 103.9 FM, WZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WZO Radio, 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, September 6th. It's about 11 a.m. and we're streaming live on Dreadpire and Higgs' channel. And maybe next week, if you're not listening to it now, or if you're on a podcast and hear this, check out Dreadpire and Higgs' channel and you can watch us live. As usual, we have our co-host online, Wombat with Anas on the phone around the Zoom. How are you, Wombat? It's a miracle! I can grow beard spontaneously! Thanks to the miracle of electronics. Nice. Yeah, yeah. It's great. And we have, as mentioned, Dreadpire and Higgs with us. Hello. Hello. How are you? George. Hi. I'm a red leader. Oh! Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we also talk about religion, religions, faith, God's holy books and superstition. If you get the feeling that you are the only non-believer in Knoxville, why are you just not? There are several atheists, free thinking and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville. And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show break. Also, did you know that there's a streaming atheist call in video show broadcasting here in Knoxville? Has been for over 10 years. Did you know that, Wombat? That's right. I mean, if you like teenagers, if you like ninjas and you like turtles, this is a show for you. So it's set in like, rundown New York and it takes place with four brothers. It's about four brotherly loves. No. That's what this whole thing is about. And they are ninjas. But they're also turtles and they look like people and they fight people. No, no. It's great. You got on that channel maybe six months ago, thinking it was the eightieth show. But it's not. We broadcast on YouTube. Now, we used to do it on TV, but we switched over to live streaming. But we'll tell you more about how you can connect with that, watch it and or maybe even beyond the show after the mid-show break. If you'd like to interact with us during the show, go to Dread Pirate Higgs' channel or go to Facebook and search for digital free thought radio hour page and use the messaging function for that. Nice. Wombat, what do you have for us today? Today we had a really, really interesting topic. We're going to talk about foxholes and not so much the stereotype that there's no atheists and foxholes. But in fact, us being atheists, we know we're there every day. What can we do to get Christians to join us in the foxhole? That's the, that's the. We're going to talk about the people who's the Christians who say they're already Christians and foxholes. There are no atheists and foxholes. We're going to go into that. It's going to be a lengthy topic. We're going to have a fun time today. But before we jump into that, let's go to Dread Pirate Higgs with our weekly invocation. All right. I have a limerick. Our humans possessed of a soul with heaven as its object and goal. It's not this life's all we got. It's is what we ought to extol. Oh, I really like these lyrics. I really like these limericks. You do. I'm writing them now. So, so this is an original now. This is an original. Yes. Dread Pirate. What the original lyrics nice. Now listen, all you got to do now is start writing these down. We can have like your own little fun book of like, you know, some of these songs for basically anything. It's really great. Yeah. Highly recommended. All right. We put some music with them or songs. If we put music to them, don't tempt me. I got that ukulele in the background ready to go. It's it's burning up. It's burning up. Speaking of which, Larry, how you been? How you been holding up? Sounds like you've been since last week. Good. Being kind of retired. Playing computer games all day. I turned 70 this summer. Nice. With COVID. Home is a good place to be. So stay home and just play computer games. Now you're actually an app. What is what's your game of choice? Oh, I play. Wow. World of Warcraft all the time. Nice. I play also Wolfenstein. There's a good one called just cause three that I highly recommend anybody who hasn't played it yet. It's I've played it. I got it. Yeah. It's very hard to control too. That's a very technical game. I got some recommendations that I would I would love to give you and or gift you if you promise to try them out. They're really good. They're really, really great. My attention. Okay. Okay. George, no more arm brace. How you holding up? Are you still stretching? What's going on? I'm stretching right now this moment. Yes. Very cool. Yeah. My therapists are telling me my progress is great. I'm recovering from rotator cuff surgery. How's the New York Times doing? Well, my here. Okay. I am located halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. And in the wilds of this rural place, my occupational therapist assistant actually reads the New York Times every day online. She has a subscription to it, which is I had to stop reading the New York Times when I was in school in New York because I was getting too upset. Oh, it was during the Vietnam War. And I was, I spent two hours on the subway every day reading the New York Times. And finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. It almost sounds like New York Times for you is Twitter for me because I literally have just blocked that website entirely. I can't. I can't go on Twitter.com without being upset about something. What I mean is, is that I think the New York Times is a very fine paper with the Cajun elapses. You know, but, but in general, you know, I really like the paper and I had to stop reading it simply because the news was too upsetting. Yep. And I feel the same way about Twitter. I think it's a really good function. It's a good way of communicating, but I feel like it's taken over by what's the right escalating people who just want to provoke streamers. Extremists. Extremists. Trolls. Racists. It's really, really bad. Dale. What's the, what's the du jour? What's the poster du jour of today? Oh, I'll talk about that when you get to your subject. Oh, it's. Oh, fuck. Nice. Visual aids. Nice. Okay. Okay. But I would like to let everyone know that I've decided that I'm no longer an atheist. I've decided that like the Scotsman, atheists are atheism is just not enough. Now I'm atheism 2.0. That's the militant atheists. So you're the unpopular atheists. So you people who are just saying that I see no reason to believe in God. That's not enough. You're not enough of a Scotsman. You've got to be a militant like Kraus and some of our other atheist leaders espouse. Oh man. All those white people. Yeah. You're recycling Madeline. You're recycling Madeline