Speaker 1: Why do atheats spend so much time and energy arguing
Speaker 1: about something they don't even think exists. Well, I can
Speaker 1: think of a few answers off the top of my head. One,
Speaker 1: talking to people that have fundamental disagreements with you can
Speaker 1: help you practice the lost art of civil conversation and
Speaker 1: can help maintain channels of communication that are frequently under
Speaker 1: attacked these days. Two, As philosopher David Hume said, truth
Speaker 1: springs from argument amongst friends. That means, among other things,
Speaker 1: that the truth is more likely to be found when
Speaker 1: all sides are vigorously represented. Three And this one's actually
Speaker 1: pretty common among atheists because many people do believe in
Speaker 1: a god and they bring those beliefs to bear when
Speaker 1: doing things like voting and doing other things that influence
Speaker 1: our laws, employment expectations, and social norms. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's plenty of other reasons as well, But in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the best answer is who cares? Why does that matter
Speaker 1: at all? Quit deflecting and just back up the claims
Speaker 1: that you make. In fact, you can do that right
Speaker 1: here on Talk Heathen, because that's what the show is
Speaker 1: all about, and it's starting right now.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody. Today is April thirteenth, twenty twenty five. I
Speaker 2: am your host, Doctor Ben, and with me today is
Speaker 2: the wonderful Scott Dickey. How are you doing that?
Speaker 3: Doing very well? Doctor Ben? How about yourself?
Speaker 2: You know I'm doing okay. It is Palm Sunday, I
Speaker 2: believe for people who celebrate that, or at least it
Speaker 2: is in the non orthodox side of Christianity. I know
Speaker 2: their calendar is a bit different, but I want to
Speaker 2: hear some calls today related to that. I know we
Speaker 2: have a pretty heavy Christian presence in this country, and
Speaker 2: in the side shot of this show, I want to
Speaker 2: hear you bring some evidence for your claims of the
Speaker 2: resurrection for Jesus, even going to Jerusalem for the importance
Speaker 2: of Good Friday. There's so much to unpack, and if
Speaker 2: I remember correctly, you all have a duty per your
Speaker 2: scripture that you should be spreading the word of Jesus Christ,
Speaker 2: and this is your time to do it. We have
Speaker 2: open lines. We're also here happy to talk about secular humanism, cosmology, philosophy, science, history, life,
Speaker 2: anything else that's kind of going on your in your
Speaker 2: mind today related to religion and all of that. So
Speaker 2: get your calls in talking Then is a product as
Speaker 2: a production of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five
Speaker 2: oh one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion
Speaker 2: of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of
Speaker 2: religion and government. If you would love to get your
Speaker 2: call in, we want to hear from you. You can
Speaker 2: call five one two nine nine one nine two four two,
Speaker 2: or you can use your computer browser at tiny dot
Speaker 2: c c slash call thh and get your halls in.
Speaker 2: Earlier on in the shows that we have enough time
Speaker 2: to address all of that conversation. But in the meantime
Speaker 2: we have our favorite segments of the week talk Heathen
Speaker 2: to me. I'm gonna bring up our good friend Richard
Speaker 2: Gilliver to take us away.
Speaker 4: Jared Hello, Hello, Hello today I've come up unmuted. Unlike
Speaker 4: last week where I did a Jonny p Angel and
Speaker 4: came up muted, It's time for ok then to me
Speaker 4: segments where we get into the questions of the weekend.
Speaker 4: Last week we asked you what what atheists heaven look like?
Speaker 4: And here top three answers. So number three comes from Kaimore,
Speaker 4: who says, what would atheist heaven be? Free access to
Speaker 4: entire groves of the Tree of Knowledge. Yeah, maybe maybe, Gents,
Speaker 4: what do you think of that one?
Speaker 1: So there'd be like a variety of all different kinds
Speaker 1: of knowledge and you could go to the tree. Like
Speaker 1: it's kind of like Neo and the Matrix. Right, He's like,
Speaker 1: you go to the tree and you're like, I know
Speaker 1: kung Fu?
Speaker 3: Now, right? Is that how that works?
Speaker 2: It'd be cool. Yeah, I think I could. I think
Speaker 2: we could live with that.
Speaker 4: Number two comes from If I'm reading this correctly, there's
Speaker 4: probably some weirdy moticon thing going off here, but to me,
Speaker 4: it looks like it says why Sally b Unfortunately Etheist
Speaker 4: seven is mostly empty. We all end up in LDS
Speaker 4: heaven because of course humoussion is. So let's hope we
Speaker 4: don't have to wear silver suits like Joseph Smith. Joseph
Speaker 4: Smith predicted on the moon there were people living who
Speaker 4: had so looked kind of like us. We're around the
Speaker 4: same eye of us. But I had silver suits on
Speaker 4: another great thing you got wrong.
Speaker 2: Imagine if imagine if you tried to go to atheist
Speaker 2: heaven and you're like, oh, man, I studied so much
Speaker 2: philosophy in life. I committed so much blasphemy in life.
Speaker 2: I'm ready to go drink mountain dew and play video
Speaker 2: games for all maternity and then you just end up
Speaker 2: having a turn old spirit babies for the rest of forever,
Speaker 2: Mormon babies let down there.
Speaker 4: And number one goes to Miranda Rensberger, who says it
Speaker 4: is heaven is unlimited doughnuts and no diabetes. I think
Speaker 4: myself and Ben have this sing way we talked about
Speaker 4: food a lot is done so today in the pre
Speaker 4: show because we want to help himself on the right
Speaker 4: fo here and again the feeling we could really really
Speaker 4: go with that one the question of the week.
Speaker 1: Before you hold on, before you get to the new question,
Speaker 1: I noticed that the the number three entry there you
Speaker 1: said the name with a very convincing Welsh accent.
Speaker 3: Could you say that again for us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are convinced. So here's our new conspiracy, and
Speaker 2: I are convinced that Richard is actually secretly Welsh.
Speaker 5: I think that's the.
Speaker 2: Last year down from this.
Speaker 1: And sorry for the interruption they're carrying just at that point.
Speaker 4: That is actually I mean, it could be Irish gallic,
Speaker 4: but it looks very much like Scott's gallic to me.
Speaker 4: And that would be pronounced if I'm correct kai more
Speaker 4: and it doesn't look like that rich gallic and none
Speaker 4: of the words look like how they are pronounced. And
Speaker 4: I am not Welsh. Just let's just set the record straight.
Speaker 4: I love Welsh people. I've got nothing against Welsh people. Hello,
Speaker 4: all our Welsh fans. You are a little of people.
Speaker 4: Despite the joke I made last week about shinning sheep, you.
Speaker 6: Are of people.
Speaker 2: I am not Welsh. Let's just get that very very clear.
Speaker 4: So the prompt of the week for next week, why
Speaker 4: is Easter on twenty four twenty this year? I'm doing
Speaker 4: it the wrong way around because we don't use it.
Speaker 4: So why it's Easter on four twenty this year? So
Speaker 4: you two, I'm going to throw it open to you.
Speaker 4: Why why is Easter on fourth on the fourth, on
Speaker 4: the twentieth of the fourth this year? This is confused?
Speaker 2: In the hell?
Speaker 4: How of me this premiated this way?
Speaker 2: Why are you chased?
Speaker 4: You on the twentieth of the fall this year?
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a ray comfort argument today, which
Speaker 2: is something will probably be clipped out of context and
Speaker 2: sent all around the internet that I'm making a ray
Speaker 2: comfort argument. But in his you know banana argument, where
Speaker 2: if the human hand was not meant to hold the banana,
Speaker 2: or like if the banana was not designed to be
Speaker 2: the perfect shape to be held in a human hand.
Speaker 2: You know, all of that is it's just evidence of
Speaker 2: a creator, right, And so four twenty it's like, if
Speaker 2: God did not want us to smoke pot, then why
Speaker 2: would he create it in the first place. If everything
Speaker 2: is so intelligently designed, why are these plants so wonderfully smokable?
Speaker 2: So it's on four twenty obviously, because there's an intent
Speaker 2: that you should be doing this, you should be combining
Speaker 2: these holidays into one.
Speaker 3: We don't dr Goose on this showly, but I think
Speaker 3: we're seeing.
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing a conversion of Doctor Ben into
Speaker 1: Rastafarianism right here in front.
Speaker 3: Of our eyes.
Speaker 1: But I would say that Easter's on four to twenty
Speaker 1: this year because I think somehow the universe knew that
Speaker 1: we would need a little bit extra help maintaining our
Speaker 1: chill at family get togethers in twenty twenty five. So
Speaker 1: I think that's why that Easter happens to fall on
Speaker 1: fourt I can't wait to see where Christmas is going
Speaker 1: to fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is not by chance?
Speaker 4: Is not by chance?
Speaker 2: Great answers, guys.
Speaker 4: If you want answer that question without endolse and drug
Speaker 4: goose in any way, shape or form, please do so
Speaker 4: in the comments in the YouTube section and we will
Speaker 4: video once is out next week.
Speaker 2: I have a great show, guys. I'm off scar see
Speaker 2: you Lisa. All right, thank you Richard. And with that
Speaker 2: as well, we're going to highlight some of the amazing
Speaker 2: people working behind the scenes, working on the editing, working
Speaker 2: on audio video, all of that. So let's throw it
Speaker 2: to the crew cam. Thank you so much to the
Speaker 2: mods and the side chat, all the call screeners. We
Speaker 2: greatly appreciate what you do. And an attractive bunch we
Speaker 2: got there. Oh definitely. Yeah, all right, are you ready
Speaker 2: to take the first call of the show.
Speaker 1: I am ready to take the first call of the show,
Speaker 1: Doctor Ben, let's hit.
Speaker 2: It all right, let's talk to Steve pronounce him from Florida.
Speaker 2: What topic do you have for us today?
Speaker 6: Kind of thrown in this really quick, but I have
Speaker 6: a problem with this atheism and this selfish looking at
Speaker 6: your navel and hedonism and the long term effects of
Speaker 6: society as everybody's going secular. We can see birth rates
Speaker 6: going down, and as if everybody embrace this selfishness society.
Speaker 2: Because I have a lot of questions, Yeah, I have
Speaker 2: a lot of questions. Do you think that atheism is
Speaker 2: equivalent to hedonism? Are these like synonymous philosophies?
Speaker 6: Well, where does atheism have any oughts not to be hedonistic?
Speaker 3: Say that again?
Speaker 1: Are you Are you saying that anything that doesn't explicitly
Speaker 1: say to not be hedonistic automatically promotes hedonism? Is that
Speaker 1: what you're suggesting there? It's because it seems like you're
Speaker 1: that's a really big stretch you're making there. How many
Speaker 1: atheists do you know? Just out of curiosity? How many
Speaker 1: atheists have you actually met and talked to?
Speaker 6: I watch all these channels, a lot of these.
Speaker 3: Channels, and you see us promoting hedonism?
Speaker 6: Well, what is doctor ben?
Speaker 2: Okay? Can you I don't like where this is going.
Speaker 2: If you are going to call it individual people and
Speaker 2: make targeted statements on something that's not really related, we're
Speaker 2: not going to continue this conversation. So we're gonna we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about hedonism and atheism. Can you define
Speaker 2: hedonism and how you are using the term.
Speaker 6: Doing whatever you want to do with yourself.
Speaker 2: So bodily autonomy is hedonism? Is that what you were.
Speaker 6: Saying in this case? Yes? Because if everybody was to
Speaker 6: do exactly what you're doing, how long will society last?
Speaker 6: How long will we manage that?
Speaker 2: Specifically? What are you talking? I feel like I know
Speaker 2: where you're going with this and I'm about to mute
Speaker 2: your ass.
Speaker 6: Well, but that's my point.
Speaker 2: You're so, how is bodily autonomy hedonistic? How is that hedonistic?
Speaker 6: What have you done to yourself?
Speaker 2: I do not want to engage in this conversation related
Speaker 2: to trans people. Can you stick on the topic of
Speaker 2: hedonism and atheism? What is what is hedonism other than
Speaker 2: like bodily autonomy? Because are you going to suggest that
Speaker 2: people who are religious don't have bodyly autonomy? Do you,
Speaker 2: in your every day to day life do you just
Speaker 2: let other people make decisions for your body or do
Speaker 2: you have some agency in that?
Speaker 6: Well, let's hold on a second. I'm getting kind of
Speaker 6: a little confused on here is body of autonomy the
Speaker 6: right to kill your child in your womb?
Speaker 2: Were are getting kind of on a tangent. We can
Speaker 2: talk about do you want to talk about abortion or
Speaker 2: do you want to talk about hedonism because you are
Speaker 2: dodging the subject right now that.
Speaker 6: What that would call hedonism, and and just being all
Speaker 6: involved with your say.
Speaker 2: You're calling you're defining. The way you're defining hedonism is
Speaker 2: not a way that most philosophers would define that term.
Speaker 2: So if hedonism is that drink and be merry because
Speaker 2: you're going to die at some point, if that's what
Speaker 2: we typically define as hedonism, that is a separate discussion
Speaker 2: from what you're going on with h with autonomy.
Speaker 3: And so your claim is.
