 103.9 FM, WOZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, February 14th, 2021, and I'm Larry Rhodes, or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Wombat serves us. I don't know which camera to look at anymore, and that's the very bad course I have it. How many cameras you got? I got two right now. It's kind of crazy. I always looked at this one, and then I was like, every show I'm always looking away. Let me put one right in front of my face. Well, I'm sure the radio audience don't care. Oh, they love it. They can tell. They can tell. They feel like, why do I feel warmer all of a sudden? Yeah, that's great. Our guests today are Doubtfire, Boudreau, Dredpire Higgs, and George One, and Buffalo. Welcome all. Digital Freethought 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, gods, 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 atheist, 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. Also, did you know that there was a streaming atheist call-in video show? It used to be a TV show. Broadcasting here in Knoxville, did you know that? Exactly. Exactly. The thing is, the World Series of Tag is only a brand-new, latest-class thing. World Series of Tag, you were talking about it. So it's 10 groups of parkour artists running around like this gymnasium, and they have to play tag with each other. Very cool. I highly recommend you watch it. WCT. Tell them more about it, Larry. It's not an atheist call-in TV show or video show. We'll tell you more about the video show after the mid-show break, and if you'd like to interact with us during this show, go to Facebook and search for a digital free-thought radio hour page and use the messaging function to send us questions or comments. What do you have for us today there as far as the topic goes? The universe is trying to kill us. And I want to bring that up only because I think it's an interesting thing to remind ourselves as we go on this journey together, as weird things growing on a planet that's just hurtling through space. I think it's good to remember ourselves where we are in the grand scheme of things. But before we do that, I'd like to throw it up to our good friend, Dredpire Higgs, for a weekly invocation. I am a newly-loured, who art in a colander of Dante be thy noodles, thy blood be rum, thy sauce be yum, with meat as it is with vegetables. Give us this day our garlic bread and forgive us our cussing as we put up with those who cuss against us. And lead us not into ketoism and deliver us some carbs for the pain of the noodles and the sauces and the dog whenever and ever. Raw. Raw, man. And I'd like to remind the audience that this is not the first religion that eats their savior. That's right. We're real skilling, of course. Yeah, sure. Hey, I'd like to do a quick, my favorite part of the show, just a very quick, very fast, very, very immediate, life-restelling of everyone's last week. Larry, how you been since last week? Oh, fine. I'm doing well. Actually, I got my first 19 vaccine this week. Nice, what's the story behind that? Because you don't look anywhere close to 70. What's wrong with you? Were you cutting in line? Autism setting in? No autism and I am 70. It'll be four weeks, before I get my next one, since it's Moderna. All good. Yeah, I got the same Moderna shot. I'm getting mine in March and then hopefully I can go back looking forward to that. I'm happy for you, Larry. Did it hurt? Did they give you a little glass to drink? Was that your shot? Because that's how everyone gets their shots. No. The lady did comment that I had a polio vaccine a long time ago. I bet George has them too. Okay. George has what? A polio vaccine, Mark. Oh, yeah. Hey George, what about you next? Last year, your whole life. Buffalo, you're on mute. Unmute yourself and jump right back in. How are you? I might have needed. There you go. Now you're good. You're good now. I don't use a cat filter though. Yeah, he's not a cat guys. He's not a cat. Let him just forget about that. Guys, come on. What is a cat filter? It's a bad inside jump. Buffalo, what were you going to say? What am I doing this week? I've been walking on ice. Nice. Hopefully. Literally walking on ice. We live next to a 300-acre free-range cattle farm and that's where my wife and I walk every day a mile and a half. But this week we've been walking on ice. Our territory. Where is the ice? Come on, give us the second beat for this. Ice storm in Kentucky. Ice storm in Kentucky, that's the second. Trees are caked in ice crystals and it's really spectacular. Wow. Very dangerous. It's going to distort our trees for 10 years at least. Last time we had one of these ice storms I think in 2008 or 2009. So all of our cedar trees that are home to our cardinals are all sort of bent over. Wow. Has the vegetation just died? No, it hasn't died. It's pulling the trees over and they don't really stand back up again. There's branches falling off and so forth. We've got vaccines. We've got ice storms. Tell me something positive. What was going on with you in the last week? Well, I've got my Coke Zero Cherry. I'm so happy about it. And the other thing we found were hash brown patties like the little frozen hash brown patty. They've been missing since March. I'm sure supply chain related but they're finally back in the freezers. Good. Little things. Ice storms have been scary a lot of houses without power but they got to them pretty swiftly. It's crazy times and we've got more coming tomorrow. I would say this though we're probably in one of the best times to have stuff like that happen to us. Could you imagine if we were all caping when that was happening? My leg is frozen? There's just no nothing I can do about this time zone. George, number one, how you doing? How you been? Well, I'm doing good. I just realized that although Larry talks about are we the only atheist group in Knoxville I just realized that Larry is the only person in this meeting right this moment who indeed is in Knoxville. Everybody else on this call is somewhere else. So, I think I'm the I'm the closest one to Knoxville and I'm halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. I'm 60 miles away from Knoxville which brings me to the what's been happening in my life is that I finally got my car to the repair shop. The issue is can I see to drive the car to the repair shop when the wipers are busted? So, if you can't see, you can't drive what am I going to do? Anyway, I discovered the