Murray O'Hare. No, she wasn't enough of an atheist. Well, some people would say just doing an atheist podcast is militant. It's true. Some people just say being an atheist is offensive. Yeah. No, you've got to. You've got to call people to arms and stuff if you're going to be a militant atheist. I hear you. We're working on that. Cool. We're working on it. Dredpire, how you been? I've been well. Yeah. Doing good. Keeping busy. I just bought a new car or a new car to me yesterday. So I'm really, really happy with that. What's the Car De Jure of Canada? My mechanic. What's that? What's the Car De Jure of Canada? Like what's your style? What'd you get? 2007 Audi. Oh, fancy, fancy, fancy. Very nice. The opposite of the inning. What's that? Is that the opposite of the inning? And then I, you know, Audi inning. I've tuned into the wavelength of the dad joke now. There's some really, really good stuff in there. Dredpire, I wanted to ask you. You wanted to talk about how can we get Christmas to join us in foxholes? I want to talk about foxholes first. What do you mean by, what do you mean by the concept of a foxhole? Well, foxholes are those sort of, you know, secular issues, I guess that, you know, are about making this a better world to live in. And rather than building a Christian nation, building a secular nation, because it's through the efforts of, and through the activism that all good things have come to pass so far and getting Christians to acknowledge that atheists are okay people. So it sounded like, so foxholes in a sense to me was like, hey, when the going gets tough, atheists, even an atheist will be like, God, I need help. Or man, what can I do? I need to probably start praying. Like this is, I tried to pretend there was no God for a long enough time, but now that things are really, really difficult, I'm going to start praying and reaching out for God, because I can't take this for myself. I'm going to do what the Christians are doing. Oh, things are much better. I should have been a Christian the whole time. Like that's what I hear when I say, when I hear, that's what I hear when I'm, when I'm told there's no atheists and foxholes. It's like when the going gets tough, you guys find God. Right. Well, I've heard it another way in that anybody who's seriously ill in the hospital reverts back to their religion reverts back to God belief, because their, their, their life is in danger there as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I've heard that a lot of professionals stuff like that. I've heard like famous ones where it's like, Hey, you know, we took a drug that by Einstein when like he's on his death throws in hospice and he's like, and there's Christianity. Boom. Yeah. Darwin too. And it's just like, Oh, we got him. We got him. We got him. Hitchens. Hitchens too. Oh man. Yeah. They've said that about Hitchens as well. It's unfortunate. It's a lie. It's a lie. You're spreading an internet rumor that is a lie. All did a lie. Good. Hey, lies aren't cool guys. We got to stop them. But the idea is, you know, there have been atheists that died. There have been atheists who are good under pressure. I know I'm one of them. I've had experiences where it's just like, you know, I could waste my time praying for God to find my keys or I can find my keys. Right. Right. And it, you know, extreme cases of course, like there's always going to be extreme cases, but even like in the most mundane sense, like I, I once yesterday was without shopping, go into a store and I, and my wallet wasn't in my pocket. And in my head I'm like, oh geez, I've just been to two different stores. I don't want to imagine thinking that I've lost my wallet in some store randomly. Let me just rationally think this out, retrace my steps, found it in the floor of my car seat. It's like, boom, there it is, put it in my pocket, walked back into the car, walked back into the shop, continued in my shop, continued in my day. But I could have been like, oh, I don't want to be a bad character, but oh God, please let me find my wallet. Please, please, please, let me spend 15 minutes thinking, it's like, meanwhile my wallet's just like, you can find me, just come back to the car. I've saved myself a lot of time by doing it. And what's, what's funny is he never really answers the question verbally. I mean, if you eventually find your wallet, you just give him the credit, you know, saying, oh, he did that. He did that. Yes. Yeah. Nonsense. Would you say, you know, it's okay to pray to God, but it's always odd if he, if he talks back, that's like the part where you should be like, oh, okay, there's a problem here. Dred, has there been moments in your life where you have been an atheist and a foxhole? Do you have an example of that? Well, atheist and a foxhole, well, sure. You know, I mean, I mean, one of the things, of course I'm working on is the sort of the, the separation of church and state. So that's a foxhole I'm in. Yeah. And I think it's in the interest of all taxpayers on the secular level that those things are kept separate. Yeah. You know, if people are concerned about Islam, you know, taking over the world or whatever, Christians should be as concerned about that as well. And conversely, Muslims be concerned about Christians taking over government. So I would say like, if the Baptist got too crazy, people should be worried about that, if the Nova Witnesses got too crazy. Exactly. If the Third Street Pentecostal Union got too crazy or too powerful, then the Fourth Street Church of Prophecy and Worship will be like, hey, hold on, hold on. My tithing shouldn't go to paying their Cadillac. Well, you know, and there's a, I've heard it said that, you know, like if, if, if our state religion was to be adopted, it's very likely not yours. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it's going to be by next week. It's just, you can't tease that. Yeah. So that's a foxhole I mean. It's a good fight that you're into. Has praying helped? That's good. Lots of past to my friend. Lots of past. Dale, I know you're sipping something. So did you want to go into your poster or did you want to talk about like a time where you've had a hard time and maybe got through it? Did you rely on a God to get you through it? What was the effect? Well, I did look up foxhole on the, on the internet just now. I used, you know, the dictionary to get my definition. And I believe where the saying comes from is from World War one where you had a hole that you would dig, you would get in the hole to keep the bullets from hitting you. Wow. And if you were an atheist in one of those foxholes, believe me, I doubt or I doubt that you would have to encourage people to join you. What with the bullets spinging over their heads? You know what's interesting is. So as a metaphor, as a metaphor, yeah, I'd get, you might get a little hairy, but that's where the saying comes from, of course. So that's what I have to say about that. As a metaphor, I think it's kind of interesting because I would find that only atheists would be the ones digging holes. Christians would be the ones like, I'm protected by this all powerful being who has me as his best friend. I don't need no holes. Meanwhile, the atheists are like, this is, this is, this is insurance policy for myself. Does anyone want to join me in here? And then when the bullets start flying, it's Christians who jump in. It's like, hey, thank you. They have the armor of God as it works. Thank God for this hole that just showed up out of nowhere. This guy, God put this atheist on this earth for me to teach him about him so that he would dig this hole so that I can spread my message to this person. Like it's all, you know, to say, George, what do you got? No, no, I'm stretching. I'm not. George, it's your turn to answer the question anyway. I don't have an answer. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm an organic atheist. Oh, yeah. That's great. I beg all off. That's right. I keep forgetting that, George. Okay. Can I, can I write this question then for you? Go ahead. Go ahead. Could you see value in being able to have like a thoughtful moment to yourself where you can think about how did I get myself in this situation? Can I talk to myself in the third person and try to figure out how did I arrive here to try to figure out like the consequences of my actions, maybe like retrace my steps and figure out what I could do better? Oh, I always do that. Okay. Seriously. Yeah. I mean, I do it to a fault. I do it too much, I think. Oh, you're a thoughtful person. What did I do wrong? How did I bring this drama upon myself, you know, that sort of thing? But I don't have a religion to go back to, you know, to suddenly pray to. Right. The closest thing I, you know, the closest thing I can say coming out of a Jewish background is, and not as a religion, but as a, you know, as a cultural sort of thing, I was once walking down the street in Brooklyn, New York, and I came upon a man on the sidewalk, you know, with a little table full of tiny Bibles, and he had a sign that said free Bible to any Jew who will promise to read it. So I said, hey, I'll do that. I'll do that, you know. Okay. I was wrong to read the Bible. Let's see what's in it. Yeah. So I promised to read it. He gave me this little pocket size Bible. Sure. It's a teensy-weensy print in it. And as I promised, I started to read it. And damn, I fell asleep. Yeah. It's a hard book to read. You know, and it's like, every once in a while I say, gee, I live in this Christian culture here in this country. I want to know what these people believe and read their holy book. I fall asleep every time. I can't do it. I'm just unable to read the Bible. It's almost as if you need an infrastructure of people who need to read it to you every week. Bill, what do you got? George. Yeah. Watch your language, George. Oh, was there a wordy-dirty? I didn't know. I didn't know. That's all right. One thing for George, isn't the Old Testament pretty much the same book as the Jewish Torah? I think it is. Well, I forget. I was just looking that up a couple of days ago. And it's like it is and it isn't. But in essence, yeah. In essence, it is. Yeah. What the? It's the Torah isn't written in Hebrew. The New Testament is written in a whole bunch of other languages and consequently have to be translated from Hebrew into those languages. And most people say that when there is something always lost in the translation, exactly, probably gained when you consider the King James had a or King James had a reason had a agenda for translating it. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's always an interesting thing. Do you think this is a good time to go into the dirty dozen? Or do you want to wait for later? Oh, yeah. Foxholes. Yeah. Yeah. I have to be careful here of the way I say it. Let me put it through in my mind. Long ago, I was a stupid sucker. Okay. And I joined the military during the Vietnam era. It was actually winding down at that time. But there were a lot of stupid people in the military just like Mr. Trump says. And so stupid, in fact, that they used to use cartoons to educate us. There would be cartoon books for how to repair your Jeep. There would be cartoons on the wall. And some of them had the word balloons and stuff coming out of one person talking to another. And this one is how don't let the dirty dozen get you, which is a really ironic poster in that it's showing you all the ways that your M16 can jam up from getting dirt in it. Interestingly enough, when the Vietnam 16 was first deployed, a little trivia for you, first deployed to Vietnam, the manufacturer told someone or claimed that the gun needed, excuse me, you're not supposed to say gun. The rifle needed no cleaning. And consequently, they did not send any cleaning kits with them. So they jammed up like crazy. And with a little water and all that. So they put out this poster to show to tell people to clean it and they passed out the cleaning kits. For anyone that's listening to this, it's a picture. It's a cartoon picture of a guy holding a gun with a bunch of tips listed all around him. It's not a gun. You're not allowed to say gun. There's one thing you do with your rifle and there's another thing you do with your gun. Okay, okay. Like what's the most important tip on this thing aside from what you should call this rifle? Like what's an important tip that's like on this poster? What's an important what tip? Yeah, like cleaning it, cleaning the life of boring. You take the thing apart. You get all the dirt out of it. You put it back together again. That's what this poster is talking about. Cool. So it's got some history. Talking about the different places the weapon can get dirty. Cool. Cool. And it's a dirty dozen since there's 12 of them. See, it's a cartoon. I get it. I get it. There's like a joke somewhere. Anyway, though, atheists and foxholes. Dred, we were talking about how do we get atheists to join? I'm sorry. How do we get Christians to join these foxholes? How can we show them that? Like in this case, it's like George where he he has the ability to talk to himself and rationalize what he should do, consider his actions, be thoughtful, and he doesn't need a God component to get him through that. If my story of like, hey, I could find my wallet without having to rely on a God, Larry's examples, Dale's service in the motor. You can serve your country and you don't need to have a hardcore established, you know, dogmatic point of view on the world. You can, you can, you can contribute to society. You can find your own wallet. You can ask yourself good questions all without a God belief. How can we advertise that to the religious side? How, how, what I did when I broached the topic in the first place, I said, how do we get these people to accept us? And, and I don't want, I'd like for us to be able to address that a little bit because where I'm coming from, as I understand it here in the United States, we are the most reviled, hated people on the, you know, in this country. Wait, we're, Americans are the most reviled people in this country. No, not Americans that, that atheists are. Oh, atheists are. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty high. So that's where I was coming from. Yeah, there's not a lot of protests here. Yeah, you may not have seen it, but Dell raised his hand. Yeah, Dell. Yes, you did. Yes. You might, might approach this subject from when atheists will not get into the metaphorical foxhole. Excuse me. Well, Christians will not get into the metaphorical foxhole with an atheist, meaning they won't get rid of their beliefs. Well, you have plenty of situations where Jehovah's Witnesses as you should know, they reject blood transfusions that they are told will save their life and will, they will die otherwise in other cases where Christian scientists will reject medical intervention on their children. Now, when you allow your child to die, there is someone that is not going to be influenced, converted or otherwise changed their behavior because of some atheists saying, come join me here. So, it's probably what you call up a rope thing. Yeah. Yeah. Not only that, but it's also a hypocrite. Go for it, Dale. Go for it. Go for it. No. I just said you are up a rope. What do you call it? Throwing means worthless. Okay. In vain. Don't try. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what you can do and I'm not saying that any militant atheists are doing this, but what you can do is roll up in an unmarked van with individuals with their faces covered, no name tags or insignia, grab the people off the street, throw them in the van and take them somewhere to be programmed. And now I'm not saying that militant atheists are doing this in Portland, but I'm not going to deny it. I wouldn't think it would be the least the conservative right. The government? The conversion therapists and neo-Nazis, the hardcore. But I would think that actually the Homeland border guards have admitted to doing that. Okay. Dredd, can you fill in on the idea of what would be good tactics or at least good advice for atheists to try to get Christians to have them join in foxholes. Now that we know that secularists don't need to necessarily have a God belief to get the benefits of like say prayer, what can we do to advertise that to Christians is like, hey, try not praying half as much or at least for your keys half as much and if you still find them, I bet you will still will. Well, one of our one of our viewers here has said that what Tye has is what what you're sort of the Sam Harris thing. Um, it has been proven to help you introspect and stay calm. Prayer is a form of mindfulness, whether or not people believe God that helps believe a God that helps them. Um, so to answer your question, I just wanted to make to relay his comment, but to answer your question, I think it's about just being genuine in your efforts to make the world a better place and to not pay attention to whether or not a person is of some religious denomination or not. Just, I mean, it's about a demonstration that you are a good person that you care about the world that you care about each other and yourself and that is essentially just by um, you know, a modeling the behavior you want to see and so that that would be my advice to any any atheist looking to you know, bring bring Christians or any one of any kind of religious faith into a common a common effort. Just to build on top of that, I think along with being able to be a good standard for hey, I'm trying to do the best I can for society. There's a mutual benefit for everyone if we work together. It's really important that people know because people need to know you're an atheist for that to matter else they'll assume that you're just another Christian like them working in the same lanes that they are to get to where they need to go if they're like hey, here's an atheist and he's working out with me and he's trying to make the world a better place and he's a nice guy the next time someone talks about an atheist I'll be like that's not true I think that's the value we have to make we have to try to make it aware that we're an atheist we have to not make it a taboo subject it shouldn't be something that we are ashamed to say in the first place and then from that point when they see our behavior when we're under pressure they will then say oh, okay this guy he doesn't have a God but he's going through a hard time me saying I'll pray for you may not need them work I'll probably just refrain from that let's just see what I can do for you that's when you start to see people will be working for each other I have I have had a friend of mine have a death in his family right and he had just gone up to like Ohio to bury his father in law and he knows I'm an atheist but I still you know reached out to him and I said hey listen I'm really sorry about this just why you know everyone at work is still thinking about you and like he texts me back it's like man there's only one job who like said that thank you so much that means a lot I was like yeah man just take a deep breath and take the time off that you need to like you know be there for your family and it's like man that means a lot to me and I didn't have to be like God has a plan for every soul that's being taken away from this earth and he had to give me back to scroll up like yes God is good it's like no I'm connecting to you as a human being and we're having that means a lot particularly when he can go on and be like atheists can be compassionate nice people and like you don't lose that when you lose your religion or you don't lose that when you don't need a God anymore I think that has value okay guys well oh conversely I go for it conversely I would say atheists can be nasty people too because we're just we're just human so yeah right before my surgery I was in the supermarket wearing my mask and a woman came toward me wearing her mask she said to me are you having a blessed day and I replied no I'm not you can still be a Christian and not have a blessed day so you're all good you're gonna have to get used to that you're in Tennessee aren't sure that is a common greeting here all right yes guys we are at the bottom of half hour layer while you take us out and this is digital free thought radio hour on WZO radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville Tennessee we'll be right back after this short break cool 103.9 FM WZO radio anyway if you're with us we have Wombat we have Dred Pirate Higgs red leader and George next so the next half of the show we were gonna start off by talking about what is good and that came to me because I was having a conversation with someone online and they said I said something was good or something was not good and they said why do you know what's good God defines what's good you know so if you say something is good then you're saying that you believe in God which is you know a red herring because there are things that are beneficial for mankind or things that aren't beneficial and things that beneficial for mankind may not be beneficial for the planet or for animals or whatever we need to talk about that what is good how do we know what good is would you mind if we handle that after we talk about the smash hit by Hadaway Hadaway you know he made the song those baby don't hurt me don't hurt me okay okay so we're gonna go over some quick comments that we got from last week's show quick and then we're going to jump into the idea of what is good our audience our audience yeah and this comes directly from my YouTube channel feel free to leave a comment we'll go over them in the next episode so first one's from abstract activist se that's Nathan Ferguson who just probably posted one of the best se compilation videos from the black lives matter protests straight from Portland he says as a resident moderate vegetarian I would have loved to been asked the questions that you guys were asking about whether or not plants have sentience and I'm like hey we might invite you over on the show you've been on the radio show before let's talk about that that us trading room says I missed the live guys but I wanted to watch just after the life had ended and guess what dread pirate was mute again so I have to wait until I posted this one man we got good fans who are just vibing for for content from us and thank you for that so we will make sure that we have backup channels for this conversation be posted and you will keep up on it eventually I feel very disappointed that I was for whatever reason this is not being consistently streamed where all the sounds and all the bells and whistles work so I apologize to that us trading wouldn't be a Canadian if you didn't have to say sorry right we all know we all know we all know we're good Nathan Matthews says red leaders sobering comments are always appreciated calling it what it is a great talk all and see I felt really good about our talk last week I think we had a lot of points anonymous says what a great subject to talk about by the way last week's subject was why life is important and I'm says what a great subject I was hoping you guys would talk about morality or preserving biodiversity we might have that as our next topic I think that'd be a really great scientific topic to cover what can we do to preserve biodiversity and there's their means for secularists to advocate that in a really meaningful way because there's a lot of ideas of like hey this earth was made for you know us let's enjoy it how do you how do you peel off that mindset and realize hey we're all the same kitty pulled together let's not peeing it let's make sure this water stays clean as possible all right thank you so much you can leave a comment for more where's love let's get back into it Larry what was the the main topic that we're bouncing back into what we're talking about what what is good what does good mean and and does good only come from God you know as a religious a lot of religious people would say matter of fact the guy that I was talking to you online was that how do you know what's good you know and if you say something is good you know God is good so we're saying that you believe in God which is not the case so I wanted to throw that out and get some other opinions on it cool uh who wants to start George yeah okay um I mean I know what I mean when I say something is good it means I like it basically that's it yeah you know it's my own thing you know it's my own definition I like Pete's coffee I think it's the most wonderful coffee in the world it's good peach coffee peat P-E-E-T oh isn't that dirt yeah they're selling it in Tennessee now you like coffee huh you like dirt coffee is it not okay no that's P-E-I-T oh I'm confused P-E-E-T it's the name of a Dutch man okay okay cool I'm not a coffee guy but that's Alfred Pete Alfred Pete nice nice nice and we can buy it right here in Tennessee now hey we don't advertise until they sponsor us that's what I'm going to say Dredpar what's your idea of good well I you know I was thinking about the the other question that's often asked is are things moral because God says they're moral or is moral something independent of any deity regardless of whether it's played over Muslim god whatever and so I think the same thing could be asked with respect to what is good yeah you know I find that when I'm talking to a Christian good couldn't be a very loaded topic because I could just say hey what's good in the sense of like pleasurable but they were like oh let me throw this on the morality side now good is now a morality obligation statement and are you just doing things because they're pleasurable are you a heediness it's like oh if you want to talk about good in the sense of morality we can talk about like harm and what we can do to reduce harm and I can find like stuff like that so I always like to just mean like what are we talking about is this a moral thing or is it just like a a mundane sort of like good thing good qualities or like good practices for people in society Dylan I'm going to throw this out at you what do you think good is two things one in my book I quote a nursery rhyme which is which is God is good with one more oh the devil is evil with one less d so as far as what y'all were saying whatever God says is good is good or else he will stomp you but I would like to respond to one of our listeners who has said that they thought that the life show was enlightening or good anyway if this their Michael Schirmer does an excellent episode with Dr. Carol why life is important is podcast number four on science Michael Schirmer's science salon he goes into an idea of why do trees grow better when there's wolves in the Yellowstone I like it I like it and the idea of an ecosystem and stuff like that yeah just like well the idea is that diversity yeah because we are have grown on the world is grown on evolutionary basis one life affects another life now why is it if you get rid of the wolves in 1920 in Yellowstone that all of a sudden in 1990 you've got less aspen trees yeah they actually changed the course of rivers like I I think I know exactly what you're talking about so like animals can have animals can have major impacts on the environment even like the the presence of wolves can change the the past the course of rivers yep the course of rivers it's really really great highly recommended but that's a good thing I mean it's a good thing that we don't have to put all the pressure on human engineering to figure out how environment should work and so now that we have Larry now that we have ideas of good where do we go from there like how do we measure that how do we define it well I was I was gonna weigh in after throwing out the the question um one thing that we find or I find when I'm talking to Christian believers online is that they equivocate if you look up good like you look up faith you'll find many many different definitions of the word good sure one of them talks about what George was saying you know good is the stuff that's good for me you know things I like you know they're good another thing is like Sam Harris says good is what encourages human flourishing you know good for the planet good for the person for society as a whole or it could be good for an individual but there's they can't just say one thing is good good means one thing and that one thing comes from God without evidence or proof yeah I think I think it goes back to I don't want to say this in a bad way but there's I feel like there's an effort in religious circles to reduce or not stimulate critical thought and complex new words with nuances beyond good like compatible or relevant or or morally sound or legal like all those things are good in different capacities and they have complex weights that come with them and it's easy it's those are hard to think about so like because sometimes critical thinking is really really difficult or taxing to do particularly if you have a busy day or if you're worried about if you're gonna die or not so what you need is like one big character to just be like hey I'm good and whatever I say is good that works for me and just add just remove one oh and boom there you go I mean that works I don't I'm not a fan of the idea of like haze making things simpler is better I find like we are I feel like it's not necessarily a purpose but what we're really good at is looking at really complex things figure out patterns and figure out how they work and it's such a wonderful thing to do with the time that we have on this world to try to understand this this universe that we're in which is amazingly complex this is like the dream world to be in in terms of like trying to understand stuff there's just mysteries all around us let's take the opportunity to do it and if we have to come up with more complex terminology to do it go for it but as far as like a deep philosophical conversation on what the word good means it's so contextualized based on what you're referring to that I'd rather just be like let's just take good off the table what frame are we talking about like when we talk about morality because we can talk about good morality so we're talking about legals let's talk about good ethics like stuff like that I don't want to get trapped weird conversation about dumb word George I think that this this issue has gotten so complex in my own mind while we're talking about it nice um I mean now to think about it it's it's like um what's the person's whole world view where the concept of good is going to come out of you know and and at this time in my life and I'm a lot older than I look um at this time in my life what I'm looking back on is to try to simply understand myself to understand my own world view and what is the concept what is the structure of my own automatic thought process yeah both from there yeah that's the stuff I'm into I love that like what is my world view just be able to understand that and then to try to understand the world views of the people I've been intimately affected by yeah and interacted with during my life this is where I'm at at this point so I mean I I'm sorry if I've led the conversation astray but um the concept of what is good within a person such as let's say myself the only person I really know is hard enough to know you know yeah Larry I've been out of all my life you know I don't know I can't say I can't say I know myself well enough I'm just at the edge of it right now okay Larry you might enjoy this uh you had said uh christians tend to equivocate but I also feel like there's an appeal to mystery when if they're asked or if they ask you what is good and you have to take time to like figure out what they're going on it's like why are you thinking so hard this is a simple question good is whatever god says it's like you just doing this giant mystery because what is god like the most complex thing possible right god is not an answer he's a million more questions he's a million billion exactly it's literally lifetimes worth of questions that are that are going on yeah yeah yeah so uh if we can maybe nail this down how about this let's just say um when we let's terms let's talk about in terms of how we treat each other and we can say there's good ways to treat each other and there's bad ways to treat each other um and I'm not even sure if the god from the bible is a good example of how we should treat each other to be perfect of course man but how do we how do we as secularists or in general know how to treat each other and and in a good way how do we know that dread i'll throw this for you first how do we know how to treat each other in a good way if we are secular well i think it comes back to that platinum rule um which which is the step up from the golden rule okay um it's uh it's just slightly phrased it's it's phrased slightly differently um so that it's not how treating others how you would like to be treated but how others would like to be treated nice treating others like they would like to be treated yeah um so it's uh it's just taking it a step up and and being more empathetic you know and and and not and and being self-aware enough that you can include other people's awareness um as uh an extension of yourself essentially cool yeah uh george i'm gonna throw this out at you next what as far as treating people in a good way how do you know if you're doing it if you are in fact not religious how do you know that you're treating people in a good way first of all i have to try to put myself in their shoes i think uh dread pirates platinum rule is a i like it i was gonna say the word good so anyway um yes i i like it um and and it has to be how i imagine that person would want to be treated because it's all i've got except to take it one step further which is to ask them if they are happy with how i came back at them um you know i have to use the tools that i have nice i like it um del i'd love to get your opinion on my copper rule it's not as good maybe it's not as good as the golden rule maybe it's not as good as the platinum rule but i like it a lot and the copper rule for me is don't be a jerk like hey you don't have to be nice to me but don't go out of your way to be a jerk to me so don't be a jerk what do you think about that as a rule for me to know how to how to treat people it's a good rule i guess it's a good rule as first i've heard of if any copper rule but there's my answer hey baby i'm waking up i go michael sharemer's podcast episode four dr carol why life is important nice nice larry what do you think copper rule don't be a jerk golden rule treat it well yeah i think all of those are good one of the things i add on to the pile is um the first part of the doctor's oath uh what's the name of the hypocritical hypocritical first do not harm so you know you can think that what you're doing will do harm to somebody either mentally financially physically uh emotionally uh don't do it you know do no harm do no needless harm that's that would be the bad part but good would be like uh sam harris says you don't even flourish and what would help them to flourish in their life to do the things they want to do do the things that they they feel they're they're called to do by their own being as it were i'm also going to throw this that crazy thing out because we have like these like you know makeshift rules that we put together we have the idea of like empathy and being empathetic as george has outlined i bet you if i look hard enough in the bible i can find almost work for word these rules expressed or at least the call for empathy but the thing is the the god belief or the baggage of a god or a supernatural entity isn't needed to know that you should be right good to one another or not be a jerk to one another like you don't need empathy will get you a long way yeah almost exactly the same place with less weight you'll have more energy by the time you get there yeah and so i find value in the idea of like hey there's no monopoly that christianity has on being a decent person like this is this is for any religion stuff yeah or any religion that's very true very true i had i this might be a random thing i'm just going to throw this out here i was thinking for a long time about how um conservatism tends to be in toe-to-toe with religious ideologies such that it's harmful for like progression in like you know gay rights or even like relationships like interracial relationships women's rights stuff like that but then i look at countries that are known for not being you know religious like a lot of countries in like asia japan was one of those scandinavian countries scandinavia is is is also a special unicorn because now they are very progressive yet they have a state church right like they have a state not supported by tax dollars which is yeah which i don't know how they feel about it but they use the churches as like rec centers like it's it's completely different mindset over there whereas in japan not a lot of christians yet it's very hard for gay marriage to be accepted very little racial integration like it's very much like hey you you have to fit this foreign factor you either fit in the subway or you don't the sink is one foot lower than it would be in american house you have to deal with that like you're either japanese or you're not it doesn't seem like being religious means that you aren't an empathetic person like one to one in fact you could be religious and empathetic or you could be not religious and very unempathetic so the call to humanity is one that that reaches out to all people regardless of their faith or lack of faith and that's something we should remind ourselves of because it's very easy to think that oh just because i'm an atheist i have all my other problems solved with regard to how to treat people no you just got one answer for one question and that's whether or not you believe in god and it's no and you still have to work hard to be an empathetic human being after that very true that's my point that's my my two cents guys we are handing out towards the end of the show but before we do that i want to throw out some ec tips um i had ec by the way is a like socratic examination it's a great way to talk to people about what they believe typically about heart hardcore beliefs that they might have and have a conversation about how they arrive to their belief in a way that doesn't trigger them defensively or make ego get involved in the situation and i had a a four hour conversation with the contractor who came to our job to repair an instrument and while we were writing for the instrument to warm up it's a long sequence we just started talking about god because he brought up that he wasn't talking to his sister for like 12 years because she decided to be gay and she doesn't know why he decided to get gay and brought her wife to his house and and have a fuss over it when it disagreed with his lifestyle i'm just like what is this what is this conversation let's just get straight to the straight to the foundation and we ended up going to god we ended up going to faith we did you know all the basic classic stuffs in se right and found out by the end of it that you know he has no reference for what it would take for him to recognize if he was wrong he's just absolutely confident that he's right and he's using faith as a crutch to like just justify the amount of time he spent in believing in this god this is like hey what else do i have i've spent so much time doing this and and i think that was a recognition at the end he was very happy that he had the top but on my side i still had work to do after that day after a four-hour talk i was still the first day of my work week and i was exhausted all the way up until now and this was like a uh six-day work week for me i just did an overnight check yesterday i would say if you're doing se you owe it to yourself not to tie yourself out and that five-minute timer works for you too the socratic examination yeah yeah yeah or a street epistemology don't tire yourself out when you're doing it because that might make the conversation go poorly but it also isn't good for you and it's a conversation you should both be trying to get stuff out of it and if you're getting exhausted you can back out to you just be like hey i think that's as good as we can get to for right now i just want to get back to work you know it's totally fine to say that dred do you have any um random street epistemology tips that you had to learn off the top of my head fair enough fair enough you are teaching a class on it so you might want to get good at that you might want to get like warmed up on it for larry you actually have your own style that i really appreciate with your se in that you you are willing to throw in counter apologetics and classic argumentation into your style as well do you have a hard time balancing everything or do you know which which base to pull from which bucket to pull from non-creature habit you know when somebody says something i reach in grab the response that i've habitually used but if i ever get in a corner then i i rely on a socratic examination and talk about their methods about how they reach the conclusion that they're touting but generally you know it's a mix of both that's good that's good for me i like the counter apologetics too i like to understand why they believe it rather than try to like pick it apart i'm like how did you get there what's else going on what is this what is this guy and people say you spend too much time on this like but that's that is what i'm trying to learn from this like i really do understand like everyone's personal relationship with this you know being no one can really talk to it's very interesting for me anyway we're if you want to see talks like that i would recommend personally uh you check out a new youtube channel called quinn questions on youtube i'll put a link in it in the description he's a new sce artist uh doing his stuff out of la black dude let's go more black representation in this in this community it'd be great that's right but uh yeah really really cool guy uh has a really friendly approach and just sits up at a park he's doing his talks as of like now like he has the the corona mask corona mask uh covid face mask on and stuff like that doing it in public he's doing it in public he's like six feet away from people who aren't wearing face masks what are you gonna do what are you gonna do right uh but he's tyron tyron where is he where is he located he's located in la oh la california la california yeah la la land yeah or the la not like he's in montgomery alabama or something uh yeah it's true like or louisiana it's like la louisiana anyway uh highly recommend you check that out and i'll put the so what is it description what's it's cool in questions it's a sce uh conversation by a guy named quinn and he's a black dude that does questions quinn questions yeah q u i m n and then questions i'll put a link in the description there's no way you can miss it okay drift pirate what do you got well you can check me out on mine pirate m i n d p y r a t e on youtube and we stream this show live at eight a m p s t or p d t pacific standard time uh every sunday nice nice nice dale do you have it you could you tell me the name of that podcast one more time and which number i can look for it it's michael schermer's podcast michael schermer is the one of the founders and editor of skeptic magazine nice uh it's podcast number four of science the podcast is actually named science salon a whole bunch of very very smart people talking about very very smart things one episode at a time it's episode number four and it is why you should be concerned about butterflies or wolves or bees your rafts why those things can affect your life but also i would recommend going to wikipedia or one other source and look up socratic examination and how it was done in rome so that people know what the uh what the uh ancestors of the president street epistemology is nice yeah highly recommended yeah george what do you also i looked at your uh i looked at i plug your uh youtube thing i looked at one of your talks and on a stage with the wow the three state thing yeah thank you appreciate that appreciate it uh george well i i just want to tell everybody to remember in this context of goodness is to remember to be good to yourself i like that yeah mental health absolutely your own best friend you are your own best friend my my boss always says make sure your physical mental and spiritual health is good and i keep reminding him what do you mean by spiritual it's like oh i just mean being good to yourself it's like okay make yourself be known my mental health is making sure that you know that i think spiritual it's all right uh larry take us out no you haven't put your uh your your links up i would like it if you guys check out queen questions rather than check out my stuff you're probably if you're seeing this you're probably even already on my channel but check out queen questions i really understand so that queen questions dot com no no i'm going to put the link in the description george forget about it okay okay um we're getting down at the bottom of the hour we should probably log out or quit yeah uh just a reminder dales book which is uh was it how jesus did it pieces of silver um i can't remember the full name of it but find it at howjesusdidit.com and read it free online it's it's a great book about how jesus is miracles free free online read it online uh be sure to visit my blog at digital free thought dot com for our radio show archives atheist songs and many articles on the subject by the way my book is called atheism what's it all about it's available on amazon and if you're having trouble leaving your religious beliefs behind i recommend going to recovering from religion dot org uh and they'll they have many resources to help you out there uh if you have a question for the show you can send them to ask an atheist at noxvilleatheist.org and we'll try to get to them in the future shows and if you're watching this on youtube be sure to like and subscribe to be notified for the new episodes as they are posted remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell's and souls are real until then don't sweat it and enjoy your life this program is free recording will be broadcast on wednesday september 9th at 7 p.m on w o z o radio dot com nice for another digital free thought radio hour see you then say bye everybody we'll see you bye bye bye