Speaker 2: That atheism is the same as hedonism, which I will
Speaker 2: point out right now that there are many atheists that
Speaker 2: don't agree with bodily autonomy arguments. There are plenty of
Speaker 2: atheists who are transphobic, homophobic, There are plenty of atheists
Speaker 2: who do not agree with the same things that Scott
Speaker 2: and I do, and yet they're still atheists. So if
Speaker 2: you want to say that these two are the philosophy,
Speaker 2: you can't. You can't use the arguments that you're using, right,
Speaker 2: So I'm a bit confused about what your understanding is
Speaker 2: of these philosophies and how you are asserting that they
Speaker 2: are one and the same thing.
Speaker 1: If I could interject here for a second, real quick here, sorry, Steve,
Speaker 1: are you it says here that you're a theist or
Speaker 1: are you a particular flavor of theists. Are you a
Speaker 1: Christian or are you something else? Or what kind of okay?
Speaker 1: And so are you? Are you a Christian? Against your will?
Speaker 1: Are you being forced to worship the God of Christianity
Speaker 1: or are you choosing.
Speaker 3: To do that?
Speaker 6: No? I'm not being forced, okay?
Speaker 1: So so then are you being hedonistic because you're doing
Speaker 1: what you want according to your definition of hedonism? I
Speaker 1: mean doing what you want? I mean, wasn't isn't free will?
Speaker 1: Isn't that a key part of the relationship between the
Speaker 1: Christian God and Christians?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Isn't that part of it? Isn't don't Christians do what
Speaker 3: they want?
Speaker 6: Or?
Speaker 3: Are you forced to do things that you don't want
Speaker 3: to do?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 6: I've got commandments and things like that limiting what I
Speaker 6: can do.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that they they're limit maybe what you
Speaker 1: think you should do. But just because the commandment isn't there,
Speaker 1: Just because there's a commandment that says thou shalt not kill,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that Christians can't kill. It means that it
Speaker 1: might motivate a Christian to choose to not kill, but
Speaker 1: they're still doing what they want, right, Isn't that?
Speaker 3: In fact, isn't.
Speaker 1: That a major part of committing yourself to your God
Speaker 1: is choosing to devote your life to live this lifestyle.
Speaker 1: So you're doing exactly the same thing that you were
Speaker 1: just saying is equivalent to atheism. You're doing what you
Speaker 1: want to do.
Speaker 6: Atheism has no rules of aughts, but.
Speaker 3: That doesn't affect whether what you do. You're still choosing.
Speaker 1: If that's the case, if Christianity has shoulds and aughts
Speaker 1: built into it, you still choose to do that. You
Speaker 1: still want to follow those those strictures, right, those limitations
Speaker 1: you voluntarily. In fact, that's a major part of being Christianity.
Speaker 1: Being a Christian is giving yourself into that. You're choosing
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, using to follow a hierarchy, which.
Speaker 3: Okay, so as a hedonist.
Speaker 1: Then as a hedonist, since you're doing what you want,
Speaker 1: why aren't you an atheist?
Speaker 6: Then okay, so then we're all heathenists then, right.
Speaker 3: According to the definition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because your definition of hedonism is not very consistent
Speaker 2: with the way that it's typically used, and I reject
Speaker 2: the idea that there's supposed to be a like a
Speaker 2: set of moral arts or a set of rules for
Speaker 2: every single philosophical system that you're adopting. Like so, according
Speaker 2: to you and many Christians that would say Christianity includes
Speaker 2: your beliefs in a higher power or your beliefs in
Speaker 2: like the origin of the universe, et cetera, and also
Speaker 2: includes a moral system, Atheism is not like that. It
Speaker 2: does not encompass both sides of that. It is only
Speaker 2: it's only for your beliefs on you know, where we
Speaker 2: came from, what is the universe? Where does it come from?
Speaker 2: All that? And like is there a higher power? Is
Speaker 2: there not? Like that's really the only question that atheism addresses.
Speaker 2: There's no claim in atheism to address morality, Like none
Speaker 2: of that is encompassed within atheism itself. So I think
Speaker 2: you're making an assumption that it does cover all of
Speaker 2: this when we're not making that claim at all. So
Speaker 2: if you're an atheist, you probably have some other moral
Speaker 2: framework that you go by. For us, it's secular humanism,
Speaker 2: which yes, kind of fits into atheism in that it
Speaker 2: is secular and does not rely on a higher power.
Speaker 2: But not all atheists are secular humanists. There are probably
Speaker 2: atheists who are hedonists, but that is separate from their atheism.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense, like they're separate categories of belief systems.
Speaker 6: There's all different flavors. Yes, But if we look at
Speaker 6: the overall picture of the secularism in the secular West,
Speaker 6: the birth rates are going down. The selfishness is going up,
Speaker 6: the hedonism is going up.
Speaker 2: The birth rates are going down everywhere on the globe.
Speaker 2: So you can't say that this is just related to
Speaker 2: primarily atheist areas. There's can you think of some reasons
Speaker 2: that are not religiously based why birth rates might be
Speaker 2: going down. It's a multivariate problem.
Speaker 6: Right, Well, the biggest thing is is everybody wants to
Speaker 6: do what they want to do.
Speaker 2: Steve, let me ask you a question, because it sounds
Speaker 2: like you do have children, Steve, yes, too, grown children.
Speaker 2: How much money have you spent on your children? First
Speaker 2: of all, like how expensive was it to even deliver children,
Speaker 2: like in a hospital setting? And along with that, how
Speaker 2: expensive is it to feed your kids, to clothe your kids,
Speaker 2: to give them education if you're not going through a
Speaker 2: public school. But even if you are going through public school,
Speaker 2: like their school supplies, they're like sports for your kids,
Speaker 2: like activities for your kids. It's expensive to raise children, right, Steve.
Speaker 6: But I'm not so concerned about the materialism.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, Like, should people bring children into
Speaker 2: the world if they cannot provide for them.
Speaker 6: If they're a materialist?
Speaker 2: Probably not in general. I want to know, Steve, if
Speaker 2: you had the option to have children and you had
Speaker 2: no money, you had no way to support a family,
Speaker 2: would it be a good decision. Would it be a
Speaker 2: responsible decision to have children and bring them into the world.
Speaker 2: Do you think that that is Do you think that
Speaker 2: that is ethical for you to do that?
Speaker 6: If you kind of look at the statistics, the poorest
Speaker 6: people are having the most children.
Speaker 2: That's not what I asked you, Steve.
Speaker 6: Answer my question, well, I don't like the materialist argument.
Speaker 2: You're not talking about materialism, Steve. Stop saying that it's materialism.
Speaker 2: I'm asking you if it is ethical to bring a
Speaker 2: child into the world knowing that you cannot financially support them, Like,
Speaker 2: is it okay to bring somebody into the world if
Speaker 2: they are going to have a life of suffering where
Speaker 2: they are not provided for, where they don't have access
Speaker 2: to care, access to food, access to clothing, Is that
Speaker 2: okay to bring them into the world. And people might
Speaker 2: have different takes on this, like I'm not necessarily saying that,
Speaker 2: like I'm anti natalist, but there are plenty of reasons
Speaker 2: beyond self interest to not have children, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people, especially younger people now, are faced with an
Speaker 2: economy that cannot really support their needs. How can they
Speaker 2: support other people? Like that's that's a conundrum that a
Speaker 2: lot of people are put in, and it's a conundrum
Speaker 2: globally as well. There are there are plenty of people
Speaker 2: around the world who cannot support children, and so it
Speaker 2: is a multivariate problem that you are limiting yourself to
Speaker 2: such a black and white lens and focusing only on
Speaker 2: whether or not it's materialistic, and you're missing some nuance here, Steve.
Speaker 6: I'm agreeing with you. The world is very materialistic and
Speaker 6: that's what the economy's like, and it's but that.
Speaker 2: Is not individuals. That's not individuals for the most part
Speaker 2: making that decision. That is like, do you think that
Speaker 2: individ vidual people are responsible for what their governments do?
Speaker 6: Individual people will know because we're kind of a democracy
Speaker 6: right now. So it's all mob.
Speaker 2: Rule like globally, Yeah, and globally too. Do you think
Speaker 2: people like in rural Iran are responsible for what their
Speaker 2: country is doing politically? Well, are they responsible for their
Speaker 2: economic situation? Well, no, no, they're not. They're not. They
Speaker 2: have no control over they have no control over the
Speaker 2: economy that they are born into. They have no control
Speaker 2: over those rules governing them for the most part. Like,
Speaker 2: it's very it's very intellectually dishonest to suggest that lower
Speaker 2: birth rates are solely related to secularism. Right, so that
Speaker 2: points debunked. What else you got? What other evidence do
Speaker 2: you have that atheists are hedonistic?
Speaker 6: Have we moved more towards secularism in the last fifty
Speaker 6: years than theism?
Speaker 2: Where? Where are you talking about? Are you talking specifically America?
Speaker 2: Are you talking globally?
Speaker 6: Basically, the secularism is taking over the whole planet.
Speaker 2: Which I don't have specific statistics. I would think, based
Speaker 2: on trends that there is an increase in secular people
Speaker 2: and people identifying as non religious. However, I need you
Speaker 2: to bring more to the tables to suggest that this
Speaker 2: actually is a trend and that this is a problem. Right,
Speaker 2: So why is that a problem?
Speaker 6: Well, it is a problem. For one thing, Most of
Speaker 6: these Western secular countries are importing people from the more
Speaker 6: religious countries that have children to replace the fact that
Speaker 6: they're not having any kids.
Speaker 1: Or do you have any reason to believe that that's true.
Speaker 1: I heard the words that you said, and I understand
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Do you have any reason to think
Speaker 1: that that's actually the case?
Speaker 6: Well, look at all the countries that are importing all the.
Speaker 1: Religious No, I'm asking me to look at something is
Speaker 1: not what I'm looking for here. Okay, do you have
Speaker 1: any reason to think that I'm assuming that your reasoning
Speaker 1: is not based off of what doctor Ben and Scott
Speaker 1: Dickey have looked at or not looked at. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you said, Earl that the poorest are having the most children.
Speaker 1: So there that seem to imply that there's some kind
Speaker 1: of economic connection. Do you have a similar kind of
Speaker 1: Do you have any research at all that's connecting secular
Speaker 1: or atheist perspectives to lower birth rates? In addition to that,
Speaker 1: as doctor Benn also said, is that a bad thing
Speaker 1: was our birth rate maybe even too high?
Speaker 3: Earlier?
Speaker 1: Is higher birth rate associated with healthier populations or healthier
Speaker 1: well being? Have you done any homework at all in
Speaker 1: any way related to any part of your question.
Speaker 6: Well, look at it this way. If the birth rate
Speaker 6: stays the same right now as it is.
Speaker 3: Is that a no?
Speaker 2: Is that a no?
Speaker 1: Have you done any research or have you done any
Speaker 1: homework at all to look into what the real world
Speaker 1: is like and to see if it's compared to the
Speaker 1: way that you think it is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the real world trending right now is lower and
Speaker 6: lower birth rates.
Speaker 2: Right and what you're saying, and there are multiple reasons
Speaker 2: for that, as we mentioned, and yes, like there are
Speaker 2: some problems that you can have with lower birth ba rates. However,
Speaker 2: there's also problems with increasing the birth rates. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: you want a population that isn't super top heavy, or
Speaker 2: you have people that can enter the workforce at younger ages. However,
Speaker 2: you have on the flip side an issue where if
Speaker 2: you run out of resources, you're going to have a
Speaker 2: falling population anyway, like you need to, like, at some
Speaker 2: point you're going to reach a cap in how many
Speaker 2: people can be alive on this planet and have access
Speaker 2: to those resources, which that cap currently you know, is
Speaker 2: kind of artificially lowered in a way because of economic
Speaker 2: disparities like we have. Probably at the moment, we have
Speaker 2: enough resources to go around, but they are not equally distributed,
Speaker 2: and so you also have to consider the fall in
Speaker 2: population because of resource allocation. So there's multiple var variables
Speaker 2: that you're not taking into account, and you're just focusing
Speaker 2: on the ones that make your case look a little
Speaker 2: bit better.
Speaker 6: I think we have very good resource redistribution in the US.
Speaker 6: We've got a.
Speaker 2: Problem, absolutely not, Absolutely not. I would love for you
Speaker 2: to go to like Los Angeles or places with like
Speaker 2: higher homeless populations, because our country is really really bad
Speaker 2: at helping people get the care that they need. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a huge wealth disparity, and especially now we're seeing
Speaker 2: a lot of that come to light. But I think
Speaker 2: I think you're so focused on wanting this to be
Speaker 2: related to hedonism and related to Arise and secularism and
Speaker 2: not necessarily seeing the other components of this whole question.
Speaker 2: There's also in a lot of ways we see Christianity
Speaker 2: playing a part in the wealth disparity. Right. We see megachurches,
Speaker 2: We see people who are super rich, super rich pastors
Speaker 2: having like all of their jets that they own, having
Speaker 2: huge mansions that they are not being taxed on because
Speaker 2: it is part of their ministry and they're getting that
Speaker 2: funding from the poor people in their communities. Right, they
Speaker 2: are encouraging this wealth disparity in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: So when you say that this hedonism is related to
Speaker 2: arise in secularism, I want to pose to you, have
Speaker 2: you looked at the disparities within Christian communities, within religious communities,
Speaker 2: and because I think in order to make your case
Speaker 2: you have to demonstrate that secular communities have worse problems
Speaker 2: with this than religious communities, and that's not the evidence
Speaker 2: that I have seen. Have not suggested that. It's actually
Speaker 2: suggested that there's a lot of issues within more religious communities.
Speaker 2: So what kind of what's your rebuttal to that?
Speaker 6: Well, if you look at the most secular states, they
Speaker 6: have the most people living on the streets doing drugs
Speaker 6: and legalized drugs.
Speaker 2: But think about this, where are the most people concentrated.
Speaker 1: I think you need to re look at a different
Speaker 1: map that talks about drug use. Okay, I think I
Speaker 1: think maybe your your your information might be might be incorrect.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't want to have a meme
Speaker 1: battle here, right, We're not talking about you know, sound
Speaker 1: bites taking off of a video that you saw on
Speaker 1: YouTube and using that as an argument. Okay, if you
Speaker 1: want to, I've said this before, and I'll say it
Speaker 1: until the day that I show us your work, right,
Speaker 1: show us your your research. Back up what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Maybe think about it for a few minutes before you
Speaker 1: call us.
Speaker 3: Don't think. Don't you Oh, I saw this great meme.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call talk Heathen today and just talk
Speaker 1: out of my ass, you know, for fifteen minutes. Look,
Speaker 1: do a little bit, at least the bare minimum amount
Speaker 1: of research. Look up what's really happening. And don't you say, well,
Speaker 1: just look at it that this is what happened. You're
Speaker 1: just saying things. Back it up, Back up what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Can you do that?
Speaker 6: Very religious and seculars.
Speaker 3: We're even listening to what I said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not listening. Do you understand population densities?
Speaker 6: Yeah, but we're not talking densities. We're talking religion now
Speaker 6: and ethic.
Speaker 2: We're also talk we're talking about You had mentioned that
Speaker 2: secular areas have higher amounts of people that are using substances,
Speaker 2: and I want to ask you our areas with more
Speaker 2: people let's say Seattle, Like, if I take Seattle, of
Speaker 2: course it's going to have like a higher density of
Speaker 2: people doing that than people in like rural Oklahoma because
Speaker 2: they have more people period, right, Like, if you have
Speaker 2: more people, you're going to have more people that fit
Speaker 2: a certain demographic, right, Like I'm very confused on if
Speaker 2: you understand statistics at all, because this is very elementary
Speaker 2: level math, right, Like more people, Like, if you have
Speaker 2: more people, the more likely you're going to have any
Speaker 2: number of demographics represented and a higher concentration of them.
Speaker 2: So you'd have to compare the percentage of a population
Speaker 2: with another area's percentage of population. So you can't just
Speaker 2: take the raw number and then compare them because you're
Speaker 2: you're dealing with entirely different populations. Right, So can you
Speaker 2: bring a citation that addresses population percentages and like prevalence?
Speaker 6: Well, if we love all these dates with the biggest problems,
Speaker 6: they're now far less religious than they were.
Speaker 2: Fifty or you're not addressing this, you know, I think
Speaker 2: we're going to move on because you're not listening. You're
Speaker 2: not listening and something too, like I don't know if
Speaker 2: you're familiar with Scott Dickey who we have here on
Speaker 2: the show. But he's really good at math and statistics
Speaker 2: falls underneath the subject of math, and I bet he'd
Speaker 2: be willing to like, if you'd be willing to listen
Speaker 2: to him, he could talk a bit more about how
Speaker 2: these percentages are calculated, why this isn't like a one
Speaker 2: for one issue. But I think you need to do
Speaker 2: a little bit more homework before we have this discussion anything.
Speaker 3: I think so too.
Speaker 1: I think so too, you know, And even if you
Speaker 1: did find a correlation, which you know, the information that
Speaker 1: I found is.
Speaker 3: Actually the flip of that, the reverse of that.
Speaker 1: We can find that in many of the states that
Speaker 1: have the highest percentage of drug use per capita, taking
Speaker 1: into account population size there, the states that have the
Speaker 1: highest drug use per capita are very often the most
Speaker 1: have the highest religiosity as well. And so I'm not
Speaker 1: claiming that that means religiosity is tied to drug use specifically.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that because I don't have all the information.
Speaker 1: We haven't done, you know, the proper types of controlled
Speaker 1: research and that kind of thing, and so it's clearly
Speaker 1: at least not supporting what you're saying. So look into it.
Speaker 1: Look into it, beyond the meme. Look beyond the meme. Okay,
Speaker 1: don't just stop at the at the sound bite and
Speaker 1: then you know the headlines don't necessarily have the entire story.
Speaker 3: Okay, so please go look into it.
Speaker 1: I would I would love to have this conversation with you,
Speaker 1: But what I don't want to have is just a
Speaker 1: well consider this and then throw up a meme on
Speaker 1: the screen. You know, let's talk. Let's have a substantive
Speaker 1: talk about what's really happening. And that's fine, and we
Speaker 1: can look into that together. But what you're given us
Speaker 1: is just it's just empty. It's just empty and vacuous.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've established that that's your opinion, and that's fine,
Speaker 1: that's your opinion.
Speaker 3: Great, is it more than your opinion?
Speaker 1: And if you want us to believe that it's more
Speaker 1: than your opinion, then you'll need to come with something
Speaker 1: a little more substantial.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that, Steve, or do you think
Speaker 1: that you've got a substantial case?
Speaker 2: Okay, I dropped him.
Speaker 3: Okay, well that's fine, that's fine. I think we know
Speaker 3: what he would have said anyway.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but like Steve, you're welcome to call back
Speaker 2: just like maybe do a little bit of homework first,
Speaker 2: and also just for people wanting to call in, we
Speaker 2: want to have a conversation with you, We want to talk,
Speaker 2: We want to have a good discussion about the issues.
Speaker 2: But we will not accept targeted calls. We will not
Speaker 2: accept calls where you call in to target a host
Speaker 2: and insult them and say that their identity is wrong
Speaker 2: or that they don't get to have like basic decency
Speaker 2: and respect because they are of a certain demographic. Like
Speaker 2: that is unacceptable and we will not tolerate that. So
Speaker 2: do not bring those conversations. If you want to talk
Speaker 2: about you know, gender issues as a whole, like fine,
Speaker 2: but do not do not target specific individuals in your calls, please,
Speaker 2: I agree. Yeah, and now after we let our blood
Speaker 2: pressure settle a little bit, serenity. Now, this is a
Speaker 2: great community to be a part of. We have a
Speaker 2: lot of great people you know on the show's hosting,
Speaker 2: behind the scenes, but it takes a lot of a
Speaker 2: lot of work, a lot of time and effort, and
Speaker 2: a lot of community building to put all of this
Speaker 2: into motion. And you can join us in our community.
Speaker 2: You can go to www. Dot Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org.
Speaker 2: Where you can learn about the organization as a whole.
Speaker 2: You can learn about our policies and how you can
Speaker 2: get involved if that is something that you are wanting
Speaker 2: to do. We have other ways to support the channel
Speaker 2: as well. You can send super chats and I know
Speaker 2: you've probably seen them on the screen today and we
Speaker 2: will try to read them as they come in live
Speaker 2: on the air as long as it is appropriate and
Speaker 2: something that we are safe to read on the show.
Speaker 2: So send those in, we will read them. And I
Speaker 2: think we've had some come in.
Speaker 1: Do we do think we do have We do have
Speaker 1: a few super chats on deck right.
Speaker 3: Now, Scott.
Speaker 2: Would you like to read those?
Speaker 3: I'd be happy to. I'd be happy to.
Speaker 1: Our first super chat of the day is from Vegan
Speaker 1: Aliens for two dollars. Thank you, Vegan Aliens for those
Speaker 1: two dollars. Watch Christ Spiracy. Watch Christ Spiracy. Is that
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with?
Speaker 2: That is that sounds like a movie? Maybe that could be?
Speaker 3: That could be I'll look into it.
Speaker 1: Christ's Spiracy all right, Neiro, we have next up for
Speaker 1: ten dollars. Hedonism means min maxing pain and pleasure. Proper
Speaker 1: hedonistic philosophy supports healthy behavior and balance in life. The
Speaker 1: misrepresentation of it as gluttony and pleasure at all costs
Speaker 1: is a scarecrow. Definitely a straw man happening there. Thank
Speaker 1: you Nero for pointing that one out. And Nero came
Speaker 1: back again with another five dollars saying, Steve, how many
Speaker 1: Christian private schools are there in the US versus secular
Speaker 1: private schools thirty four five hundred versus fourteen thousand. That's
Speaker 1: because of wealth disparity, and we certainly can't argue with that.
Speaker 1: And please let's change the subject before I start talking
Speaker 1: about school vouchers, because I will just go on to
Speaker 1: no end there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you everyone for the supercat so far. Any
Speaker 2: others that come in we will read at the end
Speaker 2: of the show. But that is a great way to
Speaker 2: support the channel and get a little shout out on
Speaker 2: the air. Another way that you can support us is
Speaker 2: getting some talk y then merch. You can go to
Speaker 2: tiny dot cc slash merch Aca. You can get hats, tea,
Speaker 2: crop tops, pint glasses and all of this other stuff
Speaker 2: you can see on the screen. Of course you can
Speaker 2: get merch from the other shows too. I guess it's okay.
Speaker 2: If you want to get AXP merch, or you want
Speaker 2: to get truth Wanted merch or nonprofits merch, those are
Speaker 2: also okay. How key then merches the best, so just
Speaker 2: make sure you get some of that as well. But
Speaker 2: you can find those other shows merch as well in
Speaker 2: some other ways that you know. If you're not able
Speaker 2: to financially support what we do, you can leave some
Speaker 2: comments in the side chat here live on the show.
Speaker 2: You can also leave comments in the comment section below
Speaker 2: that helps our work increased viewership across YouTube. You can
Speaker 2: also leave us a like, subscribe, turn on that bell
Speaker 2: so that you are getting all the notifications. All of
Speaker 2: that is super simple, but it does go a long
Speaker 2: way and helping us out. And we also.
Speaker 1: Mouch I can personally vouch for the pint glasses by
Speaker 1: the way they hold up a beer quite nicely, or
Speaker 1: any other beverage of your choice. They work very well
Speaker 1: and you can support talk ethen while you're enjoying your
Speaker 1: your frosty beverage.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we do want to hear feedback from all
Speaker 2: of you, So if you like something on the show,
Speaker 2: if you didn't like something on the show, if you
Speaker 2: have ideas that you want us to implement in the future,
Speaker 2: you can email us at TV at atheistypankcommunity dot org
Speaker 2: and let us know your thoughts. And with that for
Speaker 2: sure we have some more callers. Awesome on the key
Speaker 2: to move on, we have another theist caller. Let's talk
Speaker 2: to Cliff. No pronouns given from Ohio. Sounds like you
Speaker 2: want to talk about Jesus, evolution and Charles Darwin. What
Speaker 2: specifically is your question or argument today?
Speaker 6: Hey?
Speaker 2: Doing all right? How about you?
Speaker 5: Are you in there?
Speaker 6: Ye?
Speaker 3: Can you hear here?
Speaker 5: So? I've been in been on your little comment sections
Speaker 5: there for a while. I don't know if it's yours
Speaker 5: or the atheists experience. I know the atheist experience. I
Speaker 5: just listened to him on Thursday night whatever. It was
Speaker 5: the man and a woman on there, and I am
Speaker 5: the guy got a little upset about the guy saying
Speaker 5: that love doesn't exist. So what's your take on that?
Speaker 5: Does love exist? There's no such things love or love exists?
Speaker 3: What do you What do you mean by do you
Speaker 3: mean like the emotion? Does it? What do you and
Speaker 3: what do you mean by exist?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: You can't have like a bucket full of love?
Speaker 1: Can you? So you mean exist in some other kind.
Speaker 5: It was your host that said, oh, wait a minute,
Speaker 5: Wait a minute, wait a minute. It was your host
Speaker 5: that said, he doesn't there no such thing as love.
Speaker 1: Well, that wasn't me, and I don't think it was
Speaker 1: doctor Ben. So you're talking to us now, Yeah, we.
Speaker 2: Need some more context, right, I don't know what in
Speaker 2: what context that discussion was being had, So do you
Speaker 2: have any clarification on that?
Speaker 5: But anyway, yeah, no, no, no, I just I just
Speaker 5: want to start it out that in there. But really
Speaker 5: what I want to talk about was our our our
Speaker 5: assistant pastor today because our pastor is down taking hopefully
Speaker 5: taking care of his parents. But he preached today and
Speaker 5: I was just like holy smoked. And of course they
Speaker 5: didn't tape it, but he talked about Charles Darwin. You're
Speaker 5: familiar with Charles Darwin, I'm sure so.
Speaker 3: As much as anyone else I suppose.
