2: would very easily say, this is a cult leader, is
Speaker 2: a manipulative cult leader, right, who does the tactics that
Speaker 2: cult leaders do today They make you feel like shit
Speaker 2: and say, hey, you're not good enough for my love
Speaker 2: and make you try to earn that. And we and
Speaker 2: as we know today as as popular psychology has taught
Speaker 2: us about toxic relationships and toxic people, right, like, hey,
Speaker 2: there are signs to avoid, there are red flags in people.
Speaker 2: And Jesus absolutely displays that, and Christianity as a whole
Speaker 2: displays that in their typeified relationships with human beings to God. Right,
Speaker 2: there's a million examples of this. We're already talked about this.
Speaker 2: And and part of that subcategory that is the is
Speaker 2: women's subservience to men as well, which is just an
Speaker 2: extra layer of bullshit that gets wrapped up in all this.
Speaker 2: So Steven, I hear you, and you are you are
Speaker 2: heard here because I mean again, this is why I
Speaker 2: do what I do personally, because for stories like yours,
Speaker 2: because I think that this is an act of liberation
Speaker 2: for both of us, for all three of us. Right,
Speaker 2: it's not just about winning a debate whether God or
Speaker 2: not exists. At the end of the day, I'm less
Speaker 2: interested in that. I'm more interested in what this can
Speaker 2: do for people, right, Like, yeah, God's not real, that's true,
Speaker 2: and that's fair, but like it's more than that. If
Speaker 2: it was just that, I don't think I would care
Speaker 2: about this as much. Look how much your life has
Speaker 2: changed since you've deconstructed these beliefs. Look how much Sophia's
Speaker 2: life has changed and my life has changed. It's a
Speaker 2: life changing event, and it's for the better. I would argue.
Speaker 2: The Christians would say no, but I say no, it
Speaker 2: is for the better because obviously you see the growth
Speaker 2: in yourself. I've seen the change, and that's what I
Speaker 2: want for other people personally, And that's why I talk
Speaker 2: about this stuff. Thanks for thanks for that call, Stephen.
Speaker 7: You said it, Yeah, you said it perfectly, And I
Speaker 7: just want to say it is life changing when you
Speaker 7: go from waking up every day thinking you know everything
Speaker 7: to you know nothing and and and you know and
Speaker 7: you want to learn something that day, and so you know,
Speaker 7: I'm going to keep deconstructing. I just wanted to say that,
Speaker 7: you know, in my own personal experience, I have found that,
Speaker 7: you know, I was a much worse person when I
Speaker 7: was a Christian when when I thought that when I
Speaker 7: was justified, than I am today wanting to be the
Speaker 7: things that I thought I was standing up for when
Speaker 7: I was a Christian.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Amen, Amen, Stephen, Amen, very much. Uh good, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your witness
Speaker 2: testimony today. We appreciate that. Yeah, the congregation here we
Speaker 2: love that. You guys love that. Yeah, I think, oh, sorry, Stephen,
Speaker 2: I think I think he went ahead and uh I
Speaker 2: dropped off there. But thank you, Steven, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for that call. That was wonderful, honestly really good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: actually beautiful. Yeah, that's really the greatest show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the grincha meters now involved and like we got there.
Speaker 1: It was my goodness. You know, something that I'm was
Speaker 1: thinking about when you mentioned to the just being a
Speaker 1: woman in a southern state. You know, I am in
Speaker 1: Texas and some people were really confused as to I
Speaker 1: moved here. And I've now gone through two pregnancies in
Speaker 1: Texas and both have been kind of terrifying. When you
Speaker 1: think about who owns me, and that that's a question
Speaker 1: that some people would find legitimate and think that they
Speaker 1: could answer. That's that's pretty bizarre that people can think
Speaker 1: they can own me and own you know, my decisions.
