 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, November 6th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or Datter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Good to see all of you. Yep, yep, makes good radio. Our guests are Budro from Kentucky. Welcome. Hey Hig. Dread Pirate Higgs, all the way from Western Canada. John Richards from, you're in London, aren't you right around that area? No. It's just the background. It's just the background. I'm on the south coast, about 15 miles south of London. Yeah, cool. 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 faith. God's holy books and superstition. And if you think that you're the only non-believer in your town, while I'm willing to bet you're not. In Knoxville, here in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over 1000 of us, soon to be 1100. The Atheist Society of Knoxville or ASK. We'll tell you more about them after the mid-show breaks and stick around. Well, now what's your topic today? It's just a matter of perception. And maybe Christians were right the whole time. And we just the way how you look at it, that's all the matter of influence. But before we get into that, that's why I like to call our main course, our main dessert. I do like a little bit of an appetizer. I'm sure you guys do too. How about some noodles? We'll fill it up to our own Dread Pirate Higgs for our weekly invocation. I am called to invoke the power of the true creator of the universe. The drunken tolerator of all lesser and more recent gods and maintainer of gravity here on earth. May the great flying spaghetti monster rouse himself from his stupor and let his noodley appendages ground each of us in our seats. Wow. You know, that was such good noodles, but I do like a secondary appetizer called hair. Everyone's been doing how everyone's been doing. We'll start with Dread Pirate Higgs. Wonderful invocation. How you been? Thank you. Thank you. And this may be an invocation given at the upcoming inaugural council meeting of our new city council and coming council. It's been an ongoing struggle with the BC humanists to urge municipalities within BC at least and throughout other provinces to desist with the invocation of the Christian God during any meetings, especially in inaugural meetings. Right. Last time in Grand Forks last time, they didn't. It was a purely secular thing, but we have three incoming pretty staunch Christians coming in. So they're, they may try to sneak that in. Yeah, so we're having a contingent going to be present at the council meeting in that event so that we can make our own invocation. And let them know that they're not representing the only people with with religious beliefs. So sneak peek, we're talking about perception today. I see, I see, here's my quick point. It's such a shame that we have to waste so much energy on this. You know, people on accounts who have imaginary friends from my perspective, who now we have to battle and be like, listen, we have to fill out all these paperwork drive here, do this, rehearse this speech just so that you don't get a chance to, you know, shift the narrative on your imaginary friend being less than imaginary than it actually is. What a waste of time when you could be serving the greater good John riches what do you think this issue of councils holding prayer meetings at the start of their deliberations happens in other countries too. I know that freedom from religion foundation in California. Back in May, I think they won a case against a city council that had been holding Christian meetings Christian assemblies at the start of their general business, illegally, unconstitutionally, I should say. And more recently, the judge awarded costs against the city so they have recouped all their expenses spent on lawyers and so on. That's good news isn't that always topped on the news John Richards how you been and what's going on you don't have to give us the full news preview but how are you not stressing yourself out by paying attention to the news because I've always just not honestly understood news as bad stuff that's happened around the world. Not always and there's some good stuff to I put the bad stuff at the beginning and then main course and then sweet or dessert. Okay, okay. How you been my friend. I haven't personally suffered very much but I've got children here who have had such sore throats, they haven't been able to speak. It's been so peaceful. Not bad. Last week I got double vaccinated I did get the influenza and then a COVID booster. I said don't spread it out just give me both of them at the same time. I didn't get a reaction. No reaction from either one aside from just a lightly sore arm. It's like my sixth COVID booster so far, my body just like yep, we know what to do. We're done. You're fine. Go out the door. You didn't get sick at all. I didn't get sick at all. I've only gone sick on the third booster and literally everyone else afterwards just been like oh thank you for the free medicine. I've had four and I've gotten sick after everyone I think. That's good. I think that's a good thing. I want to have that immuno response but we'll see. I've had four and I had my last one a week ago and it was a cocktail. It was a little bit for the original COVID and a little bit for the more recent one. Oh, interesting, interesting, interesting. Larry Rhodes, aside from not getting sick, how else have you been? It's kind of boring. I put my bike away last week so I don't have it out now. I'll be next spring I guess probably before I get it out and then just working and playing computer games. As long as I'm keeping on keeping on, I feel pretty good at 72. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Okay. Mujo, how you been? I have been well. Well, it was Halloween since we last talked, right? Truth, yes. So we did our third annual candypult where kind of in keeping with social distancing, we just launched candy for the kids. But we really got the physics down. We got the physics down. That's great. We got the physics down. We didn't hit anyone in the face. Okay. But yeah, we could get it. We told them where to stand. I imagine there would have to be some sort of like ordinance of that. And then you have like a three point, three point calibration script to make sure everything's good. And then a little bit lower, a little bit lower. And I can't tell you how many times I told the kid a little bit lower and they didn't listen. And I shot it to them and they missed it because I was like, I told you lower. Now here's a problem. What is it? What's the question? John Richards first. It was better than mine. John Richards. Did they have to catch it in their mouths? No, that would, no, that would be too risky because we, I mean, we were launching like, you know, little mini Snickers bars and things. Yeah. Because I didn't want to hurt him. It couldn't be like loose bags of M&M's because sometimes there's one more M&M than the other. And that would change the weight distribution and like more mass with the same amount of energy. It's flying way further than you would expect. It has to be like a consistent thing, right? Like starburst. I mean, generally speaking, we had five or six different candy types that we kind of got the hang of. Really, we were about 50% in the bag. Was there a toffee apple amongst them? Nice. Have you ever thought of publishing in the Journal of Halloween Science? No, that's a thing. No, I'm sure it exists somewhere, but it'd be a really good article. Halloween physical review. It's there if you want to look for it. Speaking of looking for things, we're talking about perspective today, guys. Every time I perspective, because I saw an enlightening meme on the Internet. It was one based on politics, but it did make me think. And the idea was a picture where you had two candidates you can vote for. One was a free Krispy Kreme donut. And the second one was burning down your grandmother's house. And I was like, why are these two things the candidates? But also, why is the distribution of votes like 49.9% and 50.1% or something like that. And I was like, isn't that funny in the way where it almost feels like. Whoever you vote for, you're on the precipice of disaster of going completely the other way. And like you can look at candidates and see how one is like clearly a better choice than the other. But yet half the population still supports like this terrible outcome that we just barely missed. Like I totally understood that idea of the mean. And I was going to the comment section and I was like, why does it always seem like this? Why is my perception that politics, especially when you're voting because we have voting in America always seems like these two desperately polarized options. Free Krispy Kreme donut, bringing down your grandmother's house. And one of the comments was like, well, it's not always bad. It's based on your perception because some people could see these two choices as diabetes and killing a house with a billion venomous spiders in it. Right. So it's a matter of like, how do you look at these two things? And maybe that color is your impression of what side you want to stay on or what things that you're willing to listen to from a particular person or group or dogma. And I'm like, man, doesn't that also apply to religion as well. And maybe just because I've been on the secular side for so long, I have a bad perception on the religious point of view. Maybe I've lost touch with that. What do you think I've got stuff to say about this. Well, a perception is purely subjective. It's coming from you. And so I don't know why they think it's so important, you know, because you've made it up in your head. It's your perception. It doesn't belong to anybody else. I've met this and it was a surprise to me because you're having been brought up in the science regime that people even consider it worth thinking about. But I met it for the first serious time when I was debating a Muslim in Manchester University and he kept saying, from the Islamic perception. When you're a Muslim, your perception is, well, give me some evidence, you know, that was that was all he had. You can watch this debate. It was well recorded by the Islamic society at the university. And that was all he I was giving evidence, you know, right. This is why this is why we've got the evidence is here. Anybody can see it in a given the right opportunity. And he was saying, well, my perception is this. I mean, why, why do you see it that way? I get that I'm not even disagreeing that you have that perception, but is it meritable. Is there a justification behind it? Can you demonstrate any of it? Or is it just an uninformed opinion? What's the difference between that and your perception? Well, but, well, I was going to point out, and most people don't appreciate this is that we don't have any direct experience with reality. We are limited to our senses right in our brain interprets those signals and whatnot to the stimuli. And based on our knowledge, based on our upbringing, we interpret what we experience and and that of course flavors are understanding of it. And perception, you know, truly speaking is not the end result. It's the beginning. And if perception, you know, you could have faulty eyesight or you could have missing the savory part of your taste buds or bad hearing in one ear, you know, so these all affect perception, which then it limits or, you know, has an effect on what our ability to interpret that information is at the end. Right. I think our perception is very much informed by how we reason. And if we have a poor means of reasoning the world around us, that will lead to a poor perception. And why settle for something that's poor when through some meager effort on your part, you can have a higher standard of evidence, a higher standard of understanding, a better epistemology, if you will. All these things can be beneficial to you and improve your perception, which helps you directly helps you. Isn't that great? Claire Rose, what do you think? Yeah, no, I was just going to say about perception and our senses. We don't really have a choice. We don't like there's not like something else we can use. And so that even if we use machines to measure something, we still have to use our eyes and ears or whatever to to read the