 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOCO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, July 10th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host, Jared Higgs on the show yesterday. And hello. Our guests today are the Wombat. And that's it for today. I mean, last week we were really crowded. This week we have three, but that's where it goes. It's all law of averages. That's right. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, freethought, race, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, gods, holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town while you're just not here in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over a thousand of us. And we'll tell you more about that after the mid-show break. Right. Jared, what's our topic today? Well, I thought we might dive into whether or not ignorance is bliss. Is that a myth? Does it have some practical advantages? And, you know, when it's tied together with its corollary, which is ignorance is bliss, we're wiser or we're foolish to be wise. Maybe the two of those work together in some synergistic way. So, but before we get into that, I wouldn't mind starting off with a little benediction for y'all. Okay. All right. Hail marinara full of spice, the flying spaghetti monsters filled with the tasty art thou among sauces, and blessed is the fruit of thy jar, tomatoes, although fools believe they are vegetables. Holy marinara, chief amongst toppings, save a plate for us now. And at about six o'clock when dinner is served, if you would be so kind. Run! Gotta make sure I get that right. So how is everyone today? Not too good. How have you been for this last week? Who's talking to me? Everyone? Yes. We're all doing good. We're doing really good. I got a lot of stuff at work done. We had a long holiday. We came back, you know, midweek to start up work again. And I feel like we did two weeks worth of work in three days. And I always feel really good when things are very productive and moving well. I managed like seven laboratories at our job. We have like 46 different instruments. Some of them break. Some of them don't, I mean, I have like that standard. Some of them are out of control. We got everything back up and running again. And if not, we got the parts ready to get them fixed for next week. So I'm really, I'm actually excited to get back to work and continue to down the work that we did from the last, you know, half week that we're on. I always feel really motivated and stuff like that. That's how I feel right now. Really. How's your disc golf? Any more of that going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. To the point where I'm getting really bad calluses on my feet. So I have to actually like rest up. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so you get to get the grinder on there. I go out in Crocs now when I play. I go out and play in Crocs, get that comfort feel. Perfect. How about you, Larry? Well, I've been riding my motorcycle is still under wraps out there because of all the rain we've been having this week. It's like, I want to returning into a new tropical area. Yeah. The months and stuff with the global change. But I have been playing a lot of my quest to play some computer games and of course, working. Larry, let me throw something out at you. Why not get a motorcycle simulator for your quest and then you can do it. I have not overlooked that possibility. I just haven't found one yet. All right. All right. So, um, well, I have, I haven't been doing too much. I've been out to the shop a couple of times and I got, I got a whole bunch of slabs of birch wood from a, from a big tree. So some of it's like, you know, two feet across. So, so I've been processing all that so I can get some wood turning projects on the go. But other than that, just still waiting to get back to work. And, you know, on that, not knowing when any work is coming, you know, I wonder if that is bliss. I like the ignorance of when our work next is actually blissful. I actually think it's quite, quite stressful. Dred, I got a quick question. When you asked for the birch wood, were you doing it in your pirate accent and were you actually able to verify that it was the birch wood? Because maybe you were trying to ask for the best wood and then the pirate accent, they got it mixed up and they're just like, Oh, he's asking for the best wood. Well, I got the best of the birch wood, I think. Nice. Nice. Best. Yeah, yeah. So what do you think, what do you think, Ty? Like, is ignorance bliss? Are there certain chances where you think that that is an appropriate stance? Ignorance has benefits. But I also think like ignorance is ubiquitous. And there's no real escape from it because the more you learn, as I think we all are aware, the more we realize that there's what far greater boundaries of ignorance around every kernel of knowledge that we have and the more resolute that knowledge is, the deeper the ignorance around it becomes. And so as we learn in science and as we learn in interactions with people, in every sort of phenomenon we study, we realize that the expanse of ignorance is huge. And there's some benefit that comes with it because it'd be maddening to try to take it all at once. However, I feel like the real danger that comes with ignorance is that willful ignorance is harmful and dangerous. And I find that when we are aware that there's a point of ignorance, but choose to ignore it and pretend that's knowledge. That's when we have a problem. And so what I prefer is if we recognize that ignorance isn't necessarily a bad thing. We also have some inherent benefits in that it points out to places where we need to take our knowledge to, but that we also