local what they call public transportation but everybody else calls it a dialer ride and it's pretty good. You know, for rural if you don't have a car or something it's not bad. Yeah. I used that when I was before I got my car I was on dialer ride. It's wonderful. Yeah, it is. I'm amazed. It's something that Tennessee pulled off and got it right. So, check it out. You know something I also love about Kentucky has this weird patrolling group of people with forklifts or not forklifts, tow trucks who will just drive up and down the main highways and look for cars that are just stranded on the side of the road just pick them up and pull them to wherever they need to go. And there's like no charge to the person. It's just once upon a time a couple of millionaires got some tow trucks and they're like, we're just going to have this is our thing now. We just do this. So, where is this? It's in Kentucky. It's like almost all over Kentucky. And there's not in Kentucky where it's a problem. It's just people with tow trucks just driving up and down the sides. But in Tennessee it's illegal to hitchhike. That makes that can make things really hard for some poor people. You know, oh, okay. Okay. This is new information for you. The only time I slid off the road was up in New York. And they had roving tow trucks that saved me and my family actually. And so the guy pulled me out off the road. I can't believe his truck was able to manage it. But anyway he got us off the road and I said, how much? And he said, 10 bucks. I said, you got to be kidding me. And so I gave him 50 bucks and told him to get some good gifts for his kids. But if I ever he wouldn't hook me up because he was illegal. So in order to do that and I expect to sustain in most states you have to have a license to do that. And he didn't have a license, but he was helping out a whole lot of people that day because I could see him one after the other pulling people out of the mess. You guys, you need to realize if you own a tow truck, you're a superhero. Or if you just have one of those cool actual jacks in the back of your car you're like a roving superhero. Like someone pulled over side of the road trying to do a tire change. You'd be like, I got a real jack here. That's amazing. I can't tell you how many times I've done that and I felt like a Batman afterwards. Great. Doubtfire, Scott, how are you doing, my friend? How's that last week been treating you? Eee, life's been pretty good. Can't complain at all. Been preparing for a debate that I'm having tonight on the empathetic atheist YouTube channel. So I've been preparing for that debating free will. Oh, no. Yeah. He's looking and putting a poker face on, but man if we were playing I would have seen it. That's a good question, man. You you tipped your hat. Yeah. I'm all in. What side of the issue are you on or which side are you debating? I'm against the free will and so my opponent will be arguing for free will. Okay, cool. Just as long as it's proper. Religious. Yeah, he's a Christian OK. Do you choose to have this debate with him? Yeah, we we together and it was so freely chosen that, you know I was determined by reasons. Sure. I say the best for last Dreadpire you've been shaking hands with movie stars. You've been in Supreme Court. Who knows what you've been doing shoring the swabs. I want to do pirate terms. I don't know. I don't know many of them, but Dreadpire the mobbies walk me through it. Let's start with the legal precedent that you started. So last Tuesday I was in before the Supreme Court on a judicial review of a decision that was made by the human rights tribunal not to hear my case of discrimination against the ICBC the insurance Corporation of British Columbia or what I said was discrimination based on religion because they wouldn't allow me to wear my tricorner which is my regalia as a pastafarian and so I think I did a great job that's from my personal point of view of course it was all on a conference call so it wasn't in person and of course I had my argument prepared I had to make and I was kind of surprised that the defence or the respondent the whole argument from their side hinged on trying to convince the judge that we are strictly satirising religion and that on that basis we are not afforded the rights and protections under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada so I think so now we're just waiting for the judges written decision so we'll see I mean he's taken it's now Sunday and we were at court on Tuesday so clearly he's taking his time and deliberating this before he renders decision and I think because he's going to have to be careful because he comes up like if he finds against us against pacifarians he runs the risk of coming up on an interpretation of law which an appeal court may disagree with so I hope he does a really good job of whatever he's doing regardless of which side he falls on but again I think I did the very best I was able to do I had some pretty strong arguments and since there was only one argument they were hinging everything on I also think it's cool that you have your pdf argument available is there anywhere that people can actually get access to that say they're possibly in America yeah where would be a good idea to post that I can post it anywhere I've got it all pdf so I know I uploaded it to the channel here to the free thought radio channel but I suppose I could put it I don't know this is why we need young kids on the show because you got to put that on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat the technocrats please please remind me of what their main argument is that pacifarians are simply satirists that are just making fun and mocking and criticizing religions their main argument what is their main argument against your stimulus that's their main argument that's their main argument because we mock it was interesting because they introduced an interesting syllogism it was essentially Gary identifies himself as a pacifarian pacifarians and members of the church the flying spaghetti monster other religions and certain religious practices pacifarians wear colanders as religious headgear and the unstated end of that was Gary is a pacifarian who mocks and criticizes religion and wears a colander so I rewrote that syllogism I said in stark relation to this we can put this another way Gary Smith is a Muslim parent to the Islamic faith Gary engages or Muslims engage in suicide bombings and