Speaker 1: This week, a lot of folks are talking about how
Speaker 1: if you I believe the quote that came out was
Speaker 1: to the effect that if you vote differently than your husband,
Speaker 1: it's like cheating on him. And of course, though I
Speaker 1: have to wonder what they would do in my situation
Speaker 1: where my husband is not an American citizen. So I
Speaker 1: guess that I is that inherently anyway, never mind, I
Speaker 1: don't really have a conclusion to that, but I was
Speaker 1: just sort of curious about what the recommendation for that
Speaker 1: would be.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know, Uh, these most people don't
Speaker 2: have these things too thought out in my experience, So
Speaker 2: we're just we're just I don't know. That's why we're here,
Speaker 2: I guess so we can think it out. But anyway,
Speaker 2: we have we have at least at least two more
Speaker 2: calls I want to try to get to before the
Speaker 2: end here, and I want to let's just jump to
Speaker 2: them right away, because when we have the other Steven
Speaker 2: who's been waiting for a while, so I want to
Speaker 2: get to them. First, we got Steven from New York
Speaker 2: who wants to talk to us. So, Steven, you are
Speaker 2: live on talking Heathen. What's going on?
Speaker 8: First of all, my mouth is a little driver, so
Speaker 8: please bear with me. But yeah, Satanism is very antagonistic,
Speaker 8: and I think Christians need more respect.
Speaker 2: Christians need more respect from Satanists.
Speaker 8: Yeah, say to this could be very hostile and also
Speaker 8: have an analogy about why Satanism doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, well let's one thing at a time. Why
Speaker 2: do Satanists need to give more respect to Christians?
Speaker 8: I just think it's uh, rather of a churist. They
Speaker 8: like wave pentagrams at Christians and kind of harassment. I
Speaker 8: think it's uh, it's I'm not even Christian, but I
Speaker 8: think they deserve more respect.
Speaker 2: Well, can you give me example, because when are when
Speaker 2: are they waiving pentagrams in Christian spaces? If there is one,
Speaker 2: I want to know, But I'm just not aware of
Speaker 2: that happening.
Speaker 8: I mean, I've seen Satanist.
Speaker 2: Be really.
Speaker 8: Rude to Christians, and I have an example of why
Speaker 8: it would be for I remember you were talking about
Speaker 8: Resona bel for another day. I like that also, you
Speaker 8: know that has you know, like scary uh Spaniard villagers
Speaker 8: and the local illuminatos called. Just because I like that
Speaker 8: doesn't mean I would go up to someone who is
Speaker 8: afraid of ghosts, let's say, And I wouldn't go up
Speaker 8: to them in a magenta or violet cloak and try
Speaker 8: to scare them and be disrespectful to them.
Speaker 2: I agree, I just I don't know if this is
Speaker 2: a thing that's happening in reality, right, Like, Okay, so
Speaker 2: the Satanist organizations that I'm aware of broadly what they do,
Speaker 2: and I'm not a Satanist by the way, so you
Speaker 2: probably should be complaining to the Satanists and not maybe
Speaker 2: me and Sofia, but broadly, right, Like, you know, they
Speaker 2: are filing lawsuits and they are you know, putting in
Speaker 2: claims for just stuff that broadly involves religious freedom. Like
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of specific stuff like when they
Speaker 2: say that they are it's going to be after school
Speaker 2: clubs or whatever, and they want to add religious after
Speaker 2: school clubs, then they'll be like, okay, we're going to
Speaker 2: make a Satanist after school club. Or if there's going
Speaker 2: to be you know, two like plaques that honor have
Speaker 2: like a cross on you know, a government property or
Speaker 2: a school campus. They're gonna be like, Okay, we're going
Speaker 2: to make a Satanist plaque, right, And it's just more
Speaker 2: to make a point, right, It's like to kind of
Speaker 2: show like, hey, we exist too, and there's other religious
Speaker 2: groups that exist beyond Christianity, and oftentimes these policies that
Speaker 2: are supposed to be allegedly for religious freedom are really
Speaker 2: to further a Christian hegemony, right, to further a Christian agenda.
Speaker 2: So and politically, that's the kind of actions I see
Speaker 2: from Satanists. Can they be like pretentious? I mean that's
Speaker 2: a matter of opinion, But I don't know of any
Speaker 2: Satanists that are like going up to Christians faces with
Speaker 2: pentagrams or whatever. That's not what I'm aware of. Maybe
Speaker 2: you know of some examples, and I'd love to hear that,
Speaker 2: But like that's my understanding of like politically what Satanists
Speaker 2: have been doing in America for a bit.