don't try to confuse it or conflate it with knowledge itself, because we need to recognize when we don't know something for when we don't know something. Right. Yeah, you don't know what you don't know. But isn't it often the case where people are not so much willfully ignorant. That their world view shields them essentially from acquiring new knowledge and then becoming aware of that greater ignorance. Yeah, and I do find that that is the case. But also here's my other throw out. That world view or that fostering that in that enables that world view plays on the human condition and the human condition is one that is afraid of change. Right. And also one that's afraid of recognizing when there's culpability on their part that they've made a mistake or an error like ego is this is in confidence work hand in hand to give an assurance that what they're doing is the correct and that they shouldn't change course and you can be raised in an environment that fosters that attitude, but it's really playing on the human condition and I feel like if you were to appreciate ignorance for what it actually is. I don't know for the value of that statement and realize that confidence isn't necessarily on your side in most cases and in fact it's ignorance and doubt that is on your side. Even if you were to move in an environment that was fostering that sort of attitude, you would reject it because you have an appreciation for what I think is a better model to determine true things from false things that would be my. I do think there's a world view that supports it but I think it plays on the human condition and we can evolve in one lifetime or at least through like interaction with people to have a higher standard of thought. Right. What do you think Larry. First of all that we need to define the word ignorance. Ignorance is not stupidity it's lack of information. Right, so I'm thinking that a person who was ignorant of the American political system might be happy right about now. But if they're, if they're any kind of knowledgeable about what's going on as far as the Supreme Court and the political parties and the conservatives versus the liberals, then they may not be very happy right now. Interesting. Welcome, John Richards from across the puddle. How are you. Yeah, I'm a little bit flustered I suppose. Oh, what's up. No, nothing serious though it's just like I mean your hair looks great. Yeah. That's just checking in everything's good. You're firing on all of them. Yeah, you don't you don't really want to hear about this. I've got a large family and I'm the driver and I've been ferrying people backwards and forwards and there's one in hospital still. She's recovering, but you know it's I'm a bit flustered. That's why that's why I'm late. So there you go I'm here now though what we're talking about. Well we're talking about whether or not ignorance is bliss. And of course the larger saying is ignorance is bliss tour it foolish to be wise. And so tie had some interesting thoughts on on how we should recognize ignorance as our friend, essentially because it guides us towards expanding our universe of knowledge. Yeah, so what might your thoughts be on that. Do you think it's a myth or it actually has value. It's an interesting saying isn't it and I've definitely got thoughts on it. I disagree with it on principle because let's say you're you're in a jungle and there's a snake. I think it'd be better to have knowledge about that snake, whether it's going to bite you with a poisonous, you know, toxin that could lead to your death, or alternatively, whether you might be able to skin it and barbie enjoy it for your meal. So I think it's a bad saying I don't think ignorance is ever bliss. Knowledge is bliss and ignorance is a threat, a danger, a risk. But I picked up on what Larry was saying, because there's no shame in ignorance. I mean, I don't know very much about, what should I say, Russian, Russian ornithology, the birds of Russia. It's not, it's not shameful because you now have no experience of the birds of Russia, and I had no, no motive to find out about the birds of Russia they don't impinge upon my consciousness at all. So it's not the same as stupidity. Stupidity is willful ignorance. It's where you've been, you've had an opportunity to learn something which could benefit you and you've turned it down. And so I think that there's no shame in ignorance unless you've chosen it. Ty, how'd you end up? Yeah, I feel like ignorance is a lot like a nail, right? And it's really what you do with it that determines how dangerous it could be because you can lay them all on your carpet floor in front of your bed and walk over them every day. And that's a terrible use of ignorance. But you could also use it in a really good way to like build a home or like direct yourself to make something very useful that you can build like a good foundation of knowledge on top of. And it's all about the use of it. And it's one of those things where it's not so much a shameful thing to own a nail or a shameful thing to have a nail or to look at a nail. But it's a useful thing to recognize a nail for what a nail is and what its potential could be used for. And I feel like what we fail to do a lot of times is recognize that it's okay to be ignorant of things. In fact, you should admit when you are because that gives you the opportunity to build knowledge on top of that or use it in the right way. There's an interesting thing you might all have heard of the Dunning Kruger effect. And, you know, certainly ignorance plays a huge role in that, and that a person is unaware of the degree to which they're ignorant of a subject and yet profess a great deal of knowledge. And so, in that case, is that willful