 Okay. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPF. I'm here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, November 26th, 2023. I'm Larry Rhodes, our DJ, dad or five. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello, Wombat. It's Wombat and the cyborg. The cyborg. Don't know him. About to learn. Digital Freethought Radio Hours. Talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religions, religious faiths, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only nonbeliever in your town, well, you're just not. You're in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt. We have a group of over 1100 of us. We're the Atheist Society of Knoxville or ASK. We'll tell you more about us after the mid-show break, so be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? Some sciences and then some game shows. And I think there's nothing better to check up on than your help and see how you've been doing now that you are a cyborg. What's up? What's life in the sciences? Have you ever dreamed that you could move up? Well, I never felt that it would be this painful over this long. Actually, I'm really experiencing not that much pain. I am loaded up on drugs, so who knows what will come out of my mouth this day, this fine day. But really, they're mainly just for other things besides pain. They're like aspirin and neprosis or whatever it is. I can't even remember the name. So I'm kind of out of it today. Should be an interesting show. I feel pretty good. Yeah, how did Tennessee do with the referendum on medicinal marijuana? Did they allow it or is it still being pushed out? I think Ohio passed it. And I think Tennessee is like next on the docket, at least for this election cycle. So less extreme of a pain reliever than some of the medications that you've been telling me about. Yeah, I have not taken of it. If anybody's listening, I have not taken or taken of the marijuana cure or at least the marijuana pain relief regimen. Sure, sure. I see you come on the show with like a Hawaiian shirt and just like, hey, listen, big stuff. It's changed my life. Let's talk about the new God. Jimmy Buffett in the background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been having a really good holiday playing some disc golf with good friends. We did in the glow round, which means you play at nighttime. And the cool thing about playing at nighttime in the woods is it's sort of less, it's a less. It's a less intimidating course when you can't see the trees. When you are playing in the daylight and you're seeing the trees that you need to throw around, you're constantly thinking about angles and how far you need to throw and where the disc will fade and how you wrap around objects and obstacles. When it's a glow round, it's all about your mind's eye and where the basket is. And you'll have a general idea of what you need to do to get there and you just throw the disc. You have a glow in the darkness, so it's easier to find, but you don't see any of the obstacles. And as a result, you might actually get more impressive scores than you would have imagined otherwise when you are less distracted about the very intricate natures of the course and just throw your line and just see, hey, did I throw with intention with where I wanted it to go? Great. Wow, that's so wonderful. It's a completely different feel. Alright, so last time we were doing the show, we had a key symbol on and we had a fun little game show where we talked about quotes that either came from God, a tyrant, like a human tyrant, or Disney princess, and we had to pick one of the three. So I want to do a quick continuation of that and talk about Jesus or Jesus. Now, Larry, you told me something that was very interesting at the top of the show as in who is Jesus. And so in the time span of at least the people who are on this presentation that I'm showing you for those who are watching the video form, can you at least recognize the two people below in this picture? Well, one of them. Yes. And that would be Jesus on the right. I assume Jesus would be on the left and maybe he's a rap star. Yeah, that's formally known as Kanye West now known as Jesus. Yeah. Okay, so we go. Yeah, he has a lot of different names that he goes by Jesus is one of them. Right, so I'm going to be presenting quotes that are either from a claimed. Who would what would we call him a hip hop icon? Rap star production music specialist Kanye West or son of God. Third arm of the Trinity Jesus Christ. And I want you to let me know which quote came from who right. This is me easy. I know the quotes of Jesus pretty well. Okay, he knows the quotes of Jesus pretty well let's put them on the spot. All right. Here's the first one Larry are you ready. I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things. Be Jesus, I would think. Okay, he goes for Jesus that's correct. Good job Larry that's for Jesus. So, if you don't know anything about Kanye West. It's a question of whether or not he's playing a character, or if he's actually so into a role in his own role it's it's to a point where it's a little bit of both but it's an it's an interesting dynamic of a character he's always going into controversy. But that's sort of like how he maintains relevancy in a very populated market with much younger rap stars that come out each year he just more crazy. Anyway, here's the next quote. I am the vine. You are the branches apart from me. You can do nothing. That would be Jesus. He goes for Jesus and that's correct. Larry knows his Jesus quotes very good. Jesus Christ saying I am the vine and you are the branches apart from me you can do nothing. Not the most inspirational quote I've heard. No, more abusive than anything else. You can't do anything without me. Yeah, like I've always said it's it's sort of like a abusive relationship. Yeah, I love to see partnerships that are equal where both people support each other. But there's such a I am better than you and you are lucky just to be around me sort of vibe particularly that comes with Christianity. I find it really scary that people you know hold on to that it's like a good example of how to be a good father or good son or good family member. There's a lot of scary undertones that come with that, particularly when it comes to self worth and self esteem. You got thoughts. No, that's true. It's like you're being in an abusive relationship. You're a bruise of controlling, you know, I'm, you know, you can do nothing without me. You know, basically you're nothing. Right. I do know nothing. Yeah, if I want to highlight this imagine if there