 1213. You are on WOZO radio 103.9 lbfm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Our guests today are George Brown, the two and a half, formerly from Brooklyn, and the John Richards. Are you in London? I know you're in England. Are you in London? I'm on the coast south of London about 50 miles due south. Okay, well that's a lot of geography. I'm sure Americans will get some citations in the future to figure out what that means. Digital free thought radio hours to 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 superstitions. If you think you're the only non-believer in your town, well you're just not. You're in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt. We have a group of over a thousand of us, so surely you've got quite a few in your town. We'll talk more about our group after the mid-show break. Wombat, what's our topic today? Our atheist, better Christians than Christians, which I think is very interesting. So I think before we go into a topic, I want to do a quick roundtable. John Richards, I love all that water you're drinking. We should give you a medal for it. We'll call it a water medal. This is not water. That's so scary when he says it. It's water. It's water. That's right. You've got it. It's water, lad. It's water. You just drink it. That's it. All right. Anyway, John Richards, how have you been? Everything's fine here. Thank you. And I've got even more schemes that I can get going. Atheists with schemes? That's not a thing that you ever heard the two intent together. We have no schemes. We have no schemes. Very good. Larry Richards, how have you been, my friend? Larry Richards? I'm sorry. Larry Rhodes. Like I said, I just got my glasses, but they're still a little dirty. What's going on? Yeah. No, I'm fine. Just working. I've worked day to day nowadays at home, from home. I'm a data analyst. Yeah. Are you enjoying that grind again? Yeah, pretty much. It's like the perfect job. I set up my computer. I work on anti-money laundering issues and nobody bothers me. Nice. Nice. Like the perfect job. Okay. So, and that and playing games, computer games, I'm still right in the middle of a skyrim and thoroughly enjoying it on the Quest 2. Help me out now. Let's see how deep in the rabbit hole we can get real quick. What's your race in Skyrim? I'm an elf, a dark elf. You're a dark elf? Okay. Male or female, if I can quickly ask? Oh, male. I'm a mage, fire mage. And what's the major quest that you've completed? Are you completing all of them or are you like specifically choosing, I'm going to be the one to get to, I'm a level 21, almost a 22. Man, I'm wanting to get to the, oh, the vampire, so I also can become a vampire. You want to become a vampire? Yeah, always very powerful. And if I can do that, then I'll be able to handle pretty much any battle. Listen, I can tell you right now in Skyrim, they make no proclivities about subjugating you to one class of the air. You can be a werewolf and a vampire and a werewolf and a magician and a hero. I look forward to all of that. You can do anything you want. It's crazy. Very immersive game. Yeah, it is. George Brown, we're going to get to you too, but I just saw, so we can also introduce the show, but I just saw Dred Pirate Higgs. Dred, are you here? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes. Dred, how have you been, my friend? Oh, I've been doing well. Very good. I'm actually working, I'm working right now, so I'm sitting in my car. Do you have time for a quick invocation? Yeah, absolutely. You bet. Let's rock one out real quick. Shall we do it now? Yeah. Yeah, ramen. All right. Ramen. Our noodley lord, who art in a colander, al dente be thy noodles, thy blood be run, 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 forgive those who cuss against us and lead us not into into key to ism but deliver us some carbs for thine are the meatballs and the sauces and the grog whenever and ever. Ramen. Because the noodley lord have any biases against zucchini noodles because they're actually pretty darn good. No, no biases against zucchini. All things are good under creation. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. All right, George Brown, how you doing? How you doing? Well, every time you ask me that question, I cannot remember. So as a lead into today's topic, I will tell a little tiny story. My neighbor who attends the mothership of all the Baptist churches here in this town, of which there are 167 official Baptist churches and then another 37 unofficial Baptist churches and then the ones that I call the baptoid churches, you know, the spinoffs. It's where they dip their kids in orange juice, right? So she was talking with me and she said, she was talking about heaven and hell and I made a face. I just made a face. I allowed that. I don't, I don't just get heaven or hell whatsoever. I mean, it's just, it's, it's out of my orbit. And then her response to that was, do you hate Jesus? Which, to which I was just totally incredulous. I mean, I just, what is this? What planet am I on? You know, so out of that came this question. Are we atheists better Christians than the Christians? And there came, there's where my topic came from. How about we round table it? I know we all have some interesting points of views on this. Are atheists better Christians than Christians? I'm going to throw this up to Dredd. Since you're a newest guest, what do you think on the idea? Well, you know, I really love the question. It's very provocative, but I think it's important right out of the gate to define what we mean by Christians. So that we establish a standard by which we can measure up. That's a very dread like answer. Why don't you define for you what it means? Well, I don't know. I guess there's the idea of doing good in the world and loving all people and all that kind of stuff is probably a very, you know, sort of nebulous way of tracking what