machines read out. And that's coming up on this election. This this really amazes me. I mean, if one side gets votes, then they're fine with it. If the other side gets votes, they're not fine with it. It's got to be flawed system. Now, if the system is flawed, how come their guy getting votes and winning is fine. Now, it's like they're going to say, well, yeah, we this system is flawed. What else we're going to use just automatically give one side all the offices just because they are not satisfied with the system. It makes it's a double standard. It makes no sense at all. Why should their candidate get preference? It's a double standard. What do you think? Yeah, so this makes you think of a thing. It was a cartoon originally like a drawing where you've got, you know, one guy standing by the number six and another guy standing, you know, be on the other side looking at number nine. Right. They're kind of like arguing and think the point of the cartoon originally was, you know, hey, you know, really don't get mad at the other person. It's all about perspective. And then somebody kind of turned it into a meme and you've probably seen this, but it's like, no, no, it's not. It's either a six or a nine. We need to figure it out. Like put it there, put it in a sequence that has a meaning. But the, but the, I think the point of the original thing was, oh, it's all about perspective and we should respect everyone's perspective and it's like, we should respect people. But we don't respect their perspective. Until they show that they don't deserve it. So yeah, there's a line. There's that fine line of respecting a person to the point where you don't want to cause conflict unnecessarily, right? But there's also the need of having perspective on an ad mere objective reality or at least something nominal to the point where you can use it meaningfully and inform actions in a informed, empathetic, socially acceptable format. You can't just be like, I think this is okay and you do it. You have to have that be informed in the context of hopefully a greater society or at least rationalize to the point where you can actually test it and verify if you're right or wrong about certain things. And that's what I like about math, but also the math is an abstract tool that we should be applying to real life as well. Like that just means in life we need to really define our variables. We need to understand who's right, who's wrong. And there is a right and a wrong. And if we don't know what's right yet, we don't know. We need to recognize that as a don't know. We need to come up with better methods to know, but there is right courses of action and we can't necessarily just, you know, better methodologies than other for a justified claims, right? And yeah, the one that's just like, well, can we just all get along. It's like, yes, and we can be right at the same time too. We don't have to have to pick one or the other and it yeah maybe it is a six or nine. I agree we should fight for that. John riches I saw you with your hand and what's up. Yeah, well, while I agree with dread about some, we have to form a representation of reality in our heads. I think the representation that we form is bloody good. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to do things like play disc golf. Yeah. So can an English person say bloody on an American radio station I think that's acceptable going ahead going ahead going ahead you get away. I can get worse than that. Anyway, the thing is that I don't like if there's a big need for interpretation between, you know, the observations and how you have perceived them. Then it's more opinion than it is evidence, because in my, in my materialistic world, matching a concept with observations should be just like playing snap. You know, right. There should be it should be as simple as that there's no need for any interpretation. It's, is this the same as that. Yes or no. And, and like one of my teachers said, it's okay to be wrong as long as you recognize it and are willing to improve a process. And the problem with, you know, being very courteous with perceptions and I make equivocating all of them is that you are willing to support wrong perceptions as well, or bad methodologies. And when we can say this is right and that's wrong. Now it's, it's good to understand what the process was behind it and prove and get a better process so we can more of us can be right because that's benefit for everybody. That's that's the stuff that a lot of people are crucially missing when we say, Hey, you're wrong. It's like, well, why are you making an argument. I'm not trying to improve a process here. Dred, what do you think. I was going to say just further to the point I was trying to make was that that our perceptions are not infallible and our memories are certainly not infallible. I think that's where a lot of people are led astray by their, their own sense of being right about things like saving seeing things the way they are, remembering things the way they were. That is just not the case because, you know, our memory certainly are aren't a recording. It's an act of construction. Right. Right. And the more people can recognize that then they recognize or have the potential to recognize that they are fallible. And that they have to be mindful of how their memories and their perceptions are actually constructions, whether or not not to direct experience of the world or more bluntly people can be lied to because we don't have that direct sense of self deceit. Right. Self deceit. Yeah, or like deliberately manipulated by those who have their best interests at heart and but put on a very genuine face and can absorb time, money, thoughts, advertising propaganda, political actions against the favor of those who are their most followers. We see this every day as part of the perception of a secular minded body, and it frustrates us it scares us it commits us to do actions to do shows like this. But it's not against on a personal level against the people who, you know, who are probably victimized by this or who are adherents to this or cycle fence or, or just general supporters, or quiet people on