Speaker 1: I think I would also sort of throw in there
Speaker 1: that it's hard to make these generalizations about a group
Speaker 1: that is in the dramatic minority. So when we think
Speaker 1: about satan activists, and I'm not a Satanist either, So
Speaker 1: there might be a Satanist out there like yelling at
Speaker 1: their screen because whatever I'm going to say is going
Speaker 1: to be wrong, but I'll do my best. When I
Speaker 1: think about kind of their activism, it's if they were
Speaker 1: polite about it. Sometimes, if people are just like, well,
Speaker 1: if you know, if it's okay with everybody, we would
Speaker 1: like you to not put the Ten Commandments in the courthouse.
Speaker 1: Things like that. Sometimes I think these dramatic actions are
Speaker 1: done in order to even have a fighting chance to
Speaker 1: even be heard or seen, because I think oftentimes people
Speaker 1: who have tried polite tactics, who have tried to say, hey,
Speaker 1: just let me live how I want to live, that
Speaker 1: hasn't really been met with any response. It's very easy
Speaker 1: to steamroll someone if they are searching for that consensus,
Speaker 1: like interpersonally, I agree with you, like I think that
Speaker 1: if if somebody disagrees with you, and you're just like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a jerk about it, don't you know,
Speaker 1: don't do that. You know, on this show, I respond
Speaker 1: to things differently than maybe I do in real life.
Speaker 1: If someone has a faith and they don't want to
Speaker 1: necessarily discuss it with me. That's not something that I'm
Speaker 1: going to just venture into. And if it feels like
Speaker 1: they're just wanting to say what they believe and don't,
Speaker 1: aren't there for an argument like that's that's fine. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to these questions of rights for other citizens,
Speaker 1: I kind of get the antagonistic approach, even if it's
Speaker 1: not what I personally would take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are they trolling sometimes a little bit? Yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: give you that, sure, But it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: is it rude though? Like how rude is it? Is
Speaker 2: it any more rude than putting like you gave the
Speaker 2: example right tank commandments? Is it rude to put a
Speaker 2: Baphomet statue up? Is it any more rude than having
Speaker 2: a ten Commandment statue up? I don't know. That's a
Speaker 2: matter of opinion.
Speaker 8: I guess I think it takes away serenity because they're
Speaker 8: pretending to be Satanist. They're not really they don't really
Speaker 8: believe in Satan, so it's not a real religion like
Speaker 8: other religions, other religions, other religions. Even though they may
Speaker 8: need to understand that church and state separation is needed.
Speaker 8: They're not doing something on purpose to be rude to others,
Speaker 8: but Satanists are. I think it's basically just a word game.
Speaker 8: That's basically what it is.
Speaker 2: Religion. First of all, let's put a pin in that, okay,
Speaker 2: because I don't know if you can tell the Satanists
Speaker 2: what their religion is or isn't. I think that's up
Speaker 2: to them in the same way that by the way,
Speaker 2: and I pulled this both ways. If a Christian, if
Speaker 2: somebody tells me I don't believe in God and I'm
Speaker 2: a Christian, I still accept that they're a Christian, right,
Speaker 2: because that's their self identity. So I don't care. I
Speaker 2: don't give a shit if that's what they identify, that's
Speaker 2: what they identify as. But we can point to common
Speaker 2: denominators there. So yeah, broadly speaking, most Satanists, at least
Speaker 2: that I know of, don't literally believe in Satan as
Speaker 2: a figure. That doesn't matter. That doesn't mean that their
Speaker 2: religion is not a religion, right, because religion is more
Speaker 2: than just a god belief or add belief. It's also ideology, right,
Speaker 2: and so they fulfill that ideology to a t. When
Speaker 2: they're putting Baphomet's statues up. Okay, I don't care if
Speaker 2: you don't think so. They definitely do. That's definitely part
Speaker 2: of the religion and that's what they follow through. So
Speaker 2: this idea that they don't count because they don't actually
Speaker 2: believe in a real figure, that's not the point, right,
Speaker 2: It's there's a little bit more to it than that.
Speaker 1: I think I would also throw in there that it's
Speaker 1: a very strange expectation to think that if something doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like a religion, they should pay homage or respect
Speaker 1: to something that is a religion. In our viewpoint, that's
Speaker 1: a really bizarre expectation. I mean, they could entirely come
Speaker 1: out and be like, all of this is fake. We're
Speaker 1: just doing it for the human rights standpoint. I still
Speaker 1: don't think that's a reason for them to behave a
Speaker 1: particular way or to privilege Christianity, because they aren't just trolling.
