 103.9 FM WZO radio digital free thought radio hour Hello and welcome to the digital free thought radio hour on WZO radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is Sunday morning November 22nd. I'm Larry Rhodes or a doubter five and as usual We have our co-hosts one bad on the phone with us. Hello. Wombat. Oh So she put it on me now I'll need a translation for that And our guests today are doubt fire. It's a hello and George. Hey George. Hi It's our radio hour is a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences and Conversely, we'll also talk about religion religious faiths God's holy books and superstition And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville Well, you're just not there are several atheists free thinking and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show break If you'd like to interact with us during the show go to Facebook and search for free thought radio hour I'm sorry digital free thought radio hour page and use the messaging function to send us questions and or comments Wombat, what do you have for us today as far as the topic goes? Hey today? We're gonna be talking about spiritual healing and what can we do about it with regard to COVID? And I think that's gonna be pretty crazy But I think before we go into it we would normally send our love out to our own dread pirate Higgs But he's gonna be taking some naps right now. He's working really hard. So until then I want to go around table and just see how everyone's doing today Larry, how you folding up? How you feel? Oh, doing fine. Just staying in stand safe playing computer games Good job staying six feet away from people. Yeah, yeah warring on facebook with You know topics of different types usually atheism versus Relief Larry, you're comfortably retired. I wonder how is it that you can actually spend your time enjoyably Starting meme wars with people on facebook. That seems like the the last thing I want to be getting my hands on too It's just like the believers do it because they want to make the world a better place for you know For everybody they they believe that you know religious belief is necessary to make a person a moral person Well, I know that there's a lot of downside and a lot of harm that come from religious belief So I also want to make the world a better place by fighting that. Okay. Okay. Yeah He's got it. He's got to do those fights man And he is there he is making memes all day like you got to just track this guy down and holding conversations and Taking exception to some of the things that are said sure I've been a lot of time on facebook and keep posting those pictures though Yeah, like I think at the end of the day like you should come up with a second book That's just a bunch of all the pictures that you like couple of my memes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay Scott williams said how you doing doubt fire? How are you? I'm doing great man. Just staying in Uh as much as possible And working and you know, I work at a hospital usually Wow It's it's it's a group called the sterile environment So I can't understand you. I'm happy because of the echo Um, I've missed what you said We were working at a hospital. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he works at a hospital. Okay. That's what I thought he said You're supposed to be a sterile environment, but there's a lot of sick people coming in like how close are you to these guys? So luckily this week, um, it was um, it was a new section of the whole hospital in urbite So it was a lot of construction work going on. So basically I was just running the IT stuff like You know the wiring and the computer stuff and Configuring all that equipment for them Scanners and the hospital equipment. So It was not around Good. Okay. That's good man. Stay safe. You got a family. That's That's the thing that you know, uh, we're gonna be going into that in more detail George, I'd actually like for you to set up that the the the The rant for today, but before we go to you, George, I want to show you guys something that I just got in the mail Super happy about it. Oh It's my make america made america great already hat I Available for the low low cost of eight dollars you too can annoy all of your neighbors in kentucky in tennessee I think when this came in the mail, I was so happy Um, I'm I'm debating so like at my job. There's two guys that have The the original maga hats like right there on the top of their dash hood and I'm just like How do I how do I play this game? Right because I don't have to go to I'm not going to go in the work with it But I could leave it on my dashboard too and park strictly between the two cars and be like, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? I already got the eight for those who are listening on a podcast It's a blue hat with white lettering. Yes. Yeah I'm going to keep it on as the lettering says made america made america Great made america great already. It's true and it is true like You know, I believe we all work together to make this country great since the beginning and It is truly the benefit of a melting pot of different cultures and different ideas and different ideologies coming together And I think that one person can make it a great thing I think that the greatness of america lies in our diversity The differences between us. I agree perspectives that we bring Anyway, yes, George. How have you been and would you like to start off the thing on covid? Like how are things in Athens? The things in Athens are absolutely horrendous Our death rate from covid has more than doubled in three weeks So we have more dead people in the last three weeks in this county than we've had in the entire preceding year And I am working on an amazon order right now a big amazon order because to tell you the truth I'm simply afraid to go shopping in the stores There are And there is an increased number of people going to the stores and not wearing masks and they're doing it in defiance Defiance of what I am not completely sure I mean, it's a political statement It's a don't tread on me type of sentiment and You know as a certified old person as a person You know in the age range of people who are you know, wait, I'm going to have to see that The lair is going to card you for a second. Hold on a second Well So, um Two of the food stores here in town have put up big signs by the entrance that say masks required right and And uh, people are just ignoring it. Right. So I went and I lost it. I lost it at one of the supermarkets So there were two men in be with beards standing on the checkout line with no masks on And um, I was entering this store And it's like I just couldn't stop myself. I said hey, you guys are not wearing masks and they replied. Yep And I said and I said You want me to die? And the guy said nope And then a woman walked by me and said god bless you It's a perfect store And I for fans of the I mean this is not how it's a triple trigger for george morning Yeah, uh, yes, she was I I feel I am in an insane asylum here and so uh I just happened to be passed by the manager Who was wearing a mask? And he was wearing his badge now. This is the man whose name is printed on every receipt This is a huge