flying planes into buildings Muslims wear cloth hats as religious headgear the unstated conclusion being Gary is a Muslim who engages in suicide bombings and flying planes into buildings and wears a cloth hat as religious headgear so I just wanted to make it so stark such a stark comparison and I pointed out the three logical flaws in that, there was the argumentum hominem the straw man and the division fallacy division fallacy being the one where around brick building is necessarily made of round bricks it's a fallacy right so anyway these are the kinds of things I laid out and said you can say anything you want about me but you can't prove it I can't try my own notions of what the universe is all about to anything I want prove me wrong because you can't Gary one of the things I go to as one of those syllogisms is not all people who wear red hats like some do but not every person that wears a red hat is a republican and I throw that out when someone says hey all atheists say god doesn't exist there are some atheists who say that but that's not what makes them an atheist doesn't the same way that wearing a red hat doesn't make you a republican some Republicans wear red hats but that's not the qualifier it works you gotta do what you can hey Larry what's up the main point I would try to make during that session is the government's job to define which religions are real and which ones aren't I mean that's unconstitutional it was a point I made as well in America any country really that was my week nice so guys that was a crazy week so let me just make sure I go through this again we had crazy vaccinations because we're living in a pandemic we've had George with George man I can't even remember the thing that you had oh I said I took yeah I said I took public transportation rural transportation yeah there's one shield that needs one shielding it's crazy we had George number two who had ice storms flying all over the place we had Dredd who has a government trying to like hassle him can't even put a hat on this hat it's crazy we had Boudreau I can cherry coat guys like the world is literally getting it's crazy it's literally insane and then Scott dropping the beats I don't know like it's madness guys the universe is trying to kill us that's the conclusion that I'm coming to it's the only way that makes sense and the reason why I bring that up the reason why I bring that up is because I've heard on multiple occasions people say we live in a finely tuned universe that we should believe and manifest destiny that this world was created for us yet I can walk outside for you know ten minutes and only freeze to death already right now it's really really bad in fantasy we haven't seen the sun in like the last seven days it's it's pretty nuts and so what I would like for us to remember what we'll definitely dive into is pretty in the second half of the show is why not necessarily why we take for granted that we actually live in a harsh universe and we're lucky to have the things that we have we're lucky to be here in this warm room with electricity but let's think about the dangers that are outside that we tend to forget about now that we are living in a bit better environment politically a bit better environment intellectually science wise we can dive into the harsh realities and have some fun there Larry look like you had something on your mind how is the universe killing you particularly well you know there's it's technology it's our own brains it's really saving us from the environment I mean you could go to 70 or 80% of this planet and you wouldn't be able to survive because you'd be living in water you know 75% of the planet saltwater above certain latitudes you couldn't survive or below certain latitudes at the poles and 10 miles up straight up in any point on earth you would no longer be able to survive and anywhere from that point on you know the 99.999999 percent of the universe you'd be dead within minutes it's just a very small thin layer of air on this rock that we live on that allows us to survive here and we have adapted to that environment so the only reason we can live in it we have an adaptive we evolved we evolved evolution adapted us to the environment I like it but we're also rapidly changing that environment as well George Buffalo you had wanted to talk about that yeah I'm saying the T up there you go so my passion now is climate change actually for the last 10 years I've taught a course on it at the university and so I'm very much into it at the break I'll get a reference for you that's I think very important to your your actual question about about our earth and how it's changing all the time and what I say to my students is yeah it's changing and it always has changed that's the argument that's used by the climate change nihilist but the problem is that the rate of change that's occurring now does not see our continuing to exist as a species on this planet which is not a problem not so much so when we say the world is ending we don't mean everybody it just means us let's let's make sure we get you know interesting you make that point years ago when I was in the service and I was stationed in Japan I went to Hiroshima and I visited the museum at the epicenter in Hiroshima and the thing that sticks in my mind the most was a painting that was there and it showed the leg of a woman that sort of projects into the middle of this picture the lower half of it from the knee down is bone and the upper half still has flesh on it it's obviously after the bomb right and the only living thing in that picture was a cockroach sitting on the kneecap and if you think the humans are like the predominant life on earth there's a statistic I came across a little while ago it says that termites are more prolific eleven times more populace on earth by weight than humans oh okay by weight eleven times that's by weight imagine the numbers feels true but cool enough to say at dinner party that's some good dinner party trivia I'm gonna have to well don't get the bacteria in our body our many times in weight greater than the rest of our body so they don't have a leg to stand on boom guys I'm here all day Larry we're at the bottom of the half hour whoa that could disappear why don't we we take a quick break and we come back and we talk more about how the universe this is the digital free thought radio hour w o z o radio 103.9 l p f m right here in Knoxville Tennessee and we'll be right back