ignorance or is that just, you know, is that stupidity is that willful ignorance. What, what, what do you think, good up Ty, what do you think, I think it's a combination of all three of those things I would think it's there's a there's a play of some willful ignorance in there, because again the human condition doesn't want to admit when they're there's some confidence in there as well. And we know also that there's the idea of things can be a lot more complicated under the title or the cover. But you can you can say I read a Wikipedia article on rocket science and now I feel like I know it I feel like I know it's like you haven't given yourself the appreciation to know all the nuances of it and that's where you I have a saying in our lab, you can fix something until you purposely broke it and put it back together again. And it's a lot of people haven't gone through that to fix it Larry, I'm sorry, go for it. Yeah, go ahead Larry. No, it's just going to talk about the word stupidity or stupid. To me, it's not willful ignorance will for it willful ignorance can be just a religious concept no matter what your IQ is you can be very smart person, but then hopefully ignorant of the way like evolution works, right because you just don't want to know you don't want to get there you don't want to go there because it may shake your fate. To me the words stupidity means low IQ. The technical or psychological word moron, or idiot has certain technical definitions behind it decided depending on where your IQ lies. And to me if a person has a very low IQ, they are by definition stupid. So it lays on that. And that actually that number is 60. If if 100 is the average IQ 60 below 60, you need help on a daily basis to, you know, do carry on normal life. That doctor and forest gump when he held up the chart and said, your son's right here. He wasn't talking about. Stupid is a stupid. That's right. Any thoughts on that john. I think is this is tied up with the wish for certainty, isn't it because doubt is scary. Let's face it, if you if you don't know the answer to mysteries, then you're in a risky position compared to if you have that knowledge. And so we all have a sort of inbuilt an innate wish for certainty. And sometimes we so desire certainty that we, we apportion it to situations where certainty is actually not available, but it gives us comfort if we claim that we're certain about something. Because we've put behind us the possibility that it's a risky situation. So, I think, if you, if you get to a stage where your desire for certainty is so great, you become dogmatic about about knowledge, which you don't really have, then what we see too much of that. There's a lot of that about. Yeah. Hey, you had your end up. I think john hits it right on the head that whole pursuit of knowledge is to crush uncertainty, and uncertainty comes with a lot of fears on scare risk whole bunch of stuff that comes with it. And the problem is, is knowledge is very difficult, difficult to ascertain. We take shortcuts, it's our human condition to want to try to find analogies and quicker ways to resolve pain, right, or harm or risk, and we will replace knowledge with confidence, or replace knowledge with comfort, or replace knowledge with certainty on very weak foundations are very poor epistemologies, because it makes us feel as if we've quashed or squashed uncertainty. But the fact that the matter is it's not a good replacement knowledge is really best suited for knowledge there's really no other higher standard than that. It's just, it's just a very obscure thing. Yeah, go for it. Go ahead, Larry. I was just going to say, there was, I'm just looking up the quote, certainty is overrated. We said that. I was thinking it was Christopher Hitchens or no okay docking something like that. Yeah, but Sarah B Johnson, Sarah B Anderson, apparently has said it several times so the thing that it is, you can be certain totally certain about things a matter of fact you're a lot of people are very convinced very totally certain that their God is real. And I'm talking about different people and different religions. Think, think of the, the most religious person you can in Christianity the most pious person you can. Now think of that person in Judaism, that person in Hinduism that person in 10,000 other religions, all of them are totally certain that what they believe is true, and they all contradict each other. They can't be, but certainly is there. The thing on top of that just adding is like not only are they certain but they're all using the same method to reach their certainty they're all saying personal experience, my faith that my holy book it's like well you can't all be correct. If you're all using the same method and was that say about your method. I was thinking about this as well is that, and this is where BS comes in, because, you know, if, if ignorance is bliss BS can prevail, right, because, you know, you don't, you know, you don't discern between the potential or a thing to be true or not true, because you're blissfully unaware of, or don't have an appropriate methodology for determining it, or, or applying that methodology to determining what somebody says is true or not. I mean, that could be certainly said for, I mean, the average pastor or priest in a church may be devout in what he says with respect to his beliefs. But then you may have evangelicals like Peter Popoff or televangelists who are really slinging BS. And the unfortunate thing is, is that their audiences are almost virtually the same in terms of this willful or this ignorance of his bliss thing so tie you had Jared up. Go ahead, John, or I feel I go ahead and then and then john next. Okay, sorry. I do feel like there is