supermarket. It's in the former walmart and I said to you know, I'm really glad that you put up a sign at the entrance that said Masks are required. He said thank you I said to him But I want you to enforce it There's people walking around here with masks on he says I can't do that Yeah, so I said to him do you do you realize how many people have died in the last three weeks here about COVID he says I can't stop the people from coming in here And um, so I have a I have a newspaper here. This is the daily post ethanian Okay, which which comes out four days a week That just qualifies as daily And the headline here is athens council majority Encourages mask war wearing. Well, thank you. You're encouraging it and everybody's going to ignore it right And I still am George, yeah, I can see from your perspective It's like it's not even just a rude thing that you're doing like you're actually doing a very reckless thing For for people who are senior citizens to go into public areas whether around other people Not wearing a mask isn't just like uh, uh expression of your freedom, but it's actually a A reckless Contribution to endangerment of people like you and other people who just want to be able to go to the store And go back home as healthy as they walked in right? I gotta eat. You gotta eat. I gotta eat in order to eat. I have to go to the store. Forget about it I gotta yeah, I gotta go to the store. I gotta buy food, you know Yeah It's a nutty thing right now Scott. It sounds like you want to it sounds like you're thinking some stuff What are you thinking right now? Yes, it's this terrible. I mean I don't know I've seen it seems like people here in in my neck of the woods are pretty for the most part pretty good about it like I hardly ever go to the store or some public place where people are not wearing masks And I think that's a reflection of The body politic here that it's mainly a very progressive type of area that I live in But you do have some people that are diehard Trump people and The not only mask goes right along with it And it's so It's so disheartening You know to see that I I don't know what to really say. I mean if if I see someone I'm speaking out, you know, like if I see a person not wearing a mask. I'll say look You know, and they'll accuse me of being a sheet or whatever Yeah, I haven't gone that far. I would say this It's one thing to not wear a mask and And also in my head, it's another thing to wear a mask but do so improperly Because one is hey, I'm choosing not to do this and I'm like great. I can see you from a mile away I'm staying away. I'm staying away from you and you guys might realize like uh, so for black people there's like, um, two different kinds of racism that we like watch out for like There's the explicit variety and then the complicit variety and like it's the explicit one that's like, okay Sure, confederate flag tattoo Giant truck that says we don't care about it's like, thank you for saving me time from trying to get to know you. That's great That's good, but it's the people who are like, I don't see a problem here. What George Floyd I don't know some things happen some things don't happen. It's like, oh, you're a dangerous Good people on both sides Yeah, you're you're the actual danger here because you're encouraging people to have that kind of mentality And and more problem and so like in the same sense people who don't wear a mask It's like, oh, I that's a problem But I can stay six feet away from you and hopefully I'll be all right But it's the people who wear a mask, but they only have it like over their mouths And they're like the receptionist area and they're like handing like money back out or they're like handling food at burger king I went to I drove I drove to a burger king and it's like lady Masked down here Gloved one hand glove not the other hand Dishing out carts from a lot of different people holding my bags of food and bringing it out to me I'm just like oh I'm not going to go to bribe food right now Like you there's a standard for and people who just throw their masks out on the ground I can't tell you how many times I've seen a mask just in a parking lot Or like next to a bin like these are bio hazards and people are just Throwing away improperly and coming from like a science background you medical background Larry maybe even from like your military back expertise. You would know that Not all trash is treated the same way And and some contaminations need to be thrown away in their own separate waste streams And we're not meant for public disposal, especially not on the grant like there's things like that just make me really You know what kills me is that you know, they say that they wear the mask below their nose because they say they can't breathe I mean doctors wear those things day in and day out eight eight to 12 hours a day Yeah Would you use your doctor from doing right? Yeah during an operation? And it's just it's a nonsense answer It's a dishonest answer and it feeds into a complicit Idea of like I'm not it's not like I'm not caring about wearing a mask But you're just but by wearing it improperly you are likewise contributing to a problem Right like what's the point of covering your mouth and not breathe through your mouth and breathe out of your nose Like you're still doing the same thing Uh, george, did you raise your hand? What's up? You need to unmute yourself baby Can you unmute yourself baba? Okay One thing I'm noticing is whole families shopping without masks on And um as a group I'm seeing groups of people without wearing masks small groups and um Mothers with infants babies the other day. I was shocked to see A young woman carrying a newborn without masks on And I'm obviously I'm upset, you know I will say this though As upset as we are today I have the cure for everybody the single thing that's going to fix us all and it's some spiritual healing, baby We're going to spiritual healing today now. It's quite an introduction But Let's talk about spiritual healing and how it's going to save everybody. Let's define it first I won't Hey, that is a fantastic thing. Larry what you uh, scott You seem like the person who is not only with the medical background But also would probably know some things about spiritual healing Would you mind telling me about it? Because I put spiritual healing into my google maps On on the internet on the old the internet and I have red dots Popping up all around my city. I can't wait to check out all these places. What's what spiritual? Just to just to clarify. I don't really have a medical background. I just work in hospitals doing the it Fair enough whatever Anyways, yeah from what I understand about uh spiritual healing Is It's like a form of magic You know, that's really all I can say Way that I understand it for the most part generally um You're either calling on powers from god or power spirits or powers from somewhere some other Invisible place that and you know, there's You know, there's different forms. There's you know, there's um Yeah, I don't know if you understand you uh, know about chi the power of chi like this internal power that more eastern wisdom traditions teach about channeling certain Your body's own energies to Channels in