after this short break 103.9 f m w o z o radio Knoxville welcome to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on w o z o radio 103.9 l p f m right here in Knoxville I'm doubter five or Larry Rhodes today is Sunday February 14th 2021 let's talk about the atheist free thought groups that you can join here in Knoxville first there's the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK founded in 2002 we're in our 19th year now ASK has over a thousand members and we have weekly zoom meetings during the COVID outbreak you can also find us on facebook at Knoxville atheists society of Knoxville or just go to google and google Knoxville atheists you can find it in meetup or just our website which is KnoxvilleAtheist.org by the way if you don't live in Knoxville you can still go to meet up and search for an atheist group in your town don't find one start one that's right earlier in the show we said we talked about Knoxville's atheist video show well you can find their archives on youtube you can search for Knoxville free thought and it will bring up the archives of the old tv show however if you want to look at the new things that we've been doing do a look for free thinkers united coalition of Knoxville and remember you can find youtube you can become part of our youtube show or this radio show by contacting any of us at the group or at RET Rationalist of East Tennessee on the show with us today we have Dred Pirate George George II or you're muted he's frozen too all right now I'm back guys what was the question where do you want to pick up no you see I was disconnected because I accidentally turned on my fan and it's a terrible fan what a terrible terrible terrible terrible fan what a terrible fan we are polarized on that one guys let me see if I can share my screen real quick we're going to go over last week's commentary from well actually a bunch of comments from not only last week's show but a bunch of other shows in the past I've realized that we get a lot of comments thank you guys so much for all the comments by the way but they're also on several weeks ago episodes too or even like four or five episodes so I want to highlight just people who are reaching out thank you very much for that hey Buffalo we got a response from that is trading room on a pun that we did using the Polish word for when to later which meant fan in Polish he says hey I don't speak Hungarian Hungarian but in Polish it's for fan it's you want to help me out with that one be a truck that's no English or Latin commonalities also fan as an admirer Polish will not ring any bells we use the English fan in colloquial Polish only with a different Polish a sound that's very nice thank you guys in the episode how to get vaccinated we got a question that was last week's episode by the way we got the question from Houston ensemble is Larry a hologram the movement of the hair is something else haha we love this channel amazing work guys this is our new favorite channel watch time we would love to have you on a podcast if you'd like to join us of course I want to feel free to reach out Larry would you mind answering the question are you actually a hologram I'm not a hologram hologram hologram haha he's a what to call it green screen so my hair does its own thing nice we also got a comment from Ryan Haney on our episode about free speech he says each should be completely free you should be able to say anything no matter how rude ignorant or hateful interesting once you say something hateful or ignorant people should also have the freedom to judge you based off your speech sunshine is the best disinfectant just my opinion personally I want people feel free to say what they feel so I can know if they are someone I want to be around well you know when you have when you live in a world where you have something to lose that's not as good of an idea may I respond to that absolutely go for it okay we have a saying here that you're not allowed to cry fire in a crowded theater and I think that people should be held accountable for the consequences of their speech just as Trump is being impeached right hopefully yes but we're going through the process going through the process and I appreciate that process because Trump isn't the issue it's and what I find is the case is it's not so much the person that's being explicitly rude ignorant or hateful that's the problem is the people who are sitting back and not stopping that person who are the problem not giving him the feedback they're not giving him feedback complicit complicity is what supports these kinds of these things and so like the best way to stop rudeness ignorance or hateful comments is to fight and be anti those positions and the way you're anti those positions is by trying to rule them out and stop them and that takes effort so we have these rules in place to be able to protect ourselves and I think there's at least ground rules to say hey we as a society have determined that these things are not acceptable this actually mutually benefits everybody and it's not free speech we're putting on a platform it's social welfare and it's the fact that we can mutually benefit from the fact that we put safeguards in place in terms of communication that's good for everybody guys universe is trying to kill us we got youtube comments it's crazy dred you just talked about something kind of crazy going on about the government you know stepping on your stepping on your hat but you were also shaking hands with some movie stars doing security work right is that that's true yeah what's the security what security if you're a movie star everyone knows if you're rich and famous nothing bad happens to you well yeah I mean people are killing other people with love that comes down to you know everyone just wants to get close and touch something they see on the screen and do that in real person so yeah sure I'm glad you're on the roll though but I guess what's your interesting take on the universe is trying to kill you can you think of like anything that we might be taking for granted well I think it's all taking everything for granted essentially I mean I kind of understood that the universe is a very hostile place when I was a young boy reading Isaac Asimov books you know just understanding that you know the universe didn't have us in mind when it came to be and that the idea that the universe is fine-tuned well it couldn't be any other way right I mean when it comes right