Christian, you know, what a Christian ideally is. But, you know, as an individual, I wouldn't say that I'm a Christian because I certainly don't love everyone just because I certainly don't turn the other cheek at every occasion just because. Right. So yeah, so, you know, I guess everybody has a different idea of what being a true Christian is like being a true Scotsman, right? Right. So what does it mean to you? Like, if you don't know, that's totally fine. But like, in your opinion, based on the definition that you have for Christian, just for you, just for you, do you think as a as a post-sopharian, as a humanist, you closely, more closely aligned with your ideals and practice than a Christian by your definition? Well, I would, I would believe so. And I think that's partly because post-sopharians are self-defined. Interesting. So, you know, a bit more objective. Okay. Yeah. Larry, not Richard Rhodes, open quotation point, doubt or five closed quotation point. Now, I can see it clearly, my friend. Listen, Larry, what do you think are atheist, better Christians than Christians? Well, to me, Christians are, as Christians do. And that's the problem. Most of the Christians that we see. The famous guy with suspenders also said in a movie. Anyway, for example, the KKK is a Christian organization. Right. Christians claim to practice unconditional love for their fellow man. But when it comes right down to it, we find that many, and I'm not saying all, but quite a few of the most vocal public Christians that we encounter, like politicians, preachers, et cetera, who wear their Christianity on their sleeve, turn out to be more homophobic or racist or sexist. And it's, I'd like to say that, no, we're not more Christian than them. And I'm proud of that. However, if we're talking about the claims of Christianity, unconditional love for a fellow man, I think we come closer to the mark than they do. Okay. Very well said. I can't even top that. John Richards, your thoughts on this are atheists, better Christians than Christians. Well, the guys who've already spoken are absolutely right. First of all, we don't know what is meant by being Christian. Right. There's so many different flavors of Christianity. And some of them are quite weird. I mean, there's Christian scientists who do not permit medication. Right. They think prayer does the job. And so, very often they die from preventable diseases. So true. Yeah. So I don't want to be better than that in the sense of, you know, more, more weird. More so. You know, indeed. And so what a lot of Christians do is they cherry pick the things that are nice, that they would like to aspire to. Right. And then my thought is, whether you don't own that, all these virtues are part of being human. We've evolved to be empathic towards each other and to treat each other in the way that we would like to be treated. It's very simple to see that, because if we were inclined to kill each other from birth, we wouldn't have societies that were as they are today, like we'd fall apart. So by virtue of the fact that we are social and we do tend to be nice to each other, we're able to have this right now. Indeed. So in that respect, I think that atheists are very likely to be at least equal or better than Christians, if that's the yardstick that we're choosing to measure by. That's our metric. But then another aspect of it is business. You see, Christianity seems to me to be a business. And some Christians, some sort of proclaimed Christians are very good at it. I mean, I'm thinking of the televangelists. I'm thinking of the prosperity gospelists, you know, they make themselves fortunes and they buy another personal jet aircraft whenever they need. Some of them have got four. There was one who died recently. I think he's Nigerian but spent a lot of time in the US and he's got four personal private jets. So if being a Christian means being a good businessman, I'm afraid I'm not to it. Nice. So, Dred, you had your hand up. Yeah. Well, I was going to say in one respect, I think atheists are better than Christians in that we have a greater capacity to be humble. Humility, of course, is something that Christians claim to be. But of course, that is, you know, definitionally impossible because if you're under the wing of an omnipotent being that you can hardly be humble about it. So that's, I think, is an important behavior that atheists, I think, tend to be a little better at. Dred, I think I see what you're saying, like the good works of atheists are done at a virtue of like the community and just sense of well-being of the environment that they're in, not because they're trying to appease a God who they think has their side and purview. Exactly. Following up on what Dred Parich has said, I have a confession to make, which is that I used to be an egotist, but now I'm perfect. All right, John and Richard. That's what I was going to pick up on, because... See, if you were drinking the water and getting your water medals, you would have been a lot better with your water medals. That's all I'm saying. Well, I just wanted to say to Dred that obviously he's talking in general terms about being humble because a person who proclaims himself as being humble isn't humble. Right, right, yes, of course. No, listen, I thought about that even. I know it's weird to call yourself humble because it seems like contradictory, but there are a lot of things you can call yourself that wouldn't fall into the purview of humility, right? Like you can say, I'm the best, I'm the strongest, I'm the smartest, but to recognize that you are humble is valid, I think. And it's just a question of, are you practicing it? You can say whatever you want and you can recognize, hey, I actually have some pretty good humility here. I can make fun of myself, I can make good jokes, but am I behaving humble? And that is, so call yourself humble if you are humble, but