was like a wedding that you went to. Right. We're all along this line like a husband looks into his wife is soon to be wife size and says, I am the vine and you are the branches apart for me you can do nothing. And then the family's just like, Oh, that's so sweet. Taco Bell's cannon going off in the background and then all the atheists in the room just like sort of like what did he just say is that normal is this going to be a good relationship moving forward. We don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Next one. I am like a tree. I feed the branches of the people. I don't remember Jesus saying that but I saw go Kanye. Kanye. Good job. Listen, sounds like something he would say though. True. But did you know you knew so much about Kanye West before this show even started. That's very, but isn't it weird that like when we hear it like this. We think, Oh, what a silly thing for a person to say. Of course, Kanye West would say that but when Jesus says the exact same thing you're like, Oh, well, I can't believe people believe him when he says that that's, that's the dynamic. That's what I love a lot about these, these presentations did the juxtaposition of like clearly crazy person saying something and then someone saying the exact same thing who's a religious figure and people being like what there's double standards saying, Oh, but it's okay when he says that. But it's not okay when the tyrant says that anyway. What great with great blessings come great response. Um, this one's kind of confusing me. I don't remember him saying those words, but it sounds like something Jesus would say. Sounds like something Jesus would say and the answer is Kanye West. You know, if my, if I were to take away anything, this is actually some of the most cogent words of advice that came from Kanye West, because if you are going to receive a lot of blessings, if you are going to be in the spotlight, if you are going to be someone that has power or influence. It's up to you to maintain that with positivity and put that back into a community or show some responsibility. I guess I should have really got that because I didn't remember Jesus saying it and that and Kanye is a kind of a religious person. So he would use the word blessings instead of power. Sure. Yeah, it makes sense. But also what does Jesus say about responsibility at all that you you are fairly well versed on Jesus quotes. Has he ever spoken on the aspect. Nothing comes to mind. Right. If anything, he says, I'm not here to bring peace. I'm here to be a sword and I'm going to make your fight with your dads and I'm going to burn down other people's mustard or was it victories without asking. He's like, Hey, that was my victory. It's May. Why? It's not even rooting yet. What are you doing? In so many words, I'm going to break apart your family because I am your family now. And that's such a cult leader type of thing. It is. It is. It is. Absolutely. If anyone in Jonestown or anybody else said that we'd recognize it on face for what it is. But if it comes from the Bible, we put a double standard on it. So anything a game like this is a really good way to highlight the cognitive dissonance that some people can employ. And if they were to take this with any degree of critical seriousness and think, why is it that I can't recognize or if I can recognize it, why is it that I'm not alarmed by the fact that these quotes sound very similar between these two people. Why? And the context is one guy is deluded in thinking that he's a God and one guy literally is telling you that you're beneath him. How is that in any way an improvement? Right? Right. All right. Here's the next one. Don't worry about tomorrow. Today's trouble is enough for today. I'd say Kanye because I don't remember reading that passage. Okay, we go to Jesus. What is the passage? Do you have it? You would have to look this up because I actually have this on full screen. So I see more than welcome. We can come back to it and get the citations for it. Though I do think it's kind of interesting. Don't worry about tomorrow. Today's trouble is enough for today. That is interesting. It's both. How do I put it? There's some euphemisms that I will employ to improve my sense of well-being or wellness or outlook. The one that I don't like so much is the one that says, hey, live only in this moment and don't think about the next moment. What I like to think about it is an ounce of prevention prevents a pound of cure, for example. Or like, you know, set yourself up or hard work makes the dream work, right? Or like if I work hard now or if I make sure things are in place now and not procrastinate, I will reap rewards of better preparation, better work, you know, and even though there is a struggle, how do I put it? The grit is worth the glory. I'll throw out a bunch of euphemism like that. The ones I don't like are, hey, don't worry about tomorrow. Today's bad enough as it is. Kind of depresses me. It says it's Matthew 634. Ooh, let's go. So yeah, whether it came from Jesus or Kanye, this wouldn't be a quote that I'd like. Also, it doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that Kanye would say. I think Kanye would be like, get yours now, hustle, get something right now or something like that. Either way. It depends on the mood he's in. It depends on the mood. All right, let's go to the next one. God blesses you when people mock you, lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you. I'd say Jesus. What makes you say it's Jesus? Only he's talking about God's blessings, but it could go either way, of course. Okay, okay, okay. The true answer is Jesus. Yeah, right. Good job. God blesses you when people mock you, lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you. But the question would be in my mind. So, so what would probably be the answer. The idea of like, if people are mocking you lying about you and saying all sorts of evil things against you. That might encourage me to maintain a certain behavior of things where maybe I am lying to people and deserving of being mocked and maybe I should have a course correction on my part. But the fact that I can be so into my own belief that when people and I say something that's worth being mocked or if I say something where people will say something bad back to me. And they say, that's a terrible thing to say to me. Like, why are you being such a terrible person? Oh, here's a person who just called me something terrible. God is blessed. You call me a terrible person. Yeah, I'm finally getting the feedback that I want that God shows that he's