down to it the universe as it exists couldn't be any other way so this idea of fine-tuning is um it's asking the wrong question I think you have to put a caveat at the end of that it couldn't be any other way and still produce us if it didn't produce us we wouldn't be here questioning we wouldn't be here making the observations but theoretically according to physics it can be a lot of other ways that we just be unpopulated yeah but this is what I'm saying is that the universe as it is in this current condition couldn't be any other way and have us to have the question 100% proof that it does exist I mean that the universe exists this way yes that's right we only have one example mm-hmm what I was alluding to earlier was that there's a lot of service workers firemen, police officers, security guards that go about very dangerous work even vaccine people and drive-thus right now standing in the cold putting shots in people's arms because there's an awareness that there are dangers in the world and they put themselves on the line to address those for us not to mention the virus itself and being exposed yeah so to our military to all of our service workers we thank you and we appreciate your sacrifice and it's not something we take for granted Scott drop some beats drop some beats you got some toys for us you want to drop some beats real quick you got to unmute yourself first buddy mm-hmm these are the most silent beats ever Scott yeah while you are in the process of unmuting yourself would you mind thinking about a way how the universe is trying to kill us and we'll get right back to you Boudreau why don't you tell me how the universe oh wait no we already got you right no we didn't get yet how's the universe killing you Boudreau? I got notes I'm ready I'm ready let's go let's go let's go I'm gonna steal this and butcher it it's kind of what Dread Pirate was saying but you know if you have a pothole and you fill it with water and then you talk to that puddle that exists and the puddles thinking I am I'm so perfectly fit for this this universe I live in I mean I match the pothole perfectly it's like the puddle was made for you yeah the puddle was made for no you just you adapted evolved and filled it so I think the one thing because I've thought about this a lot when people give us this idea that yeah the world was made perfect for us we have our light source when you stand outside when it's around Ty I know it's taking a little break right now but when it's out there it's it's sun and it's our source of light we can't even look at it right without ruining our eyes it burns our skin it's cancer yeah yeah it's there every day every day it's like if you are gonna fine tune a universe why not just the one thing right off the bat you know you know aside from maybe just not having covid's and things like that the other thing would be maybe just make the light source a little less deadly yeah that would be great wouldn't it I would argue in the reverse actually I would argue that we evolved to keep our eyes near the ground where the real danger was I would say this whenever I get the fine tuning argument I am compelled to throw out that sun argument every single time I am compelled to do that though I always worry about like the the mechanics that will go on in the theist mind as I throw that out and make a really good strong patented scientific argument so instead I just say why do we have nipples like why do men have nipples that works every single time they're just like ooh if you're not interested in that see that's a great thing to pull out so why do I got nipples then if we're like if everything about me was designed perfectly what's that all about that's a book actually I have that book why do you have it nice nice nice god was drunk that day oh there it is that's it on the fourth day you made Budweiser George why don't you tell me something about the universe and how it's going to kill us all I have nothing you got to say I would say the universe is not trying to kill me I'll tell you what's up you wake up you feel tired you need a little thing in your cup why do you need stuff in your cup why don't you talk to me about some of that oh yeah well I was going to do that later I want you to do it now because we just prompted you come on come on show and tell this is the best coffee I've ever had radio people can't hear see your image so you might be holding up a bag of Pete's coffee and I want to confess that as I'm listening to myself talk the longer I live in Tennessee the stronger my New York accent becomes it's an act of defiance it's my version of not wearing a mask the first time George was on the show he was like howdy y'all I want to talk to you now he's like hey let me talk about this water movie alright this was a very small company in Berkeley California that I remember when it had only three stores Alfred Pete was a real person and he was forced to work in a German war factory in during World War II not in Nazi Germany but in Holland and ironically with five changes of ownership the company that owns Pete's coffee right now has been accused of benefiting from Nazi business practice fantastic coffee and if you don't have the money for Pete's which is like about $9 for 12 ounce bag these days here this is great stuff this is called Pilon and it is a Cuban style coffee by way of Miami Florida now owned you got Nazis and Cuban coffee what's going on here well this stuff is great really affordable this is the people who left communists the Miami Cubans so let me tie this back to the main topic then so like we're talking about why the universe is trying to kill us I think Nazis and maybe even let's throw it out communism, authoritarianism all these things that just make life way way less appealing or less pleasant I should say these are factors that are uncontrollable variables in our universe that we as a society do our best to try to mitigate and control and that's something that we should be aware of we should take for granted that we at least live in a semblance of a democracy that we can at least vote based on regardless of the color of our skin or what's in our pants and that's meaningful and we should do our best to try to protect the rights that we got I want to Scott are you available to talk or why don't you meet yourself and join in the conversation you're muted sir oh I'm sorry I didn't even know I was muted yeah that's why I said it four times Scott why is