ignorance, which is just, you know, the base level nail you can use it for anything you want. You have willful ignorance which is hey I don't care if this nails bad for me it makes me comfortable to use it. But that puts you into position where as dread power was pointing out, where you become a potential become a victim to predatory ignorance, which is wielded by people who are aware of the BS, but know that there's a profit or a benefit in exchanging it with people who are willfully ignorant to power or money or attention or something like that. And I say that is malicious that's predatory but you have an opportunity if you're listening to this or if you're out in the world to not be a subject to that kind of treatment by just simply higher raising your standard for for knowledge or and more, and being able to do the work necessary to realize that uncertainty even with knowledge is an okay thing. And it's while scary and uncomfortable is informative and is still useful. Yeah, go ahead, John. Well I can't. The child who's unable to sleep at night because of the thunder, you know, and so there's a question what is that thunder mommy. It's scary, you know, and so this is where we need to know that this the difference between an answer and a response. Right. The difference between an answer and explanation, but yeah I hear what you're saying is the same thing in England so it's all good. So I see there's someone on the phone is. Hello, that's me. Hi, how are you. Not too bad, not too bad for the listening audience. Can you give us your name. Within reason. That's my right right yeah or a couple weeks ago I think welcome or was it last week. Thanks. Yes, I think so. So I don't know if you caught what the topic is but we're talking about whether or not ignorance is bliss and and if you gotta cut if you have some thoughts on that. Well, I, I did. I just it just reminds me of something that I've probably heard Larry mentioned. I've probably seen it on his website, the digital free thought website. I've probably seen it on our Facebook groups as well. You know, it's the biggest. I think it was. I can't think of the British guys name that like one of the four. Richard Dawkins or Richard Dawkins. Thank you Larry. He was saying that, you know, it's like the biggest show business. Somebody help me out here what was the greatest show on Earth right. Right. Truly. That's interesting and you know when I was talking about televangelists and, and, and, you know, priests who truly believe it's interesting that the audience of one may chide and bulk at the ignorance of the other group. Not realizing that they're just as vulnerable, you know, and the other regards the other with a certain amount of disdain. How could you fall for that kind of thing, you know, is when it sings to the other when they have their own they're both unexplored ignorance. Yes. There's a really terrible human condition aspect that's biologically rooted in that the more someone is exposed to something they more to become desensitized to it. And that applies to both, you know, harms that could occur in nature, or even the smell of someone's own farts. And I feel like what we're dealing with right now is like the smell like BS and ignorance in that capacity is very much in the similar sense of like someone smelling their own fart to the point where they can't recognize their own malfunctions in life that it's not a big deal anymore. Yeah, they don't realize if you smell that you dealt it. What are you trying to say there, Dr. I wanted to finish my distinction between answer and response, because if you, I mean, both can be useful, because any man didn't know actually what did cause thunder we do now, but, but to give the frightened child who can't sleep a response, you know, like it's Thor hammering in the sky. Solve the problem the child could then think mommy knows what is this noise, and I'll be able to sleep now now that she's explained it to me. The answer is something quite different from my response. And, and just to disambiguation from that. I like the idea that your kid can get an answer, which is similar to like a response was sort of like a dismissive way of like brushing over a more complex situation. But what we really like in science is explanations to explain things. And those are descriptions of a system, or a methodology that cause some sort of phenomenon that we can observe, and we can test the explanation to find the best explanation because maybe even the first one wasn't the best one we can work with. It's the weird thing about explanations is that they're never fully comprehensive, because they tend to introduce new concepts and new systems with them, that we can better understand which re, which causes to re examine the explanation that we have, and constantly find new ideas so yeah we may know how thunder works, but now we know how to cost thunder inside copper wires in a sense or lightning my bad. And we can use, I can go to a gift shop and buy like a little container thing that has a little lightning bolt sort of thing if I touch it, because we understand that phenomenon well enough that we can itemize it and commodify it. And maybe there's other aspects that we can cause lightning in the future and stuff like that I just feel like that's a demonstration of us mastering an explanation, and not just working with a response or an answer. Right, of course. And, you know, we tend to chase rabbits. You know when when something catches our attention, we tend to run with it and if we're in the pursuit of knowledge that of course has great benefit and if we're in pursuit of, you know, less, you know, less things like religion or whatever. We cling to those things, you know, we're very fond of our