blessed me. God blesses you. The indication that God blesses you shouldn't be that when people mock you or lie about you. It should just be, hey, when God blesses you, people say nice things about you and you are being told that you're a good person. You can consider that the things that are good things that people are saying about you are blessing themselves. Ooh, that's good too. Yeah, exactly. So I don't like the idea of reinforcing perhaps feedback on terrible behavior by interpreting it as God blessing you. I think that could lead to some problematic circular thinking. And I definitely see some people who are caught in that tide pool or they're just constantly doing terrible things. Protesting terrible points of view or advocating terrible points of view. And when they're being told or called out for it, they're like, this is the feedback I needed from God. I'm like, what are you talking about? Anyway, next quote. I am a God. Yeah. Again, it can go either way. I just have to take a guess on this one. I think it's Jesus. Okay, this one's Kanye West. It's one of his most classic quotes. One of his most classic quotes. Is it really? Yeah, absolutely. I think he almost was going to name an album of that, but instead called it the Ballad of Pedro or something like that. But yeah, classic quotes from Kanye West. I think what Jesus said, what's the closest Jesus said it's like son of God or I am God. That is who you say I am or something like that. Okay, next one. One day the light will shine through and one day people will understand everything I ever did. Kanye. Oh, very good, Larry. Very good. So, you know, Kanye West is not a very, all right, put it, he's not a very complicated figure. It's just an intriguing person in history, by virtue of the fact that he understands that he has to say and do things to maintain relevancy in a very crowded market of popularity and advertising, etc. Like commercialism. So it's just a question of how much has he actually internalized the things that he says. And if there is like even 1% of it that he's actually interpreted correct, like as an actuality, he becomes a dramatically interesting person. But Jesus has said a lot of things too, right? Well, either that or his myth has, but they've attributed things to him because who knows if he actually exists that are not. Right, right, right. So, you know, the cool thing about Kanye West is we have him on recording. We have him on tapes. We have him on CDs cassettes. We have him on video internet stuff like documentaries have been done on them. We know this guy pretty well. We don't know a lot about Jesus, honestly. Certainly, there's certainly nothing in the first century accounts. Right, right. So there is a whole century. Right. So it does feel like something that Jesus could say like one day the light will shine through and one day everyone understand everything I ever did. That's like, okay, sure. Like in a in an actual sense. Yeah, maybe if there's like some, you know, returning of God and we have the day of restoration or whatever that where resurrection of everything comes back and like floats back up to heaven. Sure, maybe, but for Kanye, like he's talking about in such a grandier term, but we have all the tapes. We got it. We're good. Like we understand like we can replay these moments back and forth like I can find them do this quote where he says this exact same thing. Anyway, it's just a level of grandeur that he likes to operate under. Anyway, next is don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and also trust in me. Oh, and trust also in me. I would say Jesus. Jesus is pretty easy. Yeah, kind of way he talks. Next. According to King James. Alright, next one. Keep your nose out of the sky. Keep your heart to God and keep your face to the rising sun. Kanye. Kanye West. Okay, okay, okay. Alright, let's go. Next one. And remember that I am always with you until the end of time. That would have to be Jesus. Are you sure about this? No. You got me guessing. I don't know anymore. Alright, I think you got this one. I think we're running out towards the end now. Okay. So those who use the sword will die by the sword. Jesus. Yes. Very good. These are pretty, pretty classics. Healthy people don't need a doctor. Sick people do. Jesus again. Oh, it's interesting. I now I disagree with that. By the way, I think everybody needs a doctor, especially in our American health care system. I think you can verify health very quickly and easily, right? Like it's okay to screen yourself, but don't wait until you get sick before you go to a doctor, right? Like a doctor can help you from getting sick in the first place, right? Yep. The only thing I want to do in life is help people. Kanye, I guess. Why isn't it Jesus? Really? Why isn't it Jesus? Because he's a cult leader and he wants to basically take advantage of people and get a follow. True. What if we had a God that did have that as a morale that he followed, though? That was the thing I was thinking about earlier this week where, you know, God made evil, God made disease. He made kids with mal-shaped hearts and confusion and frustration, racism, all this stuff. If he made everything, he made all those things, too. But my idea would be, or at least made a system where he knew those things would exist and let it happen anyway. That's still a problem. So my thing would be, what if it was just a, God was just very open, said, hey, I'm here. This life that you have is sort of like a prequel to an everlasting life that we're going to have moving forward. There were some bad stuff here. I took it away, right? If you want it, you can consent to it. But otherwise, it's going to be far and apart from you. Enjoy your life in the meanwhile. It's limited. It's not going to last forever. But don't worry, because you all are going to eternity with me afterwards. And until then, just practice being cool and kind with each other. There's a lot of different people here. A lot of cool things you can try. Cool music, cool foods. Enjoy it. Have a good time. And then when we go to eternity, it's going to be even better than that. So this is sort of just like the warm pool you get into before you get into the jacuzzi. Have a good time, guys, everybody. I'll check in on you once a week. See you later. Yeah. You come check in on me, basically. Yeah, you got to go to him. Why did it have to be such a weird constructed? Like I did that in like a couple of sentences, 30 seconds or 20 seconds. Why did I need a giant book, you know? Why do I need people in hats and baby's blood or like wine and happy or simply be be excellent to each other. Yes, exactly. It could have been so simple. It could have been so simple. God, you could have made it so simple. Why do you have to listen to atheists explain to you? Anyway, the only thing I want to do in life is help people. Kanye West. All right. Next quote. You should only believe about 90% of what I say. As a matter of fact, don't even believe anything that I'm saying. I give the audience a second on this one. Okay. Okay. I think he's Jesus. Oh, really? I would say we go to West on this one. And again, you didn't, you thought Jesus said that? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you should only believe about 90% of what I say. As a matter of fact, don't even believe anything that I'm saying at all. So there are glimpses of Kanye West where he's not on a stage saying crazy things where he's like, you know, taking his daughter to childcare. In England, because he has a home over there and a paparazzi comes up to him and they're like, Hey, are you Kanye West? He's like, yeah. And he'll shake hands and he just takes his daughter into the care healthcare. Like he's like not pretending to be Kanye West. He's just like, Oh, I just have to drop my kid off somewhere. Or, or you'll like, you'll, you'll have pictures of people who catch him in like a shrimp shop because he likes like Cajun food and stuff like that. And he's just like, Oh yeah, I'll take some pictures with you. It's all cool. Like he's not in character. So I always wonder if these glimpses are when he's saying the crazy things he says, which are sometimes absolutely terrible. Let's, let's get, let's not even like, you know, sugar cake it like sometimes terrible things. Is it still just him trying to maintain a spot in the headlines? Because if you said, Hey, it's going to rain outside and everybody should be nice to each other. Does that get as much publicity in today's market? And is in some way is Kanye West or Jesus just one big art project? Yeah. Am I on the stage or not? Yeah, exactly. Is he going to project it? What image am I going to project in this encounter? That is the show. That is the show. It's very interesting. One thing about this is you should only believe 90%. I mean, you shouldn't believe. You should only believe about 90% of what I say. Matter of fact, don't. That's a huge discrepancy from 90% of nothing. But that sounds like something atheists would say. Don't believe us. Check it out for yourself. Go do the research. Find out for yourself. Right. If anything, don't ever be 100% about anything I say. Right. Yeah. I would say, yeah, never be, never be absolute about anything. I think there is some work to. Even if I, what I say sounds true and you agree with it, even if we were on the same page as far as atheism was concerned, if some of the terms that I'm using are wrong or some of the context or the illusions that I'm making are incorrect or valuable, call me out on it. Cause don't just take what I say for. Yeah. If I'm using her own word, I'd like to know that I'm using their own words so I can communicate better. Right. You guys and dread pirate also keep me on top of that. So I appreciate that. Okay. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We probably need to take a break. Okay. Cool. We'll come back after the break. Okay. This is the digital free thought radio hour on W O Z O radio. 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Okay. Cool. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on W O Z O radio. Check it out. The digital free thought radio hour. At 93.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take just a moment to talk about the eightieth society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. Wernher 21st year now and have 1100 members. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening. And Knoxville's Old City, at barley's tap room in pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables or it's Meetup.com or at KnoxvilleAtheist.org which is our website. You can also just google Knoxville Atheist. It's just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to Meetup and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. That's right. What are you going to pick up? I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I did. I did. Put me on the spot. I did want to talk about something that I had a shower thought. I don't know if you know what shower thoughts are. Sure. Oh, you know about them already? Tell me about you. Tell me. Yeah, the profound things that come to you and you're otherwise involved in other things that or have a quiet moment. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I think mine is related to the soul and I thought there was no better opportunity to bring it up with the master. You know how I hate talking about that. But the idea would be like, I've heard this quote before where people would say, I can't imagine how fortunate I am in today being here with this blessed family, et cetera, particularly during Thanksgiving because if I was this guy or if I was that person or if I was an aunt or if I was a badger, I wouldn't have all the blessings that I have in my life right now. If I was a tree, I wouldn't have my daughter. I wouldn't have the family. I wouldn't have the sunshine on my skin. If I was this other person who lived in a different country who was dead, maybe I didn't have access to the music that I love. And my mind is, it's weird that you've taken your identity and think that you could remove it from your body and superimpose it on something else or another organism because you are your body. And I don't mean that in an offensive way. I just meant that your mind, the person who you are identifying it, is an extension of your body. Your body produces the mind. And there's no better example of that than if you just look at your brain activities. You see a boxer and they get knocked out when their brain shakes in their head so much that the brain's like, okay, we're turning off functions until I can restart, right? Mind's off. You're asleep. There's a period of time where they're not like a coach and person anymore. What's that play? Well, I was back in medieval times or later, they would say, if you cut off your hand, is the hand you or are you you? It's the body you. You know, if they got off your arm, is the arm you? You know, if they'll go through the whole thing, which part is still you if it's still attached to your head. And you know, that type. And what do they do? And especially Revolutionary France, if they wanted to kill you quickly, and it