the universe trying to kill us yeah so this kind of opens up like some philosophical things too because what do we mean by trying oh dang it you got me alright yeah you got me so that's the first thing that kind of makes me think is like what do we mean by trying does it involve volition choice free will stuff like that are we saying that the universe is intentionally trying to kill anything it was a catchy name it was just a catchy title it's okay it's okay I would say that I would say that and then again we can say well Nazis are part of the universe and they're trying to kill people but sure and we get back to the question of free will people have free will do we really have volition is that really something that or is that just an illusion so in a way we can say at least part of the universe is trying to kill us but then we but then people who are fighting against climate change they're part of the universe too so part of the universe is not trying to kill us so I guess the universe is sort of a mixed bag of things trying to kill us things not trying to kill us depending on how we interpret free will is maybe maybe the universe is just doing what it does if someone threw me in why did God create atheists exactly if someone threw me in a pit of vipers and told me hey it's not the vipers they're going to kill you it's snake venom that's actually toxic it's like no it's it's a delivery system the universe seems to be a delivery system to try to kill me and the only thing that's venom is not killing me where it is I do want to make a note on evolution we brought it up a couple of times I got a Ph.D. in biochemistry I love evolution here's this funny story that's actually true I had a hearing for a short period of time in my left ear it was actually just a build up of wax it wasn't a big deal but I was kind of freaked out because we have lots of hearing common in my family I went to I forgot what the ear doctor called auto laryngologist are you for real? yeah it's a very long word auto laryngologist because they do ears nose and throat thank you thank you thank you you're welcome they do this scope on my ear canal and they find just a bunch of wax and they're like no actually your hearing is good you're just built up a lot here and we're just going to take it out and they did this weird surgery where they had this needle go way into my ear and they pulled out a big chunk of wax and they were shaking his head it felt like they're in my brain but after it was done I was like can you do the other ear because I feel fantastic there was just so much pressure I was even realizing and I heard in HD for like the next four days it was amazing but what was cool was the doctor told asked me did you ever live in an environment with like cold lakes or did you ever go swimming I lived in California for a long period of time it was like yeah I lived almost right next to the beach we would always go swimming and there was a lake as well that we would do swimming in as well and they said yeah because in your ear are tiny little bone protrusions bone protrusions and those only develop for people who swim a lot in cold water because it's like an evolutionary compensation it's you trying to adapt to cold water coming in your ear your body doesn't like that so it's made these tiny little grills essentially to try to keep the water out and I'm like that makes no sense it's called surfer's ear it's not something I'm making up but the funny thing is I was like that doesn't even sound like it works it's like of course it doesn't work it actually leads like your loss your body is just adapting evolution is not a system that gets you more efficient it's just a system that makes you try some random stuff yeah just you're trying and if it doesn't work it dies in response to the environment it's just a random response to the environment and if it works for you good and you can pass that along and if it doesn't work for you too bad you just screwed yourself you can't hear in your ear anymore that's just what it is and it made me rethink entirely what evolution really is in this system it's not a steady path forward towards a better body it's literally just human beings trying to do whatever can work and seeing what sticks and if that's the case man is this universe at least a mechanism to try to kill us because the main thing we've been banking on since the beginning of time is evolution but it just turns out we're just the lucky you know Plinko's we're the ones that natural selection selected to be to the environment I'm thinking about the question is the universe not trying to kill us how about that there Gary you're raising your hand what's up I was just going to say I'm actually right in the middle of Richard Dawkins the selfish gene if you want a good read on evolution and biology and all that good stuff that's a really excellent book now the 13th version or a 13th edition or something like that excellent read yeah so it's not like it's when you work out you work out you get more muscle mass and you look more fit like it's evolution is not that we had for a while considered that that was the case like oh it's a draft stretching his neck up to try to get the trees generation after generation that's Lamarckian evolution right and that's not the case it just turns out to be the case one day hey this this this thing that kind of looks like a horse has a slightly longer neck and that's a little bit more attractive maybe maybe he's a little more lucky and next thing you know he can he can reach the food oh that's even more attractive what a coincidence and evolution just keeps doing that and all the animals that get shorter and shorter next they just die off we're just we're just a whoa maybe think of something you just said it seems like with evolution though you can say that trying to survive but then trying to um help people and do good and um all these you know bring meaning all of this stuff is kind of emergent properties come from evolution so in a way the universe if we're defining universe is everything that exists or is going to exist or whatever the case maybe you could say that the universe kind of does have at least some property to it that wants you to live and wants you to prosper and wants you to have all these wonderful divine qualities because we humans are here and now we're fighting against climate change we're trying to you know live longer have world peace flourish well-being all that