Speaker 1: I don't see why that would be the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, generally speaking, it isn't just for wing right. There's
Speaker 2: a little bit of trolling, okay, but there is a
Speaker 2: bigger point, right, There is a sort of larger, sort
Speaker 2: of ideological framework that they're working under. Endpoint that's being
Speaker 2: made with a lot of these sort of political sort
Speaker 2: of statements and stunts that a lot of Satanist group's done.
Speaker 2: So it's not just for nothing, it's not just to
Speaker 2: piss people off, but it is a little bit.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: I think they'd be lying if people were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's kind of fun to piss people off, so but yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work with civility politics, Steven, if that's your point, so.
Speaker 8: I would say, where there's a will, there's a way.
Speaker 8: If if there's like a problem with church and stay
Speaker 8: separation occurring, then then you you know, they could they
Speaker 8: could talk about it instead of acting in this strange
Speaker 8: way and kind of you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know why we I mean people, The reason why
Speaker 2: evolution is taught in schools is because a teacher made
Speaker 2: a stink about it. Right, Sometimes you have to make
Speaker 2: a stink about it in order for things to make
Speaker 2: a change.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Madeline Murray O'Hare, for example, founder of American Atheists, made
Speaker 2: a huge stink about a lot of stuff. And she
Speaker 2: of course was notorious for the stink that she made.
Speaker 2: But if she hadn't made the stink that she made,
Speaker 2: American Atheist wouldn't be a thing and wouldn't be doing
Speaker 2: stuff right, So you kind of have to make a
Speaker 2: stink sometimes. Yeah, some people off, Yeah, but it has
Speaker 2: to be done in order for a change to happen sometimes.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I disagree with that notion that well,
Speaker 2: we all have to play nights all the time.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: I think that I've heard a lot of nice people
Speaker 1: tell me that I shouldn't have access to things like
Speaker 1: quite a few different kinds of birth control, quite a
Speaker 1: few different like there's I think, as a as a
Speaker 1: person of the of the lady persuasion being, getting this
Speaker 1: idea that if you aren't offensive, then people will listen
Speaker 1: to you. I can tell you that that has never
Speaker 1: been the case in my entire life. No matter how
Speaker 1: a gentleman may be, they just don't necessarily understand your
Speaker 1: experience until you present it to them. And sometimes they're
Speaker 1: not ready to listen. So making a stink, making a fuss,
Speaker 1: making it so other people have to see and hear you,
Speaker 1: sometimes that does become necessary. It's people you're saying, where
Speaker 1: there's a will, there's a way, Maybe this is the way.
Speaker 1: And I think the other thing I would say is great.
Speaker 1: If you don't believe in that kind of activism, don't
Speaker 1: do it. But yeah, then do it a different way yourself.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I personally don't attack the people of
Speaker 1: faith for you know, unless they want to have some
Speaker 1: kind of discussion, or even then I don't think I'm attacking.
Speaker 1: But I really can't tell people who feel like their
Speaker 1: rights are at stake not to make a big fuss
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: You know. See, we gotta let you go because I
Speaker 2: want to take at least I want to have the
Speaker 2: call before we go. But anything else you want to
Speaker 2: add before we let you go.
Speaker 8: I still think you get more views with honey than
Speaker 8: with vinegar.
Speaker 2: I kind of disagree with Well, hey guess hey, here's
Speaker 2: my response to that, Steven. How did you find the
Speaker 2: atheist community of Austin. Was it from Matt dillahunty being
Speaker 2: nice and sweet to some of these callers, or was
Speaker 2: it from Matt like ripping into somebody, yeah, being aggressive?
Speaker 2: But yeah, then that makes a difference, right, kind of
Speaker 2: makes a difference just a little bit, Steven. I'll let
Speaker 2: you go now. But and again I use Matt because
Speaker 2: you know, most people probably fire stuff through man Man's
Speaker 2: probably the most popular host, I mean, is the most
Speaker 2: popular host that has ever been part of Atheist Comuni
Speaker 2: of Austin. Right, But it's like, yeah, that's if you
Speaker 2: look at our top ten clips. I'm sorry, it's not
Speaker 2: us saying, oh, good good job, caller, you're doing great.