can, inclusively, they cut off your head. And so that houses your mind. Of course, in ancient time, they thought it was your heart. Very true. That can change your, your identity. Well, surprisingly, have the same from the body, but it's not necessarily because now we have people who have artificial hearts who are walking around and are still very much themselves. We have presidents, vice presidents, if anything, that are still circulating white blood through their body. And they're like, I'm not dying as long as I have access to batteries. Like, okay. But yeah, that's a really good point. We used to think that it was the heart. And you think that when you remove the heart, that's the person. And they only knew that because when you took a heart out of somebody, they died, right? And so they thought, oh, it must be this thing. But now we have surgeries where you can actually replace people's hearts, put the same heart, a different heart into a different body. And that person still thinks they're the same person with all the same memories and everything like that. So we know that it's the brain. The brain does a number of really cool things. It can predict, it can make a pattern or it can. Pattern recognition. Yes, it can take in a multitude of different kinds of senses, but it also allows us to have cognition, which allows us to try to put all these things together and try to parse it out so that we can better interact with the reality that we can experience, subjectively experience. But it's not always right. It's not always right. And not only that, but it's not a separate supernatural thing that exists outside of our body. If anything, the mind is just an emergent part, property of a functional mind. And we know that whenever we interfere with the function of a brain, it interferes with the function of the mind. We know that with drugs, if you take sort of psychedelics and you alter the chemistry of the brain, the mind also simultaneously gets a little warped. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. The amount of LSD on a tiny piece of paper though, sends your mind off into hallucinations and auditory hallucinations. And it's not like LSD is like a gateway into a supernatural dimension. It's just a function of, hey, if you manipulate the chemistry that goes into your brain, you're going to manipulate the functions of your mind as a result, because your mind is a function of your brain. You can't take your mind apart from your body, which is your brain, your brain is a part of your body, right? You can't take your mind as a part of your brain and put it in another animal or put it in another tree or another person that's stuck with your body, your body. So here's the main thing. Here's the main conclusion. It's not that you were a soul or a person or a mind first that was implanted into a body. It's that the body exists first, and then it produced a mind, which is what you are identifying with. That is who you are is first body, and then the body made a mind in order to pull all the observations and sensations that it's getting, and it just made an identity that you are constantly course correcting day by day, and putting that together, that's what you are, and it's not that you could be removed from your body and be sentenced to space or into another animal. You are your body, and it's anything that should just make you more aware of the fact that you need to treat your body well. You need to take care of it better, and you need to make sure that the things that you put into it are going to reflect the kind of mindset that you'll have. If you are, for example, constantly smoking, eating terrible junk food, abusing yourself in, I don't know, chemical ways, drug ways, etc., that could have true effects on your mental outlook, or if anything inhibit what your true potential could have been. While I'm not one to say that what you should do or shouldn't do, I can say that I'll have a demonstrable effect on your capacity to be who you want to be if you are interfering with the natural chemical stability of how your brain works, and if your diet's bad, it's going to have that same effect if you're, I don't know, if just what you feed your mind or your brain with, like, as far as information goes, is warped. Prejudice thinking, news cycles that are just about scaring you and horror movies. Yeah, Fox News. Whatever you inform yourself is going to be what you become. Your reality will be. Yeah, yeah. So, like, you have complete, so that's not so much a scary thing as it is a empowering thing. You have complete fidelity control. You are the gatekeeper, right? Right. So, use your mind to control that. Use your mind, instead of being a reactive agent, be a proactive agent and say, okay, if I am what I eat, if I am what I inform myself with, then let me eat good things. Let me inform myself very well, and let me try to meet that high standard of evidence for the things that I will accept as true and dismiss as false. And then that will be, in my mind, the epitome of high-level life or a high-level mind. It's just something that really cares about what comes in and what stays out, both in food, information, friends, relationships, et cetera. It's all part of the same yoke. And it's not something that you just take your mind out and be like, oh, I'm so free of all these terrible physical constraints. And now I'm just going to go to heaven and just take all the good things with me. It's like, no, your brain, you can make all those good things now if you just start proactively adjusting them at the moment. That'd be my takeaway. Weird shower thought, but yeah. The idea that a soul could be something that you can move from a body and that you think that it's your mind when, in fact, your mind is just your brain. It's what the mind does. It creates identity. It creates your eye, as it were, the mind's eye as Daniel Dennett put a whole book out on consciousness and about how the mind creates your entity. Another thing about it, besides you were talking about drugs is physical abuse. You're talking about being beaten in a ring and how the effect it has on your brain. You have to look no further than some of the retired boxes. I understand that some people's reality forced them into that as far as their talents and what they can do versus what they can't versus their needs, their financial needs of the family, kind of stuff like that. But it's really sad that people will put themselves in a position where they need to be abused physically on a daily basis going forward. It's terrible. But if you want to tie the physical