behave so as well because that's what's the true distinction. Yeah, and it's about exercising humility. So not being humble as an end goal or as a thing, but as an exercise, as a practice. Right, I also feel like there is an aspect of personal accountability that comes with Christianity, where the idea is if I simply do the game plan that God gives me, I don't have to hold myself accountable to other people. So if I fault someone, I can praise my God or apologize to my God. I don't have to apologize to them. If I need to serve time in charity or a volunteer shelter, I can just give money to the church or pray to my God and ask him to take care of it for me. Like there are a lot of scenarios where by agency of piecing to the supernatural, you get the same feeling that you are helping out your community, but you're actually doing nothing because all the prayers in the world won't fill coffers of a charity organization. All the prayers in the world won't make sick people healthy again. In fact, prayer, as Larry would easily point out, can actually put more pressure on someone who's being prayed for to get healthy and actually make them get more sick over time. That study was a very good demonstration of that. Yeah, it was classic by MIT. So I would also say this. In the virtue of, do I feel like I'm a better Christian than Christians? Yeah, it does depend on the definition. But I also have the same confidence that I don't think Christians own any of the good virtues that they espouse or claim to have. And even if they did, I feel like it's so tainted by the fact that they have this unquestionably un-moral God, you know, controlling all of those virtues that I wouldn't even want to appease that being right following his rulings. So I am proud in my sense to not be a Christian, and I'm proud to be a worse Christian than Christians. And I'll also throw this out too. I think today Christians are worse Christians than Christians, particularly like 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 100 years ago. Because as we become more of an interconnected society, we realize that people are different, which is not something that Christianity was ever particularly suited well for. We understand that people have different means that there's different ways of communication, that empathy needs to exist, that tolerance compromises. All of these things are valuable things in a healthy society. And this dogmatic standpoint of us versus them doesn't evolve to the standard that we're living at now. And because of that, the Christians that we have now, if even if you look in the congregations are well integrated, they have females on the staff, they sometimes support at Pride parades, Larry and I were at one and there was like group parading in front of us and we're like, what the hell are these guys doing here? You should be the people with the signs on the sides of the road being like, you guys are going to hell. At least they're citing the holy books, but like you have them on both sides now. If any Christians today are worse Christians now than they ever have been. I think it's for the better, honestly. I think if we can all become worse Christians, the world will benefit from it. That's mine. If I may add something, I've been reading Jean-Paul Sartre's Being in Nothingness and one thing that I found entirely enlightening was the idea that there are no narratives in life. We as humans are natural storytellers and are compelled to tell stories and hear stories and that gives essentially meaning to our lives. But in the live game, like in the living life, there is no story. It's just one thing happens after another, after another, after another. Christians, however, believe that they do have the end already figured out. They've essentially constructed a narrative and that is the guide for their life. The conclusion of their life is already determined and so that they don't live life authentically in accordance with what Jean-Paul was saying and that it's acting in bad faith. It's pretending to be something in order to achieve the conclusion you've already come up with for your life as opposed to living authentically, which is being. I've just found this just completely fascinating. Larry, what was your thoughts on it? You mentioned a little while ago that the motivation is a great teller, tell on these things. Like you mentioned, they do good to a grand dyes God, not necessarily for doing good per se, but there's also the fear of punishment, avoiding hell, doing good in order to appease the God and avoid hell. And one thing I'd like to point out is that when they do that, it's not morality, it's obedience. Morality is something quite different. It's knowing the best thing to do for a particular situation and it's something that you carry within you. It's something that you determine at the time that a crisis arises, not just following a list of rules. The equivalent of it is if you shine, if you go into a really bad apartment, I've been, I've lived in bad apartments too, but if you shine a flashlight in the kitchen and the cockroaches skitter away, they're avoiding punishment. That is not morality. That's animals trying to avoid trouble. And when a Christian does something, only because they have a fear of going to hell or they fear of suffering the wrath of God, that is no different than shining a flashlight on a cockroach and watching it skitter out. It's not morality. It's obedience or it's just actions through fear. It's reactionary. Yeah. And morality, in fact, is not a codified set of rules of how you're not supposed to steal or think about someone else's wife or steal things or whatever you want to call, or steal someone else's land who's of a different religion because they're the dirty people. It's a system of ethics. It's a system of what do we want as a society? What are morals that we can set up to get those things that we