the on the street. We do this show to remind people that it's the it's the nature of the lack of critical thought that's getting us into worse cases with regard to how we treat each other and how we inform our actions. And if we just rely a bit more on critical thought, regardless of what we think the outcome is we're we are proponents for critical thought if we do critical thinking. Things will get better, guaranteed may name me the way I see it or I want to have it, but I guarantee if we all do this uniformly working together on that aspect, we can get much better than where we're at right now. And I'm not saying we're not in a bad place now I'm just saying we could be in a much better place now, if we all just start to critical thinking. I had a comment before we go to the half. It's from maximum cover he has an idea on prayer this is a perception on prayer. Larry, maybe you'd like to touch bases on this. I think maximum cover says I think the perception on prayer is wrong prayer works. I keep seeing atheists commenting in various contexts on how prayers don't work. And I do nothing, and do nothing. And I feel this is dangerous misapprehension of reality. I think it's misappropriation of reality. It's all right. It's all good in its essence prayer isn't any different from self talk. There are messages you repeat to yourself. And that's how we know prayer works. What do you think Larry. Well if he's talking about just the generic soothing activity of talking to yourself sure meditation works, but that doesn't mean you're talking to a supernatural being. I'm glad he clarified that at the end because when you say the word prayer, you're saying different things to different people. Right. You know, I was coming up about ready to come up with a reason why interstitial repair doesn't work, but no, I agree. There's been some benefits from it. But also from meditation or just sitting quietly in a room. I'd love to hear what you think. Do you think prayer works in this context in essence prayer isn't any different from self talk there are messages you repeat to yourself. Yeah, I mean at that point you're just down to semantics. Yeah, if his definition of prayer is, you know, is self talk. Then sure, but I think probably what's happening here is he's trying to smuggle in the fact that he actually is praying to a God and that's what's doing work right from his perspective. It's it's speaking to the God that that is that is helping your body. Right, right, right, right. Love to get more thoughts dread. What do you think? Well, and I would agree. Definitely sounds like a smuggle. But I mean, there's certainly great meditations and self affirmations that help build, you know, your own self esteem your own self image. Self examination is a big one. Yep. Sam Harris has this great app called waking up. I just recently subscribed to it. So, yeah, getting mindfulness, as opposed to calling it prayer I think is probably more honest. Right. John, what do you think? Well, I thought that the, the idea behind a prayer was to achieve something was to get some desirable filled a bit like a spell. Yeah, yeah, right. I've always called it witchcraft. Yes. And if it's not that like, what's his name maximum cover seems to be suggesting, if it's just hearing oneself talk in one's head. And that's, let's face it, that's unlikely to achieve any outcome. Then he's using prayer to mean reiteration of concepts I like. Here's, here's my, here's my thought. I'm actually, this is sort of going back to the equivocation that we were talking to before. These are not the same things. Prayer is talking to in the most used context, a different agent than yourself. Self talk, which is the same number of syllables is a completely different concept that most people and their users them prayer prayer. I'm talking to somebody. I'm praying to blah, blah, blah. People don't know communications. You pray to who you worship to generally. Elsewise, just talking to yourself. Right. If you're praying to yourself, you're talking to yourself. Just call it self talk. You don't have to add this extra step of baggage and self talk takes as many syllables to say as prayer. And I do believe in the power of self talk. It's nice to be able to rationalize. You can talk to yourself out loud. You can do it in your head. You don't have to worship. You don't have to have baggage. You don't have to sit down and you can do it in any context that you feel appropriate and it does help you. It's great for as an organization. But witchcraft also takes two syllables and involves spells and invocations and stuff like that. Why don't we call prayer witchcraft? If you're willing to call prayer self talk, then be willing to call witchcraft prayer at the same time too, because they're all in that point, the same thing, but you would probably not want to have that happen. So let's just be clear with what we're talking about here. And in fact, prayer doesn't work because when you do intercessory prayer for people who are sick and they know they're being prayed for, it causes more stress in their lives and they actually end up worse performing worse than when a placebo is used in its place. We have a scientific study to show that. Yeah, we have multiple. We do that at least once a year and it's crazy how each time it shows clearly that prayer actually makes things worse. Self talk. Great. Do it prayer. You're actually better off not doing it at all. If you have a problem and you want to pray to get it fixed, just get it fixed. Don't pray to get it done because you might actually wasting more time in the process. What do you guys need to break? We need that break going on Larry. Stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour and w o zio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubt or five and we're on w o zio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's talk for a moment about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 20th year. And we have over 1000 members. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in pizzeria. Look for us inside the high top tables or if it's pretty outside on the deck. We also have Tuesday evening zoom meetups. If you'd like to join us email us for details at ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org or let's chat as a Gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook meetup.com or go to the website at Knoxville atheists.org. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and look for a group in your town. Don't find one. Where do you want to pick up guys are jumping back into the matter of perspective going ahead, John Richards. Well, I want to pick up on maximum covers thoughts that prayer is just self talk. Yeah, because recently I had I had a I was flashed by the speed camera. That means different things in America than it does in English. What do you what do you mean by flashed. I was photographed by the speed camera. Okay, okay. I entered. They had my, my, what do you call it license plate in your country. We call it. Anyway, I had my car. I was driving in an unfamiliar town. And suddenly I was trying to find my way, you know, and trying not to hit anything. Right. And so I was being very careful. And suddenly a 30 mile an hour limit sign went past me before I could not register it and react to it. So I was flashed for exceeding the speed limit. Now, if you only exceeded by less than 10%. You don't get points on your license. You get a training course. Wow. Oh boy. So, so I attended this driver training course. And one of the tips they gave us was talk your way through your driver. Say what you're doing, you know, say that I'm watching out this park cars. There might be something coming out from behind them. And here's a woman crossing the road with a baby and a buggy. So voice, the reality you are experiencing, because it helps you to focus on the needs for reacting to it. So maybe that's what maximum recovery is referring to when he's talking about messages that you repeat to yourself, but he is certainly not what I understand prayer to be right. But there's also the danger of lack of context because those who have a favorable position by the misinformation of a statement will continue to use that as ammunition to support their cause or their their creed. And he's saying prayer works. I think the atheist perception on prayer is wrong. The atheist are commenting on blah, blah, blah, how prayer doesn't work. We are talking about different things if you're not talking about what we're talking about. And you are trying to equivocate self talk and prayer at the same thing. I don't think that's a fair equivocation. I feel like they clearly mean different things. And if they don't be willing to call witchcraft prayer, because we hold that in the same context as a spiritual communication to something that's not to yourself. What do you think I would like to ask him what he thinks of public ostentatious prayer, like the prayers that open meetings or the yeah, not everybody joined into after school and other kind of thing. If it's just self talk, then it's not prayer. Right. It's not what they're doing. What are they exactly exactly and why they have to hold up an entire, you know, political class. Meaning stuff like that. Boudreau, I think I saw you. Yeah, no, so this makes me think of the idea that all of his evidence is on invisible things, right? So the thing that they're praying for, it's not like you're praying for a pot of gold and it appears. Right. Or you're praying to grow back an arm that's been amputated. Right. Those are, you know, those are things that all of us atheists would be like, yeah, okay. Yeah, prayer works. Yeah, we saw it. Yeah, absolutely. The evidence that we're using here is stuff that's invisible. It's like, you know, oh, I feel better, completely subjective, right? Right. And not to mention, you know, we think that self talk actually is at play here and and doing the good. So it's not set up for something we can study. It's just, yeah, it's just worked. Great job, Boudreau, because I can't self talk an arm to grow back from my elbow if I lose it. I can't self talk a dead family member back to life. So am I really praying at that point? Or am I really talking to myself? And if it's something that I can control and manage in my own world, like something I can test, something I can do through my own volition, I just need motivation for. Why am I wasting time with prayer? I can just get that with self talk. And would he go as far as to say intercessory prayer? Prayer doesn't work. I mean, he's saying it's not prayer. Right, right, right. We got to make sure we just have these well defined variables. So we're like how we're talking at the beginning of the show with math six and nine. It's good to know what we mean when we say things because like our perception, we have a compromise of understanding when we take an idea, convert it into words and give it to somebody else to hopefully have the same idea as we had. That is a work of compromise. So it's very clear that we very well define our variables so that there's no misunderstanding or unnecessary equivocation between terms that are not the same. And self talk and prayer are not the same terms. If you could pray a dismembered limb back into life, you'd go up in my estimation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just tell me which God you're praying to then and if you're praying to yourself, we really get you on the. When do we get you on the news? That's why should we why should we limit that to growing back limbs? I want a third arm. Yes, yes, yes. Science can help you with that. No science can help you with that. So think how think how useful wings would be. No, no, no, we don't want wings. All right. All right, we're moving on. Do we have wings are so unless you know how much energy would take to fly that there's like just staying up in the air is just like man like a hummingbird. They have to have about 20,000 calories of it. I couldn't know if you could. There's a lot of people we'd all run. Immediately, you guys are being oringly practical. These are wings. They work with no energy. These are magical. How many lives they've saved from falling. Yeah, just wings outfall. Give me teleportation. You don't have to fly to work now. It's just like, dang