kind of stuff and we're part of the universe so it's got weight the flip side to that the flip side to that is if I were to see like the branching points right there are for every human being that's happy or every population of on earth that's happy if you were to take this into like a hypothetical multiverse there's an inordinate amount of potential realities where humans would be the least thing that's capable of surviving on any planet and so like when I see like hey yeah it looks like the case of this universe is fostering our existence it's like but no like if the degrees on the ocean were just three degrees higher we'd be dead if oxygen had a little bit more sulfur content in it we'd be dead if we started you know this life 150 million years before we showed up we'd be dead we'd be dinosaur food like so many examples so many gradients where it's just like actually we're lucky to be here yeah we made it but how do I put this if there's a family across the street and they're called the marshals and they have one kid that's like I'm gonna kill you I'm gonna kill you I'm gonna kill you and I got like I'm drawing pictures of me killing you I'm like that whole family even if that is really nice it brings me cookies I'm just like no you got a crazy kid the marshals are trying to kill me I don't want to be a part of that but I guess in a less sarcastic sarcastic context it just seems like we're here because we are choosing to survive we are here because we are making efforts to have a good existence and yes we are part of the universe but that means we're only a small part of the universe that's trying not to kill itself or right in spite of the conditions that are hostile to our existence right and there's so many of them which is kind of cool because we're winning we're gonna take that too the hard question though about that the weird thing about that though is if are we were we determined to be here or are we just here because of luck Scott you're in debate mode with this free rule thing I'm wishing you the best of luck we gotta define free will if you want to talk about free will Boudreau what do you got yeah I guess I wanted to kind of flip the whole topic around a little bit to kind of make it a little bit easier for some people to chew on here because I think there's a bit of confusion on the catchy title but really if you could change anything about the universe to make it more fitting for humans like what would you change and you know the sun is a good example temperature I mean a lot of things but I mean we have all these parameters in the universe we can only breathe in a very very small part of the universe you know so like what would you change like that's I think what we mean by the universe trying to kill us we can't live there in very many places even on earth so what would you change yeah I don't know I would I'd love to have more cones in my eyes and a better immune system I can better adapt to you know to foster herd immunity I think it's kind of crazy I can just pick up viruses that completely change your DNA from just breeding outside you're telling me you can cough on me and I can die from that that's literally crazy can I fix that please no vaccines what do you got for me maybe that's a good roundtable discussion Larry what would you change about us to make us a bit more resilient like how would you make well I mean let's take it the other side of the coin you know people are saying that the universe was built for us you know because look at it we live here we have a we can only live in that point was zero zero zero zero one percent of them but what if God was all powerful and he really wanted us to just survive and take over and do whatever you could made us out of titanium and made us able to live in a vacuum he's all powerful everything is available to him all options are on the table he doesn't have to make us live in a certain niche of it you know why would he you know if with a huge universe out there at our disposal Buffalo I'd actually be interested in your idea of what would you do to improve the physical dynamic of humanity yeah I I don't think that nature cares about us really we're part of natural selection and the universe is not trying to kill us we're adapting to the universe we're just a product of of evolution we're a product of nature and you know it has no driving force if we're unfit in a particular niche we're going to be removed from that niche sooner than than we otherwise might be so so what would you do to actually improve I wouldn't do anything because I would be afraid that what I was doing would have negative consequences that would reach way beyond what I'm trying to do so you wouldn't even want to have like a better back vertebrae system if I had a bad back I would hope for a good back but no I would not want to be stronger if I had more cones I might be blinded and killed by accidentally looking at the sun so I'm not sure that we are smart enough really to anticipate what we might do that would be a benefit to almost ourselves but certainly to everybody else because there's none of us there okay I'm noticing you're wearing glasses while you're talking to me about this wouldn't you want to have better would you not have a body that doesn't have degenerative eye loss as you get older than that be no because I think right now I think when my time would seem more reasonable if they just agreed with me no because I don't I think when my time comes to to return to the cosmos as mineral elements then my time has come I don't I don't you know aging has its benefits as well as its negatives and I just take it all in so I don't think you know would I not would I like to not be not have to wear glasses I guess yes but it's not a big deal fair enough dread pirate Higgs what would you do to improve humanity I would think that a better conscious way like a pain management system so that you know I you know you have to take and and it just will not reliance until you either get it full or you get it fixed it would be nice if there was you know it just told you okay the pain is there you know it now it's time to go to the doctor you write it down and then your pain goes away I think I love management we wouldn't have this opioid crisis right there would be none of that just be able to out in our own head so that's what I would do I love that answer that's a great answer that's so cool I'll throw out another one because before we go to