want? And let's look at this rule set and change it as needed and as necessary until we have a more optimized way to get these things that we want. It's a very thoughtful and very nuanced system. And it's not as easy as just saying, hey, don't hit people. It's like, don't hit people because you don't want to get hit. And I think it benefits everybody if we don't get hit. Some thought behind it. And we can do all these things so automatically that we take it for granted. But it's really, really important that we realize that it's a nuanced, systematic approach to learning how to treat other people well. And that's it. John Locke and the social contract really help solidify that in many respects is that it is to our mutual benefit that we curtail our passions, our desires, our wants in the interest that we all become better for it. You know what I mean? It's like the tyranny of the common or the tragedy of a common. You can't keep putting more cows on the common field because if everyone does that, well, you have a lot of cows in no field. And this is where I think it went very badly in the Canada protests there, the trucker convoy and all that kind of stuff, where everyone's declaring the right freedom and that's what Canada stands for and blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's blockade. But their very actions and activities were doing the things that they were protesting against. They were blocking other people's freedoms. They were harming, injuring the economy and all in the interest of proclaiming their freedom to have a free economy and to protest, which is, you know, very, very contradictory, very self-defeating, right? Very self-defeating. Yeah, I'd just like to go up on what he was saying about don't do the things that you want to do. Don't do the things that make you feel good if it harms other people. Right, right. Because there's no reason not to do the things that you want to do, the things that make you feel good, the things you enjoy if they're not harming your society or anybody else. Now to say, I'm not going to do this thing because it harms or offends an invisible deity or an invisible person that's sitting off to the side and may or may not exist, that's no grounds to curtail your own enjoyment of life. Right, right. Like not eating pig. Right, right. Or being a homosexual if that's why you're born. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or even asexual, who cares? I want to eat my bacon, man. You know, fornicating as it were. Yeah, yeah. Fornication offends God. Well, if there's no God, there's no offense. So bizarre that he has a stance on that of all things. Like what else are you going to do in the desert, right? Exactly. I mean, why are you telling people that? It's such a double standard because a man can do it. But where do you go to the desert for if it's not to fornicate, right? Right, like why would you do that? And bacon, what is this religion guys? What are we doing here? I want to throw this out too. Just a fine point on the point that Larry was making. It's not just doing things that benefit us the most. It's also reducing harm, but more importantly, needless harm, right? Because doctors can make incisions and that's harmful to an extent. But the overall benefit is that you'll get more health from the work that they do. But it's the needless harm. It's just people stabbing people with scalpels on the sidewalk. Like you wouldn't want that, right? You wouldn't want people to needlessly die like how they are in Ukraine right now. Like whatever we can do to reduce needless harm is like the true benefit of a of a optimal society, right? And there might be people who do workouts where their muscles get bigger and they're tearing the muscle fibers, they want to do that. And they have a purpose for it. But don't don't go out and like rip people's arms off. Like that's needless. We don't do it. We can do whatever we can reduce it. I also want to. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Go on, Dred. No, I was just going to say that, you know, getting back to our original topic about atheists being better than Christians is that our justifications for our behaviors are more considered. We don't just rely on what a book tells us or what our religious leaders tell us is a good idea for doing such and such. Right. We have to think about these things as atheists or as pastafarians. And and that brings it closer to us as being responsible for the outcomes of our actions and our thoughts and our behaviors. There's no fear of hell as far as I'm aware in atheists. And I'm almost going to say that as a weird blanket statement. I feel very weird. Though in pastafarian hell where the bear is stale and the strippers have STDs, we would like to avoid that. We try to, you know, modify our behaviors for the good stuff. George, what's up? Well, I'm, you know, John and I were raised as atheists and I almost don't feel qualified to say very much in this conversation because unlike the rest of you, I was not brought up Christian. It's like I'm two degrees removed because I come out of a Jewish heritage and was raised atheist. So I'm just enjoying sitting here and listening to you guys who have the direct experience, you know, who were indoctrinated from an early age. But George, I would counter that you in your lifetime have encountered Christians who have made it clear what they believe and why they behave the way they do. So it's not like you're raised in a vacuum. That's correct. That's correct. And I have been just, you know, like wondering at it almost in disbelief a lot of the time. Like I just don't get it. So, I mean, the one thing that keeps on coming to me, which is something I've mentioned here before is the, I guess the word is hypocrisy, you know, when people are telling me Jesus's love and, you know, I'm seeing all this suspicion and hatred and the tolerance and racism