Speaker 2: It's people being just a little snarky.
Speaker 1: I think I also would find out that it's pretty
Speaker 1: funny to be like, yeah, like I have tried to
Speaker 1: advocate for myself politely and people just fully ignore me.
Speaker 1: And he's like, no, okay, Yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to say to that, other than like, I
Speaker 1: guess you're not going to advocate for anybody Like. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't feel like there's you know, if you want
Speaker 1: everyone to be polite, I guess that's just not going
Speaker 1: to be the I can't rely on you for advocacy
Speaker 1: full stop, because that's not always how it goes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, aggression for aggression for aggression's sake
Speaker 2: in greade either. I'm not saying that, but I don't
Speaker 2: think the Satanists are doing that. Maybe some of them are.
Speaker 2: I don't know all their hearts, but I from the
Speaker 2: ones I've talked to and from the interviews I've seen
Speaker 2: from people, it's people who are generally fighting for something
Speaker 2: larger than themselves, right, fighting for our principle that they
Speaker 2: believe in, and the way to do that is to
Speaker 2: ruffle some feathers. Sometimes. That's why people find activists annoying,
Speaker 2: because we tend to ruffle people's feathers in shud.
Speaker 1: Well, and we can also be very easily characterized as
Speaker 1: being mean to people of faith. Are very existence as
Speaker 1: atheists in public can be characterized similarly to how atheists
Speaker 1: or Satanists were being characterized in that case. So I
Speaker 1: guess kind of shrug, like, people can say that about
Speaker 1: me too. Yeah, I think they'd be wrong, but they could.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I uh yeah, I agree. I still want to
Speaker 2: take this one other call that we have in the
Speaker 2: queue here. I know we're like at the end of
Speaker 2: the show, but like, I think it's really interesting one,
Speaker 2: so I want to just jump right to it. So
Speaker 2: let's say this. We got D calling in from Iowa.
Speaker 2: D you live on Talk Heathen. Give us your take here.
Speaker 2: You're telling us that atheists need to be are tolerant
Speaker 2: of those within our own ranks that still hold on
Speaker 2: to spiritual beliefs. I'd love for you to expound on that. Hi.
Speaker 6: Hi guys, thanks for taking my call. Can I just
Speaker 6: say first a couple of things about Stephen just now?
Speaker 2: I mean I normally i'd say, yes, we are at
Speaker 2: the tail end of your show. If you can keep
Speaker 2: your comments to thirty seconds or under, then yes I can.
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 6: Respect is earned, that's all same.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, that was under thirty seconds.
Speaker 6: Good job, he said, He said, he said the Sataness
Speaker 6: should be more respectful. Well, I say, respect is earned.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, we're doing some Shakespeare
Speaker 2: stuff today. Amazing equips. Sorry, do you go ahead?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: Anyway, what I wanted to say is that deconversion is
Speaker 6: a process. Some people take a while, and their and
Speaker 6: their beliefs and their views and their mindsets change over time.
Speaker 6: And that's where I'm coming from. I started out as
Speaker 6: a charismatic fundamentalist. I went to UH, I left the church,
Speaker 6: so I quote unquote practice Christianity on my own, kind
Speaker 6: of like a solitary Wickan.
Speaker 4: Sort of thing.
Speaker 6: And then I pivoted from Christianity to a generous spirituality,
Speaker 6: and so on and so forth until I find myself
Speaker 6: now being a secular Buddhist, and that took me literal
Speaker 6: decades to get to and a lot of us are
Speaker 6: still on that gradual path. We are evolving and and
Speaker 6: I'm not going to go into it, but I still
Speaker 6: hold a couple of very personal, spiritual type beliefs.
Speaker 4: I think that we we.
Speaker 6: I I'm I'm with you guys that that I want.
Speaker 6: I want to be a force for bringing the truth
Speaker 6: into the world and freeing people and helping them heal
Speaker 6: from religious trauma.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: I think that we all have a part to play,
Speaker 6: and I would really like to see some people, well,
Speaker 6: I guess we're talking about respect, have a little more
Speaker 6: respect for the journey that each individual is taking. Like
Speaker 6: I had one host tell me, yeah, sure, spirituality is fine.