beliefs. We just get explanation rather than understandings, because you can't understand how God made the universe or God made miracles happen. It just, you feel like you understand it, but you really don't understand it. Anyway, we're at the bottom of the hour and we need to go for a break real quick. Yeah, we'll wait, John, you'll be first up when we come back. Okay, stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on WOZO radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on WOZO radio 103.9 LP FM in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's talk just for a second about the atheist society of Knoxville. This case was founded in 2002. That's over 20 years ago. We have over 1000 members. And we're weak. We have weekly in person meetings at Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables, or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have Tuesday evening zoom meetings. If you'd like to join us there, email us at askanatheistatnoxvilleatheist.org, or let's chat s e at gmail.com. You can find us online also just by searching for Knoxville atheists. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and search for a certain group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. Dred, where do you want to pick up? Well, you know, I was just curious, does the pizzeria you guys meet at have a basement? Probably. We don't know but they have enough stairs. That was crude. I'm my apologies. Well, we were talking about whether or not ignorance is bliss. And I suppose not knowing whether or not the pizzeria has a basement is, you know, ties into that. But John, you had some comments that you wanted to make with respect to that. Yeah, I just wanted to expand, because we were talking about answers and responses and then tied rod in explanations. So I wanted to try and define these a bit more tightly. I think that a response is just something that follows. Whatever the question was, it doesn't actually have any connection to it necessarily. You know, it could be, what's the expression, a non sequitur. Great. Whereas an answer does have some bearing to the question. I mean, it's like, for is the answer to two plus two. Right. But an explanation goes a bit further because that provides some sort of mechanism. Yes, that describes how, yes, the answer is arrived at. Right. So how to plus two becomes four. Why improve it. Well, one thing we need to keep in mind is a response is just a response. I mean, five is a response to what is to what to plus two. It's a wrong response, but it's still response. Yes, exactly. Within reason you you have some thoughts that you wanted to share. Hello. Hello again. Hey, I am. Hi, I, I just I've, you know, I experienced the personal proclaimments of, of, of, you know, people of religion and, you know, all we all do on a daily basis. And it just, I say what, you know, I, I cannot. I just have to go along. I just, you know, in my day to day life. It's, but, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, how much do you believe of that, you know, I mean, it's just, it's got to be this deep and doctor nation of someone that just it's not, it's way out of the comfort zone. If they're going to question their, their mind and their thinking and their belief. So I don't know where I was going with that. Well, you had mentioned, you know, about snake oil and people selling snake well willfully absolutely. You know that. Dawkins, right? Larry. I guess so. Was a Barnum said it pretty much. The circus. Every second. Every minute. Yeah. It's, it's a willingness to believe stuff that you're told without proper examination. That's faith in a nutshell. They're children and their babies. And so. Yeah. It's almost like a cult. Yeah. It is a cult. You know, you think about a movie, right? And there's a thing of, you know, the suspension of disbelief. So we go walk into a movie, you know, Superman or something like that. And we know that humans can't fly and we know that Harry Potter, or Harry Potter. Yeah, exactly. And there's a degree to which we willingly suspend our disbelief. In order to find entertainment and things that can't possibly be true in the real world. But, you know, it would certainly seem the case that the, the suspension of disbelief is also. It can be indoctrinated, you know, in the case of people who, you know, believe in very strange claims without any justified evidence for them. How do we, how do we help people recognize that they've gone to a theater and that's where they are? Let's go to Larry first. He had his hand up and then we'll go to John. It's just like some of it is just so obvious to people who have once been in religion and now aren't they understand it. But like yesterday, I was talking to somebody on the on Facebook and he literally asked me, well, how can you explain that magic doesn't exist and miracles don't exist. If it says right in the Bible that Jesus was a son of God. I mean, they don't realize it's just a story. I mean, can you say the same thing about Superman and Spiderman and Mother Goose and all this other stuff. Just a story and a book. Right. John. Yeah. Well, what we need here is more fact checking and skepticism. Yes. Bring on fact checking. Yes. Yeah. You know, and that's a, that's a feeling in, in today's journalism is that they've scaled back on, on fact checking staff. You know, it may be just a change in technology from, you know, newsrooms to, you know, people sitting at their computers and, you know, composing their news that way. You know what I mean? I mean, there's lots of great sites. You can go to like Snopes and such things too. But, you know, how do you get people to want to do that? You know, to overcome their willful ignorance, as it were, to