George I'd love to be able to turn on and off facial hair just be like hey I like this beard that's all I need right now it's not going to change my life either way just turn it off and I'm wanting to turn it back on I would maybe I tug my ear and it just grows some of us would agree we'd like that yeah you get a set number you get a set amount of hair and you tug it to make it grow and you tug it to make it stop and that's all you got here you got but that's how you control it George I'm going to throw this question at you do you have an idea of what you would do if you could improve bodies oh yes I do I would eliminate the gene that causes some people to be sick of fans to bullies I'm not worried about bullies I'm worried about the people who enable the bullies the complicit absolutely absolutely because that's what empowers the bullies in the night otherwise the bully would just be another drunk yelling at the mirror in the bar you know I guess I would argue that bullies are part of natural selection seriously I think so and we might not be able to see the positive side of that but I think bullies are one end of the Gaussian curve and everything operates on the Gaussian curve what's a Gaussian curve it's the bell shaped curve that really represents everything certainly in the living normally distributed so Dred Pirate Higgs where can we find your stuff at well I'm on YouTube under Mind Pirate M-I-N-D-Y-R-A-T-E and pretty soon we are going to make public again our Facebook page which is of course when I was thinking about where I could post the court documents I put together that is one place I put them we took it down just because we didn't want the human rights tribunal trying to pick away at our Facebook page and use that as a means to argue against us so I made it private but it'll be the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Columbia nice Scott where can we find your stuff at dubshine.bandcamp.com I'm putting up new music all the time and working on an album and there's going to be a release I think next week with an old classic hip-hop group called the Jungle Brothers so me and a partner in Canada are doing a remix for them and it's getting released next week so I'm excited about that but I'll put it all up on my bandcamp page nice, very cool Boudreau throwing out that you, hey you just finished that song we played in the last week's show a couple hundred views not bad at least I love it hey what inspired you to make that song what do you have coming down the pipe well it was kind of had a dark history the guy who actually wrote the song he just had me help write bass and drums his wife is terminally ill and he wrote it kind of worked through some of the thoughts he was having so it's got kind of a darker tone to it in the video but it was fun to do and I think she really appreciated it and I might even get to see them on our way to Hilton Head we're going to Airbnb in a week and we're going to pass through their town so I'm hoping my daughter Vivian will make a nice painting for her nice and I'll add Vivian my daughter is starting her own podcast she's 12 years old she and a friend want to start one on gaming or something wow there we go and they have the setup now too that's wonderful they do yeah kids are great man George what's on your mind what's something you want to play you already plugged your coffee but what else you got well I plugged the coffee already and all I can do is plug it again I don't think you want to hear it Pete's coffee and pilon yeah this is okay I'm showing it to the people who are not on the radio only Pete's coffee which is expensive and pilon cafe pilon if you can't find cafe pilon there's another coffee called Cafe Bustello which is almost identical and for an Italian slant from the same thing it's called Medallio D'Oro which is an older more familiar brand same company Bustello last words I just like to recommend something on today's topic it's an article that just occurred in Atlantic magazine and it's called the terrifying warning lurking in the earth's ancient rock record and what it does is it puts into our brief moment in time in terms of the age of the universe very cool I like it it's an extremely well written article the only thing I would criticize about it is it probably doesn't pay enough well they don't have bibliographies and references in Atlantic magazine articles but he could at least talk about the fact that the Malenka cycles are the ones that are responsible for the ice ages and so forth but it's a very nice description of well the subtitle is our climate models could be missing something big and it really talks about the future in terms of climate change nice you can find myself at Let's Chat you're probably on this YouTube channel already and feel free to watch any of the other videos I have on Street of Histology when COVID is over I'm looking forward to being out there and talking to people about anything I want to talk about Larry what would you like to plug before we end the show well I found an app this week discovered it somebody else shared it with me called Radio Garden can you imagine the Google Earth type interface where you have like a globe and anywhere you touch on the globe you can hear the radio station that is broadcasting from that point and if you if you click on like a city and you hear a radio station you can just click the like next button and it'll switch over to the next radio station from that city it's just a very awesome app it's available for your phone or your iPad or your computer so it's awesome it's anyway it's all it's all pitbull music you just hit it's all for sure maybe anyway my own content is available on digitalfreethought.com be sure to click the blog button for Radio Show Archives Atheist songs many articles on the subject of atheism my book is called Atheism What's It All About and it's available on Amazon if you have any questions for the show please send them to askanatheist at Knoxvilleatheist.org and we'll answer them if you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind and of course after all that programming from the earliest youth you could have a lot of program or problems psychologically leaving religion behind I recommend going to recoveringfromreligion.org if you're watching this on youtube be sure to like and subscribe this has been the digital free thought radio hour 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 bye everybody