it. You know, many years ago, many years ago when my now 15 year old daughter was a little toddler, she went to a party. It was an it was an angel or chair and party or something in the dress that they have to wear, you know, and she came back. They've given her some wings, which you you put your arm through these elasticated bands, and they're these little wings on the back. And when she got home, she ran around in the garden trying to get off the ground. What adorable kids. It was so cute. Guys, I have another potential equivocation here. And this is by Aztec summer, who asked, would I be considered Islamophobic or anti Semitic, if I am anti religion. And I think that's an interesting question. So, how about this. Well, I'll try to do a quick weighing in similar to how we had like with prayer and self talk. They are different things. You might even be able to try to categorize them in the same thing and that could be more fair but these are two different terms and they mean different things. And Islamophobic and and anti Semitic versus anti religion, I feel like are three different concepts to which are sort of falling into like a prejudiced point of view, whereas one is is strictly not against the person or the culture, but about a dogmatic means of thinking is that is not tied to any particular group because a person would be anti religious if they were Scientologists and a white guy or Scientologists and Brown guy. It doesn't really matter. It's just like I hate this train of thinking. That's the problem. That's why I'm anti religion and I am anti religion. I generally don't support it. But there are definitely atheistic religions and in my head it's just like you're taking an extra step to get to the same place I'm at. What do you think? Well, I was going to add to that. I used to be a Freemason and I probably mentioned this before. But when I had come to realize that I no longer believed in the Christian God, I spoke to one of the senior fellows at the lodge and told him that and told him I just felt that could no longer be a Mason and good conscience. He says, Oh, you're one of those guys that hate God. I was like, No, that's your, you're, you're making an assumption about what I think, or what I feel without directly asking, you know, it's a conflating two ideas that don't belong to one another in the same way that the person who claims this is an atheist is not Islamophobic or anti-Semitic. It's just, it's a, it's a different thing entirely. Right, right. It's a much more charged thing. John Richards, what do you think? Yeah, well, I'm going to agree with both of you. Because if you are anti-Semitic and Islamophobic, then you are anti-theistic, you are against religion, but you've gone a step further. You've decided to victimize these people and demonize them. And that's not necessary. It's not a compulsory part of not believing in a religion. Actually, it's more pointed than that. I think it's, it's the difference between ad hominem, right? Attacking the person or attacking the idea. So it also leaves. I respect, I respect the right of people to believe in what they want, but I don't have to respect the specific belief. Right. That's what I can attack. I also hate the hypocrisy that can come with being Islamophobic when you can also be very genial to Christian ideology. It's like, oh, I just hate this imaginary guy, but I love my imaginary guy. I was like, well, that double standard is just as problematic. Whereas anti-religion is sort of like, it's a firm grounded understanding of these are the things that I don't like. Everything falls into it, but anything outside of it that's like person based doesn't apply to it. It's just this very consistent platform. Boudreau, love to get your thoughts on this and your previous comment. What do you think? Yeah, I'm not sure how you're tying that in, but my thoughts would be that first off, anti-religion. Can we have a little asterisk on that and say, except the Flying Spaghetti Monster, just to be clear. I'm anti-religion, you know, with the exception of Flying Spaghetti Monster. I got some problems with spaghetti because it's a lot of carbs. I like my protein content to be a lot higher than that, but I respect people. Eat a lot of pasta. I'm totally fine with that. But I only have that to eat and beer and as an asexual stripper poles don't really do. Stripper factories don't do that much for me anyway. There's not a lot calling me there, but I totally respect people doing it. So like go for it. So I totally agree with you guys on the point. You know, we're anti-religion is very different than or anti specific religion is very different than, you know, being being racist or prejudiced. But I would point out that someone famous has stood up against and Dread Pirate Pirate knows where I'm going with this has stood up against someone who was against religion calling him an Islamophobe getting really angry on live TV. Oh, yes. And that was Ben Affleck. Yeah. And he attacked Sam Harris pretty hard for, you know, really out again, just like you guys said, and Tyson in the beginning, you're challenging the dogma, the ideas, not the people. Right. Like anti Muslim is so very different than anti Islam. I mean, that's those are two. Yes. Yeah. And I have a, so not to do these weird qualifications, but my sister's Muslim. And I love my sister. And she knows that I'm an atheist and she, her own religion is supposed to look at me as like, you're an apostate, you're not part of our faith, you're outsider, but we love each other. It's so much more of a better understanding of like, hey, I'm not on board with the messaging, but we love the person underneath. And I think what religion is really good at is making people identify with the message when there really is a person behind that and it's hard to separate those two. That's my thought. And it's also weird too, because John Richard, I saw your hand, but it's also weird because when a religious person looks at an atheist, they're like, well, you are in a religion too. It's like, no, no, no, it's not a religion. There's no dogma here is a position I have as a person that I'm also willing