actually try to discern whether the things they believe are grounded in reality and justified. But here's the, here, I'm going back to the human condition. Journalism has largely been an arm of marketing and businesses that are trying to attract viewers. And so the major concern for businesses to make profit and the major concern for market is to attract people to eventually buy or sell ads, not to give journalism. And so it's a disinterested party in the nature of truth. It is a very much an interested party in the controversy or attracting viewers or keeping people engaged through clicks or views or, or impersonalities. And so we've, we ourselves are subject to being these kinds of people who like to see the, the spark and the flare and not care about the, the really murky situation that comes with good honest journalism and BBC, for example, good example of that, but we don't have a tap off BBC usually in America. We only have like NPR here in the States, which isn't as an exciting thing and doesn't report on the hourly basis. It does a day after and only on the day after for news that's already been around for 24 hours. And it's always told in a very passive tone and you don't see any of the people with all the blur and the bokeh and the face paint and the makeup. It's just very dry news, but people don't like that. They like the more exciting stuff. I think that's a human, I think that's a human thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, while I was saying all that, I was thinking he was describing the job of journalism, which is to attract an audience and to sell stuff and gather money. That shouldn't be the job of journalism. That's the job of a marketing. They use journalism as a little layer on top of that. It's a cherry on top of a really terrible cake. Yeah. Okay. As the owner of a news channel. You're not marketing anything. I agree with you. No, I'm not getting any money for it either. I agree with you because news should merely be a reporting of the facts without any opinions attached to it. Without any intention behind it, other than to disseminate the facts. And, but while you were saying that tie about how journalism has come to be this tool to influence people, I was thinking the Bible, the Bible, the Bible. That's what it is. It's a tool to influence people to gather an audience, to take money off them. They're not called sheep for nothing. It's because they get fleeced. And so what I want to say is that it's a shame that humans love narrative. We love it above actual evidence. You know, the juicier a story is, the more avidly we'll read it. But if it's, if it's boringly reported as a bullet point list of facts, it's not interesting. Right. I love it. I was going to open it up to within reasons to see if you had anything to say about that. We see your aunt. Oh, hey. So I think peer pressure to stay within that known comfort zone is paramount and huge for people. You know, I, I mean, being an atheist is a lonely experience. We're out there. We don't really have that sense of community or belonging. I mean, we're working on it by doing things like this. This has been fantastic. But, you know, I'm, I feel isolated. Like, you know, it's a, you know, I'm going, trying to go to meetups and get out and socialize. But, you know, then there comes a point where there's that distinction between us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I certainly get you as a pastor farion. You know, of course I, you know, I come out in a much different way than typical atheists, especially if I'm walking around town with my tricorn. You know, people kind of say, you believe what? I mean, you believe in a flying spaghetti monster? I mean, come on. Are you serious? He helps make putts. He helps make putts. You know, and at times I've turned to them and I said, what, you believe a God sacrificed himself to himself? You know, because he paid people flawed. You don't think of a better reason. Exactly. You know, it's an interesting thing. And I was talking about, you know, the movies and about stories and the suspension of disbelief. I as a younger man, I went to film school. And so I learned a great deal about how to make movies. And it actually ruined me for my ability to spend disbelief in a film. And so I can't watch superhero movies anymore. I can't watch them anymore be just because I cannot let go of the fact that the physics doesn't work, you know, or that kind of universe. It just doesn't bring the same level of entertainment because it doesn't reflect a reality. I've become more aware of, I guess. How do you guys feel about that? We've got to do that suspension, willing suspension of disbelief as someone was saying. Yes. I want to throw out a couple of things. One, I like the idea that we've clearly defined answers, responses and explanations. And I also want to throw out another one claims because I feel like claims are essentially a bunch of responses more or less that don't necessarily could have weight but are related to the topic at hand, but have no evidence to support it or haven't been demonstrated to. And the Bible is just nothing but a book of claims so that when people say, well, this first said this, it's like you're just pointing at a claim. There's no evidence there. And as John Ritch has really very well point out, we love narrative, but we don't love evidence and we need to get those two swapped around to where we care about the evidence more. Well, just before I turn it over to John here, the greatest story about ignorance being bliss is the Garden of Eden, right? Yeah. You know, that was life with God was in total ignorance and it wasn't until they ate the tree of knowledge. The state gave advice to a nudist. Yeah. The Bible is written from the perspective or from the spin of a complete tyrant. So it sounds like that's awesome. But if you told me that I was raised in a garden, I was like, your job's to name the animals. And I'm like, I see a line of ants and I'm like, okay, Tim, Alan, Peter, Darius, and I'm doing that for the rest of my eternity. It's like, this is, this is terrible. Please let me eat some fruit off a tree naked lady. Show me where it is. I will happily eat it. Yeah. John, John, you had your hand. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to tell you guys that I've got to go shortly because I'm on, as I said, I'm on taxi duty and they've just rung me or texted me to say it's time for me to collect them. But before I go, I want to make the point that you said when you meet people who. Mock you for believing in a flying spaghetti monster. And then you ask them about the silly things they believe in their Bible. What they're claiming is my fantasy is better than your Exactly. Right. Who's got the more convincing delusion, right? It's the one you believe in. See you. See you, John. Thanks. We'll see you next week. We'll see you later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's also a website called God of the day. Isn't that what it's called? You can look up all the different religions all over the world. And every day they have a lot of the day. God of the day. I like that. I like that. I will check that out. Larry, give you a chance to get into the afterlife. Right. Well, the thing about, no, the thing about the Garden of Eden is we shouldn't lose fat side of the fact that it was punishing us for gaining knowledge. Yes. I mean, we were supposed to stay in total ignorance, but when we decided, well, let's just say we came on that. He punished us. I mean, the whole thing behind it. And not just punished, but didn't explain the rules or gave us the capabilities to understand the rules. Right. Then punish us after we understood what the rules were. It's like, they couldn't have. What is this? They didn't know that disobedience was wrong until after they ate the apple, which gave them the knowledge of the difference between. Yeah, they couldn't know they were doing anything wrong before they had the knowledge. Right. It's a story for my tyrannical crazy person that people refuse to recognize for what it is. And that willful ignorance really drives me crazy. I also want to throw out one other thing too. The Bible didn't have to be exciting. Like we said, we like narrative more than evidence. It could have just been God made everything the way it needs to be the end. The Bible could have been like one sentence. And it's not. In fact, we have to have floods. We have to have lions being lion pits. There has to be people dying on crosses. There has to be wars because that's what these people engage. But I think a true honesty is a true telling of like history or like a true evidential aspect of how things could have happened. What have been just very like, no, it's these. Mechanics that are worse were set in motion. You wait 14 billion years and you end up with a plan that looks like this. That's basically it. You're all the equations. You're all the formulas. It's just dry and simple as that. Yeah. Go ahead, Larry. One thing that the one of my biggest problems with the garden of Eden thing is that God is supposed to know everything. And he's supposed to be everywhere. Right now. First of all, he wasn't why wasn't he there when God, when humanity needed him the most? Right. I mean, this is the point where he has to punish all of humanity for the rest of time. And he was nowhere to be found. Also, he should have known the outcome before he even made them. If he knew everything future and past, he knew it was going to happen. So to me, it just sounds like a big trap that he was setting a trap, knowing what happened. And we fell into the trap and then he could do what he wanted to do. He's the dictator of all the God's to worship. It's one of the most. It's a crazy God. Like if you truly like we're Christian, you're like, well, God's so good. It's like you've not read the Bible and paid attention. Like that's the problem. You're fostering environment where you weren't about to be critical under God. And when I was in college, I loved God. I was all about him and it wasn't ethics class. And I realized that morality isn't what's in the Bible. It's a completely different thing that requires explanation. People that I was like, the Bible is not moral. Holy, oh my gosh, these guys aren't moral. The God isn't moral. Whoa. I need to take a step back and rethink this. And that was when I read the Bible again from beginning to end. And I realized this isn't for me. I can't call myself a Christian. You started to see the man behind the curtain. I did. But within reason made a really good point. She said she felt very lonely as an atheist. I say to this, I never felt more lonely as a Christian when I realized that the book that I was reading wasn't speaking to me spiritually. When I felt that disconnect, like when I lost that ignorance of bliss, I realized I feel very lonely as a Christian because now I can't talk to other Christians because I feel like I'm missing something. I can't talk to this God that I've had a relationship with because I don't feel like we're connecting anymore. And I have no idea what even atheism is, but I just know they're the devil. I felt more lonely in my life. But now that I'm fully as an atheist, it's like I, when I see someone admit they're an atheist, I don't have scorn for them. I'm like, that guy had almost my same experience where I recognize that person or I respect that person. And I feel like we start on a better foundation