and, you know, all this hatred that comes out of these people against people who are different than them. I just get it, you know, but I do get it because I've been doing a lot of armchair psychology study and I've, you know, come across some very interesting things that pertain to the prevailing culture around me where I live. Before you live. Well, we'll get back to the hour. Let's see if we can get back to this topic right after a break. Please stay tuned here for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on WOZO 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 doubter five and we're on WOZO radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take a moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002, so we're in our 20th year. We have over a thousand members and we have weekly in-person meetings in Knoxville's Old City at Barley's Tap Room in Pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables in the center of the establishment and on a pretty day you can find us out on the deck or split between the two. We're usually the loudest and happiest group there. We also have Tuesday evening Zoom meetups. If you'd like to join us there, email us at askanatheist at Knoxvilleatheist.org or let's chat SE at gmail.com for the link to join us. You'll also find us on Facebook meetup.com or Knoxvilleatheist.org, which is our website. Or just Google Knoxvilleatheist and you'll find us. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and look for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Right. Mom, where are we? So just some quick listener comments. I love Avatar says, I love FSM. I imagine that stands for flying spaghetti monster. Thank you again for all the comments. We also have I got a lot of comments on some older SE videos that I'm trying to like filter them out just a little bit. As an atheist, I also love the show. Great solid production values. I remember when you guys were only on Winnet. Thank you. And then Matthew T also says helpful video. I appreciate the discussion. Thank you guys so much for all your comments. Feel free to leave more and we'll go right back into the topic. John Richards, we left you with some hanging points. What's up? Well, a lot has gone under the water and gone under the bridge. Water has gone under the bridge. Water on the bridge. Got it. You've been raising a lot of topics that I want to react to. So I don't know where to start really, but I'm not going to let the fact that I wasn't indoctrinated stop me from commenting. I've got opinions. So often when I when I have on the rare occasions when I have visited the church or seen on TV, some worshipers in a mosque, for example, I felt it's very similar for me to going to the zoo. You know, I'm I'm looking at the behavior of these people. Oh, that's bizarre. You you think of it at the zoo because you were not you weren't raised at this. I see it as the Twilight Zone because I was like that was me just a few years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't envy you that time. Yeah. So a couple of other things Ukraine was mentioned. And of course, Patriarch Kirill, who is the leader of the Russian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, he has characterized the war as a holy war, effectively, because it's purging gay pride events, which he is going on in in Ukraine. And so it's against homosexual sin. This is what the Russian Putin's war is is doing. It's saving us from homosexual sin. Yeah, it's very bizarre. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is that we started out by saying we don't know what being Christian is. So it's difficult to decide whether we are better Christians than Christians are. But let's take an example. If being Christian means following the commandments, you know, that's a reasonable assumption. They're rubbish anyway. I mean, the first five of them are just about glorifying the religion. We don't get 350 aren't that good either. They're pretty bad across the board. I'm sure I could construct a better list of commandments and they'll probably only be three. And that might make me a better Christian than a Christian. I have no idea what that means. The thing is that nothing is absolute. You can't say that it's always and forever wrong to do any action, because of course, it always depends on the circumstances. And so all actions are contingent rather than necessary or essential. And so you've got to take into account each individual incident and make a judgment based on that rather than some blanket rule. I love it. Cool. I want to also throw out something on comment from the first half of the show with John Paul Satter, referring to there is no narrative. And there's a Nietzsche like interpretation of saying, well, life is meaningless. There's no purpose or there's no mean. I don't think there's another interpretation of what Satter was saying. And I think it's more true. It's that his point is dogma is not substantial. And the fact that it exists is a demonstration that anybody can make it. Therefore, you have the freedom to make your own rules. You can write your own story. For those who believe in a pre-prescribed dogma, they are faulting an innate ability that they have. And the consequences of that is obedience with the grandeur of morality and self-thought and critical thinking. It's like, no, you foresoaked your best talent, something that you uniquely are capable of doing. And that is building a narrative because there is no narrative for you. Anyway, John, John Richards, what do you think? I want to come back on the Sartre thing as well, because the trouble with the statements that there is no narrative is looking back, there is an appearance of there having been a narrative. Because everything has developed from very simple beginnings, whether you're looking at the cosmos or biology, the evolution of the diversity of life. But what there