to dismiss or get rid of as soon as I have good evidence. It's a weird situation where people have to media identify with an idea. John Richards, what's up? Well, I want to use this opportunity to segue back to our part one subject of perception, because I'm wondering whether our attitude towards anti-theism and then specific religious hatred is something that's peculiarly perceived by non-believers. Whereas believers perceive themselves to be in the right religion and therefore it's legitimate to hate all the other religions, because, you know, that's what their God wants them to do. Religion is inherently divisive. Right, right, right. And it ambiguifies who the person is who's holding the religion because they have to be part of a flock. Larry, sorry for not getting to you. Okay. Well, the thing about it is one one is ideas and the other is people. People have rights and deserve respect until such time as they don't they prove that they they don't reserve respect. But ideas don't deserve respect simply for being they constantly change and they have to constantly be reevaluated to see how they affect people. There's a whole difference between people and ideas and one deserves respect automatically. The other doesn't. Right. And the benefit of I feel like a lot of Christian, a lot of Islam or, you know, a lot of grounded popular religions piggyback on the concept of, well, if you identify with this religion, then all the rights you have as a person are now applied to the religion as well. And therefore you can't challenge the religion because that's a bad thing. Right. And we have a right and because we're part of this person, and we should be part of this governing body because this governing body controls people, and we are part of the people as well. It's like, no, that's the infestation of, you know, dogma that seems nice, the perception that we have a secular minded people is that this is infiltrating the common good of rights of man and women, of course, and everything else in between. And it's the religion that's trying to piggyback on a lot of stuff that doesn't have a right to have. And why do we give it to so without a fight. Why do we let these, you know, council members start, you know, why do we let council members who have these beliefs come into council in the first place they're voted in sure. But now why do they get the chance to, you know, orchestrate their religious beliefs in front of everyone at the beginning of every council meeting like that's such a gross overuse of their power and overstepping of like that's everyone else's interest. privilege. Right. I was going to point out a couple of things here to is, you know, and again this is just reiterating by putting it in a different way is, you know, there's human rights, which should be respected, but you don't need to respect the content. You can respect the right to be for people to publish books but you don't have to respect the content you don't have to like it. And I was going to say also, just to Tyrone Tyrone, you said your sister is a Muslim and characterized you as an apostate. An apostate is someone who previously believed in Islam and stopped leaving that's actually an apostate. That's probably the better way of saying it. Yeah, we can just go with that. Yeah, so my family is very weird. I have a mother who's a Jovo witness. I have a sister who's a Christian have another sister who's a Muslim. And so, when we all pray or not pray around the Thanksgiving table. It's a very weird procession of messages going down different wires I can imagine very weird, very weird for everybody. So my mom wouldn't allow the Ouija board because of her truth. It's always these weird levels, the steps for everything. Yeah, it's always very interesting. So I got one more question that will go through. This one comes from cosmic cherry it's more of an open ended discussion. Based on the idea of hey as I became more atheist or more outside of my religion. Outside of that dogma I started seeing people differently that's how my perception change so here's the comment being religious has worked my perception of reality. I grew up in a heavily Catholic family throughout my life my mom has been saying that she's against indoctrination, yet she and my dad have been doing that to me my entire life. So, I'm now an atheist, I still get this awful feeling that something is watching me from time to time, her indoctrination has made it so hard for me to unlearn this stuff. Is anyone else having the same issues. But you go up heavily Catholic. What do you think. Yeah, yeah, I did heavily maybe maybe my mom, very Catholic. We did Catholic Church Catholic Mass when even Wednesday like Catholic development. And I had the same thing for a while after even after calling myself an atheist which took a little while to I had this the feeling of somebody watching and I was very, very late to actually be willing to say GD. I can't say on the radio but you know what I'm saying. I even as an atheist I had I would I would sing lyrics to a song that had it in it and I would swap the words out for something else. Really, it took it took a while and then I know, yeah, I agree I said on the radio before to that like I really struggled with like reading, you know, any of the great atheist authors books on airplanes. I felt very uncomfortable for a little while. That's all gone now. I have to safely say so whoever posted the comment. Be patient. It didn't take too long but it should fade. It should fade. When I was in when I was in Tennessee near Knoxville I had gotten a decal on my car was the American atheist logo and the day I put it on my car I was filled with a bunch of apprehension because you know atheism was like this thing that I wanted people to know I wanted to like people to know that about me, but I was also terrified about like immediate retribution. If I were to like post this and most people I imagined didn't even interpret it correctly right like my Muslim sister I was talking about she thought it was just a science atom or something like that. And when I explained to our American atheist uses like okay, I get it. But in my head. I