abuse of the brain to your personality, you don't have to look any further than a prefrontal lobotomy. You're a biologist. Can you tell us a little bit what that is and what it's used for? So you're talking about the prefrontal cortex of the brain and a lobotomy to that area. So as far as lobotomies to that area, I am not familiar with the stories. I do know of the hemi-sphere cuts that they make for those who have ellipses. And also, Larry, for the 40th time of a biochemist, but yeah, that's also a bio. But you're a biologist to me. You have to be a biologist and a chemist to be a biochemist. That's half of what I am. You're a lot more biologist than I am. But anyway, let's say your prefrontal cortex is where your most of your cognitive abilities and your entity resides. And it takes time for it to develop. So it's not something that even when you have, you always have one, even when you're born, but it's the last part of your brain to develop. And it takes upwards of 15, maybe 18 years for a brain to completely develop its prefrontal cortex. So your lizard brain is already ready to go. You're already breathing. You're already know where milk is. You're getting some basic motor functions, but the cognitive functions of a brain that can not only have a source of identity, but start to like weigh options that are more advanced that evolution didn't necessarily select for. But like the consequences of your action, ethics, morality, self, what do you call it, self-preservation, long-term benefits, short-term benefits, like the weighty aspects of what we consider humanity are all processed in this prefrontal cortex. And you're saying they lobotomized that part of the brain? Yeah, back in the early 20th century, 1900s, late 1800s, if you were a harmful criminal, let's say the one who goes around killing people, who does terrible things in public, they might send you to prison, but more enlightened sciences would say, no, put them in a mental institution. Let's see what we can find out about this the situation. And if you were in there and you were so, so combative, so physically abusive to others, you know, fighting and all that stuff, they may give you, they might actually put you on the operating table and slice up your prefrontal cortex, which is, which basically removes your identity. At that point, you really can do more than sleep. Right. And that, you know, if the soul was not created by the brain, why would that have an effect on your personality? Right. It's a physical link from the physical world to the consciousness, as you would call it, which is also physical. Right. Your brain, which is a physical thing, does create consciousness. If you believe in souls that is creating a soul instead of just the consciousness, then why would you not say the dogs don't have souls or cows or any other high mammal, or even orangutans, you know, they have morality and all that. This year I was sitting around the Thanksgiving table and I, I forgot how like the conversation did get brought up, but people know I'm an atheist. So it is what it is. And the retort that I got back that I didn't really engage with, but I did get back is Tyrone, did you know that scientists have determined that when a person dies, they're, they lose 0.3 grams of weight? That's Dr. McDougal's study that they're quoting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the story behind that? Like what's leaving? And like I happily respond with like, you know, if, if we're trying to determine if that's a soul that left and not just moisture or air or like gases, et cetera, right? Like would you want to base that determination solely on weight? Or would you want to have a better detector, like a soul detector instead? And I think they came to clues like I'd rather have a soul detector because it could be anything like that because I can't, I can't, I wouldn't know if it's moisture or air. We have no idea it's all the way, anything. How can he jump from to the conclusion that, you know, us losing a little of a few micro ounces of energy or mass, right, is a soul. Right. How do you know it's not fadens? Right, we don't have any attributes of a soul. We've never been able to capture one and put it on the dissection table or even examine it. Right. It's a bad, it's a bad measurement with inconclusive result. Well, no, it's jumping to conclusions as well. It is. And I wrote an article on that particular article that Dr. MacDougall came out with and his methods were crude, at least, even if this final observation was a real thing and had anything to do with the results. We have a, so at our, in our, at our work site, we have a big powerful microscope. It's called an SCM, a scanning electron microscope. It can see things down to a million times magnification, super high resolution, very, very cool. But the problem is, is sometimes we will get parts and we need to look at it with a microscope and then express how much matter is on that sample. And the thing is, how much matter is a measurement of weight? Like I need to put that thing on a scale and weigh it. But they're saying, but you can see it, right? So how much does it weigh? And in my mind, because I at best have a really powerful magnifying glass and I can see the thing, but I can't tell you how much it weighs. So I have a tool, but this tool is not designed for the question that you have. So in the same sense, weighing a body is not a good way to determine how much soul has left the person because we don't know if it's a partial leave. We don't know how much a soul weighs, period. We don't even know if they have mass. So when, if we see uniformly that body's lose mass, what else could that be that has mass that would interfere with the idea that it's a soul leaving? And the truth of it is there's a lot of stuff that leaves a body that's out. They respirate, they sweat, they, they, they defecate. They, there's a lot of stuff that bodies do that are, that are still enzymatically and, and even though there's no brain activity, I mean, in some cases there still is brain activity in the most sense, but like as a day, as the body shuts down, it's not a one step process. It's a multi step process. So based on what time you pick up the body and at any time afterwards, they are losing mass by virtue of the fact that they're not trying to maintain homeostasis. They might still be on body heat. And that doesn't even speak to the point of death. A lot of time people hang on for forever. And it's, and you think that, you know, they're never going to die because you're just going to maintain this vegetative state. And then the doctor walks in and looks at him and says, he's gone. And what, what the heck, you know, when did he die? You know, he, well, he died when I noticed he was gone. You know, it all depends. There's, there's so much that's not a count encountered or taken care of in this description. True. But the fundamental thing is there's a difference between a scientist said so and science said so. If a scientist saw something, it's an opinion of a person. If science says, or if science alludes to it, what they're talking about is we made a model that can be tested. But the thing is the model of a weight, a weight machine, is not credible for weighing something that may not have weight at all. It's an unknown variable. So you have the wrong tool to be able to come up with that determination. And me, even as a layman, just hearing that story, I can employ science and say, well, that's not as a reliable method as getting an actual tool that can measure a soul lever or not. And both of those people, whether it was the scientists who did that test or the layman who's just heard about the test, are both using science to completely dismiss the conclusions that were presented. Yeah. Yeah. The next time, the next time you or anybody listening hears that question or somebody tells you, we know how much it's always, you say, well, say, because of this experience, you know, you say, well, look at him and say, well, how much does this is all way? Yeah. And they'll say point four grams. You say, you know that because of this experience, which, you know, which doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't give you. No, but like my body, my body, I know this because I've been losing a lot of weight has goes through fluctuations on a daily basis. I go through seven pounds up and down just from how much I'm hydrated, you know. And if I weigh myself in the morning and I weigh myself in like the evening and then I weigh myself again the next morning, I'll go through a seven pound flux just because I'm drinking a lot of water and just flushing a lot of stuff out. So, you know, we and how many grams is that that's pushed roughly over a thousand? No, roughly like five. Oh, John Richards is going to destroy me. It's like five. I'm going to say five kilograms is rough. It's a little bit more than half. So it's three point five kilograms, three points eight something. Yeah. So like we have a lot of grams there for the people who don't like the metric system. It's a lot more than zero point three. It's like a hundred times as much as that. The other question, the other comment I had before we're done with the show, the other comment I had was around the Thanksgiving table. I brought that up like, hey, wouldn't it be great to have a better system than weight? And they're like, yeah, that's that's that would be much better. Like a supernatural light that just shown if your soul leaves your body like that would be much better. And then I can say, hey, let's look at the supernatural tool. But okay, go ahead, Larry. Oh, no, I'll go ahead. I didn't hear you, but more so the the interrupting conversation was I don't worry about souls. I don't worry about whether there's a heaven or hell. I just think that I'm going to die and come back as another body. And I'm going to live reincarnate over and over and over again because that makes me happy. And that was the it makes me more happy to believe that than anything else. Well, you got to ask them, though. Today, there are eight million, eight billion people in the world. Pretty much when I was born, there were four billion people. Where do all those extra souls come from? And I'm just saying that goes back to what I was saying earlier. There's no lounge waiting room in heaven of people waiting to become actual physical people on earth. You don't know that. I do know this. I'll tell this. I'll tell this to you, Larry. I do know the fact that my my soul is not something that was inserted into my body from like a supernatural resource. My soul is very much demonstratively part of my brain that exists. And we can demonstrate that. And I can show you that if you impact my brain, you in fact you impact me in my mind and stuff like that. So whatever the soul is is not whatever I care about. That's inside my head. Right. There was this guy who was a minor. He's a case study. What you do is you put some dynamite down into a hole that they drill into the rocks so that you could tamp it down with this tamping rod, which is about the size of those kind of rods. Reinforcing rods that you put in concrete. You would tamp it down. You don't want to tamp it too hard. Right. Right. Right. And usually when you're tamping it, you know, it's below your face. Oh, no. Why would you do it that way? Why don't you do it? Yeah. Well, it went off, shoved the entire rod through his forehead, through his face, did very little damage. But it did damage a certain portion of his brain, which changed his personality before the other way around. He was a likable, open-minded guy before that. But afterwards he was more prone to cursing, to being abusive to people around him. That type of thing. So it changed it literally. That physical interaction with his brain changed his personality. No. And listen, I'm telling you, you are what you eat. And I mean that more than just what you consume. It's your environment that influences what your body is capable of doing. And that influence affects how your mind operates because you are tied to your body. My point would be if you are in an abusive relationship, even if it's religious incontentations like you were raised believing all those quotes that we talked about earlier, that Jesus is God and that you are subservient to him, you are a branch on his vine, you know, like you are not, he is number one and you have to go through him in order to have any sort of presence in heaven and you are a sinner and that there's, you cannot be a good person without God. And even if you are with God, you're still not good because you have the unconditional sin from Adam and Eve. Like if you maintain that and you internalize that, that will as much impact your brain as caffeine, aspirin, anything like that because it's just parts of your environment that you're consuming to make up who you are. And it's going to be an effect of whether it's good things that you're using to impact your brain or bad things or toxic things. If you're in an abusive toxic relationship and I'm constantly in that relationship, that's going to affect my mindset. The same thing is if I was in a religion, it's going to, as just as equivalently or just as equally, impair my ability to operate at my full potential. And that's why that's one of the cause of empathy and concern that I have for people who are in a religious religion that does not offer them any self-esteem or self-worth and only does so if they're they're holy figures. It's a sad situation for me to see that. And then my last takeaway would be when I was with that Thanksgiving guy and the guy said, I just, it makes me happy to believe that I'm just going to constantly kind of reincarnate. I simply said, I would love to recognize that I can believe in things that are true, even if they don't make me happy, right? And I left it at more or less at that, just because something is true doesn't uncomfortable, doesn't make it, that's not a good way, that's not a good vehicle to arrive at a true conclusion. And I enjoy the fact that even the things that I do know are true or I can demonstrate are true, they aren't necessarily the things that are in kind with what I like or what I want it to be. And yeah, there are some harmful truths, climate change, racism, like there's like things that are exist that just is what it is, but I at least am aware of it now, and that gives me a better accurate model of the reality that I can operate. You used the word there, the truth. Well, we use that as a basic, even our keel wine in our life, but the religious uses as something that they have, they own, it's ours, the truth is ours. And matter of fact, they'll capitalize so many times in their writings, we have the truth. Right. But when it comes right down to it, does he know that? No, he doesn't know that he's going to reincarnate. Does he believe it anyway? Yeah, why not? It makes me happy. It's such a dichotomy that they can hold in their minds at the same time that they believe stuff that they really cannot demonstrate at all. And I'm sort of hoping that there's a stepping stone to believing something that comes with a lot of harmful dogma and beliefs that affect my life as far as like a voting population versus just believing in like a deus God or believing reincarnation just because it provides you some sense of comfort. I would be more concerned with the idea of reincarnation than a deus God, because what happens if, I don't know, in the weirdest sense, your girlfriend dies, your high school sweetheart dies and she becomes your daughter. That would be very weird. There's only so many people. And does it only happen to humans? I mean, Buddhism comes back as a lower animal or a higher human. Right. So anyway, those are our thoughts for the day. I think we've gone through the whole show. Larry, do you have any things that you'd like to plug before next week? Only my website, the Digital Freethought Radio, I mean, sorry, digitalfreethought.com blog. Do you tie? I mean, before I get going, I'm going to close the show. Okay. I was playing Baldur's Gate 3. There's no spoilers that I'll discuss, but it's a game where gods are very much real and they impact people's lives in a very matter of fact way. Across the entire pantheon, there's many different gods that they all have direct conversations with their followers. They have direct statues that will commune with people. They allow for some magical spell soaker. They have dramatic impacts. And the commentary of the characters who know these gods are real, some of them go through paths, personal paths where they realize the God that I am worshiping does not have my best interest at heart. And I am no longer going to worship this God. Even though I know this God exists, I'm choosing not to worship it because I was either indoctrinated into the belief or I realized that this God is actually disadvantageous to my own well-being or just a terrible person or manipulative. There is a commentary there and it could just be by virtue of the fact of how I'm playing as an atheist of seeing characters who know gods that do exist but are choosing not to worship them. And I find that to be such a very, it's such a on-point commentary of what you are capable of doing as a human being if you are caught up in a religion, that you can still, you know, you have even less evidence than they do that your God exists. You don't know that your God exists yet you're still worshiping them. So the idea that that a God can exist and you don't have to worship them should be a signature of God should just prove that he exists and leave the question up to us to determine whether you worship them or not. Because the devil knows God exists, right? And the devil is not worshiping God. So why can't we all just know, make it easy for everybody and then move forward? Why do we have to operate on faith? Which in my mind is such a terrible system to come to a true conclusion. Because you get out of faith in anything. So true. And that system of God makes more sense than one omniscient God and all powerful God. Because in your game, multiple gods mean that they can fight against each other. That things can happen as a result of their conflicts and their favorite people can do things to other if God's favorite people. But in a one deity system like Christianity, he's responsible for everything. You know, if he's omniscient, if he knows everything, he's all powerful and he's all loving, then how could an evil be in the world? That is the biggest problem for Christianity. And that, you know, they just say, well, evil's in the world. Devil's here. Yeah, but they don't pause to think who put the devil there. Is God not more powerful than the devil? Is he not omniscient and omnipresent and all powerful? It all comes back to the main deity. And if it happens, it's up to him. And blame or otherwise. Matter of fact, Isaiah, what was it? Isaiah 46 or something like that. I can't remember. He says, I do good and I create evil. I think your Lord do all these things. So he confesses right there in the text. Anyway, just a reminder, you can find this show on podcasts everywhere. Just search for Digital Freethought Radio Hour. And if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, you can get help from recoveringfromreligion.org. My content can be found at digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheist songs, and many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel is at Doubt or Five. You can find my book, Atheism, What's It All About, on Amazon. What's your channel there, Ty? Let's chat on YouTube. Let's chat. Be there or be square. 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 Wednesday night at 7 o'clock on WOZO Radio. Say bye, everybody. Bye.