isn't is a plan going forward. Although looking back, there appears to be a narrative historically. It wasn't intended. It just happened. And then looking forward, we have no idea where the journey is going. This is where, again, referring to Sartre's in nature, essence precedes existence. Whereas in humans, existence precedes essence. So that means we are essentially free. That is how our freedom is derived, is that we exist before our essence. And our essence determines the directions in which, in the choices that we make. Right. George? I'd just like to make a little comment about the difference between John's upbringing and my upbringing. We are both raised atheists, but John's country has an official religion. My country does not have an official religion, not only that, but I come from New York City, which was founded for money. It was a it was a commercial colony of Holland. I forget the Dutch East India Company, or some Dutch West India Company, whatever. The famous governor of New York, in fact, Peter Stuyvesant, was simply a middle level corporate manager. And when the British and the Dutch decided to trade some territories, he just went off to some other colony and managed that. So, New York just has continued that way. There is no official religion in New York City. It simply has more Catholics than anything else. So we have a different context, you and I, John. Yeah, we do. But I'd like to make a difference between theory and practice. We have theoretically an established church. In practice, no, we don't. Right, right. I know. And that's such an interesting thing because the most extreme countries in Europe that I can think of, the most Catholic in the past, let's say, I'm going to fantasize that these would be France and Italy. And I left out somebody, I can't remember who it is, have gone, they've flipped in the opposite direction, I think. So they have an official religion in a way. But like you said, John, it's like the action on the ground is exactly the opposite. And we're here in the United States, meanwhile, we're stuck with the worst of it. Let's go to Larry. Yes, I was just going to say that whether you were raised in the Christian religion or not, because of Christian outreach, which is a lot and perpetually ongoing, few of us are untouched by it. They are incorporated in many laws, both local and federal, which we have to obey. Yes. And I was going to, yeah, essentially expound on that is that while, you know, no one would openly declare in Canada, like you don't hear often anyone say that that Canada has a state religion, it is a de facto state religion. And because, you know, the laws, you know, religiosity to a certain extent is ensconced in the laws of the land. That's certainly something that Pastor Varian struggle against when they're just dealing with people that essentially are either in print or bigoted towards non sort of traditional religious ideas or organizations, you know, if you walk to, so say I were to walk into the driver's licensing bureau with a turbine. Let's say that happened. Yeah. Okay. Say that happened. Say that happened next week when I go to get my picture taken with a turbine. What do you think is going to happen? And this is all based on, yep, it's going to be based on the color of my skin or my ethnic origin. And they'll say, well, we don't believe you. Well, prove it. You know, that will be my claim because that's how frustrated I've been getting with all this. Right. Right. There you operate on some sort of litmus test that determines whether or not you genuinely hold a religious claim. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why I say, you know, that's why I make the claim that, you know, despite, you know, there being no overt claim that the Canada has a state religion, we do have a de facto state religion. You at least have the prejudices, which in a sense is what a lot of religions are in a set. It's a set of prejudices. John. Exactly. Yeah. Well, Larry mentioned outreach. And the latest example of that, you know, at the moment we've got millions, literally millions of people, refugees leaving Ukraine and going over the border into Poland. What happens? They get met by Christian American Christian missionaries proclaiming that you've got to adopt. You've got to access cockroaches, right? You've got to love Jesus and then your life will be better. Yeah, almost. Oh my gosh, that makes me it's almost like crack dealers hanging out outside of a rehab center and watching people walk out with the completion certificate being like, listen, I got a deal for you. Listen, I'll give you the first one's free. Yeah. And these are mothers with their babies in their arms whose home has just been bombed. Right. Right. And no context whatsoever, aside from just and for their sake, they're not even doing it for the refugee. They're doing it so they can win points with St. Peter, whoever is letting people in at the Golden Gates. And then they may be, hey, I did save those refugees and they go back home. They, you know, they're sure they're either their selfies or the religious selfies, which is them praying to God, being like, look at all this good stuff I did for you. It's really exactly. I didn't want to bring this up. So, George, I think you had the best comment. Sorry, George, I have opinions, John. John, I think you had the best comment, but you also brought up the idea of Christianity sort of being like a zoo for people who've not been indoctrinated growing up. And I brought up the contrast where if you had grown up, it's like an episode of the Twilight Zone, an episode being where you go to the zoo, you see an elephant, you know, you're not an elephant. You're there to just see some elephants. Great. You see a giraffe. Great. Then you see you at 20, right? And maybe it's everybody else looking at you and they're like, oh, look at him. He's praying and you're like, oh, everybody's looking at me. That's kind of bizarre. And maybe that person doesn't look exactly like you. Maybe they have a different name, but you see it and you see yourself in it. And then you go to another scene where it's, you're giving out money to the church or you're arguing with people and you have a Jesus, I love Jesus kit land yard around your chain and you're getting very passionate about why certain cartoons shouldn't be on TV because they're not good for kids because they espouse, you know, virtues that shouldn't be part of it. And you're like, oh, that was me. I feel really uncomfortable about this. That's what life is like sometimes for people who've had the trauma of being indoctrinated free themselves from it and have to live in a world where it's like I easily could be you if I didn't ask myself a series of questions and was honest with myself. And it's a struggle to lose that fear and it's a struggle to learn how to think critically. It's not easy, but oftentimes the things that are convenient for you aren't the best for you or have your best interests. And I find a deep convenience with Christianity and religion as a whole. What's happened like what's happened ties, you've escaped your animal that's gone out of the zoo. I don't feel like I escaped. Now I feel like I finally got back to my natural habitat. I feel like someone went to Africa pulled out a zebra and dropped them off in the middle of New York to put like on a platform. And he and he learned how to dance and juggle on a beach balloon. And then finally figured out his way Madagascar style or Madagascar two because that's one way to go back to Africa. It goes back to the wild. He's like, Oh my gosh, guys, I never want to see a clown again. So if it's any consolation, I won't be coming back to go put you in your zoo. Yeah, so well, yeah, I was just wondering, do we do a better job at simply laughing at ourselves? And is there some good that we get out of it? I think so. I think so. I think there again, there again, it's humility, right? Right. Humility is being able to sort of chocolate yourself and not take yourself so seriously. Exactly. A lot of past for atheism in America has realized you were wrong about something. And I think that's a huge aspect to it. Yeah. And so I think that is a humility component. It is humility and practice, right? Yeah, I'm voting for that. And again, you can call yourself humble. There's nothing wrong with it. It's something you demonstrate with practice and you can you can just put a label on it. I did want to I wanted to mention a weird point about our own about our Moscow dictator and in chief. There is in fact a war on religious bias. There is a war from his perspective on gender policies. And I think recently, I think this was as early as last Friday. Putin was in a press conference where he was saying, you know, though other countries of the world have tried to cancel Russia, just like JK Rowling was canceled for her views that she espoused on Twitter. And then JK Rowling was like, I don't need a Russian dictator to say I'm on his side. Let me let me clear this out. And so, right, right, John, not to put you on the spot, but I was a resident UK. Are you familiar with that story? It doesn't ring a big bell. Okay, okay. I thought it was a funny thing in two aspects. One, that JK Rowling is like, geez, I really do need to change my opinions on this or things trying to be like, yeah, and she's with us. Yeah, it's come to me now. She's been very badly treated by the work crowd. And she's amused, I think, that now they're trying to push her into the same category as Putin. And then the second thing is gender politics being a thing that would be uttered by a person who's at war with another country as a justified reason. Straight-faced, justified reason to actually in date is like, well, they have gender policies that I don't agree with. And that's why we're launching these hypersonic missiles at their residencies and schools and hospitals and suburb in areas. It's like, whoa, if there was ever like a crazy lack of judgment by, you know, isn't it really just a, you know, a carry forward of Trump's, you know, sort of reasoning? I mean, it's, it's just craziness, isn't it? I mean, he would just say things and just expect people to believe them. And Putin's just taking, taking his form and carrying it on, it seems like. Right, right, right. Well, I think they're both, they're both two P's in the same pod. Yeah, I would agree, for sure. But it's an interesting phenomenon, Dredd Pirate. I think, you know, I've wondered about this for a long time, is that why a man can tell something which is such an obvious lie, and then everybody just believes it. I'm puzzled by this. Yes, absolutely. I also want to throw this out, too. If you had three, let's keep it simple. We've had Trump who was parading in front of a church with a Bible upside down, right? Yes, right. And we could say to ourselves, that's probably not a guy who really even understands the religious tendencies or the intricacies of that book. And it's actually a horrible, you know, in terms of treating other people, person as well as policies as well. But then you also have Biden, who very, very ardently does believe in Catholicism. And yet, you also have a guy who supports abortion rights for women and does things that are gay privileges, things that the Catholic Church is very staunchly against. And so this is a guy who genuinely does believe in that God, yet when he's in a capacity where he's basically an authoritarian or a position of power, is amenable to the idea that he's overseeing a very diverse population and making efforts to support policies that basically reduce needless harm and not just advance his own. Whereas with Trump, it's almost the exact opposite. A guy who doesn't believe in that book, a guy who a lot of Christians would say in some cases, isn't