Speaker 5: Do you know before he came an atheist, what what
Speaker 5: he was was? He?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Tell us.
Speaker 5: Well, he was for sure a theist and his wife
Speaker 5: is definitely a theist. But he was scientific work, he
Speaker 5: was studying, he was studying to be in the ministry. Okay, well,
Speaker 5: I just think it's I think it's kind of ironic
Speaker 5: that isn't a lot of the atheists experienced people that
Speaker 5: get on here and on your show. Uh, they work
Speaker 5: for you, aren't they supposedly ex Christians? I mean, isn't
Speaker 5: that what Matt Deyla Honey is.
Speaker 2: I'm an I'm an ex Christian. I'm an ex Christian
Speaker 2: and my family actually worked in ministry. I know several
Speaker 2: atheists who used to be pastors. It's actually pretty common.
Speaker 2: I'm curious to hear more of what your what your
Speaker 2: thoughts are of why this is particularly significant, especially for
Speaker 2: Charles Darwin. What are your thoughts on on that?
Speaker 5: Well, you do know some of the thumb of the
Speaker 5: stuff that Charles Darwin security has been disproven, that's correct, Chris, Yes?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: Or am I wrong on that?
Speaker 2: Well? There's science, that's science updates, right, because we learn
Speaker 2: things and then we Science is of course a method
Speaker 2: for investigating truth claims and learning more about the world
Speaker 2: around us, in the universe around us, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: there are some things that every scientist has gotten wrong
Speaker 2: because they're a human. They're doing the best they can
Speaker 2: with the information available at that time. And yeah, there
Speaker 2: are some things that update as we go and we
Speaker 2: learn more and we correct ourselves. That's an advantage that
Speaker 2: science has. It's not when when we say that, you know,
Speaker 2: certain theories carry a lot of like a lot of validity.
Speaker 2: It's not saying that they're completely like flawless like ways
Speaker 2: of looking at models of our universe. But there, I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know that there's a high threshold for being
Speaker 2: called a theory, right Like it takes a lot to
Speaker 2: validate a working model and then to the extent that
Speaker 2: we're calling it a theory. But yeah, there are some
Speaker 2: points that are outdated and that we've corrected. But that's
Speaker 2: the same with any scientist throughout history.
Speaker 1: Cliff, do you think that that's a weakness in science
Speaker 1: if we can, if we if we compare science and
Speaker 1: religion on based off of that one thing about the
Speaker 1: ability to uh read, to correct course right to right,
Speaker 1: to make course corrections, to recognize you you did something wrong,
Speaker 1: and to change your thought process or your or your
Speaker 1: thought content so that it aligns more with what you've seen.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a strength or a weakness of
Speaker 1: science or do you think it's an or do you
Speaker 1: think it's neither.
Speaker 5: Correcting it, of course, would be a strength. But the problem,
Speaker 5: here's here's my problem with if you get it wrong
Speaker 5: in the beginning, if any and I'm not a house builder, Okay,
Speaker 5: I can crude, prince, I can read a little bit,
Speaker 5: but I'm pretty aware of pretty have heard work with
Speaker 5: a little bit. If you build a house and it's
Speaker 5: off square on one side and you go down fifty feet,
Speaker 5: is it the same off square fifty feet down from
Speaker 5: where you're off square on this end, or is it
Speaker 5: worse when you get there?
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is if you don't correct that
Speaker 1: square early, if you stick with your assumptions based off
Speaker 1: of that and then continue building anyway, it gets worse,
Speaker 1: or at least it can get worse. So what your
Speaker 1: argument is is that course corrections being able to recognize
Speaker 1: when we make mistakes in our process, we need to
Speaker 1: correct those as soon as possible and not continue on
Speaker 1: with our beliefs regardless of what our doubts might be,
Speaker 1: regardless of what our second guessing might be, regardless of
Speaker 1: what our reflection self reflection might be, and regardless of
Speaker 1: what our peers.
Speaker 3: Might say about it.
Speaker 1: Now, I've just described two different kind of paradigms there,
Speaker 1: I would suggest that one of those paradigms matches really
Speaker 1: well with the way science is approached, and one of
Speaker 1: those matches really well with the way religion is approached. So,
Speaker 1: based off of your example of building a house, which
Speaker 1: do you think would be the better approach to use?
Speaker 1: The scientific approach where we can make corrections, where where
Speaker 1: we recognize that we're imperfect human beings, and we do
Speaker 1: make mistakes on occasion, and we do have biases on occasion,
Speaker 1: but then we correct those or should we stick with those?
Speaker 1: Should we set aside our worldly thoughts? We should set
Speaker 1: aside our own understanding, and we should stick with what
Speaker 1: was written two thousand to five thousand to six thousand
Speaker 1: years ago. Which do you think, based off of your example,
Speaker 1: would be the better approach, the scientific approach or the
Speaker 1: religious approach?
Speaker 5: Ay, man, man boy, you let me step right in that,
Speaker 5: didn't you. But yeah, here's where I'm at with that.
Speaker 5: Be honest with you. On arsent us, I am one
Speaker 5: in agreement and belief with the Bible, and I do
Speaker 5: not believe that you can prove the Bible wrong no way,
Speaker 5: shape or foreign. Well you can't, Okay. Number one but
Speaker 5: the Bible did not us. Hold on. You can laugh,
Speaker 5: that's okay, that's fine, but hold on. God did not
Speaker 5: give us the complete knowledge of everything. He gave us
Speaker 5: enough to take him by faith, and if we will
Speaker 5: receive him by faith, he will enlighten us more and
Speaker 5: more as you go. But he's still not going to
Speaker 5: give us and we can't handle everything.
Speaker 2: That's such a scapegoat, such a scapegoat. And based on
Speaker 2: you know what Scott just went over with you, there's
Speaker 2: a lack of humility in the way religion approaches things
Speaker 2: like to say that number one, like your your viewpoint
Speaker 2: is so spot on correct, but you just don't have
Speaker 2: all the information yet, but this God does. And and
Speaker 2: that's just how have you heard of the God of
Speaker 2: the gaps argument?
Speaker 5: I've heard? I haven't really, I've heard of a gap
Speaker 5: theory or whatever, but I don't. There no other guy
Speaker 5: but the God of Abraham, Midge and Jacob. But go ahead.
Speaker 2: So so that's essentially what you're doing is the God
Speaker 2: of the gaps is where you have a certain amount
Speaker 2: of information that you're pretty confident in understanding, Like we're
Speaker 2: pretty confident that you know the earth exists, we live
Speaker 2: on this earth. At some point something happened to cause
Speaker 2: this earth to come into existence. We don't know that
Speaker 2: part yet, right like, we can't super confidently say exactly
Speaker 2: how the earth came into existence. We have thoughts, we
Speaker 2: have ideas about it, we have hypotheses, and we have
Speaker 2: some things that you know, have have reached a level
Speaker 2: of validity that we could say that's more of a theory.
Speaker 2: But no one's one hundred percent certain about any of that,
Speaker 2: right Like, there's room to be wrong, am am. I correct,
Speaker 2: there there's room to be.
Speaker 5: Wrong, but Christians.
Speaker 2: But that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying, that
Speaker 2: it's the God of the guests, because there's a room
Speaker 2: for any of us to be wrong. But what yours
Speaker 2: you're saying that God, whatever that gap is, it's just
Speaker 2: God just put God in the places where we don't
Speaker 2: know the answer to that question. And so you're so
Speaker 2: confident because that you have this answer that keeps changing.
Speaker 2: You don't actually know, but you're saying, well, God knows,
Speaker 2: I don't need to worry about this, but I can
Speaker 2: be confident that all this is true. Whereas science isn't
Speaker 2: claiming to one hundred percent know any of those answers.
Speaker 2: We have guesses, we have some pretty educated guesses, but
Speaker 2: there's plenty of room to be wrong, and we're okay
Speaker 2: with that. I think that's a big difference that Scott
Speaker 2: was hitting on with you, is that it is within
Speaker 2: a scientific and secular framework it is okay to be wrong.
Speaker 2: But what you're doing, you're just not thinking about it,
Speaker 2: and you're saying, well, I one hundred percent can believe
Speaker 2: this because whatever the I don't know is it's just
Speaker 2: God true.
Speaker 5: But you're so What it sounds like to me you're
Speaker 5: trying to say is that scientists will come back and say, well,
Speaker 5: we were wrong here, we were wrong here.
Speaker 2: And they do and they do, and it might always
Speaker 2: like so individual scientists might not specifically say that during
Speaker 2: their lifetime because science is a is a multidisciplinary like
Speaker 2: set of fields, right, Like you have people of different disciplines,
Speaker 2: you have people of different perspectives that all come together
Speaker 2: to contribute to what we understand about the universe and
Speaker 2: everything in it. Right, So one person might have gotten
Speaker 2: things wrong, but we don't learn that until after their lifetime.
Speaker 2: And so no, that individual can't necessarily go back and
Speaker 2: correct it, but the rest of us can like it's
Speaker 2: a team effort, and that's something I think you're missing
Speaker 2: about scientific contributions as well, is the team aspect. But
Speaker 2: let's give you the benefit of the doubt here for
Speaker 2: a second, and let's say you know there is a
Speaker 2: god out there and all of the unknowns are kind
Speaker 2: of up to him. How do you demonstrate that what
Speaker 2: convinced you that that is what actually happened?
Speaker 5: Love? Love?
Speaker 3: All right? Please expand on that, Please expand on that.
Speaker 5: No, you got to me, you have no explanation for love?
Speaker 1: Are you asking us or are you telling us what
Speaker 1: we do or do not believe or do.
Speaker 5: Or do not know?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, okay, for instance, I do.
Speaker 2: Well I'm saying, is so you just said that I
Speaker 2: don't have an explanation for love, and then you just
Speaker 2: I said, yes I do, and then you proceed to
Speaker 2: walk all over it and go back to your script.
Speaker 2: Are you going to engage with us because I said, yes,
Speaker 2: we do have an explanation for love? Or for go
Speaker 2: fork go for neurotransmitters. You have neurotransmitters that signal to you, hey,
Speaker 2: I like this thing or I have love for this
Speaker 2: thing like when when you have a baby, if you
Speaker 2: birth a baby, you get a huge rush of oxytocin
Speaker 2: that allows you to bond with this other person. And
Speaker 2: so it's very easy to attribute love and other complex
Speaker 2: emotions to the human nervous system. And even beyond human
Speaker 2: nervous systems, we see this in other organisms. We see
Speaker 2: this in other primates. We can see this in like
Speaker 2: dogs and cats, Like if you have a bond with
Speaker 2: your pet, that is because of neurotransmitters. Like it's it's
Speaker 2: not super complicated to understand, even from a lower level
Speaker 2: of science. But yeah, it's an abstract concept, but we
Speaker 2: have explanations for how it works.
Speaker 5: Sure, So yeah, you know what, I agree with you
Speaker 5: and I've already thought that. Yes, And that's the two
Speaker 5: things that you can name. That is about the only
Speaker 5: two animals that you can name that you can say.
Speaker 2: We can name more. What what are you denying that
Speaker 2: other animals have neurotransmitters and the ability to bond with others?
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, what I'm saying is besides dogs and cats.
Speaker 5: Then it starts getting a lot less. There are yes,
Speaker 5: there's always little stories of someone.
Speaker 2: Or whatever, And now what is your what is your
Speaker 2: level of education in biology? May I ask that, what's
Speaker 2: your level of education in biology?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: What is your level of education in biology? How much
Speaker 2: biology have you studied?
Speaker 5: Well? Yea, I barely got through high school.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, okay, So do you think that your do
Speaker 2: you think that your expertise on this subject is expert level.
Speaker 5: That Bible level?
Speaker 2: Okay? So if I tell you, like, I have a
Speaker 2: bachelor's degree in biology and I have a medical degree,
Speaker 2: would you say that maybe you're not You're like, if
Speaker 2: if I said that your statements about other animals like
Speaker 2: not having the ability to exhibit love in the way
Speaker 2: that dogs and cats do, if I said that that
Speaker 2: does not align with the scientific consensus and the data
Speaker 2: that we currently have, would you be willing to change
Speaker 2: your mind on that or would you stay with your
Speaker 2: own ninth grade level of education on science?
Speaker 5: No, here's here's what I'm saying. Yes, the level of
Speaker 5: love that we understand, You're one hundred percent correct, You
Speaker 5: can find that in other animals or other whatever you
Speaker 5: want to call it, and I want to talk about
Speaker 5: is God's love. You won't find that love. You will
Speaker 5: not find a god a love anywhere else, you.
Speaker 2: Are just you are just asserting that it's related to God.
Speaker 2: You are just asserting that.
Speaker 1: You're also just asserting God too, by the way, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a big thing. That's a big leap
Speaker 1: right there, especially talking to a couple of atheists, and
Speaker 1: so you're not only assuming that a God exists, You're
Speaker 1: not only assuming that God is causing this kind of love,
Speaker 1: but you're assuming you're you're letting that spill over into
Speaker 1: the rest of the conversation. It's it's it's almost like
Speaker 1: you're you're not not even interested in having a conversation.
Speaker 3: Is that? I mean, what what was your what's your
Speaker 3: what's your goal?
Speaker 5: Here?
Speaker 1: Are we are we discussing this? Are we are we
Speaker 1: having a back and forth?
Speaker 5: Here?
Speaker 1: Are you going to address the points that doctor Ben
Speaker 1: was bringing up? Or are you just going to say, oh,
Speaker 1: laugh it off and then move on to your next
Speaker 1: point and your next bullet point.
Speaker 5: No. No, when you talk about animals having love, you
Speaker 5: can go there. Yeah, they can learn You're You're exactly right.
Speaker 5: There are some that can learn that to have some
Speaker 5: kind of a relationship with a person or with their
Speaker 5: primate whatever. Yes, I I one hundred percent agree with you.
Speaker 5: What I'm saying they don't have is a gode love,
Speaker 5: which is a.
Speaker 2: Guy that fine, a god love.
Speaker 5: A got thee love would be like me going up.
Speaker 5: Do you have children?
Speaker 2: I do not?
Speaker 3: I have children?
Speaker 6: I do?
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, let me ask you some If I
Speaker 5: were to take my car and deliberately run over your
Speaker 5: children in front of you, or it doesn't matter if
Speaker 5: or deliberately run over your children, would you have love
Speaker 5: for me?
Speaker 3: Would you in some way? In some way? I would,
Speaker 3: I mean I would.
Speaker 1: I would still love you as part of human you
Speaker 1: know I love humanity. I don't think that I would
Speaker 1: be inviting you over for drinks anytime soon. I think
Speaker 1: that I would aggressively pursue any kind of legal action.
Speaker 3: And you know, to be honest with you, if you.
Speaker 1: And I were in a room alone, stuff would happen
Speaker 1: after that, if you delete, if you were deliberately doing
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And so to say that I
Speaker 1: would have no love for you is I think not correct.
Speaker 1: But I certainly wouldn't love you the same way that
Speaker 1: I love my children, or that I love my wife,
Speaker 1: or that I love my friends, or that I even
Speaker 1: love my immediate community.
Speaker 5: Amen. But God commented his love for us, and while
Speaker 5: we were yet centers, Christ died for us.
Speaker 3: That's it?
Speaker 2: Did he did he actually love us unconditionally? Do you
Speaker 2: really believe that so.
Speaker 5: He died for everything?
Speaker 2: Where is it unconditional love? Is it unconditional love? If
Speaker 2: if you ran over Scott's children, and then Scott said,
Speaker 2: you know, I still love you, but then proceeded to
Speaker 2: lock you in his basement, set the whole thing on fire,
Speaker 2: doused it in gasoline while it's on fire, and then
Speaker 2: and then just kind of walk away, would you believe
Speaker 2: that he that he loved you? Would you believe that
Speaker 2: that he was honest when he said he loved you?
Speaker 5: Nope? And I then why so?
Speaker 2: Then? Why is that so? Then? How is that unconditional
Speaker 2: love from God? If God actually loved people, why would
Speaker 2: he eternally torment them? Okay, hold on, unconditional love? That
Speaker 2: sounds like love with conditions.
Speaker 3: That sounds like love with heavy conditions.
Speaker 5: Well hold on, hold on, give me a chance. So
Speaker 5: let's go back to let me running over his child
Speaker 5: for a for instance. Okay, Now, now he he himself says,
Speaker 5: you know what Cliff said, you going to prison for
Speaker 5: running over my kid. I'm going to pay that price
Speaker 5: for you. And not only am I going to pay
Speaker 5: that price for you, I'm going to pay it for
Speaker 5: everybody that's ever killed a kid.
Speaker 2: Not only is that stupid, because you've now locked up
Speaker 2: somebody who was providing safety and some kind of job
Speaker 2: to society and being a contributing human, and you took
Speaker 2: that person out of society, took kids away from their
Speaker 2: math teacher all that. So you detrimented society for that,
Speaker 2: but also detrimented society by letting a murderer or like
Speaker 2: somebody who violently assaults people can and you to exist
Speaker 2: in the public around other children. So that's just irresponsible
Speaker 2: for one, but the other thing too. But the other
Speaker 2: thing too is like earthly punishments are temporary, right, like
Speaker 2: because eventually, even if you get a life sentence, you're
Speaker 2: going to no longer be in prison, Like you're going
Speaker 2: to die and not not be paying back that sentence anymore.
Speaker 2: Right is it okay to for somebody who didn't do
Speaker 2: anything violent? You know, hats I'm not going to disagree
Speaker 2: that everybody is flawed. Everyone has done something you know,
Speaker 2: dishonest to somebody else. People make mistakes, But do you
Speaker 2: think all of them are equally worth eternal punishment if
Speaker 2: they do not like worship a deity?
Speaker 5: Asked, I believe? Hold on, so where you're going at?
Speaker 5: Do they all get equal punishment? And I'm going to
Speaker 5: tell you what I what I do believe? Tell me
Speaker 5: now you you know what? The Bible does say that
Speaker 5: as a matter of fact, and the Bible does point
Speaker 5: that out in the New Testament. Okay, no, not everyone
Speaker 5: is going to face the same hell or a lake
Speaker 5: of fire. They're not going to face the same effect
Speaker 5: because God said, don't be many teachers, or you will
Speaker 5: face the greater punishment. Now, are there ones that are
Speaker 5: going to be screaming and crying and whaling in hell? Yes,
Speaker 5: there's wore is.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and who are those people that are screaming,
Speaker 2: crying and whale in hell?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Who are those people? What things do they do in
Speaker 2: life that that warranted that type of punishment?
Speaker 5: Well? Maybe just what I just did?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 5: Not did people?
Speaker 2: So what punishment do people get if they do not believe? What?
Speaker 2: What punishment to people get if they do not believe
Speaker 2: in God?
Speaker 5: We're kids or right?
Speaker 2: But what punishment do people get not believing in God.
Speaker 5: What punishment they get? They get sent to the lake
Speaker 5: of fire or not believe.
Speaker 2: That unconditionally loving? Is that loving of your God to
Speaker 2: send people to the like of fire if they do
Speaker 2: not believe in him?
Speaker 5: Is that unddditional load? There's that unconditional load? Well, it
Speaker 5: is when he paid the price so you don't have
Speaker 5: to go there?
Speaker 2: How is that understand what what condition means? You can't
Speaker 2: say that.
Speaker 3: Something is unconditioned.
Speaker 1: You can't say it's conditional because of this condition. What
Speaker 1: you're doing, what you're you realize that that's what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You're saying that God has unconditional love for us, and
Speaker 1: then you are justifying the conditions of that love. Or
Speaker 1: are you saying that eternal torment in a lake of fire?
Speaker 1: Is this agape love that you're talking about? Is that
Speaker 1: what we're does a gape love just mean fucked up love?
Speaker 1: Is that what you're talking about? Or are we talking
Speaker 1: about abusive? Is this like an abusive spouse or what?
Speaker 5: No? No?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: And so if if I don't believe in God, if
Speaker 1: if I don't worship God, then you're saying God was
Speaker 1: willing to take my punishment. So then, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to to the lake of fire? Is God is not
Speaker 1: going to the lake of fire? Is that correct?
Speaker 5: He did, Yes, he did. He went the hell.
Speaker 3: Three days for for eternity.
Speaker 5: He was no, no, no, no, no no. The three days
Speaker 5: that he was in that grin he went to hill that.
Speaker 2: The same punishment, though, how is that the same punishment?
Speaker 2: Is that the same punishment as well as what an
Speaker 2: atheist would get. So he did not, So he did
Speaker 2: not take the same punishment. He did not take.
Speaker 5: It, but he did endure it for you, he did.
Speaker 2: For three days, maybe not three days, which is not
Speaker 2: the same? Which which? Which number is bigger? Three or infinity?
Speaker 5: I got you?
Speaker 2: These are not equal, right, These are not equal durations.
Speaker 2: And so one punishment is infinite and the other one
Speaker 2: is not. That is so he did not he gave
Speaker 2: up a weekend, but he did not take the full punishment.
Speaker 2: He did not endure all of that. And he's willing
Speaker 2: to subject atheists to a greater punishment under like unless
Speaker 2: they agree to certain conditions, which by definition is not
Speaker 2: unconditional love. So you cannot claim that agape is unconditioned.
Speaker 1: And you know we're setting aside the whole fact here
Speaker 1: that all of this is based on your assumptions that
Speaker 1: this is the way it works. I mean, you don't know,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean to derail the conversation here, but
Speaker 1: I just want to at least answer, at least make
Speaker 1: sure this point has been made. You haven't given us
Speaker 1: any reason to think that there is a God in
Speaker 1: the first place. You haven't given us any reason if
Speaker 1: there is a God, that that God is the God
Speaker 1: of the Bible. You haven't given us any reason to
Speaker 1: think that if the God is the God of the Bible,
Speaker 1: that the Bible represents God's word. And you haven't given
Speaker 1: us any reason to assume that even if it, even
Speaker 1: if we can show that God does exist and it's
Speaker 1: God of the Bible and the Bible is God's word,
Speaker 1: that we all are getting it right in our understanding
Speaker 1: it correctly. So there's multiple levels of failure happening here.
Speaker 1: And we're having a discussion on the deck of the
Speaker 1: Titanic as it's going down. You know, we can talk
Speaker 1: about how you know, the food service was awesome on
Speaker 1: the Titanic, but we're sinking right. There's no support underneath this,
Speaker 1: There's no reason to think that any of this is
Speaker 1: real anyway, And setting aside the fact that you are
Speaker 1: totally failing on even on that discussion that we're having
Speaker 1: on the deck of the Titanic, you're not you're you're
Speaker 1: you're saying one thing. You're saying one thing that supports
Speaker 1: what we're saying, and then acting like it's supporting what
Speaker 1: you're saying. You're saying God does have unconditional love, and
Speaker 1: then you're going into deep discussion about the conditions. Do
Speaker 1: you see that conflict there? You said before earlier that
Speaker 1: you stepped into something, right, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of advice. If you step
Speaker 1: into something, and if you see yourself stepping into something,
Speaker 1: maybe take a step back and go a different way.
Speaker 1: Don't stop and pick it up and rub it all
Speaker 1: over your face. Okay, if you're if you find yourself
Speaker 1: going in the wrong direction, change your direction that you're going.
Speaker 1: Don't just stick with it. I mean, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: we've been talking about this whole time, about sticking with
Speaker 1: with failed approaches.
Speaker 3: You're failing, amen, Yes, yes, I did.
Speaker 5: You're a half percent correct. I failed in my approach, Amen,
Speaker 5: I needed.
Speaker 3: That, and so what I want will be the next thing.
Speaker 2: What's your Yeah, what's another reason to convince us to believe?
Speaker 2: Because that reason didn't? What else you got that that
Speaker 2: did not know?
Speaker 5: That did not go over the world? Did it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: It didn't. So what other reason?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Tell us what else? What else would convince you?
Speaker 1: By the way, kudos for recognizing that. By the way,
Speaker 1: that's very difficult. Thing that you just did is recognizing
Speaker 1: when you make a mistake. And so I really want
Speaker 1: to give you an.
Speaker 3: Applause for that.
Speaker 7: So I do appreciate that, and and it does take
Speaker 7: a lot of courage to come on to a show
Speaker 7: and have these discussions openly with people who disagree with you.
Speaker 2: And I do want to say, while we come from
Speaker 2: very different perspectives, I do appreciate the way that you've
Speaker 2: conducted this conversation and how honest you've been.
Speaker 3: So I agree, I agree wholeheartedly with that.
Speaker 5: I like you. I would like to say that I
Speaker 5: would like to say the same thing about you. I
Speaker 5: mean I would, but I here, guys, I will give
Speaker 5: it to you, try and give it to you in
Speaker 5: a nut show which you can read all my comments
Speaker 5: and then they're all the same. Okay, I want a
Speaker 5: hundred percent believe that there's a God and have loved you,
Speaker 5: love me, and he paid that.
Speaker 2: So you say so, hold on, so you say that
Speaker 2: you are one hundred percent certain?
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, in my heart, I want oh did you get.
Speaker 2: To that level of certainty?
Speaker 1: I'm not even one hundred percent certain that you just
Speaker 1: said what you said?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did you get to that level of certainty?
Speaker 5: Okay? Hold on? If you seriously, if you want me
Speaker 5: to answer you, I'll tell you honestly, I believe it's
Speaker 5: because the Holy Spirit of God that is inside of me,
Speaker 5: and I cannot deny him.
Speaker 2: If someone what convinces you, what convinces you, there's the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit inside of you.
Speaker 5: Hold on, and my and here's where I'm at. Unfortunately
Speaker 5: for you guys, I do not believe that any atheist
Speaker 5: was ever truly say. I don't want you. I'm not
Speaker 5: trying to make you mad. I'm not trying to piss you.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to I don't want you to
Speaker 2: preach like. This isn't a preaching show. I just I
Speaker 2: want to know, like, because if clearly you are convinced,
Speaker 2: clearly you are convinced by a lot of this. I
Speaker 2: want you to like imagine that we have no background
Speaker 2: in Christianity. Imagine that we don't understand anything that you
Speaker 2: are like saying, walk us through. What what convinced you
Speaker 2: that the Holy Spirit is inside you at all? Explain
Speaker 2: it to me? Like I'm five? Like what?
Speaker 5: How?
Speaker 2: What is convinced? How? What convinced you?
Speaker 5: What convinced me? Because number one, watching I guess probably
Speaker 5: my parents first of all, and then for me truly
Speaker 5: becoming saved because when I I made a profession of faith,
Speaker 5: just like Matt Matt did when he was a young kid,
Speaker 5: I made a profession of faith and it wasn't to
Speaker 5: tell I was a teenager that I realized, you know what,
Speaker 5: you're not saved. And then I had a choice to
Speaker 5: make either get saved or continue on pretending to be saved.
Speaker 2: So and you think that do you think that if
Speaker 2: you are raised in a different religion, do you think
Speaker 2: that you would have had the same results and still
Speaker 2: go to Christianity or would you do you think you
Speaker 2: would have made a proclamation of faith in that other religion?
Speaker 2: Like let's say if you are raised in Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 2: do you think you would have still found Christianity at
Speaker 2: that time, or would you have made a proclamation to Islam.
Speaker 5: No much, there's a big chance, big whether the percentage chance,
Speaker 5: that that would be Islamic rather than a Christian And
Speaker 5: that is because you're right, that's because of where I
Speaker 5: would we raised. But given the opportunity, if the Lord
Speaker 5: gives everybody I believe, an opportunity to be saved, an
Speaker 5: opportunity to know the God.
Speaker 2: But if no one has heard, if no one has
Speaker 2: heard about Christianity, if they were raised in rural Iran
Speaker 2: or someplace where they only have access to a small
Speaker 2: amount of information related to religion, and that was it.
Speaker 2: You only heard of Islam. Like, what is supposed to
Speaker 2: convince them? In that case? How are they supposed to
Speaker 2: be saved?
Speaker 5: Right? No, Honestly, if you want the truth, you listen
Speaker 5: to the Philippine Unich. The Eunich didn't know any better.
Speaker 5: And God told Philip, pay go join yourself for that chariot,
Speaker 5: and here comes here comes.
Speaker 2: So what I'm getting at. So what I'm getting at, Cliff,
Speaker 2: is in the absence of these other factors, like you
Speaker 2: acknowledged that you had influence from your family. Growing up,
Speaker 2: you had influences from the culture around you. But if
Speaker 2: if that's a reason why somebody could convert to Islam
Speaker 2: or convert to Hinduism at a young age, there must
Speaker 2: be something else then that made you decide Christianity is
Speaker 2: the right one as opposed to Islam Hinduism. So what
Speaker 2: were those other reasons that Christianity was the one? Like
Speaker 2: you said, you needed, you felt you needed to be saved.
Speaker 2: What made you think that you needed to do that?
Speaker 5: Honestly, that's true because my dad was preaching on a message.
Speaker 5: And I can't give it exact Bible verse, but I'm
Speaker 5: pretty sure I've found it several times in Corinthians. No
Speaker 5: man called it Jesus Lord, but by the spirit, and
Speaker 5: I know my prayers it was always God, God, God.
Speaker 5: I thought, you know what, wait a minute, there's something
Speaker 5: wrong here. And you know what there is If if
Speaker 5: a guy call all he can do is pray, and
Speaker 5: when he prays it's always God, God, God or Lord God,
Speaker 5: there's something wrong because you cannot call Jesus Lord. But
Speaker 5: I have the spirit. So that was my that was
Speaker 5: my That's what happened with me.
Speaker 2: But as far as so you think that. Let me
Speaker 2: get this right. So if if you're praying to God,
Speaker 2: then therefore this Holy Spirit told you to do that.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 5: The Holy Spirit told me to do that? Yes?
Speaker 2: How do you know? How do you know that you're
Speaker 2: being directed by the Holy Spirit to do anything? Like?
Speaker 2: What what is that feeling? Like?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it a is it a feeling? Is it an
Speaker 2: audible voice? Is it a touch on your shoulder?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: What? How does this manifest?
Speaker 5: Well? Can I question? Can I ask you guys a
Speaker 5: question and I'll try and answer yours? Can I ask
Speaker 5: you to a question?
Speaker 2: I want to see a related question?
Speaker 5: Yes, well, just didn't want didn't you say some of
Speaker 5: you guys have been supposed Christians before or whatever? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I know what I said at that time. I
Speaker 2: know I know that I felt I felt like I
Speaker 2: had the Holy Spirit in me. I remember having a feeling.
Speaker 2: But as I investigated more, I learned that it was
Speaker 2: just a feeling. And there are people well, and there
Speaker 2: are people who have the same feeling. There are people
Speaker 2: who have that same feeling about Islam. There are people
Speaker 2: have that same feeling even about other branches of Christianity,
Speaker 2: like there are people who are who are Mormon who
Speaker 2: had similar feelings. There are people I know who are
Speaker 2: Jehovah's witnesses who have the same feelings, people who are Hindu,
Speaker 2: Like I went on a mission trip to India, and
Speaker 2: people who were Hindu had the same feeling. So what
Speaker 2: I learned was that I can't if all of these
Speaker 2: people can have the same feeling about their religion, I
Speaker 2: can't use that feeling as a basis for that being
Speaker 2: the correct religion, right, So there has to be another reason.
Speaker 2: So what other reason may lets you know that this
Speaker 2: this feeling is specifically the Christian Holy Spirit?
Speaker 5: There you go, there you go, that's good. Yeah, you
Speaker 5: cannot trust the feeling. It's not just the feeling. God
Speaker 5: is a person. Yeah so amen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so what is that for you? Like, how
Speaker 2: did you how did you differentiate that this was the
Speaker 2: Christian Holy Spirit and not some other deity.
Speaker 5: Well, I guess that's I guess that's kind of a
Speaker 5: kind of a hard thing because I don't believe there's
Speaker 5: any other other than Satan. There is no other spirit world.
Speaker 5: You have Satan, who is, by the way, a spirit,
Speaker 5: and then you have God.
Speaker 2: But how would you know that how do you know
Speaker 2: that your feeling wasn't Satan? How do you know you
Speaker 2: weren't directed by Satan?
Speaker 1: Let me I want to add something on top of
Speaker 1: what doctor Ben has been talking about and Cliff, I
Speaker 1: normally wouldn't ask this of a caller, but I think
Speaker 1: that you are receptive to listening to what we say,
Speaker 1: and I think that you've been conversing with us and
Speaker 1: having a good faith conversation. Here I want you to
Speaker 1: consider I'm going to make a conjecture here. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't know you, and so I don't want to be
Speaker 1: sound like I'm judging you. I'm just making a suggestion
Speaker 1: here for you to think about. I want you to
Speaker 1: think about what we were talking about. How people have
Speaker 1: a tendency to kind of adopt the beliefs of their parents.
Speaker 1: And to a large extent, I think that that's true.
Speaker 1: My parents happen to be religious. I don't remember believing
Speaker 1: in God myself, but it wouldn't surprise me if I
Speaker 1: did at some point. I was raised in a Christian
Speaker 1: household and so.
Speaker 3: And even so, even though I have.
Speaker 1: Very strong disagreements with both of my parents on the subject,
Speaker 1: I still feel a compulsion inside of me to consider
Speaker 1: what they're saying. I mean, we we are born with
Speaker 1: we've evolved to have a strong sense of accepting the
Speaker 1: things that our parents say, because you know, otherwise we're
Speaker 1: going to be sticking our hand in the fire, or
Speaker 1: we're going to be walking off the cliff, or we're
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, walking into the lions den
Speaker 1: and all these different kinds of things. We are we're
Speaker 1: kind of pre wired to just accept what our parents
Speaker 1: say up to a point. And then of course we
Speaker 1: you know, we develop our own thinking as well, or
Speaker 1: at least many of us do. But what I would
Speaker 1: like to you to consider this, think about, at least
Speaker 1: just entertain the thought that the reason that you're believe
Speaker 1: that you're a believer, that you're Christian is because of
Speaker 1: your parents, And then think about if that were the case.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not suggesting that you admit it or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but just think about if that was
Speaker 1: the case. Do you think that that would color all
Speaker 1: of your subsequent experiences. Doctor Ben was talking about how
Speaker 1: people and other religions have the same experiences, it's just
Speaker 1: they have it in a slightly different context than you are.
Speaker 1: All of everything that we perceive, everything that we come
Speaker 1: to believe, every thought that we have is colored based
Speaker 1: off of our past experiences and things that we've believed
Speaker 1: in the past. So think about it in terms of
Speaker 1: that approach your own faith and your own belief by thinking,
Speaker 1: what if my parents had thought different, how would that
Speaker 1: affect what I think now? Would I have thought that
Speaker 1: that was the Holy Spirit talking to me rather than
Speaker 1: something from a different religion, or would it be or
Speaker 1: would if your parents had been non religious, would you
Speaker 1: have interpreted that to be something else? Could you have
Speaker 1: interpreted that to be an emotional response or something like that?
Speaker 1: And I also want to I wanted to bring up
Speaker 1: a book here called The Outsider Test for Faith. It's
Speaker 1: from an author by the name of John Loftis, and
Speaker 1: that's it kind of specifically addresses that point that I'm
Speaker 1: just bringing. If we can separate ourselves from if we
Speaker 1: can recognize that we're going to have bias towards things that.
Speaker 3: We were raised to believe.
Speaker 1: So if we can at least make an attempt to
Speaker 1: separate ourselves from that bias and then look at ourselves
Speaker 1: through an outsider's perspective, would we come to the same conclusions,
Speaker 1: And I think I think that you would agree that
Speaker 1: as human beings, we all have biases, and why we
Speaker 1: have those biases aren't necessarily relevant at this point, but
Speaker 1: you know, we could talk about that in a separate discussion.
Speaker 1: But if we recognize that we have these biases, how
Speaker 1: would your life look like to somebody else who didn't
Speaker 1: have those biases? And I know it's it's a challenging
Speaker 1: thing to do for anybody to do, not just a
Speaker 1: religious person, But I think for as human beings, we're
Speaker 1: kind of one of our biases is that we stick
Speaker 1: with our biases. One of our biases is that we
Speaker 1: have difficulty separating ourselves from those biases, and so it
Speaker 1: takes a very conscious, deliberate effort to do so.
Speaker 3: So what would you.
Speaker 1: Think about giving that a try and then maybe calling
Speaker 1: us back and having a discussion about it.
Speaker 5: No, I look, dude, I one hundred percent agree with you.
Speaker 5: I understand what I believe. I understand what you're saying,
Speaker 5: and that is the whole premise for people being raised
Speaker 5: in a Christian Just like you said, people being raised
Speaker 5: in a Christian family, you're not saved because you're raised
Speaker 5: in a Christian family. You're not born again Christian because
Speaker 5: mom and dad were. In fact, you know, my grandpa
Speaker 5: and grandma on my dad's side, at least I know,
Speaker 5: was not a Christian, neither one of them. So my
Speaker 5: dad did not grow up in a Christian family, but
Speaker 5: he had an uncle that was a Christian, so he
Speaker 5: got introduced to Christian anybody. He didn't get saved until
Speaker 5: he was in the military. So I understand what you're saying,
Speaker 5: but that is that's what it is. You're not a
Speaker 5: Christian just because you were in that environment. And that's
Speaker 5: why I'm trying to tell you.
Speaker 1: That wasn't That wasn't my point though, and I understand
Speaker 1: that your point might be different than my point, But
Speaker 1: do you think that, I mean, what do you think
Speaker 1: about what I said, rather than your repackaging of what
Speaker 1: I said? Do you think that would be an experiment
Speaker 1: worth trying?
Speaker 5: Oh? No, because I know where I'm at. I mean,
Speaker 5: other people do that if they want to. But I
Speaker 5: have no reason to disagree or to not believe that
Speaker 5: God is real. I have no reason to That's.
Speaker 2: The problem, and that is the problem because you started.
Speaker 2: You started with the assumption that your belief is true
Speaker 2: instead of what we're doing. And we're saying I'm not
Speaker 2: going to believe until I have a good enough reason
Speaker 2: to right. So we're starting from ground zero. You've already
Speaker 2: made the assumption that what you believe is true, and
Speaker 2: so now you're locked in to just assuming that this
Speaker 2: is true and waiting for somebody to prove you wrong.
Speaker 2: But do you see why that's problematic? I said if
Speaker 2: I said that the sky is purple, and I just
Speaker 2: I believe that I've always believed that and you can't
Speaker 2: prove me wrong. Do you think that's Do you think
Speaker 2: like I'm starting from a good place with that belief?
Speaker 2: Is that a reasonable belief to have?
Speaker 5: Ye hold on, I agree with you to be able
Speaker 5: to say that some Christians, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 2: But let me ask you that that's what I'm not
Speaker 2: saying some Christians. I'm saying that is what you are doing.
Speaker 2: That is I don't know if you can listen back
Speaker 2: to the call after the show's done, but you you
Speaker 2: just did that. You said that you know where you're
Speaker 2: at and there isn't a reason for you to change
Speaker 2: your view on it. So you are all you've held
Speaker 2: onto this before being provided evidence of it, because I
Speaker 2: feel like if you had that evidence that was convincing,
Speaker 2: you could just give it to us and you could
Speaker 2: answer our questions in a way that makes sense to
Speaker 2: somebody who has never been exposed to Christiana before. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: you're going into this with assumptions, and I think we're
Speaker 2: going to have to move on to the next caller.
Speaker 2: But I want to give you I'll let Scott jump
Speaker 2: in and then I'll give you some homework for the
Speaker 2: next time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just want to Cliff.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say that I think you do
Speaker 1: have a reason to think of that approach, and that
Speaker 1: reason is you could be wrong. You could be wrong
Speaker 1: about We started this call talking about two different perspectives.
Speaker 1: The perspective that doesn't think that they can be wrong,
Speaker 1: and we acknowledge that if you have that perspective that
Speaker 1: you can't be wrong and you are in fact wrong,
Speaker 1: then that will mean you're going to continue to be wrong.
Speaker 3: You agreed.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think I even got an amen out
Speaker 1: of you about this when we said that the better
Speaker 1: approach is to not assume that you can't be wrong
Speaker 1: and to consider the fact that you could be wrong
Speaker 1: and start from there, and so I think that is
Speaker 1: a reason why you should reconsider this. And I think
Speaker 1: maybe I'm going out on a limb here, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: assuming too much here, But I think if you thought
Speaker 1: about it, you might agree with me that that's a
Speaker 1: good reason that you should consider this, that you should
Speaker 1: consider this perspective, that you should look at things from
Speaker 1: an outsider perspective. If you can't recognize that you have biases,
Speaker 1: that's a problem. Then you're going down that dogmatic route
Speaker 1: that could lead to disaster that we agreed could lead
Speaker 1: to disaster as opposed to having the self correct you
Speaker 1: said self corrections were good. Okay, If you refuse to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that you're going in the wrong direction, then you
Speaker 1: lose all motivation to do any kind of self correct
Speaker 1: So I think you do, in fact have a reason,
Speaker 1: and I hope you think about that. I understand if
Speaker 1: you have difficulty accepting that. I, like I said, it's
Speaker 1: our heart. Our most difficult bias is to acknowledge our
Speaker 1: own biases and to set those aside. And trust me,
Speaker 1: it's something that we all struggle with. Atheist or theist
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, but we really can only you know,
Speaker 1: we need to address it. We need to address it
Speaker 1: unless you're unless you're satisfied leading down a path, going
Speaker 1: down a path which you agreed could lead to disaster.
Speaker 1: And so it really all boils down to doesn't matter
Speaker 1: to you whether or not what you believe is true.
Speaker 1: If it matters to you what you believe is true,
Speaker 1: then you need to consider the fact that you could
Speaker 1: be wrong and need to think of things from a
Speaker 1: perspective that maybe you are wrong. I'm not saying I
Speaker 1: can I'm you know, I'm not saying that you should
Speaker 1: assume that you're wrong. I'm not saying that you should
Speaker 1: give up everything that you believe. But you know, we
Speaker 1: have humans have this capability of imagine hypothetical situations, and
Speaker 1: you can even say to yourself over and over again,
Speaker 1: this is a hypothetical situation. But we can kind of
Speaker 1: imagine what things look like from other people's perspectives. And
Speaker 1: I think that kind of diversity is a is a
Speaker 1: strength in humanity as a whole. And so let's ride
Speaker 1: on that strength a little bit and allow for the
Speaker 1: fact that what we could be wrong, how can we
Speaker 1: determine that if we're wrong? Does that make sense?
Speaker 5: It? Does it? Does, and I appreciate the conversation. I
Speaker 5: wish I could have done a little bit better. But
Speaker 5: one thing you're not going to do. And I don't
Speaker 5: mean to be mean, but it is never my mind
Speaker 5: is made up. My heart is made up. Not my mind.
Speaker 5: My heart is made up, and there is a guidance.
Speaker 2: And that's where I want to get out with with
Speaker 2: some homework, Cliff, That's that's where I want to I
Speaker 2: want to get give you a little bit of an
Speaker 2: assignment for the next time. I would love for you
Speaker 2: to call back. I want to continue this conversation, but
Speaker 2: I'm not convinced by your personal experiences, and I want
Speaker 2: you to think about the reliability of personal experiences, like
Speaker 2: can like is it possible for personal experiences to lead
Speaker 2: you to the wrong answer? And think about that, Think
Speaker 2: about how convinced you would be by somebody else's personal experience.
Speaker 2: And if if experience is not reliable, if I can
Speaker 2: get to wrong information through experience, what is a better
Speaker 2: way to convince us, What is going to be more
Speaker 2: reliable that can put us over the edge? And like
Speaker 2: if because if you're right, I want to also be
Speaker 2: right with you, But I need more, I need more
Speaker 2: than this to be convinced. And some of our people
Speaker 2: in the background are asking if if you'd be willing
Speaker 2: to see if your pastor wants to call in, because
Speaker 2: that would be a great call too. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, actually if he's.
Speaker 5: Anything like you, Yeah, I would like some pastors to
Speaker 5: call in, some real pastors. And I have said this,
Speaker 5: I'm not Yes, my first time I sounded like an idiot,
Speaker 5: and I probably sound like an idiot. I don't think
Speaker 5: I sounded quite like an idiot this time, but my
Speaker 5: first time, yes, I sounded like any idiot. And it
Speaker 5: does bother me when so called Christians call in and
Speaker 5: we sound like idiots. And yes, I would love for
Speaker 5: some past I've asked for some factors to call in
Speaker 5: and talk to you guys, because I, in my heart
Speaker 5: know there's a guy in heaven now you guys or
Speaker 5: and you guys are on your side, and I'm sorry
Speaker 5: for that, but I don't want other people drug down.
Speaker 5: If you, like I said, you can read my boof
Speaker 5: well you go.
Speaker 2: Again, Like I said, your methods for how you've gotten
Speaker 2: to your your position, and the fact that you are
Speaker 2: extremely confident in a position that you've gotten through personal
Speaker 2: experience is not convincing, and it will not be enough
Speaker 2: to convince me I need something else. And so I'm
Speaker 2: going to let you go go think about it, Go
Speaker 2: talk to some more pastors, get them to call in,
Speaker 2: because I love to hear their their position on this.
Speaker 2: But I hope you have a great rest of your Sunday.
Speaker 2: And with that, we are at a point where we're
Speaker 2: going to read the top five patrons of the week.
Speaker 3: All right, Scott your how.
Speaker 1: To hold up I do our top First of all,
Speaker 1: thank you all for supporting the show. Our top five
Speaker 1: patrons for this week are number one, lets say I'm
Speaker 1: I supposed to read this backwards? Or number one oops
Speaker 1: all singularity love that. Number two dingle Berry Jackson, of
Speaker 1: course a perennial favorite. Number three Coleevi Helvetti also a favorite.
Speaker 1: Number four Brian's upkey, who's been on there fairly fairly
Speaker 1: commonly recently, Number five Ja Calton, and our honorable mention
Speaker 1: number six was Steven McDougall. So thank you all for
Speaker 1: supporting us through Patreon. You can if you want to
Speaker 1: become a patron, please visit tiny dot cc slash patreon
Speaker 1: th and we welcome your support and appreciate it.
Speaker 3: So thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. We're going to move on
Speaker 2: to our next caller. Who is d pronouns are they
Speaker 2: them from Iowa? D You are on talk he Theen.
Speaker 2: What is your topic today.
Speaker 8: Doctor Ben Hi Scott. Yeah, So this is something that
Speaker 8: I've been working on in my life for literally more
Speaker 8: than four decades. And last year, late last year was
Speaker 8: able to embrace my uh, non binary identity and I've
Speaker 8: had congratulations.
Speaker 2: That's a huge status.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Thank you for that, doctor Ben. I appreciate that.
Speaker 8: But I'm kind of so, I guess I'm a little
Speaker 8: confused as to all my life on my adult lie. Well, no,
Speaker 8: I can't say that my mid in my thirties, early thirties,
Speaker 8: I came out as lesbian. I had a twenty year
Speaker 8: relationship with another woman. We got married when I will
Speaker 8: legalize same sex marriages. We've since been divorced. But and uh,
Speaker 8: and I was a cross dresser. I always I always
Speaker 8: dressed in men's clothes. I very consciously decided not to
Speaker 8: trans although I did think about it very carefully, and
Speaker 8: one reason that I didn't was for religious reasons. I
Speaker 8: believe that God had created me as a woman, and
Speaker 8: there was a reason for that, so I decided not
Speaker 8: to change it. And now I'm definitely rethinking that now
Speaker 8: that I'm identifying as atheist and anti theists, and I've
Speaker 8: had some trans people who are well into their transition
Speaker 8: and had, you know, the surgeries and the hormone therapy.
Speaker 8: Is telling me that I'm basing all, I'm basing my all,
Speaker 8: I'm basing my self identity on is just kind of
Speaker 8: an extended tomboy face.
Speaker 2: Or I don't agree with that. I don't know what
Speaker 2: trans people you're talking to, but it sounds like they
Speaker 2: might be from the trans medicalist camp, which I do
Speaker 2: not accept as being valid. Essentially for people in the
Speaker 2: audience who don't know, there's a kind of there's a
Speaker 2: take from some trans people saying that you're not a
Speaker 2: real transperson unless you medically transition, and that is gatekeeping.
Speaker 2: That is not something that I accept. The definition of
Speaker 2: being a transperson is that you identify with a gender
Speaker 2: that is not congruent with your sex assigned at birth,
Speaker 2: and so that can include the umbrella as well of
Speaker 2: non binary people, because most often these people are not
Speaker 2: assigned at birth as non binary, So that would be
Speaker 2: a gender other than their sex assigned a birth, And
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what you do with your body related
Speaker 2: to that. It doesn't matter any other like gender expression,
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter your sexual orientation, None of that matters.
Speaker 2: If your gender identity is different than your sex send
Speaker 2: at birth, you meet criteria for being trans in your
Speaker 2: identity is valid. So I'm not sure the specifics of
Speaker 2: where these people were going with it, but I do
Speaker 2: not agree with their position at all. If you are trands,
Speaker 2: you are trans. You do not have to prove that
Speaker 2: to anybody. And if if you want to be a tomboy,
Speaker 2: if you identify as a tomboy, that's one thing. But
Speaker 2: if if you don't, if you identify as non binary,
Speaker 2: you are non binary. End of story.
Speaker 8: Yeah, okay, yeah, because I I you and you and
Speaker 8: Forrest especially have given me a lot of food thought
Speaker 8: on this, and you know I'm still I'm physically attracted
Speaker 8: to women. So I mean, does a lesbian identity transit
Speaker 8: overpower the non binary?
Speaker 2: Well, labels. Labels overly simplify everything, right, Like the purpose
Speaker 2: of a label isn't to confine you to a certain
Speaker 2: set of rules, Like a label in this case, is
Speaker 2: a way for you to communicate with the world around you,
Speaker 2: to say this is who I am, this is how
Speaker 2: I would like to be treated. And so I don't
Speaker 2: want you to think of it as like, oh, I
Speaker 2: have to meet these criteria of being a lesbian and
Speaker 2: I have to meet these criteria of being non binary.
Speaker 2: That's not at all what this is. You can take
Speaker 2: those labels, and your specific labels, and your specific meaning
Speaker 2: of those labels might be different than somebody else's. I
Speaker 2: know non binary people who still use the term lesbian
Speaker 2: because that's the best way that they can describe their
Speaker 2: sexual orientation. And I know other non binary people who
Speaker 2: don't use that label because they don't feel as accurate
Speaker 2: for them. And it's okay to clarify in conversation and say,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm using this label, here's what this means
Speaker 2: for me, Like I'm trans, here's what that means for me.
Speaker 2: And that's totally okay. And I think people who are
Speaker 2: going to like legislate the labels that other people can use,
Speaker 2: as long as we're being clear about it, I think
Speaker 2: that's okay. And you can just say, hey, this is
Speaker 2: these are the terms that I'm comfortable using here's what
Speaker 2: I mean by these terms, and then and then that
Speaker 2: should be good enough. And and your identity can change
Speaker 2: over time too, and your labels can change because even
Speaker 2: though you're who you are as a person, like the
Speaker 2: core of who you are might not change throughout your lifetime.
Speaker 2: Your your awareness of your sense of self might change
Speaker 2: in certain aspects of how you uh communicate about yourself,
Speaker 2: how you present yourself in public, All of that can
Speaker 2: change over time. It's very dynamic. So I hope you
Speaker 2: can feel a bit more reassurance that like other people
Speaker 2: can't legislate how you use your labels to describe yourself.
Speaker 8: You know, we we we actually we got into that
Speaker 8: discussion because I've been considering saying I'm an untransitioned male.
Speaker 8: And that's when that's when things kind of blew up.
Speaker 8: Is that that's.
Speaker 2: Not the that's not necessarily the term that I would
Speaker 2: I would use. But there's different there's different layers to transition, right,
Speaker 2: So there's like there's medical and surgical transition, of course,
Speaker 2: which are commonly accepted as forms of transition, but there's
Speaker 2: also social transition. And if you've come out and you've said, hey,
Speaker 2: my pronouns are they them? My name is this, And
Speaker 2: you've made some effort to change the way you are
Speaker 2: seen in society. That is a form of transition. So
Speaker 2: if you've socially, if you started to socially transition, you
Speaker 2: are transitioning. And not everybody's transition is the same. Not
Speaker 2: everybody does medical transition. It's not right for everybody, and
Speaker 2: you can't legislate what is enough transition. But as long
Speaker 2: as you are making steps to you know, change the
Speaker 2: genders you are perceived like that is, that is social transition.
Speaker 2: And you can be a transperson and not transition at
Speaker 2: all and be in the closet like but you're still
Speaker 2: a transperson and we call that a colloqual term. We
Speaker 2: call that an egg. It's like you're still in the
Speaker 2: egg and haven't hatched yet. There's still trans people, but
Speaker 2: they're just not openly trans yet and they're still valid.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and it might take you a while to
Speaker 2: get familiar with the terminology that people use.
Speaker 8: But yeah that I definitely am in that phase, and
Speaker 8: since October I have been very seriously considering top surgery.
Speaker 8: But then you have to go through all this gender
Speaker 8: dysphoria psychological processes before most surgeons will even consider it.
Speaker 8: And I'm not sure if I'm at that place yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have time to think about it. You
Speaker 2: have time to think about what the right things are
Speaker 2: for you. I do recommend for everybody to have a
Speaker 2: good therapist or a good counselor who is licensed and
Speaker 2: one who is affirming, because that's something that you can
Speaker 2: just sit with them and process everything that you're going through,
Speaker 2: process your emotions, process your developed being, sense of self,
Speaker 2: and whatever direction you take, you at least have some
Speaker 2: more reassurance of what the right thing is for you.
Speaker 2: And therapy is something that you know is super low
Speaker 2: risk if you're with an actual, licensed, accredited therapist, and
Speaker 2: it's good for people who aren't trans It's good for
Speaker 2: pretty much everybody to have a good therapist. So that
Speaker 2: would be something that I would start doing, not necessarily
Speaker 2: with the goal of I'm doing this just so I
Speaker 2: can get access to medical procedures, but do it just
Speaker 2: so you have somebody to reflect with and someone who
Speaker 2: can like affirm you and make sure you're in in
Speaker 2: a direction that's safe mentally for you and that there
Speaker 2: isn't there are other risk factors, you know, contributing to
Speaker 2: all of this. So I think it'd be good to
Speaker 2: look for something like that and kind of process this
Speaker 2: further before making big decisions.
Speaker 8: So I had been out of therapy for several years
Speaker 8: because of the insurance and just gotten back in with
Speaker 8: someone I trust. So I will I will definitely take
Speaker 8: advantage of that and start talking to her about that.
Speaker 2: Awesome love to hear that, Scott. I know this conversation
Speaker 2: is a bit more of our end, but do you
Speaker 2: have any anything to mention?
Speaker 1: No, No, I mean this is a this is an
Speaker 1: area that I consider myself to be a learner, and
Speaker 1: so I was just like, I'm just going to shut
Speaker 1: up and listen. And I do want to say one
Speaker 1: thing to d is that I know you've called our
Speaker 1: shows for a while now, and I really want to
Speaker 1: and I know I've said this before too, but I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for doing that, because you know,
Speaker 1: you're laying yourself out there, you're making yourself vulnerable, you're
Speaker 1: tackling issues live in real time, and I think what
Speaker 1: you're doing is really I think there's going to be
Speaker 1: a lot of viewers that can identify with that, and
Speaker 1: so I think the fact your bravery is uh is
Speaker 1: standing up in place of other people that either can't
Speaker 1: or are are not at the at a point yet
Speaker 1: where can talk about these things openly themselves. And so
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you for for representing you
Speaker 1: know that that particular perspective, because I think it's very important.
Speaker 8: So thank you, thank you, Thank you a lot, Scott
Speaker 8: and doctor ben I. I one of my goals is
Speaker 8: that there's somebody out there listening, either today or we'll
Speaker 8: stumble on the video later on and have some hope
Speaker 8: after listening, get some courage, because talkies and the atheist
Speaker 8: experience are directly responsible for me finding the courage to
Speaker 8: start speaking up. So if I can give back, that's great.
Speaker 2: I love to hear that. And I know you're on
Speaker 2: the phone right now, but we gave you some lover
Speaker 2: rings just a minute ago from the crew and there
Speaker 2: here's more for you.
Speaker 1: D go back and the chat is blowing up to
Speaker 1: and love for D too. So it's just, uh, you're
Speaker 1: get in love from all kinds of directions right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I can tell you that it's not an
Speaker 2: easy time, yeah, and where you're at is not an
Speaker 2: easy time. It's a lot of self reflection, a lot
Speaker 2: of thinking about things that kind of have been stirring
Speaker 2: for a long time, it sounds like, but almost every
Speaker 2: trans person and non binary person has been where you are,
Speaker 2: So just know that you are not alone in that
Speaker 2: There are other people in the chat here and in
Speaker 2: the discord that also identify with your story. And I
Speaker 2: love to continue this if you have anything else to
Speaker 2: discuss in the discord afterwards as well, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: people will jump in for support there too. But that
Speaker 2: being said, we are a little bit over and I
Speaker 2: do want us to go over to the discord. But
Speaker 2: do you have anything else to bring up right now? No?
Speaker 8: I don't. Just whoever's listening, you don't have to take
Speaker 8: sixty years to find your identity.
Speaker 5: It's okay.
Speaker 8: You can start whenever you really, you know, whenever you want.
Speaker 8: And thanks guys, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2: You're here, absolutely, thank you for ay calledy talk to
Speaker 2: you next time.
Speaker 1: All right, before we wrap up, we do got a
Speaker 1: couple more super chats in the queue here. Would you
Speaker 1: like for me to read them? Doctor Benner?
Speaker 3: Do you want to?
Speaker 2: Okay, go for it?
Speaker 6: Good?
Speaker 1: Actually we have two that are listed here now I
Speaker 1: think I've seen a couple more kind of creeping in here,
Speaker 1: so if the crew can PLoP those into the document
Speaker 1: here while we're looking at this. So the first one
Speaker 1: here is from Freak Off the Leash, which, to be honest,
Speaker 1: is really the best way to be a freak. If
Speaker 1: you're going to be a freak, then be off the leash.
Speaker 1: Freak Off the Lease donates five dollars, and it says
Speaker 1: if I had a million dollars, I would get give
Speaker 1: half of it to the ACA, but I don't I
Speaker 1: would add yet to the end of that Freak Off
Speaker 1: the Lease. So never give up hope, right, So we'll
Speaker 1: be looking for that five hundred thousand dollars check from
Speaker 1: Freak Off the Lease, so we really appreciate it. Next
Speaker 1: one up is Miranda Rensberger. Remember one year and frequent
Speaker 1: commenter ten dollars. Astonishing Astonishingly, today's callers have still fail
Speaker 1: to give me any reason to believe hopes dashed Again,
Speaker 1: Me too, Miranda, Maybe next time, maybe next time. Don't
Speaker 1: give up hope on that either. Neiro came in again
Speaker 1: with a two dollars donation. Trans Rule number one, never
Speaker 1: crack another egg, big no.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, And for people who don't know what that's
Speaker 2: referring to. It's if somebody is not openly trans or
Speaker 2: like any if this works for any number of labels
Speaker 2: in LGBTQ community. But if somebody is in the closet
Speaker 2: or not ready to come out, or somebody just doesn't
Speaker 2: know that they're trends and they're still working through that process,
Speaker 2: the only person that can make that progress is them.
Speaker 2: They're the only ones that can take that step to
Speaker 2: take on that label and to come out and be
Speaker 2: open with themselves. So even if you have a suspicion,
Speaker 2: you do not tell somebody that they're trands. You don't
Speaker 2: make that decision for them, and you don't come out
Speaker 2: on behalf of anybody else. You leave that in their
Speaker 2: court one hundred percent. So just a little all right.
Speaker 1: I learned something else today too. I learned what that
Speaker 1: phrase refers to now, so I appreciate that. And then
Speaker 1: our last one, our last super chat here was from
Speaker 1: Rob Tbo. Rob Tbo yep nine dollars and ninety nine
Speaker 1: cents a message.
Speaker 3: To d D.
Speaker 1: You will always be who you are. Labels are for
Speaker 1: the benefit of others. You don't need a change to
Speaker 1: become who you already are. And I think that's spot
Speaker 1: on right there.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I love that we're ending on a positive note today.
Speaker 1: I agree to Gona. I'm gonna feel good all day
Speaker 1: from this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I hope we see this amount of love
Speaker 2: in the discord as well, because we will be going
Speaker 2: to the discord after this. But just a reminder in
Speaker 2: case you missed it, the prompt for the question of
Speaker 2: the week is why is Easter on four twenty this year?
Speaker 2: So reply in the comments section and tune in next
Speaker 2: week to hear the top three answers. We also want
Speaker 2: to thank Richard Gilliver for helping out today. I know
Speaker 2: he's he does so much work for the show behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, more than a lot of you may know.
Speaker 3: It should make him a producer.
Speaker 2: They should, They should give him a fancy title to go.
Speaker 1: Love yeah, right in a big corner office and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: A favorite yeah, our favorite secret welsh Man in the background.
Speaker 2: What are you? What are your comments from today's calls?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I want to I want to address Cliff on a
Speaker 4: couple of things. At first, I want to just want
Speaker 4: to say we love you. Don't go anywhere, stay around
Speaker 4: we Love You. There is a really really really useful
Speaker 4: book which explains love from the neurological perspective, and it
Speaker 4: is called Emotional Ignorance and it's by Dr Dean Barnett.
Speaker 4: And by the way, if you are a fan of
Speaker 4: the atheist community of Austin, a lot of this author
Speaker 4: Dr de Barnetto was a neuroscientist. Actually quotes our very own,
Speaker 4: the ACA's very own. Dr Richard Firth god be Here
Speaker 4: was consulted in the writing of this book. So if
Speaker 4: you are an ACA fan, it would be a really
Speaker 4: useful book to read. And it does touch on emotional
Speaker 4: love from the perspective of kind of how it comes
Speaker 4: about through oxytocin and other chemicals and neural networks, and
Speaker 4: it goes into all the different kinds of what we
Speaker 4: would call love. In doing that, I noticed how when
Speaker 4: Cliff said to Dr Ben, explain love, and Dr Ben
Speaker 4: said okay, and explained love. Cliff then said, I didn't
Speaker 4: mean that kind of love. And then the kind of love.
Speaker 2: Gar pay love. There is no gar payl love.
Speaker 6: God.
Speaker 2: This is really really really really.
Speaker 4: Really easy to disprove if there is a try omni
Speaker 4: good which if you believe in the Christian God and
Speaker 4: making the assumption that you do believe in give me
Speaker 4: a call and tell me if I'm wrong. Then the
Speaker 4: fact that he hasn't created the universe where there is
Speaker 4: no suffering is proof that a garpail of is not real.
Speaker 4: Go un soak an egg, not a trans egg, but
Speaker 4: just an actual.
Speaker 2: Love all I'm going bye bye, all right, thank you
Speaker 2: ch And yes we will be going to the discord afterward.
Speaker 2: I believe all three of us will be going, so
Speaker 2: feel free to bring your frustrations, bring your support, bring
Speaker 2: all of that to the discord tiny dot c c
Speaker 2: slash a cd discord if you need a link to
Speaker 2: join that. And if you don't believe, of course we
Speaker 2: are your community. And that goes not just for people
Speaker 2: who are openly atheists, who are confident in their position
Speaker 2: as an atheist. That's also for people who are just unsure,
Speaker 2: people that are on the fence, not sure what to
Speaker 2: do about their religious beliefs, people who are questioning, people
Speaker 2: who just might might have heard something today and think,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe I'm wrong about something. Need to look
Speaker 2: into this more. This also goes for people who are
Speaker 2: in their egg stage, people who are thinking about transitioning,
Speaker 2: people who have already transitioned, people who are learning more
Speaker 2: about themselves every day and willing to willing to say
Speaker 2: I was wrong about my position before, I was wrong
Speaker 2: about how I view the world, and now I'm going
Speaker 2: to be the best person that I can be today
Speaker 2: and move forward and support others, any of those types
Speaker 2: of people. You are part of our community, and we
Speaker 2: hope to be a safe space for you to explore
Speaker 2: that and to have people to network with, people to
Speaker 2: get support from, to talk with, to debate with. Even
Speaker 2: We appreciate you all being here and we hope that
Speaker 2: we can continue providing the space for you. And if
Speaker 2: you do believe, we don't hate you, just not convinced
Speaker 2: by everyone.
Speaker 4: We want the truth, So watch Truth Wanted Live Friday
Speaker 4: at seven pm Central. Visit tiny dot cc, slash y
Speaker 4: t tw and call into the show at five one
Speaker 4: two nine nine two four two, or connect to the
Speaker 4: show online at tiny dot cc, slash call tw