your body that might be in pain or Suffering or something like that none of this stuff is scientifically proven And if anything it may give people a placebo effect where they think they feel better And you know and it helps them feel better, but it may not be You know curing anything And that can be inflated to think that it's curing them or doing something significant for them But yeah, I don't know of any evidence that that's really case Can I throw out so I actually you had mentioned voodoo larry. I have family from st. Thomas and that's actually a thing Or we grew up with well It's it's the idea or the mindset of you know All medicine does is activate the things that are inside of you to take care of yourself There's a short time for that Homostasis You know that that will bring you back Quicker than I mean that that is your mechanism for bringing you back to health that when yes It's how you get back to equilibrium the spiritual healers To seem to hijack that and call it, you know there is that they they're using the spirit to do that Right, right. They're saying hey, we have a better shortcut. That's all natural No additives no weird chemicals and stuff like that that just awakens your body to fix itself in the way You're not actually able to do it pure Sometimes in the form of light sometimes in the crystal sometimes in hexes sometimes in like just thoughts and prayers We can call our hotline spirit to help you out. There's a number of different things. In fact I'm not I am not promoting this but the nearest Spiritual health institute nearby me is actually a university. It's a holistic spiritual university and they offer degrees Bachelors masters and doctors of divinity degrees So you can also become a minister at these places too. It's fantastic and I won't plug the website But I'm just scrolling through it right now and it's amazing There's a word I'd like to throw out there in the middle of that accreditation. Is it accredited? I'm sure it is by them. They're called the awakening institute. They probably accredited other There are no grades. Oh my gosh, I'm reading through this. This is great. There's there's no grades You don't have to worry about grades sometimes negative influences on the learning process or bypass through our artificial artificial standards Offer negative influences on the learning process. So there's no grades at this school. I love it. I just I I Wondered because it's not the only what the main point was. This isn't the only one It's not like a one-and-done sort of thing or a passing fad These are actual buildings you can drive to with people staffed in them Who probably have a mentality that Covid is something that can be solved through their methodologies and and there's a There is the harm of like I said of a person who wears a mask incorrectly. It's like sure, okay We can probably even fix that. That's just a couple of fixes And then there's the person who doesn't want to wear a mask because of political reasons Which is its own problem. But then there are the people who are teaching other people how to resolve real diseases through Very unsepsiub substantiated claims And I find this to be some of the most dangerous forms of misinformation altogether because these are people who are actively Recruiting people onto the side against science and rational discourse. Yeah, you got to remember There's an opportunity cost involved in that as well I mean if you take your time and your money and your energy and you go after spiritual healing or crystals or whatever You are forsaking and not going after actual medical help That might be able to cure your your situation. Absolutely Remember this is what did in this is what did in steve jobs Wow, what are you talking about? Well, steve jobs was to hey if I remember right he had pancreatic cancer and he was going after some Some alternative way to try to heal that and as larry just said it was he was blowing his opportunity to try to pursue A more realistic Remedy for that. I want to say that You know, I moved here from california the home of the nuts and the berries and um There's an awful lot of spiritual nonsense Where I moved here from Oh, wow. Yeah, so I just looked this up the story. I mean, I've had it in I've had it I've had it run rampant in in in a family close to me. Let me let me put it that way Sure. I tend to be scientifically minded and Again, I have I seem to be coming in the attitude this morning. No, you're fine. You're fine. You're absolutely great But you know what steve jobs was accurate He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003 But delayed surgery for nine months even though it was like a critical stage of cancer So they could try different alternative medicines including alternative medicine special diet and some other things too So Yeah, nine months man. That's that is the maker break point, right? It is a it's a sad thing when when if you're looking for an answer Here's the two things like for pierson who it's the same mindset of a conspiracy theorist if you Want a particular answer to be true you can search For the pool of answers that are available find the ones that you like and keep those and hope those are the actual correct True answers And for like a conspiracy theorist who wants to believe in bigfoot. It's like you're not going to listen to You know national duographic. They're not going to listen to nature magazine or anything like that They're going to go to bigfoot Israel calm and get all the details from them and all the pictures from them and they'll be like this proves This thing is right, but it's not about getting evidence to support your claims It's about parsing the evidence that's available Into true and false columns and being able to do that in a reliable and reasonable way and the thing with these kind of like spiritual who kind of Systems is like they are offering answers to people who don't want to wear masks Who feel like the government isn't trustworthy? Who feel like the science isn't like rational enough for them to actually be afraid of anything And maybe don't want to consider covet as like an actual threat to their lives and their family This is like an available resource of information and news that they can Aspire to or at least listen to or they find really attractive But it doesn't necessarily make it true and that's the problem because We're living in a time right now where the advice of experts and leadership is more distrusted than ever before And if we can't parse true things from false things And a global society we all suffer from it if everyone except 10 percent of people aren't wearing Face masks or aren't getting vaccinated because we're interacting with each other all the time right so we need to make an effort to To highlight why it's important to be able to tell true things from false things else We're all going to suffer together because we're all in this pool I have a I have one last analogy. I have the kiddie pool analogy It's like we're sitting in a kiddie pool and and one person decides to take a leak in the kiddie pool You're just like no, we're all in this kiddie pool together. What are you doing? It's just like I have a right to pee in this food. It's like no, you don't You're ruining it for everybody. It's just like, uh Don't be in the kiddie pool gates Consistence I like that People lose, um People are not consistent. They don't even think about it. Like they say well The government doesn't have a right to tell me what to wear Like they can't tell me I have to wear a mask But you have to wear clothes You have to wear all kinds of things and you don't complain about that It's like why is it why are you nitpicking about this which is actually saving lives Where wearing clothes is probably bad on other people's eyes, but right Also if we like threatening Also, what sucks is if we had an administration Where that can encourage both sides because we're very polarized in this country But if we could have an administration that can that can Assess with post sites to be like hey as a unified message Let's tell the american people that this is a good thing for them rather than One side saying like hey the scientists are saying this and the other side Automatically picking the opposite thing and being like no Because we want to win this election. It's just like oh You you took bipartisan job hunting into Into this really weird realm where you guys will have these beautiful Benefits and health care coverage, but the people that you're talking to don't and you're and and because of that like they need They need proper information to at least protect themselves on this basic basal level. It's like hey, we're coughing. We can get each other sick. Please It's because of everything climate change COVID everything's becoming political Unfortunately, it's not good. Hopefully things can get better. Uh, at least we've we've made some steps this this This november to hopefully fix that we got 60 ish more days to go, but we'll see how we can make america great already even better I get Larry, I think we're at the bottom of half hour. How will you take us out? Sure? This is the digital free thought radio hour and w o z o radio 103.9 lp f m right here in noxville, tennessee And we'll be right back after this short break 103.9 f m w o z o radio noxville Hello and welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour I'm dodder five and we're on w o z o radio 103.9 lp f m here in noxville, tennessee today is sunday morning to november 22nd 2020 And let's talk about the atheist free thinking groups that you might be able to join here in noxville, tennessee First there's the atheist society of noxville ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 18th year ASK has over a thousand members now and you can find us online at noxvilleatheist.org Or you can go directly to meet up or google or whatever and search for noxville atheist It's just that simple By the way, if you don't live in noxville, you should still go to meet up and search for an atheist group in your town Don't find one Another large free thinking group here in noxville at the rationless of east tennessee You can find ret at rationless.org Go there and click on upcoming events to find out more about what they're up to Earlier in the show we said we talked about noxville's atheist calling tv show Now let's call free thinkers united coalition of noxville and You can find them on youtube by searching those terms You can also find their archives by looking up free thought forum Noxville Also, if you're interested in getting involved in the tv or the radio show just come to an ask meet up or ret meeting And talk to us about it. You could be our next co-host or guest Wombat, where would you like to pick up? So that's At least what language is that atheism what is it all about? What does she know I don't go what does she know I what does she know I what does she know I don't go Where is love guys? Listen to her feedback listen to her feedback guys so Echo centric homestead said hey On last week's show we were talking about what atheists actually believe and we had a lot of really good comments on last week's channel And echo centric homestead said atheists just refers to a lack of belief They can't be defined by what they do believe and so it was a really good conversation here What you guys actually did believe and that's true and I think you know Even in that last segment where we're just saying like hey Name some labels that do describe what your beliefs what your background were That was been the most enlightening for me because I learned things about you guys Despite the fact that we've been talking for years and chatting for years Like oh, I finally knew these things about you. That's great. Like we knew your atheists But I didn't know anything actually about what you did positively believe. I think that was wonderful. Well Dottice trading room says what do atheists believe? Atheists either believe that no god exists or They believe that there isn't sufficient evidence to believe that any gods exist Uh, I would argue that atheists Don't believe that no god exists though. There are agnostic atheists who do maybe have that kind of belief Atheism is just nostic beliefs Atheists yeah, yeah atheism is just the lack of belief in god And there are there are people who will add stuff to that like Republican atheists or like conservative atheists liberal atheists who think like hey There I don't believe in a god and you shouldn't eat animals But that doesn't fall into the atheist labels atheism plus something else Um, james corletta says atheism is one thing a lack of belief in gods Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god or gods Humanism is the belief that all humans are equal and as I'm concerned with there is only one race of humans regardless of culture or skin color or any other differences from one great neither human Let all humankind get along. I love that James corletta gets the winning art comment of the show And yeah, you know what let's just leave it on that great now great job guys And thank you so much for all the feedback feel free to leave more comments And we'll go over them in the next week show. Yeah, uh, what we were talking about today was, um You know covid's getting worse. We just reached 12 million cases of infections just in the united states of america. That's nuts While other countries on the other hand are you know in the thousands or probably already resolved completely new zealand Is completely resolved to covet england's already opened up its movie theaters and stuff like that The world is looking at america and being like what's taking you guys so long we figured it's out It's like what's going on over here And now we have before when it was january was just like How bad is this disease? How fast is it spreading? How bad is it? Look what's death rates now? We have all the data like now we can look at all the different countries and figure out what they were doing compared to What we were doing and be like they were doing it better than how we're doing it because they don't have this problem anymore All these guys did the same thing We're not doing that thing and we still have the problem. So why can't we get Why can't we get our stuff together and and that leads us into the second half of like what can we do better? What can we inform a medical industry to say what can we say to each other to make ourselves more considered to each other George, I'll have you start. What what was on your mind? Well, again, I'm holding up this The not so daily post-ethanian My my local newspaper and its headline Athens council majority encourages mask wearing So I think the first part of how to solve this problem is to keep ourselves alive And I mean that's where I'm at, you know, it's like the the stewardess on the airplane says to the passengers First put your mask on then put the the mask on the baby, you know, and so we we've got to keep ourselves alive and Here in Tennessee I understand that there's one county that has made it mandatory to wear masks in public places And I can't remember what county it is but My county has just voted to I mean the city council has voted To to tell people to wear masks and they're not going to wear masks So right you've got to do it legally. You've got to put muscle behind the words And it is mandatory in the in the county just two counties above me where's when Nashville is located So it is actually mandatory there. You can get fined But no one I don't believe actually does and there's so many people in Nashville. So But you know, that is a good thing too, but you're right. Um I wouldn't say necessarily like How do I put it? We need to make people care And there's only so much Stick you can put on the on that carrot, but you need to make people care that there's a carrot there That makes any sense because I don't need a more I don't need a more I don't need a more gung-ho police state to live in personally in 2020 What I'm looking for is just more considerate people and how can we inspire that in people? How can we make people care again? Scott, what do you think? Yeah, um, it goes back to Um, a little prevention is worth more than a pound of cure So if we can get people to, um You know Wear the mask and social distance. That's what that's the practical aim that we should have As to why they're not doing that It seems like it comes from a place of political bias And mistrust of science and mistrust of media and information and so I talk to people all the time about it on social media and things like that and it seems like They think that You know, there's a big conspiracy And so it's just hard to it's You we have to get them to understand that the consensus of science Is not a fallacy to appeal to you know, because they oftentimes will tell you Well, you're just appealing to most scientists. Well, that's an appeal to the authority That's not a way to arrive at truth. And it's like no, that's They're actual authorities though And there's nothing wrong with appealing to actual authorities You know, they get they don't understand that And then, you know, then it becomes well, even if they are actual authorities We don't trust them because they have they want to make money You know And it's just you have to overcome these conspiracy theories, but that may be A big job and you have to start with trying to understand What goes through these people's minds? Where where are they coming from? You know, because I think You know And that's what I'm trying to figure out really coming from. What's what's the root of this George scott. I would I would like to Follow follow up on what you just said Because it's something that has been on my mind I mean I came here about five years ago from california and It's taken me a long time to Just be able to understand just to to any degree really The difference in thought in thinking And and the one thing that That i'm aware of right now Is that a lot of people around me Are afraid of people who are different than them And people who live in other places in other words, there is this us versus them mentality and I think there is a true fear of the other and The scientist is has been made to be the other to them This is so very true. This the solution will not happen before more people die This is gonna I'm not going to be alive when this problem is solved I mean the you know why The psychology does not go too There's still the chance that you could survive even this and then brace yourself for the more crazy thing that'll happen in 2022 I'll be I'm just saying I'm just saying because of my age because i'm so old that That I mean i'm older than I look and and um I'm just saying it is There has to be a wholesale revolution in the way People are thinking despite the fact that they are being bombarded with I'm trying to use polite language. It's suitable for radio. Yeah And i'm having a hard time Larry and I appreciate that Hey, can I throw something out you george and you let me know if this sounds good I think what we have is We have a leadership that is not informing masses Appropriately and we have a contentious administration right now led by trump who is who has documented Examples of him calling this a hoax calling this just a political move by other countries that it's one country's fault It's not our fault that he won't wear a mask literally said won't wear a mask. You should just breathe bleach fumes You should take this random thing that ended up not working at all and then when he got sick with covid He gets helicoptered out to you know The most expensive hospital gets the best drugs possible and comes back to the top of mass and says, ah, there was no problem whatsoever I'm just going to keep not wearing a mask no problem whatsoever I mean meanwhile is still systematically infecting everyone in this cabinet and in this staff like until we have someone that's Not representing america Or until we have someone that is representing america showing that that's taking it seriously You're not going to have the people who are looking up to that one person or that one example As a as proof that this is an actual problem. You'll always have it be like Oh, this is something happening in seattle, but the president doesn't care about it. So must not be a big problem Likewise, we need to have Unity Like we really need to have unity on this particular issue because it's killing americans Whether they're red or blue or whether they're whatever color in between I have a little seer Yeah, go for it There the the fear that I have is that The the reason that these people Are rebelling against You know science and Media and things like that isn't necessarily because of trump or because of a specific leader I think the leaders are responding to their base of people And so you have to kind of dig a little deeper there and say what is it about these base of people? That's motivating them Yeah, let's dig down the foundation. Yeah, let's let's let's let's undercut. Let's cut the knees out from these people Let's see what it is that this that's brilliant. Yeah Can I throw something out? I think I might have something here. I just think it's anti-exelectualism And it's core. I think it's people who in a sense Don't like feeling like they don't know something And as a result Automatically distrust people who do know something that they don't And it's like what do you mean? You know something because I can tell if you're stronger than me You would have bigger muscles I can tell if you're faster than me you'd be in front of me But what do you mean if you're smarter than me? You're not smarter than me. Can you take a carburetor out of a truck? It's like no, but I can make a vaccine that'll stop you from I don't trust your vaccine magic Like you said And intellectualism like um these sane people correlate to religious thinkers too And scientists and people that are forward thinking are not religious So then we get back to this us versus them thing I can't trust anything these atheists think Because there's scientists and they're pushing all this fake news on me Right because we're trying to destroy my religion and take my god away. They're taking my culture We're taking my Jesus away. Yeah, no I have a book that has all the answers What do you mean you have different answers like that doesn't make any sense to me? Like you're belittling my beliefs when you come out with new science that helps my life That's not what I'm into. Yeah People are tapping into something George. What do you think? Well, um, you know, I can't remember this guy's name. There there's a fellow in Berkeley We're near Berkeley, California. He's a linguist and um I need to read some of the stuff that this man has written Because I think that language is a key language will be a way in And um the other side if I may be so bold as to say this Have been using psychologists in their think tanks to frame language To understand how to convince the rest of us To their to to the way of thinking that they want The indoctrination the propaganda There is a steady supply of propaganda that Some people are being exposed to they're in their own echo chamber And the propaganda is coming at them every every single day And they're not listening to us but In at the very core of it when we speak with them when we have the opportunity to speak with them The words that we use may matter a lot And to be honest, I don't know what the right words are I don't know how to make this communication happen, but I I have to think that If we are going to have democracy The success of our society is going to rest upon people who really can think rationally And can understand whatever the truth happens to be and right now this is ripped apart Right, and we need to we need to make the effort to inspire critical thought and other people And we can do that through argument debates, but also street epistemology. I think or geographic examination. There's room for that as well Scott, what do you think it's really valuable? I was reading this about a couple weeks ago I forgot who the author was the psychological book, but it was talking about people's beliefs Are not formed by what the people themselves think they don't believe things for the reasons that they think they do That is all really based on feeling feeling is what motivates what we believe and the choices we make and the behaviors we exhibit So the language has to make People feel a certain way just dispensing facts does not Wavor them away from beliefs that are more rooted and deep-seated feelings That they may get from church or from certain church leaders or people that make them feel good or make them feel a certain out of way These facts are just cold and it just goes over the head or they don't care Yeah, no, you're absolutely right because how many times have we seen a graph where it's like These are how many people are dying and it just keeps going up and you're watching You're like that's just a blue line for a lot of people You know, I mean on a on a bigger scale and this might sound really bad and I hate saying it but We know that People have changed their view about the bible in religion Based on the culture it just becomes undeniable that the world is round and that you know We're not the center of the universe and then they've kind of incorporated these facts into their religious interpretation Sure, and now they can feel good about talking about facts in that religion context I mean unfortunately maybe These new facts that we come up with these things that we want to change society has to be incorporated within their structures In their belief structures, so it sounds like a cop out or it sounds like a compromise, but it may be effective So we had in my science background. We're making biofuels like for for to supplement fossil fuels, but when Trump got into office when we were in the obama administration was like Hey, we're making this to supplement. Um, these are Fossil fuel platforms We're making these biodiesels that are sustainable and renewable and this is like a good way to To all alternatively supplement our fossil fuels, which are limited supply. Well when chump came to office all the um The terminology that we were using to sell needed research to to generate these renewable fuels had to change Because the conservative mindset is fossil fuels will be forever There's no need to come up with alternative fuels So we were like, I see well, then we are making renewable fuels as a way to Better leverage our domestic supply of fuels, which is Crucial for our domestic security and like there was a completely different set of words that we had to use So we got the research funding But we had to curve tail it and dove tail it's to to To appeal to a different kind of mindset and if that's what it takes to get people to wear masks I'm fine with people at church being like hey, look what god invented. It's a vaccine. Isn't god awesome? Yeah, yeah thing for us. Yeah. Yeah, like, okay fine Take the shots guys one by one do it with the bread a little bit of grape juice and get the thing in your arm Get out of here What do you think george? I love that. You see What you just said is that god created the science god created the scientists god created the vaccine You know really lay it on like now get back Okay The guy who I mentioned before his name george leikhoff and you can read about him at george leikhoff.com okay, and um We're going to have to use language as well as they do and um We have to market it. We have to be better marketers of good idea. Yeah, and I I I don't remember which of us just said this We have to reach to reach people at the emotional level I I I don't think that um Doing it on the basis of uh reasoning Is is going to get to their hearts because they they have been deeply deeply the operated To To think yeah I do want to say this in the contest of messaging in the contest of getting a message out there The truth will always have a handicap to falsehoods Because the truth doesn't taste good half the time Even half the time but a good lie. Oh, that's the most delicious thing every single time. It's junk foods chocolate It's perfectly savory the truth is like cornbread But it's true though. It's like yeah, but it doesn't taste as good as this thing It's like that's a twinkie that's been deep fried in chocolate. It's like, yeah, it's delicious So how do we so how do we better market the truth in my opinion? It's not so much dressing up the truth. You don't need to dress up the truth What you need to do is make people appreciate the truth more and and in my mindset I once went I used to love candy I used to love candy was the only I had a hard time not eating candy for a long time And then one new year's resolution I said I'm not gonna eat candy for a year and I did it for a full year And I bought so much candy on new year's day to celebrate the time when I can eat I had a table full of it like a literal bar table full of candy had gushers Gummy worms everything like all my favorite stuff and the day the second new year's rolled around I'm like can't wait to eat these things put the first thing in my mouth. I'm like, whoa way too sour spat it out Try something else can't look don't like this try something else I'm like, I don't think I can eat any of this. I packed up all the candy And I just gave it away to some of the workers at work I had fundamentally changed the way how I appreciate flavors and and since then I haven't tried candy again It's been like three years since that's what we need to do for the people who need to be tree seekers We need to give them an appreciation for truth versus their lives that they're they're operating on Get them to give it up for a year Hey What would it be great if it was like, hey man, just don't listen to fox news cesium and msc all this Just do that for one year or preachers one year What if you did one year where you weren't religious to try and see what happens? Oh, could you imagine? Could you imagine how many people would just be like what have I been doing right just give one year unplugged just try that You guys all Were conditioned by religion Yeah, I was not so I got a I got to ask you for for your um A view about about whether what I'm going to say sounds plausible And it's a repeat of what I said a couple of minutes ago um, can we Can we affect them by By saying that god created The scientists that god created the vaccines that god created the science I would prefer not I know it might appeal to some but I don't think inversing a lie Makes any closer to the truth. I have a meme about christian scientists You know when they're when they're doing science, they're not doing religion And when they come when their science comes up with something against their religion or opposite to their religion They are silenced. Yeah by religion like Galileo and Yeah, um, so what are the sciences? Yeah No, what all greats, you know Science and religion are separate things and uh, again once again religion tries to hijack the best things For itself and in this case, it's hijacking science for itself Yeah, larry. Are they are they actually science silenced within their own minds? I would say I can't answer that well I wouldn't I couldn't think for them, but yeah, I would definitely say like I think Galileo was locked in prison Yeah, he was house arrest for 15 years. He was like and his works were burned Charles Darwin if you read his first, you know discourse on like the idea of like humans being just animals that you know Evolved like anything else and they they're very delicate about how to push that subject right and Who was it? Taco Bruno Taco brahe No, it's Bruno. I can't remember his first name, but he was burned for his heretical statements about the planets And uh, this the sun being the center of the universe or the center of the Yeah, there's there's the idea of if the church is funding me science The church wants the answers that the church wants they're not necessarily the science answers So it's like when you come out with answers against the church despite the fact that you're honestly looking from That's a big problem. There's interest in there like your livelihoods day family and even a few years ago This the pope came out against looking into the big bang He said that would be like looking up the skirt of god, you know and examining god. We can't do that Yeah And so they're they're just trying to halt certain scientific advances in their And the footsteps evolution is one of them Gene therapy, you know What is it stem cell? Yeah They're looking to that everything really everything in science has like there's an eventual political glass ceiling or a religious ceiling where it's like We can make this awesome. Yeah, but What about god is like what god that making carbon fibers? What are you talking about like makes no sense? I want to I want to throw out one random Oh, I had it. I had it. So the idea is is like There is There's a way to sign black So if there wasn't saying black lives like matter like I can say black lives matter But the thing is this means the color black. This is for people. This is how you say black people So like black lives matter right or important and the the reason why I'm distinguishing the two is because there's There are some knuckleheads in the black sign language community And it's a very small minority that say only black people can sign like this because of the struggle If white people want to say black people they have to use the color and I'm like that's the dumbest thing possible Skin color limitations on signs that you use for like everybody and their mindset is well, you know There was a period of time where black people had to struggle against racism So what we're doing is just reversing it to solve racism It's like inverting racism doesn't solve racism We get rid of racism by fighting against it not by inverting it in the same sense I don't want to come up with different lines to appeal to make science more appealing to religious people I just want science to be the thing that people are naturally inclined to believe And I don't want to dress it up in this religious skirt. I just want to be like this is science It's been around before your religion even existed Pay attention to it because it's it's going to be the reason why you're listening to my voice right now It's why you're wearing clothes right now. You don't need so so dress it up, but How are you going to make the transition? Hmm. I I think we can do it one conversation. That's key My my deal is I feel I can chat with anyone I feel I can talk to anyone and I I'm and I think what I would encourage people to do is learn how Socratic examination works look at our videos and find out If you frame a conversation around how people get their information Rather than what the information is or about them personally if you target How do you inform yourself and how do you determine that this method is reliable or not? That's that's a great way to have a five-minute conversation that make people Start to believe that they need to pay more attention about how they parse true things from false things And it tends to be the case that when people work on that on their own or with other people The falsehoods fall to the bottom the truths fall to the or rise to the top it happens consistently because Science is predicated on the natural instinct on people wanting to know true things And if we all work on this together, we're going to know true things And we're going to know more true things than we had before Scott. What do you think? My fear is that The real truth is that some a good portion of people Don't care about truth. They care more about beliefs than truth. Exactly What we have to do is help them Change that That desire because they they're again, they're motivated by feelings And if they're feel stronger about beliefs than they do about truth It's not going to help to kind of like rationalize with them or even get them to question their beliefs They'll say, yeah, I know it's it's probably inconsistent, but I have faith And that's all I need have a good day but If we can get this hunger for truth Somehow like maybe for me, it was a pride thing too Like somebody accused me once of being when I was religious accused me of being gullible And oh, you're just gullible. That's like, oh, what I'm gullible. Wait a minute. I'm not gullible am I? Yeah Yeah, I like fostered a little critical thing like wait, maybe I am gullible, you know Oh, that's you that's an incredible step on your part. So a lot of people hear that and be like, well, that guy's a jerk I'm just going to keep doing my thing But that's that is a scott-williamson like I'm going to make sure I'm not gullible and actually That's the better I want to know how to make that happen and I feel like for me It's the educators I had in my life the ones who are like It's not just the answers in the back of the book that I'm trying to teach you for I'm trying to teach you how to do algebra. Like I'm not trying to just I don't care if you got the right answer I care if you know how to get answers or at least better answers than what you're getting right now It's okay. If you were wrong, let's show the work and see where you messed up because I want to improve your process I'm like these guys are the people who put me on the right track to thinking The guys were like my ethics teacher who's like, hey, it's not just a list of rules in a book that makes morality It's a system to practice Figure this out write a book and write a paper and tell me why something is wrong Why is stealing wrong? Is it just because it was written in the bible or is it because We live in a society with other people and you don't want to get your stuff stolen Closing harm Yeah, like think about it. It's just like whoa, and then you go back to the bible and you're like This isn't this isn't fulfilling to me on an intellectual level. I'd rather talk to my ethics professor I'd rather you know read a book on science. I'd rather figure out how the universe works And if my life is temporary What is more important to me right now than realizing this wonderful universe that I'm in And and detailing it to as much as I can contributing to the detailing event and I think You know as Carl Sagan Carl Sagan had said like we are the universe human beings Trying to figure out ourselves, right? Like trying to figure out itself That that um goes to That touches on what people call spirituality That's that's the part of our psychology that he was messing with that spiritual side of our mindset Because he was saying look you are the universe Experiencing itself. Whoo Like this kind of touches a feeling a deep seated feeling and it makes people wake up and say yeah, that's awesome Yeah, so there's an in-between there. I would agree. There's a gray zone where it's like Hey, he is saying like we are the matter of the universe Formatted in a format or formatted in a manner where it's like hey, we can think and nothing was figured out for us It's not like we were born in a society where all these problems are solved and we're just flying in rocket ships Like we have this beautiful unique opportunity like we're on the frontier of figuring out how this thing works Maybe four galaxies away from now people have already figured out But they aren't here now we have the opportunity to figure this out ourselves fresh blank slate How wonderful is that and what a waste of an opportunity would it be for given the random Like the roughly hundred years that we have on this planet to be like You know, this one book is all I need to think about Let me just hear these gospel songs over and over and over again from childhood to death bed. It's like no Think what you could do think about what can you can do like think about like, you know, elan must what he's doing And be like, oh, I could do better than that. Yeah, go for it. You totally can just Just try to contribute, you know, I saw a Lecture, I think it was kind of a scientific lecture, but he there's a physicist named max tag mark He's a big physicist and he was talking about consciousness And the brain and he has his own theory of consciousness and things like that And one of somebody in the audience says yeah, but you're trying to say that consciousness all it is Is um chemicals and neurochemistry and and matter. That's all it is And then max tag mark said Well, the problem of your statement is when you say all it is like Why is it why does that take things away from yeah, like why isn't that even more amazing like He went into the magic of it and the guy was like Wow, I never really thought about it that way that you're actually your theory kind of makes mine look Like child's play. I kind of like this makes me feel better You know and the guy said that's that's what it is. You know Selling packaging the information in a way that makes people feel good about science feel good about knowledge, you know And we got to make sure we make people feel good about critically thinking so We're at we're nearing the end of the show George you want to you say we should check out george lockoff.com right? Yes, uh, that's what I was going to say. You got you took the words out of my mouth um You guys do what you want, but um, I heard george lakeoff a few times on the radio before I came here It must have been around 10 years ago And um, he struck a chord in me and I just I just decided it's time for me to Revisit him and see what he's got what he's got to say. So let me let me just sort that out And george lakeoff.com George lakeoff very nice. Yeah, will you say anything you would plug for next week's show? Anything we should check out before next week Not that nothing in specific Okay I would recommend that you google maps spiritual healing and see how many places pop up around you Do you have more than three? Let's see that we'll call that the record See if you have more than three places that pop up for spiritual healing around you in a 50 mile radius Uh, larry, what what do you want to take us out? Yeah, I'd also like people to google spiritual manipulation. Uh, which is what um preach is doing and uh, well It's also what directors do in movies They they manipulate your spirit so that you feel a certain way going through the movie and at the end of the movie And preachers do that as well at church Yeah manipulation This has been the digital free thought radio hour be sure to visit Digital free thought dot com for our radio show archives apis songs and many articles on the subject My book is called uh, atheism. What's it all about? There it is Or atheism what it's all a boot if you get it from Canada what it's all a boot and it's available on amazon And if you're having trouble, uh, leaving religious beliefs aside behind a visit recovering from religion They might be able to help you with your Uh emotional or mental problems uh doing that If you have questions for the show, uh, send them to ask an atheist At noxvilatheist.org and we'll answer them on future shows If you're watching this on youtube be sure to like and subscribe and be notified when new episodes are posted And remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real Until then don't sweat it. Enjoy your life and we'll see you next week. Say bye everybody Sayonara. Bye everybody. Bye. Bye