Speaker 6: Uh you know, like if you're a heroin addict going
Speaker 6: through with and giving you some heroin occasionally through the process,
Speaker 6: it's okay. And I kind of I had to think
Speaker 6: about that for a couple of weeks because I thought,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, maybe for some people that might
Speaker 6: be true, but it wasn't true personally for me.
Speaker 4: So I was just kind of wondering what you guys
Speaker 4: think about all that this is.
Speaker 2: A tough one and very much related to what we
Speaker 2: were just talking about. So I think if you've seen
Speaker 2: my track record as a host, if anything, I have
Speaker 2: tried my best to reign in other hosts when I can,
Speaker 2: when I say, hey, hold on, we need to take
Speaker 2: a step back here, because we can glibble about little
Speaker 2: stuff all day. But you're absolutely right deconstruction And I
Speaker 2: like the term deconstruction better than deconversion because it is
Speaker 2: when you're deconstructing, it's there's bits that come in that process.
Speaker 2: It doesn't happen all at once, right, And that's true
Speaker 2: for me, that's true for a lot of us that
Speaker 2: go through that process. It's easy to forget for many
Speaker 2: of us. The truth is it happens a day at
Speaker 2: a time, usually doesn't happen all at once. And in
Speaker 2: that there could be people who find your other parts
Speaker 2: of your beliefs still disagreeable and just want to just
Speaker 2: tear it all out right and just want to just
Speaker 2: rip just like a band aid, just rip it all off.
Speaker 2: And there are some people that say that needs to happen.
Speaker 2: I'm not one of those people that necessarily says that.
Speaker 2: I think the problem is religious belief is also a
Speaker 2: philosophical one, it's also a social belief, right, it's also
Speaker 2: a psychological one, And you can't just do that with people. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work. Even if in the most ideal circumstances,
Speaker 2: people can't just change the entire way they've been living
Speaker 2: their life in a single conversation because they had a
Speaker 2: debate with somebody online. It just doesn't work like that.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to respecting the process, I agree
Speaker 2: in respecting the process, I don't respect the beliefs. I'm
Speaker 2: still going to say, hey, your belief is homophobic if
Speaker 2: you're being homophobic, right, and saying you're participating in a
Speaker 2: culture of homophobia. If somebody, for example, was to do
Speaker 2: something like that, right, even if they're deconstructing, even if
Speaker 2: they're if they're going through that process, again, I respect that,
Speaker 2: but I also have to be firm and say, hey,
Speaker 2: this still isn't right, right, And you know, that's just
Speaker 2: one example. But but the point is, like you have
Speaker 2: to still be consistent even when talking with the folks
Speaker 2: who are deconstructing stuff, because you can still deconstruct and
Speaker 2: not and kind of stop like there may be some
Speaker 2: stuff you still leave untouched. Right, just because you're deconstructing
Speaker 2: some stuff doesn't mean you're deconstructing everything. It tends to
Speaker 2: happen most folks that do go deconstruction tend to also
Speaker 2: look at their political beliefs and stuff. But there are
Speaker 2: definitely some and I know this because I know atheists,
Speaker 2: for example, who do have some bias with people who
Speaker 2: are gay, for example, like that's that's a that's a
Speaker 2: thing I have encountered. So it doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 2: you know, you're absolutely enlightened just because you have some
Speaker 2: stuff you agree with. So anyway, I guess I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say, I hear you. I absolutely hear you. And
Speaker 2: I definitely definitely have always tried, at least in my
Speaker 2: position as a host, try to respect people's journey as
Speaker 2: much as I can, as much as is tolerable to me.
Speaker 2: And I also got to lay down the line sometimes too,
Speaker 2: because I can't just let people say, oh, well, they're
Speaker 2: going on the thing and we we don't have to
Speaker 2: call some stuff out. I got to call stuff out
Speaker 2: when they call it out. It's more just like I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's the social navigating that we all experience
Speaker 2: every day when we talk to other people, right, what's
Speaker 2: one's the best way to approach something And we all
Speaker 2: have to kind of figure it out on a day
Speaker 2: by day or a call by call basis in my case,
Speaker 2: but for most people it's just the day by day conversations. Anyway,
Speaker 2: that's my take there. I've been talking a lot, Sophia.
Speaker 1: We think, Yeah, so I think I fundamentally agree with
Speaker 1: you in the sense that you know being I do
Speaker 1: value kindness. I think being kind to people as often
Speaker 1: as you can viewing things from their perspective, so you can,
Speaker 1: you know, treat them how you'd want to be treated like.
Speaker 1: I think that's important. I also think it's important for
Speaker 1: us to consider what we're really responding to when we're
Speaker 1: talking to someone. And if you're an atheist and you're
Speaker 1: getting really irate or having really, as i'd say to
Speaker 1: my kid, big feelings about something, it might not be
Speaker 1: feelings about the person in front of you actually arguing
Speaker 1: for a religion. It might be feelings that you're dealing
Speaker 1: with about coming from religion, and I think that that's
Speaker 1: important to recognize. I think there is a part of
Speaker 1: me that does want to put out there that well,
Speaker 1: I definitely attempt to be respectful when I'm with folks.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I get really emotionally tired of having to be
Speaker 1: this ideal atheist because I know I'm predominantly surrounded by Christians,
Speaker 1: and I know that anything I say is going to
Speaker 1: be seen as how atheists act, and so it can
Speaker 1: become a lot. It can become you just sort of
Speaker 1: holding things in so you can nurture people who are
Speaker 1: part of the vast majority, many of whom are seeking
Speaker 1: to take away rights from you that I know you're
Speaker 1: not suggesting that. I'm just wanting to acknowledge that that's
Speaker 1: really hard to do. And there are times when I
Speaker 1: want to lash out and be like, this is all bullshit.
Speaker 1: You don't get to tell me what to do because
Speaker 1: of your bullshit. You know that's and that's there too,
Speaker 1: Like I agree with you, And I think maybe my
Speaker 1: take would be atheists need to find a place to
Speaker 1: release as well, so that so that they can treat
Speaker 1: others respectfully. Because if I didn't have ways to have
Speaker 1: some catharsis with that, I think I would struggle more
Speaker 1: than I do. And it's it's still a struggle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if I, if I if It's what I've been
Speaker 2: saying for years at this point, and I always say
Speaker 2: this is you can be right, you can be convincing,
Speaker 2: but those are two different things at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, right, So do that as you will. But
Speaker 2: I think that's that's everything I want to say about that.
Speaker 2: Any other thoughts you want to share with us on
Speaker 2: that tea?
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know you're talking about people who, uh,
Speaker 6: maybe atheus, but they're still like homophobic or misogynists or like,
Speaker 6: that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, if somebody,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, if somebody it comes across homophobic
Speaker 6: or misogyns, definitely you got.
Speaker 2: To call them out on it.
Speaker 6: I don't have to call him out on it in
Speaker 6: reference to their belief Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, I hear what you're saying. But like Ardo,
Speaker 2: for example, we got to him earlier, who was had
Speaker 2: some probably some more progressive understandings of his religion and
Speaker 2: other people's religion. He was very kind to us. He thought, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't have to He explicitly said, oh, it's okay
Speaker 2: that we don't believe in God. Thank goodness, we got
Speaker 2: a Eduardo's permission for that. But it's like, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: still gonna tell Eduardo, Hey, I still think the whole
Speaker 2: god thing is dumb, right, Like I still say dumb.
Speaker 2: I didn't say dumb. Were just I don't think it's
Speaker 2: worth investing belief in, right, Like, yeah, he's agreed with
Speaker 2: me on a lot of stuff, but like, hey, I'll
Speaker 2: help him get the rest of the way there. I
Speaker 2: don't think just because yeah, he does win some points
Speaker 2: with me, because Okay, he agrees with me on some stuff,
Speaker 2: that doesn't just mean I get to just say, oh well, Eduardo,
Speaker 2: I guess you know, maybe we can all agree to
Speaker 2: different things, and you know, you can have your belief
Speaker 2: system which tells you that mediums can contact the dead
Speaker 2: and we can have seances and stuff, right, which is
Speaker 2: apparently a thing that's a part of the system according
Speaker 2: to Wikipedia. So I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that gives us a license to just kind of be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: everybody can just do what they want now because we
Speaker 2: got some level of tolerance, right. But that's the debate
Speaker 2: of our time. I think a lot of smarter people
Speaker 2: have talked about that on set more than me. I
Speaker 2: don't know, do you what do you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, No, I really appreciate you guys' views, and I
Speaker 6: do have some other things to say that I think
Speaker 6: i'll say that for the discord.