Christian, right? But yet is actually doing some meaningful harm to minority groups, people who don't have as much privilege as him, and lasting damage to the point where you see mobs of people rushing through the Capitol building, killing police officers. Is Biden a better Christian than the Pope? Interesting. What can you handle that maybe later, but that's a good question. Dred, what would you think? Well, I was just thinking that Biden is a better politician than Trump is, right? Trump was more concerned with his ideas, his thoughts, his beliefs. And didn't really care about what other people thought. And so conducted himself in such a way as if this is what I want, this is what I want. I don't care what you have to say about it. Just go away and leave me alone because I'm going to do it. Biden has clearly a set of core beliefs, but must be amenable because he's a politician. In order to be a successful politician, he must amend or be amenable to the interests and the desires of the body politic, right? And if we looked at that, which one's behaving more godly? Because Trump very much has the idea of my way or the highway. And if not, I'm going to mow you down. And that is very much the Christian God's modus of upper Andi throughout the entirety of the Bible. Whereas God never supplicates to the idea of what his disciples or his followers want. And that is exactly what Biden's doing. And we can see the benefit of it compared to an absolute dogmatic, crazy authoritarian. And then the worst case is on that, on that, I say Trump is a better Christian. Can I just clear something up here? Did Trump really hold the Bible upside down? It's some pictures. Yeah, give me the images. It wasn't a photo shot. No, it's unfortunate. Well, you know what that means? Holding the cross upside down. He's the Antichrist. There's always a narrative. There's always a sneak at the narrative. We're getting closer to the bottom or getting ready to wrap up the show. George, did you have final thoughts? Do you feel like your questions on whether atheists are better Christians than Christians have been properly discussed? I'm not sure, but I haven't. I have enjoyed the interplay between you guys very much. It was a riveting conversation. John Richards, where can we find your stuff at? We thought productions channel and I've now got a producer. It's Swedish Steve who's come on board and it is performing fantastically. So it means I can focus on my guest and have a decent conversation without having to try to do multitasking. I can tell you doing one-man video production and interviewing is actually very complicated. The fact that someone's handling it on their own just makes things so much more interesting for you to stay focused. Could you imagine a Flatenight TV, the guy who's doing the interviews with Shirley Starran and stuff, is flipping the switches on the cameras at the same time too? Yes. It's very good to have someone just manage that for you. That's what you have to try to do. But I'd like to flag up the fact that I'm starting a new show next week, which is Global Atheist News Review. So unlike Global Atheist News itself, which is meant to be impartial, not to have any opinions, but just to report facts, this show, this follow-up show will have opinionated people, a panel of people, who will give their reactions to the items that were in the news that week. Oh, get me on that. That's where I want to be. I want to get on that too. Thank you. It'll go out live at British Time, half past six in the evening. So work that out on a Sunday. Work that out to whatever it is where you live in your time zones. So you also may consider this as a third scheme, John Richards. I follow a deaf news channel on YouTube. My mom's hard of hearing. And so it keeps me engaged with like matters that go on with the deaf community as someone who can hear and like wants to support the deaf community. I can see like, oh, these are the things that they're talking about. Those things that care about these are their, you know, people, their topics of choice. But they also have a follow-up show called deaf being, which is BSL isn't the same as ASL. So unfortunately, I can't understand exactly what you're saying. But deaf being is like the follow-up show. And then they have deaf shorts where it's like clips from their, their funny outtakes or whatever. They put it up on YouTube shorts. And it's a great way to just stay reminded that there's great content. You've given me the idea of getting a signer into Joe. So if you can put me in touch with, let's start with American sign language, somebody who will come on the show, just muted, but to do the necessary translation for the deaf. Interesting. The gesticulations. Yes, interesting. There's a service that'll do that for you. Anyway, Larry, we are running out of time. Sorry, Larry. This conversation after the show. Anybody else have final words before we go? Yeah, yeah. Just my stuff is on YouTube, on my channel, MindPirate, M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. As much as possible, I tried to stream this live on Sundays at, which is now seven AM. Thank goodness. It looks like the daylight saving time thing is coming to an end. We shouldn't have it next year. So I'm looking forward to that. So check me out if you like my stuff. If you like my stuff, click and subscribe. Thank you. Cool. Larry, take us out. Okay, my content can be found at digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show, archives, atheist songs, many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel can be found by searching for Doubter Five or Larry Rhodes. And of course, my book is available on Amazon, Atheism, What's It All About. Thank you for joining us on the digital Freethought Radio Hour. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. Right. 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, man. Bye.