Speaker 1: Hey, folks, no matter what you believe, religion is a
Speaker 1: billion dollar industry, and your donations are funding it, from
Speaker 1: megachurch pastors and private jets to televangelists begging for seed money.
Speaker 1: God never seems to have enough cash. And if your
Speaker 1: faith makes more than you know, just God's atm machine
Speaker 1: then and call in and tell us because the show
Speaker 1: is starting right now. Hello everybody, and welcome to the
Speaker 1: Atheist Experience. It's August second, twenty twenty six, and thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us.
Speaker 2: I'm objectively Dan.
Speaker 1: I don't usually host this program, and I don't usually
Speaker 1: host it with wonderful Seth Andrews, who's joining me today. Seth,
Speaker 1: welcome as well too, to see you experience.
Speaker 2: Good to see you again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good to be here, and I'm glad you
Speaker 3: started with a compelling conversation.
Speaker 2: About about how you know, dollar signs.
Speaker 3: Seemed to be in so many eyes within especially the
Speaker 3: high your tier.
Speaker 2: You know, you and I both know that when.
Speaker 3: There is a myth that oh, pastors just preach because
Speaker 3: they're trying to grift people, and that tells me you
Speaker 3: don't know anything about every day Right Sunday go to
Speaker 3: meet and pastors absolutely. The fair thing is to say
Speaker 3: that they are on call twenty four to seven. Most
Speaker 3: of them make a meager living. They do what they
Speaker 3: do because they genuinely believe. Some have to have second
Speaker 3: jobs to cover their bills.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: So there's this myth that everybody's Joel Ostein and Kreflo
Speaker 3: Dollar and all the megachurches. But the fact is is
Speaker 3: that a great many pastors do what they do at
Speaker 3: great personal sacrifice because they genuinely believe. That's not who
Speaker 3: we're talking about when we talk about the grifters and
Speaker 3: the people who are you know, passing the plate because
Speaker 3: God wants them to have a brand new Gulf Stream Jet.
Speaker 1: Yes, what you and I said, You know, we both
Speaker 1: came from a Christian backround. We both know people who
Speaker 1: are in it because they one hundred percent believe it.
Speaker 1: They're doing what they think is right, and part of
Speaker 1: running at church means paying for stuff, and they need money,
Speaker 1: and that's that's the model that they choose. Whether or
Speaker 1: not that's a good thing or not, that's up to
Speaker 1: the individual.
Speaker 2: I you know, we all have our own reservations about it.
Speaker 2: For one thing.
Speaker 1: You know, Hey, anything they take in they don't have
Speaker 1: to report, right, So you better hope you trust the
Speaker 1: person that you're giving money to because they don't have
Speaker 1: any obligation to tell you what they're doing with that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And it happens all the time. These small time churches even, right,
Speaker 1: will come up and say, hey, we're actually funding I
Speaker 1: don't know, somebody's political campaign or something, right, and and
Speaker 1: breaking stuff with that. So there's concerns to be had here.
Speaker 1: But I would never say that anybody that's a believer
Speaker 1: or anybody that's a pastor is absolutely only doing it
Speaker 1: for the money.
Speaker 2: Right, That's that's ridiculous, right.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, you have to understand that
Speaker 1: people actually do do it for the money.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people like don't want.
Speaker 1: To believe that because there is this idea that while
Speaker 1: you are in the faith, because you really believe it,
Speaker 1: and that's just not true. I mean that's just been
Speaker 1: shown time and time again by some of these people, right,
Speaker 1: And if you don't recognize that, you are ignoring again
Speaker 1: a billion dollar industry.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: People do make money off this and will keep making
Speaker 1: money off of this probably forever.
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm not going alad you brought up that.
Speaker 3: For many attack shelter and the opacity of many religious organizations.
Speaker 3: Who are I mean if you holded the Johnson Amendment,
Speaker 3: and this administration certainly doesn't are you know, we are
Speaker 3: not supposed to see the bleeding of politics and religion.
Speaker 3: But with parsonage exemptions, it is remarkable what you can
Speaker 3: write off or hide or excuse as a ministry expense,
Speaker 3: a second home, that's a parsonage exemption, BMW vertible, a boat,
Speaker 3: a vacation parsonage exemption. And the irs looks the other
Speaker 3: way because if they go hard and say no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you have to abide by all of the requisites of
Speaker 3: the other five oh one c threes, then they can
Speaker 3: be accused of being an enemy of religious liberty and
Speaker 3: attacking Christianity and what is supposed to be a Christian nation.
Speaker 3: But you know, I am I am shocked by how
Speaker 3: the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills,
Speaker 3: according to the Bible, God owns everything, He owns the
Speaker 3: land and everything that is upon it, and yet somehow
Speaker 3: he's always in need. Yeah, he doesn't just make manner
Speaker 3: from heaven fall in the form of dollar signs. He
Speaker 3: doesn't just miracle into somebody's bank account.
Speaker 2: He makes his.
Speaker 3: Proxy servants, shepherds, beg or coin.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and it's a.
Speaker 3: Win win because hey, if you give me ten or
Speaker 3: more percent of everything you make, God will bless you.
Speaker 3: And that blessing could take any form and it might
Speaker 3: not even happen until after you're dead.
Speaker 2: That's a brilliant business model. Yeah, true, true, very true.
Speaker 1: I have a specific story I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you that blew my mind the first time I actually
Speaker 1: heard it, which wasn't until I was an adult and
Speaker 1: like really studying the Bible. But before I get to
Speaker 1: that really quickly, I need to remind folks, in case
Speaker 1: you're running, what the hell you're watching. This is the
Speaker 1: Atheist Experience, which is a product of the Atheist Community
Speaker 1: of Austin, a five o'h one c three nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: that's dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism,
Speaker 1: and the separation of religion and government. And that means
Speaker 1: you can give us tax free donations as many as
Speaker 1: you want in fact, and know.
Speaker 2: That it's not only for a good cause, but also
Speaker 2: it helps you too.
Speaker 3: But as you bread upon the water and then Shelby
Speaker 3: returned unto you, pressed down, shacking together and running over right.
Speaker 2: Exactly good stuff with that.
Speaker 1: But just to our mind, folks, we are try streaming today,
Speaker 1: so big shout out to our viewers on TikTok and
Speaker 1: on YouTube mobile. If you are watching us on TikTok
Speaker 1: and you'd like to talk to us, then you can
Speaker 1: request to join and we'll bring you up on stage.
Speaker 1: Just please make sure you are over the age of
Speaker 1: eighteen before doing so. But we have open lines right now,
Speaker 1: so we're ready to talk to you guys about you
Speaker 1: know what you want to call it that It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be about how God wants all your money,
Speaker 1: but that is what at least we are starting to
Speaker 1: talk about here. The verse I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about, Seth was about Antonius and Sophira. You know
Speaker 1: about this. This is in the Book of X. These
Speaker 1: names bring a beal for you. You see a little
Speaker 1: head nod there. I didn't know about this story. I
Speaker 1: didn't really read the Book of X when I was younger.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. It's kind of there and
Speaker 1: there's some weird stories in there. I wish I've read
Speaker 1: into it more. But I remember first very distinctly. Maybe
Speaker 1: it wasn't my first time reading it, but the first
Speaker 1: time I remember reading it when I was in college ministry.
Speaker 1: The story is very interesting. This is in the Book
Speaker 1: of x If you're not familiar with the Bible lore. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's after Jesus died.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And so the apostles are and they're doing stuff, okay,
Speaker 1: And these are like kind of some of their stories.
Speaker 1: So there is these folks named Anonius and Sophira who
Speaker 1: get killed, right, who are killed by the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: basically because they didn't give money to the church.
Speaker 2: They withheld some stuff. Here's the averse here.
Speaker 1: This is from Acts five, okay, Versus one through five. Here,
Speaker 1: now a man named an Anonius, together with his wife Sephira,
Speaker 1: also sold the piece of property with his wife's full knowledge.
Speaker 1: He kept back part of the money for himself, but
Speaker 1: brought the rest and put it at the apostles feet.
Speaker 1: Then Peter said, Antonius, how is it that Satan has
Speaker 1: filled your heart? That you have lied to the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money
Speaker 1: you ever see for the land. When Ananias heard this,
Speaker 1: he fell down and died, and then Sophia came in
Speaker 1: and she fell down at his feet and died. So
Speaker 1: the implication being that they have held some money. I
Speaker 1: don't know what disagreement was. Maybe they should have given
Speaker 1: it and they didn't. That's what the story makes it
Speaker 1: sound like. But straight up they get capped, seth, They
Speaker 1: just die right there.
Speaker 2: What the heck?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the Bible has a very multiple personalities
Speaker 3: on the issue of multiple personalities on the issue of money.
Speaker 3: So you know, the prosperity preachers say that God wants.
Speaker 2: You prosperous, and one.
Speaker 3: Of the ways to become prosperous is to continue to
Speaker 3: give to the church monetarily. Why would it benefit you
Speaker 3: to have money on this earth? You will be rewarded,
Speaker 3: if not monetarily, but also spiritually crowns and you know,
Speaker 3: the jewels in your crown and heaven, a bigger mansion, etc.
Speaker 3: And then there are others who say, no, no, it
Speaker 3: is a monetary thing. So if you give thousands of dollars,
Speaker 3: eventually you will become a millionaire. But you know, the
Speaker 3: Bible says the love of money is the root of
Speaker 3: all evil, and it is harder for a rich man
Speaker 3: it's easier for a camel to go through the eye
Speaker 3: of a needle than the rich man to enter the
Speaker 3: king heaven. By the way, I believe that reference is
Speaker 3: traditionally meant that the eye of a needle was an
Speaker 3: entrance into the city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interpretation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, A lot of people are like, well, it's impossible
Speaker 3: for a camel to go through it, And I understand.
Speaker 3: I love that saying it was impossible for a rich person,
Speaker 3: but the context of that is important.
Speaker 1: I so that's a funny one set because I don't
Speaker 1: know what's true on that or not. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: that's one interpretation of it that there is there there
Speaker 1: is this gate thing. I'd like to think that God
Speaker 1: was one hundred percent serious and was like, no, you.
Speaker 2: Rich people cannot go.
Speaker 1: And then they like when rich don't became a thing, it's.
Speaker 2: Like, well, you know, you can go. It's just it's
Speaker 2: really hard though you ever go back.
Speaker 3: I'm a sadist, Actually no, I wouldn't. I'm if I
Speaker 3: would be a sadist if I played it on the air.
Speaker 3: I'm a masochist because I do it to myself.
Speaker 2: So true.
Speaker 3: Yes, I being a child of the eighties, lived through
Speaker 3: the Gym and Tammy fay Baker thing with Heritage USA.
Speaker 3: The televangelist Robert Tilton. Robert Tilton. If you have not
Speaker 3: seen the YouTube clips of Robert Tilton, the Dallas ted televangelist,
Speaker 3: he would he would make all these wild promises and
Speaker 3: then he would beg people to send them money sometimes
Speaker 3: I think it was for holy water prayer clause, and
Speaker 3: people would send in obscene amounts of money and made
Speaker 3: him wealthy. And an investigative team from a news organization
Speaker 3: went around his ministry and they found a dumpster behind
Speaker 3: the building and it was full of all of the
Speaker 3: crap that he said he was going to be like
Speaker 3: sending out to people. It was just a total scam.
Speaker 2: But he's yeah, okay, yeah, I do know about this.
Speaker 3: And when he would speak, he would be like, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: you know, and he would have and he hold these expressions. Well,
Speaker 3: somebody who shares, apparently my base sense of humor went
Speaker 3: back through dozens of hours of sermons and with every
Speaker 3: pause they just inserted flatulence noises.
Speaker 2: And so if you go to.
Speaker 3: YouTube and you type in Robert Tilton flatulence video, you
Speaker 3: will be amused on the order of hours. And because
Speaker 3: I'm apparently eleven years old, wildly.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a classic edit.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a mid two thousand YouTube like clip edit.
Speaker 2: Classic. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's Jan Crouch at TBN.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're out there with the silver hair and they're
Speaker 3: they're on this unbelievably gold gilded, gaudy television studio and
Speaker 3: they're they're talking. They just sit around and ask people
Speaker 3: to send them money. And then you find out that
Speaker 3: Jan Crouch out one hundred thousand dollars coach RV just yeah,
Speaker 3: her two dogs.
Speaker 2: And you know, we do have that today.
Speaker 1: It's called streaming, right, And you know you don't have
Speaker 1: to be The great thing is you don't have to
Speaker 1: be a silver haired white guy to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: You can come from any background as long as you
Speaker 1: have an iPhone with an Internet connection, then also do that.
Speaker 1: And I joke, but like obviously like streamers deliver I
Speaker 1: think a different kind of I'm ice dream, right, So
Speaker 1: it's like it's a different kind of content that's being delivered.
Speaker 1: It's not just a promise of like being healed or whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: But there are ones that do that too. I mean
Speaker 1: they also exist. So I'm just saying being scammed is
Speaker 1: more accessible than ever.
Speaker 3: Right, So, you know, the beauty of the Internet is
Speaker 3: that everyone has a voice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, problem with the Internet is that everybody has a voice. Voice.
Speaker 3: So being you buy into the prosperity thing when you're
Speaker 3: a believer, like if you bless the kingdom, you will
Speaker 3: be blessed tenfold, pressed down, shaken together, running over all
Speaker 3: that stuff. Did you buy into that? No?
Speaker 2: Never, my thankfully my parents. I never.
Speaker 1: I grew up first twelve years of my life in
Speaker 1: a Methodist church, and you know, conservative Methodist, but still Methodist, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like I I was the probably the anathema
Speaker 1: to my Baptist neighbors in Waco, Texas, but still enough
Speaker 1: to the point where it was like, honestly, my upbringing
Speaker 1: probably even though it was fairly conservative, probably more liberal
Speaker 1: than yours.
Speaker 2: And a lot of other people in our space.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people get into our space
Speaker 1: because obviously they grew up in extremely problematic beliefs and backgrounds.
Speaker 1: I was kind of just seeing that sort of around me,
Speaker 1: but not as much in my church itself, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up in Waco, you know there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of history there, so you know, it was
Speaker 1: definitely out there. But yeah, thankfully I was never too
Speaker 1: much in the prosperity stuff.
Speaker 2: How about you, were you to your family? You know,
Speaker 2: we didn't focus a lot on money.
Speaker 3: There was I think an ad We came from a
Speaker 3: family of Jesus as a republican, free market capitalist.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that was my take. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, God, God wants small government and he
Speaker 3: wants corporations to be able to do whatever they want
Speaker 3: because of rugged American individualism hashta right, right, and if.
Speaker 2: You can go out, that's the American dream, right.
Speaker 3: The American dream was not necessarily to go out and
Speaker 3: find who you were and what you wanted to be
Speaker 3: and have a life filled with love and purpose and
Speaker 3: satisfaction and fulfillment.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The people that who they we always spoke about to
Speaker 3: achieve the American dream were the people who were making
Speaker 3: at least seven, if not eight figures, yeah, or you know,
Speaker 3: sort of famous household names, which tells you how embedded
Speaker 3: some of this is into the culture. Yeah, but we
Speaker 3: were also warned, you know, don't love money. Don't love money.
Speaker 3: Money is good. Money is a resource. Money can help
Speaker 3: but don't become infatuated. And you know, I have no
Speaker 3: problem with somebody who wants to be prosperous, somebody who
Speaker 3: works hard, takes risks, gets lucky.
Speaker 2: I mean whatever. I don't have that kind of jealousy.
Speaker 3: Now when we get into wealth hoarding in a world
Speaker 3: with this much suffering, and so when you see the
Speaker 3: Jolo Steins, right, yeah, mega pastor he is home is
Speaker 3: a ten million dollar mansion. It's probably worth more in
Speaker 3: the day's economy, it's probably double that fifty to seventy
Speaker 3: million dollar net worth. The guy lives like a freaking
Speaker 3: rock star in a place with a wor with this
Speaker 3: much suffering hell in his own state. You think of
Speaker 3: all of the problems that could be alleviated, all the
Speaker 3: hungry mouths, all the houses that you could build. And
Speaker 3: I take that beyond the mega pastors. I am writing
Speaker 3: a piece now about the oligarchs, you know, the the
Speaker 3: billionaires that we have that so many people admire.
Speaker 2: Ah billionaires, that's the dream.
Speaker 3: And I think, okay, well, for a five hundred million
Speaker 3: dollar yacht that's being sailed around by a particular oligarch
Speaker 3: in question, Yeah, who ons Amazon? I'm like Okay, well,
Speaker 3: let's do the math. How many houses could that build,
Speaker 3: how many shelters, how many meals would that how much
Speaker 3: cancer research could we fund?
Speaker 2: How much suffering could we alleviate? Yeah, and you.
Speaker 3: Know, that's that's a problem, and it's a serious problem
Speaker 3: in the prosperity gospel model, especially in the larger mega
Speaker 3: churches within the Christian faith. It's really problematic. Yeah, I agree,
Speaker 3: I agree. I like to think that my generation.
Speaker 1: Doesn't give as much to the prosperity thing because we
Speaker 1: don't have as much to give, right, But you know,
Speaker 1: economic circumstances, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I think the thirty five and unders are really disenfranchised.
Speaker 2: They're disconnected.
Speaker 3: I don't think organized religion really appeals as much to you.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I say your generation, I feel like Methuselah.
Speaker 1: I'm like bank when I was Yeah. Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons. Internet's a big one.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We were definitely one of the most disconnected generations ever.
Speaker 1: I think I think people that do have local communities
Speaker 1: probably do it. You go to church a lot of
Speaker 1: times because you have to, because it's your only social
Speaker 1: network in your area. So a lot of people that
Speaker 1: like were atheists on the lowdown, like myself for a while,
Speaker 1: still went to church because that was your friend group
Speaker 1: and that's what you kind of have to do.
Speaker 2: And when in the Internet you don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: You can find people on a discord somewhere that likes
Speaker 1: the same I don't know, dungeons and dragons thing that
Speaker 1: you're into or whatever. Right, So it's so there's there's
Speaker 1: there's more options, but also you know, obviously less options
Speaker 1: for physical spaces as well.
Speaker 2: It's a big conundrum. But we can rant and rave about.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd love to go on an anti capitalist
Speaker 1: sort of Marxist like analysis with you, Seth. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is the atheist experience, and this is a call
Speaker 1: in show, and we have folks that do want to
Speaker 1: talk to us. You want to talk to some people.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm in. Just tell me what to do
Speaker 2: and well let's do it. I'll bring them in. Right now.
Speaker 1: We have someone who claims to be the perhaps infamous
Speaker 1: Darth Dawkins who wants to talk to us. Darth Dawkins,
Speaker 1: you are live on Atheists Experience.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Your name is certainly known in spaces and not always
Speaker 1: well respected, at least from the space as I come from.
Speaker 2: That's for sure.
Speaker 6: Okay, constitute Well, well, wait a minute, I don't know
Speaker 6: if it's on our end or what, but we you
Speaker 6: are super muffled right now.
Speaker 1: If there's any way you could help us with that,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. And I know the crew is looking
Speaker 1: on our side.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm in an outdoor.
Speaker 2: Okay, instantly, better, thank you? Go ahead?
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, So your atheism constitutes the denial of
Speaker 4: God's existence or a mere lack of belief.
Speaker 3: I am an atheist. I do not believe. Now, there
Speaker 3: are specific gods that I know do not and cannot exist.
Speaker 3: Christian God's the easy one, right, we can reverse engineer
Speaker 3: that and know.
Speaker 2: But is there a God out there somewhere? I don't
Speaker 2: believe it. I do know that.
Speaker 3: There is not an omni God, an omni benevolent God,
Speaker 3: an involved personal God.
Speaker 2: I know that doesn't exist.
Speaker 4: Could he anything about God? If God doesn't reveal himselves.
Speaker 3: If a God exists but chooses not to reveal himself,
Speaker 3: why do I care? God obviously doesn't care enough to
Speaker 3: reveal himself.
Speaker 5: Well, that's we know.
Speaker 2: That's not any benevolence.
Speaker 1: I'm confuse with the premise was saying revealing themselves to
Speaker 1: us personally, because.
Speaker 2: Like I guess you could know.
Speaker 1: But God, if they reveal themselves to somebody else, that
Speaker 1: somebody else talks about that experience somewhere, right, So that's
Speaker 1: that's one kind of No, we.
Speaker 2: Lose a connection here? Can you hear us?
Speaker 7: Hello?
Speaker 3: Hello?
Speaker 2: Well maybe we're having some connection.
Speaker 1: We'll put we'll put you back in our call Q
Speaker 1: while we get that figured out because we can hear you.
Speaker 2: But I guess I wasn't sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, do you know what? God does not exist?
Speaker 3: I was the vibe I was hearing.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Or do you simply not believe? And that's a reductive question.
Speaker 3: You got to talk about what do you mean by
Speaker 3: God like a deistic watchmaker?
Speaker 2: First?
Speaker 3: Cause deity does it? Is it omnipotent that that have
Speaker 3: limited powers? Is it eternal? Is it temporary? Uh? Or
Speaker 3: is it a specific god from a certain religion, a
Speaker 3: god with a proper name, you know? And of course
Speaker 3: the Internet and these types of conversations often you know,
Speaker 3: don't love nuance, but nuance is what is required. But
Speaker 3: if is there a deity out there somewhere. I'm just
Speaker 3: going to say I don't buy it. I am an atheist.
Speaker 3: I do not believe that's.
Speaker 1: A fair way to put it. I would do a
Speaker 1: similar sort of answer. I think if I were asked
Speaker 1: to me, he asked you, Spacidomy Seth, because you know
Speaker 1: you're the man.
Speaker 2: He wants to know it for you. He don't care
Speaker 2: about me.
Speaker 1: But if I were to answer an he were to
Speaker 1: ask me, I would say something, yeah, like I don't
Speaker 1: believe in it God from what I understand God to be,
Speaker 1: if there is a God. I like to use the
Speaker 1: term igtheist because there are some people that will say, well,
Speaker 1: God is just nature. Okay, Well, if God's nature, I
Speaker 1: believe nature is a thing. So I guess that means
Speaker 1: I believe in God. But that's not what many people
Speaker 1: say when they talk about God. God is whatever it
Speaker 1: means to that individual at any given time in culture, right,
Speaker 1: So it depends it depends on the God. But most
Speaker 1: God claims no, I don't. I don't find them to
Speaker 1: be valid or local or real in any meaningful sense.
Speaker 3: Did you notice Darthur used the masculine pronouns so obvious.
Speaker 3: True Party apparently assume that God is a hymn, So
Speaker 3: that's true. That's one of those things where I'm like, well, okay, well,
Speaker 3: how is that known?
Speaker 2: How do you know that God.
Speaker 3: Is not an it or a genderless thing or another
Speaker 3: creature or you know, how do you know it's not
Speaker 3: some sort of a centaur, you know, with god like powers.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a legitimate case you can make.
Speaker 1: Other the like serious theologians, as serious as theology can be,
Speaker 1: have made the case that God is not a masculine being.
Speaker 1: You know, that he is what some might call non binary, right,
Speaker 1: which is which is an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 1: And of course you know, someone like me would use
Speaker 1: it to piss somebody off, but you know, like I would,
Speaker 1: You know I would, I would say, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: what does that even mean to have a gender construct
Speaker 1: for a God that supposedly doesn't you don't have a
Speaker 1: gender identity.
Speaker 2: I've got to jump in. I know you're going to
Speaker 2: have a call, but I I just got to tell
Speaker 2: you this.
Speaker 3: So, okay, recently about white Jesus and how cultures throughout
Speaker 3: the last two thousand years there Christ has largely looked
Speaker 3: like them.
Speaker 2: So we talked about how Jesus. I mean, the Jesus
Speaker 2: that we see in white.
Speaker 3: Bread, corn fed Protestant Heartland America is not a brown
Speaker 3: skinned Middle Eastern dude. It's largely a blue eyed, kind
Speaker 3: of a sandy blonde haired white guy.
Speaker 2: Well, what's that about? True? And so we talked about
Speaker 2: how during the time of the.
Speaker 3: Caesars, Jesus was represented as kind of this pure face,
Speaker 3: looking like the Caesars, and when the Caesars became more bearded,
Speaker 3: we saw that reflected. There's an Asian Jesus, there's a
Speaker 3: Native American Jesus, there's a Muslim Jesus.
Speaker 2: There's an African American Jesus.
Speaker 3: And so I was saying, all right, fine, so let's
Speaker 3: take one of the portraits of an African American Jesus,
Speaker 3: black skin, and he's got the crown of thorns, and
Speaker 3: he's hanging on the cross, or he's giving the sermon
Speaker 3: on the mount or and there's a ton of art
Speaker 3: that we see hanging in African American churches and homes
Speaker 3: and beyond, what about is make that? And I walk
Speaker 3: into the first Baptist church or whatever in my hometown
Speaker 3: of Tulsa, Oklahoma, how quickly would I get my ass kicked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because.
Speaker 3: Humans have made gods in their own image. The ones
Speaker 3: that validate us, the ones that validate what our biases
Speaker 3: and opinions, are the ones that look and sound and
Speaker 3: feel like what we think they should look and sound
Speaker 3: and feel in so many cases, and I find that interesting.
Speaker 3: Now A lot of people try to escape by that
Speaker 3: by saying, well, my God's a personal god, so he
Speaker 3: appears to me in a way that I can relate to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I think that's a surface excuse.
Speaker 3: I think when it comes down to it, if it's
Speaker 3: the same, it's the same thing when Megan Kelly says
Speaker 3: Santa Claus is just white because someone had a black
Speaker 3: Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, what is it?
Speaker 2: Non white Santa? Yeah? From you?
Speaker 3: How does that cheat your Santa experience?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a movie and I remember this. This is one
Speaker 1: of the last Christian movies I watch when I was
Speaker 1: a Christian. I don't know if you remember this. It's
Speaker 1: called The Shack. I think it's what it's called.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Remember, I got in trouble because they depicted God in
Speaker 1: three persons, and they Jesus was a Middle Eastern guy,
Speaker 1: God was a black woman and the Holy Spirit was
Speaker 1: an Asian woman, and people.
Speaker 2: Really did not like those appearances.
Speaker 1: I guess which like, first of all, interesting choices, but
Speaker 1: second of all, also who cares? Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like why does it matter if very strange, very strange, like.
Speaker 3: Elon must say, I must make an AI Odyssey film
Speaker 3: that is historically Yeah.
Speaker 2: That man, Wait a minute, I'm sorry. A thing that
Speaker 2: was who was born of an egg? Was it?
Speaker 3: A thing that was born out of an egg? And
Speaker 3: this is cyclops? I mean, he's going to make a
Speaker 3: film that is so white you can see it from space.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm You're not wrong, dude.
Speaker 1: Man for a guy, you think billionaires will be too busy,
Speaker 1: But I guess he's got enough time to run a
Speaker 1: dunk In companies and make a movie full of white
Speaker 1: people at the same time.
Speaker 2: I don't know who who knows?
Speaker 1: Anyway, Okay, I think we fixed our issues with Darth Dawkins.
Speaker 1: Actually so, I think we want to try to bring
Speaker 1: it back on. Let's see if we can do that,
Speaker 1: right now, Darth Dawkins, Yeah, I can here you Okay, great,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. You're back on XP.
Speaker 4: I heard I heard the beat twice. You guys muted
Speaker 4: me twice.
Speaker 2: Okay, I definitely did not mute you. But but okay.
Speaker 5: And explain to me.
Speaker 4: Explain to me why I heard the beat twice disconnecting
Speaker 4: my micro.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, you seem to be having issues.
Speaker 2: Why are you accusing me right off the bat? I
Speaker 2: definitely didn't using you.
Speaker 4: All I know is I heard the beat twice where
Speaker 4: you shut my microphone off.
Speaker 3: These these beams sound quite traumatic for you.
Speaker 1: I I would like, I'm gonna say here, I am
Speaker 1: going to mute you right now. Okay, here's what it
Speaker 1: sounds like.
Speaker 2: I mute you.
Speaker 1: So I'm muting you right now because one, you're coming into.
Speaker 2: This way too hot.
Speaker 1: Let's slow your role for a second and let's try
Speaker 1: to have a common versation. I do not want to
Speaker 1: start off with this energy. Okay, So you're argued. Now,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to unmute you. You can tell me
Speaker 1: if it sounds the same or not. But I didn't
Speaker 1: mute you before, regardless, So there you go.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well somebody did, Okay.
Speaker 2: So I know nobody did.
Speaker 1: Actually, I think maybe you're having issues with your phone
Speaker 1: because you had some.
Speaker 2: Issues because I heard, I heard your beat book going.
Speaker 2: Do you want to argue about this?
Speaker 4: Or do you want to talk to an argument?
Speaker 2: Why would we want to do it? I want to
Speaker 2: challenge at the beginning, we didn't even get anywhere yet
Speaker 2: where we mute you?
Speaker 3: Because what's on your mind? What's your commenter question?
Speaker 5: I would like to challenge.
Speaker 4: Would you're going to see a set position about the
Speaker 4: partial or denial of God's existence and you say.
Speaker 7: You know that there's no benevolent God?
Speaker 4: How would you know what a benevolent God would or
Speaker 4: would not allow within.
Speaker 7: His point to span out the ademptive history?
Speaker 5: How would you know that?
Speaker 3: How would I not know involvement or lack of harm
Speaker 3: or help? How would I not know the difference between
Speaker 3: absence in a world of suffering and an intervention?
Speaker 2: I don't understand that.
Speaker 5: Now I'll repeat the question.
Speaker 4: How would you know what a benevolent God would or
Speaker 4: would not allow in.
Speaker 7: The short span of redemptive history?
Speaker 5: How would you know that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I think that's a convenient sort of a What you're
Speaker 3: saying is I the insect could not possibly understand the
Speaker 3: grand scale design by a godlike intelligence, which may in
Speaker 3: fact be benevolent in the macro. But because I only
Speaker 3: see right in front of my face and can't see
Speaker 3: the big picture, who am I to say benevolence is
Speaker 3: not happening?
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 5: No, that's not an answer to my question.
Speaker 2: I'm asking you how you could I'm trying to what
Speaker 2: your question is.
Speaker 5: It's a very simple question.
Speaker 4: How would you possibly know what a maximue benevolent God
Speaker 4: would do or not do within.
Speaker 7: A short span of redemptive history.
Speaker 5: How would you know that?
Speaker 3: I think it's I don't. I don't think this is
Speaker 3: a tough one. I think to look around and see
Speaker 3: twenty five thousand people starving to death a day in
Speaker 3: the eyes of a deity and there's no divine intervention,
Speaker 3: I could say that is the antithesis of benevolence. When
Speaker 3: I see a child rate like that is the antithesis
Speaker 3: of benevolence. I look at I look at natural disasters,
Speaker 3: I look at crap design all around this, the things
Speaker 3: that are now formed, and I think, no, no, no, at
Speaker 3: benevolence would mean that answer, God would use god like
Speaker 3: powers to intervene and decrease suffering and increase flourishing. And
Speaker 3: the absence of that tells me that if there is
Speaker 3: a deity.
Speaker 2: It is not.
Speaker 5: That's not an answer to the question I ask it is.
Speaker 4: You know, it's very gooding me is well, well let
Speaker 4: me let me let me give a shirt rebuttal okay,
Speaker 4: so they're just talking over me. Now, I understand that
Speaker 4: you What you did was you reiterated that a benevolent
Speaker 4: god I wouldn't allow the death and suffering to the
Speaker 4: extent that that we see it. All you did was
Speaker 4: reiterate the same part again.
Speaker 5: I'm going to.
Speaker 3: Stop you because I understand the question you're saying, what
Speaker 3: is my barometer?
Speaker 2: How would I measure benevolence?
Speaker 5: Can I finish with that? Being interrupted?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that's really me slow your role a
Speaker 3: little bit, you know. I really think from maybe a
Speaker 3: vicodin and some Yanni music might benefit you. Yeah, to
Speaker 3: finish this call talk over me, but to understand the
Speaker 3: concept of help and harm.
Speaker 1: As all right, Garth, I have been a mutue. Now
Speaker 1: so that Seth can finish what he's saying. Okay, please
Speaker 1: Seth go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, there's there are a number of things at angles
Speaker 3: that he may be going at but I think he's
Speaker 3: trying to obfuscate what is really an easy uh or
Speaker 3: an easy concept to understand. How do evolve human beings
Speaker 3: operating in a godfree context no benevolence, or how can
Speaker 3: we know that benevolence was not eventually going to be
Speaker 3: a materialized or manifest or revealed in some way Because
Speaker 3: our perspective is so.
Speaker 2: Small, How would I know that or how would I
Speaker 2: measure that? Yes, but I think that's what he's saying too.
Speaker 2: You were trying to clarify that. He didn't offer clarification,
Speaker 2: But I think that's what he's saying.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, he literally popped an O ring, And you know,
Speaker 3: I find that it's not a good faith approach to
Speaker 3: the conversation. I don't think I'm being unfair when I say,
Speaker 3: to understand what suffering is, understand what flourishing is, and
Speaker 3: then to expect an omni good, a benevolent deity to
Speaker 3: be alleviating alleviating suffering and increasing flourishing, and the absence
Speaker 3: of that tells me there is no benevolent God. I
Speaker 3: don't think that's an unreasonable position, and I don't think
Speaker 3: my barometer is invalid simply because I can't see all
Speaker 3: of the universe throughout space time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even if okay, maybe there's some big macro
Speaker 1: plan that doesn't stop you from seeing stuff on the
Speaker 1: micro like you said, like you're already seeing it, And
Speaker 1: I would argue that's still bad. Like just because maybe
Speaker 1: there's some bigger plan or whatever that means, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that things happening on the small scale aren't bad.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's it's a weird Sorry.
Speaker 3: Tell me what benevolence would in any context require a
Speaker 3: school shooting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would love to know that too. I
Speaker 1: would love to know. But anyway, I'm going to unmute
Speaker 1: Darth now, so maybe we can, maybe we can this conversation.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 4: Okay, you're unmuted dark On't again. You're using your abusive
Speaker 4: tactics of beuting me. Did not answer my question. I'd
Speaker 4: like to look about being interrupted.
Speaker 2: It's not abusive.
Speaker 1: It's trying to have a conversation. Man, we were not conversating.
Speaker 2: If everybody's talking mutating, So I have to have a hierarchy,
Speaker 2: an order of things.
Speaker 4: Surely you can undertuly understand that. But you muted me
Speaker 4: abusively again, Now, did not answer, it's.
Speaker 2: Really not abusively.
Speaker 5: But okay, go ahead, can you stop interrupting it?
Speaker 2: Over?
Speaker 1: No, I will.
Speaker 2: I will interrupt you as much as I want. I'm
Speaker 2: the host of the show. What I'm like, you don't
Speaker 2: know my benevolence.
Speaker 1: You're looking at things on the smaller scale right now,
Speaker 1: Darth Tawkins.
Speaker 2: But really I'm trying to do on a bigger level
Speaker 2: of the guy.
Speaker 3: Dan's streaming, his weaving a vowsand continents in a specific
Speaker 3: way are actually beyond our ability to see in the
Speaker 3: short term, and we need to know or believe, except
Speaker 3: in the larger scale, that this is true omni benevolence,
Speaker 3: and we should a bind that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead, Darth So, Hello you there all almost second.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, what you guys are doing is you're being
Speaker 4: abusive and you're not letting me ask a question in.
Speaker 5: The form of a rebuttal.
Speaker 4: Now, seth So simply reiterated his plan of the incompatibility
Speaker 4: with a maximumly benevolent god with death and suffering. He
Speaker 4: just simply reiterated he didn't tell me how he could
Speaker 4: know that it would be incompatible with a maximuly benevolent
Speaker 4: god who would have a plan of redemptive history where
Speaker 4: he temporarily allows death and suffering in order to fill
Speaker 4: a plan of redemptive history.
Speaker 8: So you didn't tell me no if I made Dan
Speaker 8: hang on, go ahead, Darth Leek, tell me how a
Speaker 8: school shooting and murdered children fits into God's redemptive plan.
Speaker 5: To my questions, Seth, are you going to answer?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, I want to know how does the school shooting,
Speaker 3: how does the rape of the child, How does people
Speaker 3: drowning in a single day from a tsunami fit into
Speaker 3: a benevolent redemptive plan?
Speaker 5: My question?
Speaker 2: You're dodging my question.
Speaker 3: No, I'm actually I'm asking you to tell me.
Speaker 2: Dodging my question.
Speaker 3: You are how many how many dead children does it
Speaker 3: take before we can say it's not benevolence?
Speaker 2: Is no?
Speaker 1: So you apparently are so vend up with the fact
Speaker 1: that you didn't get to answer your His answer in
Speaker 1: the form of rebuttal, he's answering you are question in
Speaker 1: the form of a question, which is exactly what you did.
Speaker 1: So I don't know why you have an issue.
Speaker 4: Question so that you guys are dodging my question to Seth,
Speaker 4: how could you know what plan a benevolent God would
Speaker 4: temporarily allow How could you know that?
Speaker 3: Well, you like to use the word maximally, and you
Speaker 3: skipped it this time. But I'll say it doesn't even
Speaker 3: have to be mad. I'll say marginally. I'll see, even vaguely,
Speaker 3: we know that an even vaguely benevolent god cannot exist
Speaker 3: with this much suffering in the world.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense, Doroth, how do we know the
Speaker 1: difference if there is a god, if you plan for
Speaker 1: maximal suffer question.
Speaker 4: I'm going to reiterate again. You did not answer the question.
Speaker 4: You just simply reiterated the compatibility with the suffering. Well,
Speaker 4: why don't you be fair to me? Okay, so I'm
Speaker 4: not being abusive here or behaving badly. I'm pointing out
Speaker 4: that that's questionable.
Speaker 2: The excitation needed now.
Speaker 7: But want you, I want you to explain to me, Seth.
Speaker 4: How you could know what a benevolent god's plan would be.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're going to ask me the same question. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we don't. So that you don't, I have to say
Speaker 2: the same thing. And I am not to.
Speaker 3: Sit in this swirling eddy with you, and essentially, would
Speaker 3: you mute him for me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, I'm happy to do that for you.
Speaker 1: Let me hang on, let me use my abuse of
Speaker 1: muting powers to mute him real quick.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, he's going to ask me the same question
Speaker 3: over and over, and it's I think it may be
Speaker 3: either a riff on how.
Speaker 2: Can you know that? It's more what's moral or immoral?
Speaker 3: I don't think he's taking the objective moral standard angle.
Speaker 3: I think he's taking more of a macro big picture
Speaker 3: the mind of God. Who hath known the mind of God?
Speaker 3: Mysterious ways? I am just an insect. How could I
Speaker 3: possibly even do there? Maybe I don't have the authority
Speaker 3: to do that, but it doesn't make any difference whatever
Speaker 3: the context is that he is using to challenge me.
Speaker 3: I think what this does is it is supposed to
Speaker 3: strip me of the very valid right to be able
Speaker 3: to say no. I understand what suffering is. I understand
Speaker 3: what waste is. I understand what's an efficiency at the
Speaker 3: very least is And a deity who gave a shit
Speaker 3: would not operate in a way where, according to the
Speaker 3: Book of Isaiah, he would It would create evil so
Speaker 3: that he could contrast his good. A benevolent deity would
Speaker 3: not have a model that included masked drownings and school
Speaker 3: shootings and sexual assault and murder and suffering and starvation
Speaker 3: and all these types of things.
Speaker 2: And so the idea that, well, how could you possibly know?
Speaker 3: With all You can act as indignant as you want,
Speaker 3: but it's not going to impress me. I spent thirty
Speaker 3: years in the faith, man, I've been there, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I would say to this too, like he's
Speaker 1: asked about, how do you know the same way I
Speaker 1: know about anything else in my life, whether it's good
Speaker 1: or bad? Is it promoting flourishing or is it promoting suffering?
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't even say. I wouldn't even stop at humans.
Speaker 1: Any conscious being that has a capacity to suffering or
Speaker 1: for suffering, right, is probably not a good thing. And
Speaker 1: a god that is doing that, it doesn't need me
Speaker 1: to conclude that what it is is good. If anything,
Speaker 1: I don't know the difference between a god that's causing
Speaker 1: maximal good or maximal suffering. How do we know in
Speaker 1: this universe based on this this weird metric of oh,
Speaker 1: we don't know the plan, Well, it could go either
Speaker 1: way if we don't know the plan. So Darth isn't
Speaker 1: really giving me a way out of this by just saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if it's a guy who's you know, got a bigger
Speaker 1: picture here, that doesn't that doesn't give me any more
Speaker 1: confidence of knowing whether something is good or bad.
Speaker 2: Anyway, all right, let's try this one more time. You
Speaker 2: must seek darth. I'm meeting you now, so go ahead.
Speaker 4: Okay, so once again you Seth did not answer the question.
Speaker 4: What he did do was read, can I finish what
Speaker 4: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna sit behind go, go go.
Speaker 4: I'm going to confront you, and let's see if you're
Speaker 4: open to your position being protested. You did not answer
Speaker 4: my question.
Speaker 3: You Hello, hello, spin rapture here he was the only
Speaker 3: one where.
Speaker 2: We cut out.
Speaker 1: You see your phones having issues. Man, I'm not even
Speaker 1: muting you for some of this.
Speaker 2: You're just not accusing you of muting me.
Speaker 4: Right now, my screen change. Okay, now listen carefully. Beth
Speaker 4: did not answer the specific question. What he did do
Speaker 4: for the third time was to reiterate the incompatibility with
Speaker 4: a maximly bean out of God, maximally benevolent God.
Speaker 7: With the amount of suffering that we see.
Speaker 4: He did not explain to me epistemologically how he could
Speaker 4: know that a maximly benevolent God could not or would
Speaker 4: not ever implement a plan of creation and redemptive history
Speaker 4: where he permits the amount of suffering.
Speaker 1: I mean he did, and he said, Okay, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. He said, why it doesn't make sense? Why
Speaker 1: does schools shudn't happen? He's asking?
Speaker 4: He answered, this for you doesn't make sense. Now here's
Speaker 4: the problem with that response. When you say a proposition.
Speaker 5: Doesn't make sense, it means that you have to have a.
Speaker 4: Standard by which you refer to something that is in
Speaker 4: coherent by So how could you know that a god
Speaker 4: wouldn't do that other than your your speculations? How would
Speaker 4: you know that other than repeating the same plan of
Speaker 4: the incompatibility with suffering and God's plan of creation.
Speaker 1: I can speak if you want, but I think you
Speaker 1: gave a standard. It was school shootings. School shootings was
Speaker 1: the standard.
Speaker 5: And they question, So that's not an answer to the question.
Speaker 3: How is it not you asked for a standard he
Speaker 3: gave you once you know what's funny is I think
Speaker 3: Dan or or I don't know. Maybe you we could
Speaker 3: implement a plan that involved the creation of Cynthian beings
Speaker 3: and we could bring the question, we could put together
Speaker 3: a model where there wasn't murder and rape and suffering
Speaker 3: and your abuse and starvation and drownings.
Speaker 5: And that you're dodging my question.
Speaker 2: Look, I don't know why you're so agitated.
Speaker 3: I mean, I may maybe this is how you burn
Speaker 3: calories on a Sunday afternoon. But I would encourage you
Speaker 3: to just take a breath and enhance your calm and man.
Speaker 4: Mocking me is not going to obscure the fact that
Speaker 4: you didn't tell me how you know that the amount
Speaker 4: of suffering would be incompatible with a maximuly blog benevolent.
Speaker 2: Look, I realize it.
Speaker 3: You've carefully man and cured a question to make it
Speaker 3: sound deeper than it is.
Speaker 5: Question.
Speaker 4: It's a reasonable question.
Speaker 1: Let me know, would you like us to drop this
Speaker 1: call because I'm having to do that, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, are we going to go anywhere productive? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Might only answer the question.
Speaker 3: I can only address needless suffering so many different ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to speak to the fact that we.
Speaker 3: As human beings are not out of our depth to
Speaker 3: say we understand what harm is, We understand the concept
Speaker 3: of harm, and we know that plans can be implemented
Speaker 3: where harm is not required, and a deity that says, oh,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm going to have school shootings as
Speaker 3: part of a larger macro plan for omni benevolence. I
Speaker 3: can say that's ridiculous, really offensive, And you don't get
Speaker 3: the point the finger at me and say that I'm
Speaker 3: dodging your question. Right, you're defending the god of school
Speaker 3: shootings and you're pointing your finger at me. That's not
Speaker 3: going to work for you on this show.
Speaker 5: No, No, you did dodge the question.
Speaker 7: You have dodged the question.
Speaker 2: You aren't defending the god or brave. Can you stop
Speaker 2: defend the god.
Speaker 3: Or brape garth? Just take your time and defend it,
Speaker 3: you know what?
Speaker 4: You know what, So you guys are going to resort
Speaker 4: to being a You're going to drop again.
Speaker 2: It's a baby, all right? How many abused?
Speaker 5: Look?
Speaker 2: What is that line? Who said? Was it thorough? Who said? Uh,
Speaker 2: maybe it was Emerson.
Speaker 5: You're afraid of Ralph?
Speaker 2: You can just drop him? Yeah, okay, let's yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it was Ralph Waldo.
Speaker 3: Emerson said, let me never fall into the vulgar mistake
Speaker 3: of dreaming that I am being persecuted whenever I am
Speaker 3: merely being contradicted, and that's what Dark was doing. We're like, no,
Speaker 3: I don't buy that. No, this is crap, No, this
Speaker 3: makes no sense. No, we disagree, and he's like, you
Speaker 3: abusive fasts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how dare you have mute me on a callin show?
Speaker 3: Oh you porn tissue skinned victim.
Speaker 2: My deepest topologies skipped over the school shootings. But we
Speaker 2: gotta listen.
Speaker 1: When you mute somebody on a Collin show, you got
Speaker 1: to call it out right.
Speaker 3: You know what, if you'll pray for God to heal
Speaker 3: the wounds that we have inflicted upon you with our
Speaker 3: vowels and consonants, perhaps you will find respite from the
Speaker 3: pain Dark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, the problem is you answered his question.
Speaker 1: You just gave an answer he didn't like. You know,
Speaker 1: That's all it was. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: he just gave an answer he didn't like. It didn't
Speaker 1: fall into his format. And guys like Darth are all about, well,
Speaker 1: you got to fit the script. You gotta fit the format,
Speaker 1: otherwise you're.
Speaker 3: Invalid, stuck the deck against himself. By saying maximally I mean,
Speaker 3: he's saying maximally benevolent I thought, yeah, now you've really yeah,
Speaker 3: now you really stacked the deck against yourself. It's not like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm benevolent, but you know, I'm moderately benevolent somewhat.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I know that's the whole thing. That's great, folks.
Speaker 1: We have open lines still. So if you want to
Speaker 1: talk to me and said you should do that, please
Speaker 1: call in, whether on TikTok or I want to call
Speaker 1: in through our show, you can do that.
Speaker 2: Numbers on the screen to do so. But yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: So like I you know, the moral questions are probably
Speaker 1: one of the hardest ones for me to deconstruct, and
Speaker 1: that is because my kind of Christianity was the kind
Speaker 1: of Christianity that said, you, God is what gave you
Speaker 1: in understanding what's right and wrong, and like depending on
Speaker 1: how you follow the Bible, that may or may not
Speaker 1: literally be true, right, because like if you believe there's
Speaker 1: that of a need, they literally ate a fruit that
Speaker 1: gave you the knowledge of right and wrong. Right, so
Speaker 1: you can follow that or like moral intuition, right, you
Speaker 1: can just say, well, that's the sign of like a creator, right.
Speaker 1: And so like Chians always they really don't understand a
Speaker 1: world where we can evaluate things as being right or
Speaker 1: wrong without God being some sort of objective standard to that.
Speaker 1: The problem is God's not an objective standard. God has
Speaker 1: never been an objective standard. It's always been an idea.
Speaker 1: And we don't even know what God is, then we
Speaker 1: can't even evaluate him as an objective standard. He's meant
Speaker 1: different things, that's had different values depending on the culture
Speaker 1: and context, and you know the world that you live in.
Speaker 1: So I guarantee you if we talked to an early
Speaker 1: Christian from forty a d About what's right and wrong,
Speaker 1: they're going to disagree with most Christians on Earth today
Speaker 1: on what that looks like, because your culture and the
Speaker 1: world that you live in matters. So you know, these
Speaker 1: kinds of questions they used to be more interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Now it's just well, it really is just kind of
Speaker 1: all relative at the end of the day at some point, right, Well, And.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this was his take, there may
Speaker 3: be some of that in there, but there is a
Speaker 3: thinking it's often called vertical morality or divine command theory,
Speaker 3: where if God does it, it's moral by default. So
Speaker 3: we are God's creation and because God's ways are not
Speaker 3: our ways, and he works in mysterious ways, and God
Speaker 3: uses the foolish things to shame the wise, and trust
Speaker 3: not in your own understanding, etc. Then whatever God does,
Speaker 3: if he lets you die in a house fire, if
Speaker 3: he lets your children be stripped from you and a kidnapping,
Speaker 3: if if right horrible cancers and degenerative diseases, not whatever.
Speaker 3: If if you are punished or some horrible thing happens
Speaker 3: to you and your life is ruined, It's God's will
Speaker 3: and it cannot be called immoral. If God does it,
Speaker 3: it is just simply the moral thing. And his standard
Speaker 3: is totally different and lives apart from the standard that
Speaker 3: we apply to everything and everyone else. And one sinister
Speaker 3: thing that fundamental Christianity and other funding religions do is
Speaker 3: they try to strip us of asserting the authority to
Speaker 3: say that's wrong and that's a moral A great example
Speaker 3: is the Abraham Isaac story. And I'll have this conversation
Speaker 3: with about believers. I'll say it's kind of a setup,
Speaker 3: but you know, Christianity is lung Judaism. The Abrahamic faiths Oh, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: do you believe that Abraham was a hero of the faith. Yes,
Speaker 3: Abraham hero of the faith, And I say, look, if
Speaker 3: God told you to take your son to an altar
Speaker 3: and stab your son until he was dead as an
Speaker 3: act of obedience, would you do it?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: They will blink and squirm and say, well, it was
Speaker 3: a different time and he didn't actually and God the angel.
Speaker 2: But we suddenly worldvism is a good defense.
Speaker 3: That was different at the time, and ignore that Abraham
Speaker 3: was fully prepared to go through it to the point
Speaker 3: where his hand had to be grabbed to keep the
Speaker 3: eye from going down. But whenever we talk about well,
Speaker 3: can we then say that it's an immoral act? They say, well,
Speaker 3: you know God created aber and Isaac. God's plan demanded it.
Speaker 3: We can't call it immoral. Man, that's a dangerous place
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 2: That's yeahangerous.
Speaker 3: You can have all kinds of atrocities and insanities with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. That reminds me of a conversation I
Speaker 1: asked Frank Turk himself at Baylor University. He did a
Speaker 1: lecture there, and I asked him about this passage in numbers.
Speaker 1: I know you're familiar about it, where you know there's
Speaker 1: a guy that picks up sticks on a Sunday and
Speaker 1: as a result, he gets stoned to death for it,
Speaker 1: And I asked him if that was an act of
Speaker 1: I can't remember my exact wording, but it was something
Speaker 1: like if it was a good thing basically, right, was
Speaker 1: this was this good? Because I mean, it was God's
Speaker 1: law to do that at the time, so they had
Speaker 1: the right to do that. And I got this defense,
Speaker 1: like you said of like, well, you know it was
Speaker 1: the law of the time and now that's the old
Speaker 1: law and we're in the new covenants.
Speaker 2: Like, well, but that's not what that doesn't answer that, right,
Speaker 2: Like was it a act or not?
Speaker 1: Because if it wasn't a good act, we have to
Speaker 1: consider God's laws maybe not being good, right, Like I
Speaker 1: don't think that's good. I don't think people should be
Speaker 1: stoned to death really period. But let alone, you know,
Speaker 1: big enough sticks on a Sunday is not a big deal,
Speaker 1: but it was a big deal to that time and culture,
Speaker 1: because you know that's what browny is.
Speaker 2: It's kind of tight and time and culture.
Speaker 3: But well, obviously a maximally benevolent deity would have well, yeah,
Speaker 3: people owned for the heinous act of big picking on
Speaker 3: a on the Sabbath.
Speaker 1: It was so it was so we could read it
Speaker 1: in the modern day in the Bible and get scared.
Speaker 2: It is true. It is true?
Speaker 3: Well, you know another and I saw this done by
Speaker 3: a couple of Muslims in the Netherlands where they grabbed
Speaker 3: the Holy Bible and they put a curanic cover on
Speaker 3: it and they went out to people and they're like,
Speaker 3: did you read this atrocious story? And they read about
Speaker 3: slavery and the beating of slaves and the stoning of
Speaker 3: disobedient children or whatever the stories were, and man and people,
Speaker 3: the Christians that.
Speaker 2: They were speaking to, were like, that's barbaric.
Speaker 3: How can anyone possibly believe that in this modern day?
Speaker 2: It's so perfect?
Speaker 3: And they pulled the Kuran cover off and it says
Speaker 3: Holy Bible, and he shows them chapter and verse and
Speaker 3: you can see them their brains melt, just literally and
Speaker 3: they went many of them some were honestly disbelieving and
Speaker 3: like that's terrible, but a few of them.
Speaker 2: You could see him flip and he became defense.
Speaker 3: Well it was a context and translation time, and his
Speaker 3: ways are not my ways in Moray, you know, And
Speaker 3: it immediately became like they were defending instead of trying
Speaker 3: to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: About it. So yeah, yeah, of course you got to.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just something about the brain that you
Speaker 1: know gets into that defensive mode when it comes to
Speaker 1: your deeply hell believe Would you have.
Speaker 2: Been that way?
Speaker 4: Like it?
Speaker 3: Let's say I'm an atheist and you were the believing
Speaker 3: Methodist and I came to you and I showed you
Speaker 3: a bunch of stuff in the Bible. Do you think
Speaker 3: you would have gone because I think I would have.
Speaker 3: In fact, I know I would have. I would have
Speaker 3: gone into a defensive posture. Yeah, and all the reasons
Speaker 3: why the nonsensical made sense. Do you feel like you
Speaker 3: would have done that?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: I think it depends on what time in my life,
Speaker 1: because I didn't read the Bible all the way until
Speaker 1: I was an adult, right, So it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: as a teenager, maybe I would have said that as
Speaker 1: I got older and I deconstructed when I was in college, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, I think maybe I would have said,
Speaker 1: there's probably more context to this that I don't know, Right,
Speaker 1: I would have just been like, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: there is an answer, I just don't know it. I
Speaker 1: think that's probably where my brain would have went to.
Speaker 1: But of course you know, you do the work and
Speaker 1: you figure it out. It turns out maybe there is
Speaker 1: an answer, but it's not so good.
Speaker 2: That's why, you know.
Speaker 1: I've talked with Catholics and they're like, oh, yeah, problem
Speaker 1: of evil. Thomas Aquin has figured that stuff out centuries ago. Man,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: his answer. I just don't think it's good, Like I just.
Speaker 2: You know, but you know, John Lofton wrote a whole
Speaker 2: book on this.
Speaker 3: It's called The God of Needless Suffering, and I thought
Speaker 3: you had some really good points. He did a blog
Speaker 3: article version of it, kind of a synopsis that I
Speaker 3: actually read. I just read the whole thing on the podcast.
Speaker 3: This was three or four or five years and I think,
Speaker 3: you know, many people call it the problem of evil,
Speaker 3: but I think needless suffering is probably a slightly better
Speaker 3: way to phrase it.
Speaker 2: And it's a valid.
Speaker 3: Challenge to this idea of not just omni benevolence, but
Speaker 3: any kind of benevolence in a creature with God like
Speaker 3: powers who apparently is interested in us, and if that
Speaker 3: deity would allow the God who is not the author
Speaker 3: of confusion allowing this much confusion, and the God who
Speaker 3: is the God of peace, perfect peace, who is allowing
Speaker 3: and even enabling and creating this much suffering. I think
Speaker 3: it's perfectly valid to say no, now, I don't see
Speaker 3: any benevolence. In fact, there's probably malevolence there. What if
Speaker 3: God is to say this, who has the magnifying glass
Speaker 3: and is just frying us like insects and the body
Speaker 3: being right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I try to develop this idea earlier.
Speaker 1: I don't know how clear it was about this, but
Speaker 1: just to try to reiterate, like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: we can determine whether a maximally good or a maximally
Speaker 1: evil God currently exists right now, because I do see
Speaker 1: a lot of suffering, and any defense you can make
Speaker 1: towards a maximally good God right now, you could make
Speaker 1: towards a maxley evil god. You could say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the good stuff that you're seeing right now, that's just
Speaker 1: the micro that's the part of the you know, that's
Speaker 1: the that's the little parts for the big macro plan
Speaker 1: of suffering. I mean, how do you how do you
Speaker 1: differentiate that?
Speaker 2: Right? I don't know how you do it, but.
Speaker 3: And how would you be able Let's say someone put
Speaker 3: both scenarios side by side and say tell me.
Speaker 2: This is God or a double to. What would the
Speaker 2: difference be, right? Yeah, the difference be so good.
Speaker 1: Stuff there, folks, We're still we have open lines. I
Speaker 1: want to talk to some people. I know you guys
Speaker 1: want to talk to Seth Andrews. I always want to know.
Speaker 1: Seth is awesome. Awesome guy. You you got to officiate
Speaker 1: my wedding last year.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, last night is one of the gigs that
Speaker 3: really are never expected to be able to do. And
Speaker 3: I just love and it was an honor to be there.
Speaker 3: I am outdoor wedding, which is goutsy the schedule and
Speaker 3: outdoor wedding, yes, and we.
Speaker 1: Had some technical issues from that so your mic was
Speaker 1: not working right, which I regret.
Speaker 2: But you know what I heard every word you said.
Speaker 3: It's all uptown problems, dude, It's all you know, first
Speaker 3: world problems. I know what's funny about and I'm doing.
Speaker 3: I'm actually officiating a wedding. I don't want to say
Speaker 3: the name because I.
Speaker 1: Describate citizens and stuff. Yeah, you probably don't want to
Speaker 1: take but.
Speaker 3: I just got invited next year to officiate the wedding
Speaker 3: of an Oklahoma congressman.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, all right, Olahoma, Yeah, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: That's that's impressive.
Speaker 3: I was like, really, so that's pretty cool. But you know,
Speaker 3: it's funny a lot of times when I go in
Speaker 3: and I'm invited to be a secular efficiant, there will
Speaker 3: be highly religious people on the family tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Who here.
Speaker 3: They're not bringing in a preacher, They're bringing in who
Speaker 3: what's his name?
Speaker 2: Google.
Speaker 1: Definitely had a little bit of that with my family.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: Who who's coming in.
Speaker 3: I did a wedding in Kentucky must have been five years,
Speaker 3: six years ago, and I'm just talking while we wait.
Speaker 2: For the call. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: But plus I'm one of those guys who I just
Speaker 3: like shows or people, band or anyway.
Speaker 2: Again, I can talk to Seth for two hours a week.
Speaker 2: We're catching it, you know.
Speaker 3: So anyway, the family of the groom, I mean they
Speaker 3: were hardcore Jesus is a Republican, conservative capitalist, you know,
Speaker 3: they were just and they were fundy Bible believers.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And they found out I was coming and they're like, uh,
Speaker 3: you bringing a.
Speaker 2: Right, what's going on?
Speaker 3: And they had real trepidation about it, and like, no,
Speaker 3: this is who we want. This is who's officiating the
Speaker 3: winning And they're like, uh, it's your choice, are you sure?
Speaker 3: And I showed up and I'm telling you, by the
Speaker 3: end of the weekend, we were like pals. They all
Speaker 3: of the preconceptions they had about what the evil atheist
Speaker 3: is right or the godless is well. I show up
Speaker 3: in Goodwill. I'm walking around the room meeting everybody. We're
Speaker 3: swapping stories, talking about our families were out there setting
Speaker 3: things up. The service itself is not an agenda driven thing.
Speaker 3: It was about the couple. It wasn't about religion, politics anything.
Speaker 3: At the end, we're all having a ball. I'm helping
Speaker 3: to move chairs and tables when it's done, to take
Speaker 3: everything down, and they were just like wow.
Speaker 2: And my flight got canceled.
Speaker 3: And the same family that was weird about me officiating said,
Speaker 3: you are not going to a hotel.
Speaker 2: You are staying in our home tonight. And it's interesting
Speaker 2: when you.
Speaker 3: Humanize things in the walls start to come down, and
Speaker 3: in some cases I think that's when conversations can begin.
Speaker 2: But if nothing else, I know.
Speaker 3: I messed up their categories because they had this preconceived idea, right,
Speaker 3: and they.
Speaker 2: Were nervous and after it was over.
Speaker 3: They're like, hey, that wasn't bad at all.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: You really had to remind yourself. I have a buddy
Speaker 1: of mine. He was actually he was the best man
Speaker 1: at that wedding. I think the only Christian in my
Speaker 1: wedding party. Actually, and I've known this guy since since
Speaker 1: we used to be in church camp. Like we were
Speaker 1: church camp counselors. Okay, so we go back and uh,
Speaker 1: like he is, like if every Christian was like him,
Speaker 1: I would not be on the internet talking about stuff truly,
Speaker 1: because like, he's a good guy. I know, I know
Speaker 1: him in and out, and he's got some takes I
Speaker 1: disagree with, but I've never judged his heart on things.
Speaker 1: And that's really important because it's you're right. Even on
Speaker 1: our side of the space, it's easy for us to
Speaker 1: put people in the categories, even though we like to
Speaker 1: think that we're nuanced and we like to think, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: well I've talked to everybody under the sun.
Speaker 2: I'm Seth Andrews. Look at me. I'm cool. But you know,
Speaker 2: I mean all that's true.
Speaker 1: But you know, you know, we still meet people and
Speaker 1: they can still surprise us, which is great, and that's
Speaker 1: another reason why I like doing Collins shows because I
Speaker 1: still get surprised on stuff. Yeah, we hear some of
Speaker 1: the same stuff, but we do hear some surprises. Just
Speaker 1: earlier on Truth One, I was talking to somebody about
Speaker 1: their pre cognition via dreams and.
Speaker 2: You know, well that's more of a truth one thing.
Speaker 2: But you know it's fun. You can see some fun stuff.
Speaker 3: You think about. You know, do we share we made
Speaker 3: disagree in beliefs. Do we share values?
Speaker 2: Right? And that's why.
Speaker 3: Like when I Natalie and I were married, she identified
Speaker 3: as a Christian, and people were like, how how could
Speaker 3: you at all marry someone who identified as a Christian?
Speaker 3: Now she me she wasn't really it. She grew up Christian,
Speaker 3: went to Christian church. But I mean it wouldn't have
Speaker 3: worked if she was hardcore. Yeah, culturally Christian maybe right
Speaker 3: now she I think she's just like everything. She thinks
Speaker 3: there's maybe something out there. And you know, we got
Speaker 3: We've got a Buddhast statue downstairs, and there's a voodoo
Speaker 3: doll we keep for fun.
Speaker 2: And there's baby we got one of thosettle baby.
Speaker 3: Jesus's for laughs. I stuck it on the count. I
Speaker 3: mean just thirty one flavors, but we don't do anything religious.
Speaker 3: But even when she identified with a religious label, we
Speaker 3: shared values. Our our values were the same, and that
Speaker 3: was the difference. And you're right that we in the
Speaker 3: free thought movement atheists we like to think we're above
Speaker 3: it all and that we can't be reductive and we
Speaker 3: can't be humanized, and we can't be tribal, and we
Speaker 3: can't be biased, and we can't be just wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and yeah, we're all animated meat man. We are all
Speaker 3: higher primates. We're all true you know. We we can
Speaker 3: all be guilty of reductive thinking and treating people in
Speaker 3: terms of memes instead of human beings.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, I think we have to
Speaker 2: be aware of that.
Speaker 3: We can all we can all have bad ideas about
Speaker 3: good people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it hurts me sometimes even more than
Speaker 1: Oh I used to be a Christian and I was
Speaker 1: hurt in this space. I mean, obviously, you know, we
Speaker 1: we know a lot of folks in the stories. It's
Speaker 1: I was in an atheist space and I got hurt
Speaker 1: in that space. That hurts me more because I feel
Speaker 1: a duty of care as somebody who you know speaks online, right,
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to help cultivate and be
Speaker 1: the example that I want to be, so I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't particularly, I don't always. It's fun sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna laugh, but I don't really like to get
Speaker 1: heat with people when we talk to people. Okay, if
Speaker 1: you're coming to Agro, you get what you're what's coming
Speaker 1: to you. Okay, I don't know what to do about that,
Speaker 1: but you know, I don't want to make an example
Speaker 1: of people and say this is why all this group
Speaker 1: of people are stupid.
Speaker 2: Okay, That's that's not what I'm here for.
Speaker 1: I'm here to help people understand where you're coming from
Speaker 1: and where I'm coming from and why we're here, right
Speaker 1: because it was a little journey to get to where
Speaker 1: we are here.
Speaker 2: And if we can build that understanding, that's great.
Speaker 1: And if somebody has an experience that's going to change
Speaker 1: my mind about something which people have done through this
Speaker 1: shows like this, then that's great as well. I want
Speaker 1: that to be the goal, not a you know, here's
Speaker 1: why all Christians are dumb, and here's why you're smarter
Speaker 1: and better than other people for not believing it. If
Speaker 1: that's what this movement is, then I want out, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't want anything to do with that.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, I'm you know, I'm prepping material. I'm speaking
Speaker 3: at Baja Kan and Sarnia, and I'm doing an event
Speaker 3: in Huntsville and October, and I'm working on a speech
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure if I'm ready to I'm trying
Speaker 3: to decide how much grief i want, well, how much
Speaker 3: grief I want in my email inbox.
Speaker 2: But it's going to be I'm going to.
Speaker 3: Start with a lot of the bad arguments that religious
Speaker 3: people use about atheists. And we've heard it all, you know,
Speaker 3: they misrepresent and they talk they don't even understand what
Speaker 3: they're saying. But then I want to segue into here
Speaker 3: are so many of the things that I see in
Speaker 3: atheist spaces said about the religious that are just wrong.
Speaker 3: A religion is a mental illness. I just want to
Speaker 3: crawl through the monitor every time.
Speaker 2: I see that.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I saw somebody post a meme that said,
Speaker 3: why is it so peaceful on Sundays because all the
Speaker 3: evil people are at church? I'm sorry, are you seriously
Speaker 3: saying that all the Christians are evil?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 3: There is one that said The reason that we are
Speaker 3: more educated is because we use more than just one book.
Speaker 3: And it shows that this giant, vast library is if
Speaker 3: this is a resource.
Speaker 1: This we because I totally read every book in that
Speaker 1: library for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hashtag irony.
Speaker 3: They didn't stop to check that the image was actually
Speaker 3: from a religious college. Oh wow, it's so I'm just
Speaker 3: I want to go through.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I just think we are not immune. Yes, totally got
Speaker 9: to be. We've got to do better. We do have
Speaker 9: folks that do want to talk to us.
Speaker 2: All right, cool.
Speaker 1: I'm very glad because Seth is a very interesting person. Guys,
Speaker 1: please talk to Seth. Okay, not like Darth Thawkins was,
Speaker 1: but you know, any literally any outer way, ad me
Speaker 1: more than two thank you before we do get to
Speaker 1: this next person, can I want to bring this up
Speaker 1: because I didn't get to bring it up earlier.
Speaker 2: I'm doing that thing where.
Speaker 1: You had a topic of conversation like fifteen minutes ago,
Speaker 1: and you're going back into it. Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: ADHD talking. Okay, have you heard about this this thing?
Speaker 1: You know, I went to Japan from my honeymoon and
Speaker 1: somebody told me about this. There's these this guy that
Speaker 1: claims he found the tomb of Christ in Japan. Do
Speaker 1: you know about this? You know about this is real? No,
Speaker 1: it is real. He claims he discovered the two And
Speaker 1: I have the article of from Wikipedia, of course, in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, while he was serving a village there,
Speaker 1: and this is what it says. On the side, it
Speaker 1: says Christ's grave. When Jesus Christ was twenty one years old,
Speaker 1: he came to Japan and pursued divinity for twelve years.
Speaker 1: He went back to Judea at age thirty three and
Speaker 1: engaged in his mission. However, at that time, people in
Speaker 1: Judea would not accept Christ preaching. Instead, they arrested him
Speaker 1: and tried to crucify him on a cross. His younger brother,
Speaker 1: Issu Kiri casually took Christ's place and in his life
Speaker 1: on the cross. And then it goes on to talk
Speaker 1: about how Christ actually escaped crucifixion and went to Japan
Speaker 1: and lived to the age of one hundred and six
Speaker 1: and that's his grave.
Speaker 2: So I just think that's awesome. That's super cool. Isn't
Speaker 2: that great?
Speaker 3: Like the Mormon story of Jesus after the reserd direction,
Speaker 3: before he went up to Heaven, he visited Palmyra, New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: It's like Assassin's Creed lare right there or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's awesome. I want that to be true.
Speaker 1: I hope that Jesus Christ was well, first of all,
Speaker 1: did exist, and also, you know, left your day to
Speaker 1: go to Japan until the age of one hundred.
Speaker 2: And he lived a long and rich, happy life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we just we never figured that out. And now, like,
Speaker 2: that's awesome. That would be a great ending to a
Speaker 2: Christianity story. Oh man, okay, so the call that was
Speaker 2: coming in earlier, Oh, maybe there's another coming in the queue.
Speaker 1: Another one got terminated, so we we we're gonna keep
Speaker 1: chatting here.
Speaker 6: I think.
Speaker 2: I think that's what's happening, right.
Speaker 3: I don't mind a bit. I can flap my gums
Speaker 3: all day, you know. Yeah, and two hosts in a room.
Speaker 3: You know, it's almost like when I was I forgot
Speaker 3: where I was, but I had Forest Valcai and Gotsi
Speaker 3: Gibbon in the same room and we were just sitting
Speaker 3: and you just start talking and blink and it's two
Speaker 3: hours later.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh my god, yes, And then you think.
Speaker 3: God, I wish i'd had microphon in here this whole time.
Speaker 1: I remember being at a table with it was you,
Speaker 1: guts it, Gibven, who else was there? This was at
Speaker 1: a convention we went to and and y'all too like,
Speaker 1: first of all, guts it given you talk. Just mentioned
Speaker 1: the word ape and you'll lose te minutes of your life.
Speaker 2: And it's a good fifteen minute to lose.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's bad, but man, like, you know, shit,
Speaker 1: that's her thing, and it's like, I don't know you
Speaker 1: you also being there, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We have very interesting people in our space, it is
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 3: I think used the word genius and she would hate
Speaker 3: that I'm using it.
Speaker 2: But really she, I mean, she is one of them.
Speaker 1: Oh you're saying she's calling her genius. I thought you
Speaker 1: meant she didn't like the word genius in general.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, I mean, gosh, she would totally
Speaker 3: blush and she would differ and say, no, Robert Sepalski
Speaker 3: or somebody else youh.
Speaker 5: Blah love it.
Speaker 3: But her level of knowledge and expertise and just her acumen,
Speaker 3: her ability to connect dots and translate them into something
Speaker 3: where you and I can play along is one of them,
Speaker 3: she enforced, both are some of the best science communicators
Speaker 3: that I have ever met. We did an event together,
Speaker 3: all three of us, on stage in Tulsa this last March,
Speaker 3: and I was like, here, I am on stage with
Speaker 3: two PhD you know, candidates, and I'm the guy who
Speaker 3: thought that a donkey spoke Hebrew in.
Speaker 2: The book numbers, you know, just like you know.
Speaker 3: But then I have to then I have to realize, no,
Speaker 3: I have a part to play and I have to contribute.
Speaker 3: But you get them talking biology, primatology, whatever, and buggle up,
Speaker 3: have a seat, drink something, because it's going to be
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, it's true.
Speaker 1: Definitely more interesting conversations than most conversations I had in church.
Speaker 2: I am confident in that.
Speaker 1: But okay, on that note, I think we we we
Speaker 1: got our stuff together on our side here, so I
Speaker 1: have somebody available next in I think here.
Speaker 2: Oh, well, it's backwards you.
Speaker 1: No, I'm sorry, guys, I'm sorry, I'm tea in today
Speaker 1: because it's not we're getting stuff figured out on our side. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's some things happening, but again, just flapping my gums
Speaker 1: with said.
Speaker 3: You did you like when I was raised in a
Speaker 3: fundamental Christian home in school and I'm a private Christian school. Right,
Speaker 3: we knew evolution was a lie of the devil.
Speaker 2: Yeah that was me, but no one knew.
Speaker 3: What evolution really was, Like we've never read the on
Speaker 3: the Origin of Species, We've never taken a legit biology class,
Speaker 3: so we were just taught to make fun of it, like,
Speaker 3: oh well, I ain't no monkey, and then we were
Speaker 3: taught to dismiss and laugh at it. But we never
Speaker 3: actually found out what it was that we disagreed with
Speaker 3: before we disagreed with.
Speaker 2: It, right, yeah, yeah, I uh so.
Speaker 1: My so again just weird for my origins because my
Speaker 1: dad used to be Catholic and he became a Protestant
Speaker 1: when he buried my mom's Yeah, I wonder how that,
Speaker 1: you know why that happened, but you know told him
Speaker 1: now now yeah is real. Yeah, So I guess they
Speaker 1: compromised and started going to the Methodist Church, which Methodism,
Speaker 1: in case you don't know, has some like Catholic over
Speaker 1: like they got bishops and stuff, right, like, they got
Speaker 1: some stuff in there. So being a Methist in Waco
Speaker 1: meant that I guess I didn't realize people saw me
Speaker 1: as the enemy, but I was right. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there was something people ever told me out loud,
Speaker 1: but you know, Guaco, you've been there. David Alivera has
Speaker 1: a great joke about Waco. He says there's more Christians
Speaker 1: than people, which is which is very true. And you
Speaker 1: know Stone's toss away, you're hitting three church windows.
Speaker 2: Okay. So I didn't know that I was the enemy.
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: That that was the thing until I was at least
Speaker 1: a teenager. And I actually started going to a Baptist
Speaker 1: church in my teenage years, and it was only because
Speaker 1: the boy Scout troop that I went to met at
Speaker 1: that church, and so I just kind of started to
Speaker 1: know people there more and it became easier and I
Speaker 1: went to like the youth group there and stuff right,
Speaker 1: and that's when I realized a big difference in my theology.
Speaker 2: So I also didn't know what evolution.
Speaker 1: Was, but I was kind of like neutral towards it
Speaker 1: until I got to High Scholl and I learned it
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, okay, I get it. I
Speaker 1: don't see what the big deal was this, This stuff
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. And then I go to church
Speaker 1: and that's when I first was hearing like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this you know in the Baptist Church, they're like, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not.
Speaker 2: You know, there's Adam and Eve and everything else is
Speaker 2: a lie.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. That's when that cognitive distance really
Speaker 1: starting for me. But yeah, no, evolution was not a problem.
Speaker 1: It was a problem for the people around me definitely, though.
Speaker 2: For sure. You know, it's like I just bought it.
Speaker 2: Oh well, we're you.
Speaker 3: Know, we're the product of a cosmically conjured dirt man
Speaker 3: and rib woman in an enchanted garden with talking reptiles,
Speaker 3: and I'm okay with that. But this idea that you know, well,
Speaker 3: we are evolved creatures, but it was really misrepresented.
Speaker 2: I mean, my theologian father had a master's degree in
Speaker 2: diffity or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I remember him once when I first had
Speaker 3: become an apostate. He was like, so you believe a
Speaker 3: horse can give birth to a rabbit. And I thought,
Speaker 3: you know, this reveals to you a fundamental of not misunderstanding,
Speaker 3: a misrepresentation of how works.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And I also think that many people believe that if
Speaker 3: we are just an animal, or if we are not
Speaker 3: superior to all other things, somehow that cheats the human experience.
Speaker 3: It cheats our worth and value, and it as someone
Speaker 3: who is finally, you know, realized how wrong I was
Speaker 3: about all those funding mythologies and accepted the science of evolution,
Speaker 3: I actually feel better, Like I feel more connected, I'm
Speaker 3: more in awe of the natural world, and and I
Speaker 3: feel a sense of kinship, you know.
Speaker 2: And so you'll go ahead.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I was just going to say I was told
Speaker 3: it was a cheat, and I feel the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: I feel like it was a gift, you know.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so interesting because I know other content creators
Speaker 1: like yourself, who grew up in a more fundent, like
Speaker 1: fundamental tradition like you did, that have that same sort
Speaker 1: of sort of reaction to you know, the evolution and
Speaker 1: nature and things like that, right where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was such a big hang up that now you've
Speaker 1: come to peace with it, but it gave you a
Speaker 1: lot of pause, Whereas with my background, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: hang up at all. I was just a Christian and
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I couldn't tell you whether there was
Speaker 1: like a real Adam and Eve or not. I wasn't
Speaker 1: too sure about that. But I didn't have to deconstruct evolution, right,
Speaker 1: I didn't have to deconstruct my entire knowledge basis of
Speaker 1: like what I believe scientifically, right, definitely some science stuff,
Speaker 1: but not like, not that level. And I think that's
Speaker 1: just so fascinating how much of a difference of an
Speaker 1: impact that can have on you after you've you know,
Speaker 1: you've learned to tell the difference between again, like what's
Speaker 1: real and what's not real when it comes to evolution, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not a duck's turning into people or whatever, it's
Speaker 1: just a series of you know, the long term causal events, right.
Speaker 3: Well, and then when you see religious organizations, denominations, institutions
Speaker 3: confronted with the overwhelming abboutch of evidence saying this is real,
Speaker 3: then they have to adjust. So the Catholic Church is
Speaker 3: the obvious one. They're like, okay, fine, evolution is real.
Speaker 3: It's usually a guided evolution model, and it does makes
Speaker 3: sense to me, but yeah, somehow it's we evolved and
Speaker 3: it looks exactly like the neatory world would act except God.
Speaker 3: And then then you put the apologist in and they
Speaker 3: have Sometimes they'll move the creation model around so that
Speaker 3: it means all kinds of different things.
Speaker 2: So wait a minute.
Speaker 3: Was it a literal six day creation where the actual
Speaker 3: days was the day like millions of years? Was it guided?
Speaker 3: Did he just start and let everything go? Was it
Speaker 3: a watchmaker thing? Was it something else?
Speaker 2: And you know, you can.
Speaker 3: Put a bus load of apologies together on the same
Speaker 3: field trip and they'll probably be arguing within the first
Speaker 3: ten miles of the trip right basics of their faith.
Speaker 3: And I find that telling very.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is selling something.
Speaker 1: A word you used earlier, which I mean I often use,
Speaker 1: but some somehow the way you said it just made
Speaker 1: me reflect on it a little bit. You describe when
Speaker 1: your relationship to your father, You're like, you know, when
Speaker 1: I became an apost state, which makes it sound so
Speaker 1: serious when you put it that way, right, doesn't it
Speaker 1: when you put a label on it like that, When
Speaker 1: a lot of people's just like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Went to church for a little bit and then it
Speaker 2: stopped going. It was a big deal.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, most people know my story, but for the
Speaker 3: five that don't, I mean mom and dad hardcore theologian level.
Speaker 3: I mean, my mother wrote a Greek New Testament study
Speaker 3: guide which was used at the college level. They wrote
Speaker 3: sermons for pastors they met at a Christian college. They
Speaker 3: were the most serious religious people I had ever met.
Speaker 3: There was no religious small talk. It was Bible literalism.
Speaker 3: It was Christian school, Christian music, Christian friends, Christian church,
Speaker 3: Christian everything. And when I was a Christian radio host
Speaker 3: and a Christian video producer, I served churches all around
Speaker 3: the country that they felt like that I was doing
Speaker 3: God's good work and they were so proud, right, he
Speaker 3: was ministering the gospel and playing to his gifts, and
Speaker 3: we or we could not be prouder.
Speaker 2: Well, what's the worst nightmare of.
Speaker 3: Two people like that, a guy like me then deconstructing
Speaker 3: and becoming a frontline, very public atheist activist. And it
Speaker 3: shattered them. It just broke these two people, and and
Speaker 3: it broke our relationship. And uh, it's one of the
Speaker 3: reasons that I continue to do what I do because
Speaker 3: I hear a lot from a lot of people, and
Speaker 3: and they realize how conditional the love was that they
Speaker 3: were receiving from a lot of people. And I think
Speaker 3: they felt a sense of shame for hurting their families.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, that's that's not your fault, Like
Speaker 3: your your desire to live an authentic life first of all,
Speaker 3: would not anger any maximally benevolent deity.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't that that deity maximally benevolent would be like, awesome,
Speaker 3: you're doing your best. I appreciate that you got it wrong. Okay,
Speaker 3: no problem, enter into your rest, here's your mansion, have
Speaker 3: a nice life. But I think they carry upon themselves
Speaker 3: this idea that well, I have to keep the peace. Well,
Speaker 3: if you are muting your own values and derailing your
Speaker 3: own authentic journey to keep other people from being uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: that's not peace. That may be an absence of conflict,
Speaker 3: but it's not peace. That's not the same. And everybody
Speaker 3: around you gets to be their authentic self. They're loud
Speaker 3: and proud about what they think, and they expect you
Speaker 3: to sit on your hands or reverse course, to do
Speaker 3: it their way. And a lot of what I do
Speaker 3: is I think fueled by my own experience, my own
Speaker 3: loss of relationships, and the day that I thought, you know, no,
Speaker 3: I got one life. I got one shot, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to try to live it authentically. And the people
Speaker 3: who get it get it, and those who don't there's
Speaker 3: the door, and.
Speaker 2: That's tough, do you know, right, I definitely definitely tough.
Speaker 1: But I know for a fact that you have inspired
Speaker 1: so many people with your own story, and I think
Speaker 1: the world in our community truly is better for I mean,
Speaker 1: I could glaze Seth all day, but but but really,
Speaker 1: Seth is a great voice in our space, and I'm
Speaker 1: proud that I get to know you personally, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and get.
Speaker 2: To work with you on stuff. It's it's it's it's
Speaker 2: been really cool being able to do that.
Speaker 1: So thanks for for being so brave and telling your
Speaker 1: story and doing what you do, man.
Speaker 3: Because I don't you feel brave. Mostly I just feel
Speaker 3: like we're dated now.
Speaker 1: But you know, it was a big deal back when
Speaker 1: it first started, right, I mean when you were when
Speaker 1: you were getting into this, I'm sure it was pretty
Speaker 1: nerve wracking.
Speaker 8: It was.
Speaker 3: It was sleepless nights, and there was no organization like
Speaker 3: Recovering from Religion where you could go in and have
Speaker 3: a listening here, and there are very few online resources.
Speaker 3: I think there was like talk Origins and Atheist Axis
Speaker 3: and a few forums. You know, yeah, but I felt
Speaker 3: very very alone, and and you know, you can really
Speaker 3: see how a lot of people who are going through
Speaker 3: these struggles, cognitive struggles, logical struggles. They know in many
Speaker 3: ways that their fundy faith is focus.
Speaker 2: But you can understand.
Speaker 3: Why they don't want to take those last few steps
Speaker 3: into even agnosticism, why they wear Christianity like a pin
Speaker 3: on their lapel, and because there goes your support system.
Speaker 3: What about your family? Well, what about your spouse who's
Speaker 3: a believer? Will they freak out and say now I
Speaker 3: don't want you to see your kids and you end
Speaker 3: up in court and then your marriage is over? And
Speaker 3: what's that word of them? What if your boss is
Speaker 3: a believer? And who am I? Like? I went through that,
Speaker 3: who if I'm not a believer? Who am I? Right
Speaker 3: after I realized that did buy Christianity, I had to
Speaker 3: go back, point by point through.
Speaker 2: All my other value systems.
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, well, now that I'm not
Speaker 3: filtering everything through my God glasses, how do I feel
Speaker 3: about things like the death penalty and drugs?
Speaker 2: Deconstruction? Man, which that probably wasn't word.
Speaker 3: You used at the time, but I had to figure well,
Speaker 3: what now that I'm not being told what I think?
Speaker 3: What do I think? And that is a process, man,
Speaker 3: It's took forever.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, folks. I just want to say thank you guys
Speaker 1: for dealing with us. While we've had some tech issues
Speaker 1: on our site, it sounds like we have everything figured out.
Speaker 1: Now we've got calls and they want people to talk
Speaker 1: to us of SETH. Maybe we should do what the
Speaker 1: original premise of the show, it tails, and actually talk
Speaker 1: to people I can talk to. First of all, I
Speaker 1: have regrets about our conversation. It's always great, but you know,
Speaker 1: with yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Okay, I'm switching gears here.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to Oh my goodness, we have
Speaker 1: some good ones. Let's talk to Aaron, who's calling in
Speaker 1: from Texas. First, Aaron, I think you were waiting the
Speaker 1: longest here. You're live on the eighth this eightheist experience.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what's up. How's it going?
Speaker 10: Hey, guys, thanks for taking the call. I just wanted
Speaker 10: to if we're talking, we're getting back on topic, like
Speaker 10: on the UH at the top of the marquee, I
Speaker 10: can speak to that. I did want to say some
Speaker 10: some stuff on the Tails about about evolution. I when
Speaker 10: I was I was already deconverted at this point, but
Speaker 10: for me, it was very eye opening to learn that
Speaker 10: because I wasn't looking at evolution the model seriously enough
Speaker 10: and considering its ratification seriously enough. And also the things
Speaker 10: that I assumed about my theology and when when I
Speaker 10: was a believer. Maybe this was towards the end of it,
Speaker 10: Maybe it was, Maybe it was part of part of
Speaker 10: the deconversion towards the end. You know, it's never like
Speaker 10: one thing, but seeing the incongruity between my theology and
Speaker 10: the and the reality of evolution, Uh, there was never
Speaker 10: If there's never an Adam and Eves, then why did
Speaker 10: Why should I be grateful that we tortured that guy?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, just symbolism.
Speaker 10: Then that means that why why did we torture a guy?
Speaker 10: And then we're happy about it? Well, what do we
Speaker 10: say from if this is symbolism and.
Speaker 2: If evolution is real, then.
Speaker 10: There never was a first sin, because there would need
Speaker 10: to be a day that there was a first day
Speaker 10: there was a human to be held responsible for that.
Speaker 2: Yep, And we.
Speaker 10: Didn't get a day one of having a human being
Speaker 10: because we're in this drift of life that we call
Speaker 10: human today, which will be called what later on? Who knows?
Speaker 5: Who knows?
Speaker 10: What they're going to call what we are today later on? Right, absolutely,
Speaker 10: at what point were our ancestors killing each other and
Speaker 10: then a day crosses and you guys are human now
Speaker 10: and this is now fucked up in a sin and
Speaker 10: you're going to need some salvation for it.
Speaker 2: But we got I agree with you, Aaron.
Speaker 1: This is the one thing I agree with Young Earth
Speaker 1: Gracious about, which is that evolution kind of throws original
Speaker 1: sin out the window and makes kind of the whole
Speaker 1: Bible narrative that makes sense, right? I know Catholics have
Speaker 1: some kinds of answers to it. They don't make sense
Speaker 1: what we already talked about that It just it kind
Speaker 1: of doesn't work. What does guided evolution mean? What does
Speaker 1: the entire story mean? What about all these times where
Speaker 1: they kept track of the individual dates of how old
Speaker 1: Methuselah was and everybody else in the Bible? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: what was all that tracking for? It wasn't for literal times.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say their theological dates or whatever ages.
Speaker 2: But you know you can.
Speaker 1: Only get that so far, right until you just don't
Speaker 1: have a history anymore, you just have stories, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you, it doesn't make sense, and it's
Speaker 1: really tough to understand everything.
Speaker 10: But most Christians I have known have said to me
Speaker 10: that that at least when we get into reasonable conversations.
Speaker 2: About about like, there's a lot of.
Speaker 10: Christians that will concede that they believe in evolution, they
Speaker 10: believe in a long history of the universe. They do
Speaker 10: not see then they don't hold up their story against
Speaker 10: the reality of history and then say, well, when.
Speaker 2: Did what happen?
Speaker 10: Yeah, and what exactly does that mean?
Speaker 7: Because your belief is some crazy stuff.
Speaker 10: Not to have those answers, like those incongruencies settled, you know.
Speaker 2: I understanding agree, Yeah, on the same.
Speaker 1: Page there, man, I don't know you're preaching to the choir,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what else you want from me
Speaker 1: on that other than yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2: I guess I think Seth agrees too. I agree.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I did want to I did want to say
Speaker 10: about the about about giving God your money, the yeah,
Speaker 10: go for when your when your orientation is life in
Speaker 10: life is about uh being dutiful and you know, like serving, Well,
Speaker 10: you're not starting from a standpoint of loving yourself, knowing yourself.
Speaker 10: You are called to be obedient and to serve that
Speaker 10: can get you into as wild and extreme of financial
Speaker 10: bleedout as your group can get creative in their needs.
Speaker 10: You know, uh, you you could be with your faith
Speaker 10: one building project away from being wiped out for a
Speaker 10: retirement because because you've already decided that well being is
Speaker 10: something that God will take care of for you, not something.
Speaker 7: That you look at for yourself.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, that the model gets.
Speaker 2: You vulnerable, keep you vulnerable. Right, that's a good insight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, Christianity really isn't about self reflection in that sense. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not really about knowing yourself. You already know yourself,
Speaker 1: you're sinful. What else is there ney to know? You
Speaker 1: need to get right with God?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting thing, and that's probably why fundamentalists
Speaker 1: also probably have problems with things like psychology and therapy
Speaker 1: and things like that, because when you realize, oh wait,
Speaker 1: it's actually good to have healthy like personal boundaries with
Speaker 1: people or to understand yourself better, and why you may
Speaker 1: have some issues because people actually struggle with things differently,
Speaker 1: and suddenly your model of why people do the things
Speaker 1: that they do is a bit more towards naturalist reasons
Speaker 1: rather than everybody sins because somebody eight and apples six
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, right, So yeah, that totally makes sense.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good insight you guys have.
Speaker 10: Any what did you guys think boundaries were before? Like
Speaker 10: I definitely understand why boundaries now and how to avoid
Speaker 10: getting like taking advantage of financially, but yeah, I didn't
Speaker 10: have good boundaries context for boundaries were terrible before.
Speaker 1: Speaking for myself, and I want to hear Seth's answer,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I did. Part of my deconstruction was just
Speaker 1: figuring that out and having good boundaries and you know,
Speaker 1: not to get too personal, but even with my own family,
Speaker 1: when I started to become more involved in activism and stuff,
Speaker 1: figuring out boundaries around that, you know, they they told
Speaker 1: me that you can't say this, you can't talk about this,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, I'm an adult actually, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm going to do these things and you may not
Speaker 1: like my decisions, and that's just what it means to
Speaker 1: be a person, you know. So yeah, definitely Christianity did
Speaker 1: not teach me good boundaries of anything.
Speaker 2: It did the opposite.
Speaker 1: It told me to be trusting of people that had
Speaker 1: a power dynamic over me, right, in ways, some more
Speaker 1: justified than others.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's it's it's a it's a bad thing
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the reason why people have
Speaker 1: so many stories about things going wrong in a church environment,
Speaker 1: because those lines definitely get blurred.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I said, I mean, I imagine you feel
Speaker 2: pretty simple.
Speaker 3: Well, if you look at literal Christianity, according to the Bible,
Speaker 3: it's an authoritarian religion. So there's a model where you
Speaker 3: are to respond to authority that has been placed over you.
Speaker 3: And the parental model is a great example. Honor thy
Speaker 3: father and thy mothers. So the way it goes, and
Speaker 3: the way it went for me was even when I
Speaker 3: was a man in his late thirties, I was supposed
Speaker 3: to honor my mother and father, which meant what every
Speaker 3: time they send me a text, sermon or an email,
Speaker 3: or or they call, or they say whatever they want
Speaker 3: to say about how I'm going to hell and I'm
Speaker 3: embarrassing the family and blah blah blah, I'm supposed to
Speaker 3: simply abide it because respect your elders, Honor thy father
Speaker 3: and thy mother.
Speaker 2: They are your parents.
Speaker 3: I'm your mother, I'm your father, and a lot of
Speaker 3: that kind of authoritarianism is baked into these types of models,
Speaker 3: and it's not just religious. You can find them in
Speaker 3: any high control culture. The pastor's shepherd model fits there
Speaker 3: as well. And I had to come to a point
Speaker 3: where I'm like, no, actually, just because we share some
Speaker 3: DNA in a specific way, or because you're older, or
Speaker 3: because you raised me, and I appreciate the sacrifices you made,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, but you don't get to step into
Speaker 3: the over the threshold of my private life and then
Speaker 3: dictate who I am, what I think, what my values are,
Speaker 3: how I take this journey. And it was tough because
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, family members give themselves permission. Religious authority
Speaker 3: figures give themselves permission. There are a lot of people
Speaker 3: in our lives that give themselves permission to do and
Speaker 3: say things that we would never abide from anybody else.