for connection than we would if I was a Christian meeting another Christian. And we were both like, Hey, we're friends, but don't don't don't hang out with that guy because that guy's a complete jerk. You know, like I feel like they're atheists get a headstart in my book in terms of like knowing them very well. Yeah. Well, in again, we have to be careful on the definition of an atheist. An atheist doesn't have sufficient evidence to support a belief or a justified belief in God. It doesn't mean that one can't be spiritual, can't have a sense that there's aspects to the universe. We may never be able to. To approach an answer. And certainly that's the case for me as a past a farion. You know, I don't literally believe that there's a flying spaghetti monster, but it does act as an avatar for those aspects of the universe that I do find completely impenetrably mysterious. If it makes you feel better, why do a quick noodle at the basket whenever I play disc golf? Right. Like offering to the noodle Lord. And it does help my putts. And I can tell you that's all I needed. That's all I need needed for. So like, I'm totally fine with that. All you need is sauce. I throw the spaghetti out and that's it. Oh, I train people how to play putt. I say, when you putt, you're supposed to make a pizza in the oven motion. I just say, throw the spaghetti on the wall. That's all you have to do. Just throw the spaghetti on the wall and people do it and then make their putts too. So I'm saying there's, there's some magic behind there. I was going to ask within reason. What, so how long have you identified as an atheist? My parents raised me completely without any. And alternation whatsoever. So. Never. Oh, okay. Now. So. I mean, you kind of indicated being alone. Like is that in the face of being ensconced in a community of Christians or. Oh, yes. Yes. Totally in a red state. Where I live. However, I. I'm, I live and I work in two different. Areas. I'm in a blue municipality. But I'm in a red state where I live. So same here. Wow. That's the same here. But I do work in a science environment. And that's really nice. Yeah. Well, you know, for myself, I, I live in a really small community about, you know, six, maybe 8,000 people. And we've got, you know, probably 30 churches. Wow. You know, the largest of them, you know, maybe 28 of them being Christians. So I can certainly identify with, you know, how tough it is to sort of come out. With a belief system or lack of belief system. That doesn't jive with the one that's the, the sort of general one in the community. But, you know, I've been at this for six years. And, you know, people look forward to my entry in the parade. So we had Canada today and I drove around in the SS quab and, or the SS blueberry, I should say. Which is my, my little blue Audi. And we had a blast and, you know, there were people lining the streets, saluting and going, and give us some pasta and bless us as past in this and all that kind of stuff. So it's actually been kind of fun. More recently anyway. Cool. Yeah. So I guess we're coming up on the, towards the end of the show here. So just wondering to tie where can we find your stuff? You got any, any other stuff on YouTube? Feel free to check out, let's chat on YouTube. I think it's just literally just let's chat and feel free to leave a comment. We'll go over them in a future episode of the show. Cool. And how about you? Within reason, do you, do you have anything going on that you want to plug? Not really. We do have meetups where I went to the East Nashville Brewer. Yeah. And I was on Trinity Lane and that's where I met Fabiola a couple of weeks ago. And I'm, I'm looking forward to that again and hope people in the Nashville area will. I'm out. Perfect. Very cool. Yeah. Well, you can find my stuff. I'd live stream this on, on my YouTube channel, mind pirate. And so I do that too. Because I'm in Canada on the, on the West coast. For me, it's 7 a.m. Pacific daylight time. So you can find my stuff there. And if you like it, subscribe and put up the notification bell and you'll know when new stuff comes on. I also do the global atheist news review. At 11 a.m. PDT on Sundays as well. And. What was within reason going to say, go ahead. I just asked, where is that global atheists review? It's on YouTube. Yeah. So just type in, it's under a free thought productions. And that's the one that John Richards, he's the host for that one. Very cool. Yeah. My content can be found at digital free thought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheist songs and many articles on the subject. You can go to also my YouTube channel, which can be found by searching for Larry Rhodes, Doubt or five or digital free thought, either one. And I have a book on Amazon called atheism. What's it all about? If you're curious, that's a very good place to start. By the way, if you're a member of the clergy, but you have come to see the claims of religion are not justified and you're losing your faith, but don't know where to go in for help. So this is a clergy project. These these this project actually will help people who are still practicing their, their pulpit preaching, as it were. Just go to clergy project.org and they'll help you through the transition. You can find this show on Apple iTunes, pocketcasts, Amazon and podcasts everywhere. Just search for digital free thought radio. Thanks for joining us. If you're watching this and you shoot YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. And also remember that everybody is going to somebody else's health. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell's and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. And we'll see you next week. Say bye everybody. Bye.