Speaker 2: Okay, that sounds good, great segue, great segwe d thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you for giving us that. I will let you
Speaker 2: go now because we are at the tail end of
Speaker 2: today's show. But as de mentioned, we are doing an
Speaker 2: after show right now, well not right now, like in
Speaker 2: a few minutes now. So tiny out Clash and d Discord.
Speaker 2: If you are watching this live, come hang out because
Speaker 2: we're both going to be there and Kelly's going to
Speaker 2: be there. Two shout outs to Kelly Laughlin, who's been
Speaker 2: our backup post today. If we could maybe get him
Speaker 2: on the screen. There he is. Look, he's got that,
Speaker 2: he's got that scarlet letter on today. He's feeling fancy.
Speaker 9: Dan, you mentioned that like atheistic belief goes back pretty
Speaker 9: and I have to do this with somebody in chats
Speaker 9: that I knew everything. So about three hundred BCEA in Greece,
Speaker 9: the philosopher Pearis was started some atheist philosophy, and if
Speaker 9: you want to go a couple hundred years beyond past
Speaker 9: that to about six hundred five hundred BCE and I'm
Speaker 9: hoping I pronounced this right. Brigus Patti was an Indian
Speaker 9: philosopher who started the school of Sharvaka, which is very
Speaker 9: much like modern atheism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, not even the only a atheist philosopher in India.
Speaker 2: Actually a couple of people that talked about it is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there you go. Kelly does know everything. Thank you Kelly
Speaker 2: in the wellspring of knowledge, sir. We will see you
Speaker 2: in the discord in just a second. And before we
Speaker 2: get going here too, I have to remind you, guys,
Speaker 2: what would a modern day plague b and give it
Speaker 2: to us in the comments section, please, so that we
Speaker 2: can read the best answers, the greatest answers next week
Speaker 2: on next week's program.
Speaker 1: And real quick before we go, we have a super
Speaker 1: chat yet that Yes, we have Robin hood stuff who
Speaker 1: sent us five Canadian dollars, which I just find fun
Speaker 1: to like specify. Hi, I am an atheist and I
Speaker 1: just watched Chris Spiracy. Christ Spiracy. Yeah, it's probably okay,
Speaker 1: and I recommend everyone to watch it. It will it exposed,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, exposes religion for the animal sacrificing cult.
Speaker 1: That it is woof. That is an incendiary language.
Speaker 2: Sounds like some hot tapes on that little program. Yeah cool.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard of that, but maybe it's maybe it's cool.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I can't say it's cool or not
Speaker 2: because I haven't seen it. But thanks for the shout out.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll check that out. Let's do some love rings. Actually,
Speaker 2: we got to do some love rings at the end
Speaker 2: of the show. You're ready for this. Put your charge,
Speaker 2: your magnets, and your geodes together. Get ready for this,
Speaker 2: Camme Hamie.
Speaker 7: There we go.
Speaker 2: Care I got it.
Speaker 1: I've been trying to do the gen Z heart, but
Speaker 1: I'm not very good at it. Yeah, I'm too millennial.
Speaker 1: I don't quite get it.
Speaker 2: Your skinny jeans are preventing you from.
Speaker 1: Being are affecting my brain?
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. That's awesome. Well, yeah, that's Those loverings are
Speaker 2: out there for the folks who are joining us in
Speaker 2: this community. And let's go ahead and give that sign off.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: If you don't mind, Sophia, if you don't believe this
Speaker 2: is your community and we appreciate you being here, and
Speaker 2: if you do believe we don't hate you, We're just
Speaker 2: not convinced SIONI. Everybody will see you later. We want
Speaker 2: the truth, so watch Truth Wanted live Friday at seven
Speaker 2: pm Central. Visit tiny dot cc slash y t tw
Speaker 2: and call into the show at five one two nine
Speaker 2: nine one nine two four two, or connect to the
Speaker 2: show online at tiny dot cc slash call tw