Speaker 3: And to be able to say no and draw that
Speaker 3: hard line and say if you cross this, there will
Speaker 3: be consequences. You know, respect, I think starts with self respect.
Speaker 3: Once I realize that I'm not saying the journey was
Speaker 3: easier emotionally, but it was clearer, The decisions were clear,
Speaker 3: and it was easier to be able to live an
Speaker 3: authentic life without guild and shame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Aaron, I totally want to hear you respond.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to cut you off, though, because we're
Speaker 1: getting close to the end and I want to make
Speaker 1: sure we get at least one other caller in.
Speaker 2: So I'm just gonna say thank you so much for
Speaker 2: your call.
Speaker 1: I hope you got some of the conversation you're looking for,
Speaker 1: and I hope you have a good rest of your Sunday.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to try to move things on very
Speaker 1: quickly because making up for some lack of time without
Speaker 1: calls seth. I want to try to at least one
Speaker 1: more call with you if we have time for that,
Speaker 1: and that cool with you, Let's do it, Okay, moving on,
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting one. I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: to Alison, who's calling in. I think this is Missouri.
Speaker 1: Alison wants to talk to us about how math is
Speaker 1: what people consider a god. Very interested in this premise, Allison,
Speaker 1: what do you got?
Speaker 3: Hi?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I recently I've always been table at math. I
Speaker 11: recently was looking into the Doublestit experiment, which got me
Speaker 11: heavily interested.
Speaker 5: In see radical physics.
Speaker 11: Then why I looked into that? Then more I realized
Speaker 11: math is the only thing that trad be considered the God.
Speaker 11: And I think math is the best counter argument to
Speaker 11: most seists because it can be plugged in the face
Speaker 11: of God. Why is there something that stood nothing well
Speaker 11: because of math? Why are there laws of physics?
Speaker 2: What that's about?
Speaker 11: What is there outside of the universe?
Speaker 5: Math? You can replace anything.
Speaker 11: Math is outside of time and space. Math is the
Speaker 11: only thing that truly exists.
Speaker 2: Can Can you define what you mean by God? Yeah?
Speaker 11: Okay? So by God I would mean I don't know.
Speaker 5: That's actually kind of hard in this sense.
Speaker 11: I would say today God is something that is all powerful.
Speaker 11: It so and by all pawerful, I mean this praphic
Speaker 11: is the wrong word. Nothing can happen without it. It
Speaker 11: is the reason for all things as well as it exists.
Speaker 11: It's not bound by space of time. If the universe
Speaker 11: needs to exist today, it would still be completely unfaced.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if philosophers or people who study math,
Speaker 1: and people who have PhDs and more letters in front
Speaker 1: of the name than me actually agree on the idea
Speaker 1: that math actually exists as like an idea like independent
Speaker 1: of people like I think the jury is still out
Speaker 1: on that whether it's just an abstract thing or if
Speaker 1: it like concretely exists so like to even call it
Speaker 1: god or to give it any more like credence, then
Speaker 1: it's it's a way of you know, solving problems and
Speaker 1: describing the universe kind of gives me pause, Like why
Speaker 1: call it god? Why not just say you know, we
Speaker 1: know things because of math and just leave it at that.
Speaker 5: Well, my problem got.
Speaker 4: Would be that now I again, like you just said,
Speaker 4: people with me weigh more.
Speaker 5: Leves in front of the name. I'm an educated affirm.
Speaker 11: But from my looking into the both sides that argument,
Speaker 11: I think that both sides use math in a different way.
Speaker 11: When I say math, I usually mean true math, not
Speaker 11: what we do. I consider what we do like algebra
Speaker 11: and geometry and arithmetic and all.
Speaker 2: That as well.
Speaker 1: Hang on, wait, let's math too, though. I don't know
Speaker 1: why you're saying that's not true math, right.
Speaker 11: My thought is that's not actually math, that's our attempt
Speaker 11: to understand math.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. How is that our
Speaker 1: attempt on mean math? Why is that not just math?
Speaker 11: So my thought is that the way that like pianists,
Speaker 11: orbit or anything that gravity, everything is dictated by something
Speaker 11: that's something is actual math, and what we call math
Speaker 11: is our attempt to understand what that is. And I've
Speaker 11: been looking into Indepparently some of the greatest mathematical minds
Speaker 11: ever said that we are children played with blacks when
Speaker 11: it comes to actual math.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just I don't know what to do
Speaker 2: with this, Sam, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 3: When I hear math used in this particular context of
Speaker 3: this conversation, it seems to be a sense of agency,
Speaker 3: like God agency. What I understood, math is simply a
Speaker 3: tool that we use to measure the proper of our
Speaker 3: natural world. So I don't see mathematics as having agency.
Speaker 3: And when we talk about the orbits of the planets
Speaker 3: and the nature of the cosmos, we're simply talking about matter,
Speaker 3: the laws of physics, et cetera. Yeah, but I don't
Speaker 3: think any of those things require agency. There's cause and effect,
Speaker 3: something happened. But I don't think mathematics as God. When
Speaker 3: I think of God, I think of a some entity
Speaker 3: with godlike powers, property, intelligence, and agency, purposefully sending us
Speaker 3: to a specific destination I think math is a tool, right,
Speaker 3: but math is not an agent.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I want to add on to that, Seth,
Speaker 1: because this sounds like a situation where we're confusing the
Speaker 1: map for the territory a little bit, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if math again exists in the abstract as
Speaker 1: a literal object in nature. I think it's more like
Speaker 1: you said, it's a tool, it's a descriptor. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that means that you know, the Earth orbits
Speaker 1: the sun literally because of math as some sort of divine,
Speaker 1: sort of platonic abstract. I think it's it's more just,
Speaker 1: you know, a way that we're describing a relationship between
Speaker 1: two bodies, planetary bodies. Right, So I don't know, Alison,
Speaker 1: what do you think?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 11: I think that I can really agree math pass agency
Speaker 11: and I should have taught with God. The chance is
Speaker 11: math is the only thing concerner of the God. But
Speaker 11: it has no will, desire or anything.
Speaker 2: It just simply is. But not my thoughts.
Speaker 3: So I think so math being an immovable constant, and
Speaker 3: let's call it reliable. A reliable constant would mean it
Speaker 3: would be the most godlike thing in lieu of an
Speaker 3: actual deity is that right.
Speaker 11: I think it's really exists. It could be in any
Speaker 11: way considered to be God. But okay, comes down to
Speaker 11: two different use of the word math. And I get
Speaker 11: that because I'm counted on a lot when talking about this.
Speaker 11: It's this this mouth, which is like algebra and all
Speaker 11: of that, which is the tools.
Speaker 7: We use, and those are tools, and.
Speaker 11: Okay, decide how bodies interacting everything. What I'm talking about
Speaker 11: is actual interaction is going on themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just to wrap this up because unfortunately we don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of time. Allison, if you're using this
Speaker 1: to talk to people about it, my take is you
Speaker 1: should not do this because I think you're talking to
Speaker 1: two fairly educated people who are still having trouble understanding
Speaker 1: even the basic premise of this argument here, and that
Speaker 1: might be a key in letting you know that maybe
Speaker 1: this needs to be workshopped a little bit more before
Speaker 1: you go on using this, because I don't want the
Speaker 1: Christians to look at atheists and think that we don't
Speaker 1: know what the hell we're talking about because you're bringing
Speaker 1: up some things about math being God that they can't understand,
Speaker 1: because I can't understand it fully either.
Speaker 3: At the point I mean my problem, maman, I'm not
Speaker 3: it might be as opposed.
Speaker 2: You just don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a difference between being right and being
Speaker 1: convincing right and right now, I'm not convinced about this idea,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's.
Speaker 3: Not under the workshop something to chew on though. Thank
Speaker 3: you very much, thank.
Speaker 2: You for your feedback.
Speaker 11: And it was more I use it in response to
Speaker 11: when people start trying to plug God the things off
Speaker 11: the rock and plug mouth into the same thing. But
Speaker 11: I think, yeah, I get that it doesn't make sense
Speaker 11: to most people because I came over the thought in
Speaker 11: a very manic episode. So it's my manic thoughts. I
Speaker 11: need to like streamline them.
Speaker 2: I gotcha.
Speaker 1: Well, just again, be careful when you use these analogies
Speaker 1: because people like really, they get hung up on that
Speaker 1: God word and they will argue with you to death
Speaker 1: about what that means. Right, So you know, maybe a
Speaker 1: different strategy is in order. We're talking about these things.
Speaker 1: But appreciate you sharing the idea, and I hope you
Speaker 1: have a great rest of your Sunday. And with that, folks,
Speaker 1: we got to start wrapping things up. I want to
Speaker 1: thank my special awesome guests. Seth Andrews for joining us. Seth,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being on the show today. If
Speaker 1: people want to find more of your stuff, where should
Speaker 1: they go?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm easy to find.
Speaker 3: I just got to my website Seth Andrews dot com.
Speaker 2: You'll find links to the stuff I do.
Speaker 3: And I host a couple of podcasts and written a
Speaker 3: few books and just whatever Seth Andrews dot com.
Speaker 2: But it was always good to hang out.
Speaker 3: It's, you know, it's fun to it's fun to have
Speaker 3: conversations about conversations.
Speaker 2: And I think that was a lot of.
Speaker 3: What happened today, even beyond the calls and and I'm
Speaker 3: I'm honored to have been invited. So thanks to everybody
Speaker 3: for letting me play in the big kids table here.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, it's always great having you real quickly, folks,
Speaker 1: do before you go, just a quick reminder our back
Speaker 1: cruise and that's happening this year is August fifteenth, it's
Speaker 1: two weeks away. So we still have tickets on sale
Speaker 1: now and they're going fast. Over two thirds of our
Speaker 1: available tickets I have already been sold. If you're in
Speaker 1: case you're not are familiar, it's you know, we all
Speaker 1: get to hang out on a boat on a river
Speaker 1: down in Austin and it's awesome. We also have a
Speaker 1: special guest lecture that Friday, and we're gonna have all
Speaker 1: of our ACA shows, including Atheists Experience filmed live at
Speaker 1: the free Thowt Library that Sunday. So our guest that
Speaker 1: week and will be genetically Modified Skeptic, the Antibot Thinker,
Speaker 1: Godless Engineer, Secularity Kelly Laughlin. Of course myself will also
Speaker 1: be there, so look forward to more announcements in the
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks for any other hosts that are attending,
Speaker 1: but tickets for that are available ACA Dot Show slash
Speaker 1: Back Cruise. I also need to give a huge shout
Speaker 1: out to the crew that helped make the show happen
Speaker 1: and are helped out with some amazing, amazing production today.
Speaker 2: So thank you crew for doing what you do. Really
Speaker 2: appreciate it, and they really are beautiful people, aren't they.
Speaker 3: If you want to you got to be born with that.
Speaker 3: You can't just fake.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: If you want to be one of these attractive crew
Speaker 1: members and be a guest on all of our shows,
Speaker 1: or maybe even become a host, We're always looking for
Speaker 1: more people, so email volunteer at Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org
Speaker 1: to get involved. And one special shout out again to
Speaker 1: blind Life, our backup host who was very frantically waiving
Speaker 1: for many of our.
Speaker 2: Calls and also gave you a quick.
Speaker 1: Message on something by like typing it on his phone
Speaker 1: and then showing it with the camera, which was a
Speaker 1: good technique to get my attention to keep blind one
Speaker 1: me for doing that, and man's that's it. That's what
Speaker 1: we got, you know, Seth, thanks again for coming. Any
Speaker 1: any final thoughts before we wrap things up today.
Speaker 3: No, I think, honestly, I enjoy the idea of talking
Speaker 3: about issues in relation to is the REGD a smarther
Speaker 3: spirits ghost supernatural? I do think though, that if there
Speaker 3: is a maxim only benevolent God, that deity would not
Speaker 3: need an apologist like one of our the pithy insect
Speaker 3: earthlings to explain him. It's almost like when someone hands
Speaker 3: you an apologetics book that explains the Bible. I'm like,
Speaker 3: why do I need a book that explains the book?
Speaker 3: Why does there rather the book by the other guy?
Speaker 3: Disagree with your book that explains the book? And I
Speaker 3: just think an omni benevolent, maximally benevolent Deity would have
Speaker 3: already cleared it up where there would be no ambiguity,
Speaker 3: furious minds would have been satiated, and the conversation would
Speaker 3: be over. And you know, so, I find that it's
Speaker 3: interesting when you find that people have decided God has
Speaker 3: appointed me to defend him as a weird position to take.
Speaker 3: God should be able to do his own dirty work.
Speaker 3: But it's been fun hanging out with everybody. I'm heading
Speaker 3: out to the tennis court and to go play a
Speaker 3: match and hopefully not suck. And I will see you
Speaker 3: back here on the next time we do the thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds great, seth sounds great, folks, Thanks again for watching.
Speaker 2: We'll see y'all next Sunday. Y'all have a good one.
Speaker 2: Thanks later.
Speaker 3: Ellen. Watch Talk Eathan Live Sundays at one pm Central
Speaker 3: and call into the show at five one two nine
Speaker 3: nine one nine two four two, or connect to the
Speaker 3: show online at a c A dot show slash Call