was just incredibly paranoid about how everyone was perceiving me, and I didn't want to have to deal with repercussions like a scratched up car or anything but when nothing happened I was just like, maybe there aren't as many people looking at me as I once thought and I'm like, there's my brain thinking about like the Christian point of view because in the Christian mindset, you're always being watched. And you're always God's favorite project that you worked on so you're used to that sense of paranoia, but it took a while for me to give that up, even when I was to the point where I was posting a while. Yeah, Larry what do you think. Oh, definitely. It's been 50 years since I lost my religion. But I remember the first couple of years you know you go to a meal you feel like you need to pray. You just have the feeling that you're being watched all the time it's a hard thing to shake and you have to worry. I mean you still have worries about hell and stuff, but you you just grapple with it logically and realize that none of this one makes sense or two has any evidence to support it. And after a while it you know it fades those way. And remember that there's a there's a group out there that is there to help you if you're really no and everybody has them. No, it's called the group is called recovering from religion and you can find them recovering from religion.org. Okay. Well guys, I'm, I'm lucky that I was never not even inducted let alone indoctrinated into a religion, but I'm, I'm pleased that you guys have managed to escape because without terrible harm because some people are left with actual PTSD as a result as a result of the arm that with it's I think it's a child abuse. And but going back to the beginning of what this listener said, his mother didn't recognize or her mother didn't recognize that she was doing indoctrination. They don't do they I mean it's like nobody will accept that they're in a cult point to other people and say, that's a cult, but what I mean is not a cult. Right, right. How quick are religious people to point out cults in the world and as an atheist you just have to smile and be like, yeah, huh. Okay, how are we defining that I'll just keep that to myself. So, but yeah, it's anyway, the, the idea of somebody watching all the time is in a city these days coming through in the form of security cameras. Big brother. Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully it's not some terrible irrational power. Final thoughts on this before we close up. What do you think of the idea of still bucking the trend or the idea of being watched even after you become an atheist. Yeah, I guess I haven't really felt that. And I can't even remember feeling that so much. I had during my religious experience, you know, as a kid growing up in Catholics, you know, as a Catholic and, and other sort of things I dabbled in searching for spiritual spirituality. It was always a hope to have someone look at me. I just never got that feeling so when I finally divested that myself of that. It wasn't, I wasn't looking over my shoulder it was just an acknowledgement that really I'm on my own and there's no one there. I don't have a guardian angel or, or a deity looking after me. I only have the quad, I have only the quad pushing me down onto the earth with his new appendages and that's it. And you got your hope that somebody was watching you fulfilled when you started to tread the boards of the stage tread. Yeah, there you go. I had the same hope and I achieved it by becoming a teacher, you know, the only one who stands up facing the other way in a class. Yeah, guys, what a wonderful conversation we're now at the end of the show. Love to see what everyone would love to think about, or have our listeners think about over next week before we come back. John Richards anything you'd like to plug. Yeah, the usual. And an extra because I did a debunking of Stephen Mayer. I don't think I've mentioned this before but it's, it's had quite a few views. People like it. So take a look at free thought channel. I've put, I put the Stephen Mayer debunking in prime position. But of course, we also have the regular free thought hour with an interesting guest. We had, it was about digital currency yesterday. And we have global in these news, and we have views on the news which is going to happen in a few hours time. In fact, what is it in three hours time for you guys who are a different time zone, and you're some of you will be taking part in that. Wonderful. Jared pirate anything you'd like to plug. Yeah, if I live stream this at that now it's 7am Pacific time saving time. Yeah. PST. Yeah. So 7am PST on my channel mind pirate. I've been given a handle now. We came up with that channel handles. So you can just look for mine pirate and be there on YouTube like and subscribe if you, if you like it. Boudreaux anything you recommend we check out. You know, I don't usually have stuff to plug but but it because of our conversation, I'd like to encourage I imagine everybody here has already done so. If you haven't, I think something really important is if you've got the Facebook profile. Make sure you put atheists down for your religious views. Does that does everyone do that. Not a bad idea. Postfery makes sense. Yeah, it took me that was something that I struggled with to because that's a very, very blatant way to I mean it's kind of nestled into your about page or whatever so you have to go looking for it but I suspect I've got friends that have seen it and they're like, Oh, scary. Hey, why not in next Halloween you just dress up as yourself and be like what are you following. I'm an atheist. Terrifying. But you seem so nice. Guys, you can find me and let's chat on YouTube. Larry, why don't take us out. Okay, my content can be found at digital free thought calm. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheists songs and articles on the subject of atheism. My YouTube channel handle is now at doubter five. And you can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon. Everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. And we'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody.