 on this computer. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, June 5th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5 and as usual we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Hello I'm the Wombat. And our guests today are Dred Pirate Higgs. Hello Dred. Dred. From the west side of Canada. And Georgia Brown, two and a half from Eastern Tennessee. Hello George. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town, well you're just not. Here in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt we have a group of over a thousand of us. And we'll tell you more about that group after the mid-show break. Wombat, what's your topic today? Today we're gonna be filling in the blanks and then going over listener comments. I'm gonna have a fun time. And I guess before we get into filling in all the blanks, let's fill up on some noodles courtesy of our own Dred Pirate Higgs. Hail marinara full of spice. The flying spaghetti monster is filled with the tasty art thou to amongst sauces. And blessed is the fruit of thy jar, tomatoes. Although fools believe they are vegetables. Holy marinara, chief amongst toppings, save us a plate for now. And that's about six o'clock when dinner is served, if you would be so kind. I was worried about that because that that invocation was a little bit saucy. Guys, this is the part where we check in on everybody saying how we've been doing. Dred, how you been since last week? Well, I've been pretty good. I had reported in February that I had received my security workers license with my track record. And just a couple of weeks a week ago or so, I got a letter from them saying they were demanding it back. They made an administrative error. Yeah, right. Yeah. So anyway, I'm now in pursuit of getting the ombudsman on this. Of course, over the last couple of years, I've tracked every conversation through email and have a lot to say about it because essentially, they're just confabulating, you know, in saying that it's this or it's that or it's the other thing. And in fact, they're expressing a clear religious bias. So right. Yeah, so I'm going to take them to task. Good. Good. Good luck. Good for you. And keep that ID card. There's no reason why I bet you that's the whole point. You know, as it turned out, I actually got a call from a fella in Ontario who had seen one of the articles written about my efforts, and he has his driver's license with a colander. Nice. So there again, it's just another example that, you know, this is arbitrary, not to allow us to do it. And that we got to we got to put an end to that. So also, is it just weird? But like when I when I have a picture on Facebook, whether I'm wearing headphones, glasses, no glasses, if I got a beard, if I got no beard, if I got hats on, if it's a sunny day and there's shade on my face, it still knows it's me. Like what is all this, you know, facial recognition software, you know, and that's the pretense, right? And because, you know, certainly Sikh men are customarily, you know, those that are pretty orthodox about it, wear, wear turbans. And that doesn't interfere with facial recognition technology. Yeah, neither does this. Plus, yeah, your glasses off. Yeah. If you choose your beard, I'd have a hard time. I would be like, is that dread? No, that's dread. Yeah. But I mean, is there a law saying that that you have to have your face recognized recognition is this area right here. And that's it. It doesn't care about your head or the shape of your noggin or or how much hair you've got on it. You know, it doesn't matter. Yeah. So Larry, put a put a nail on this. What are you what were you going to say? Well, I was going to say that is there a law that says your face has to be recognized by a computer? I mean, when did they start that? You know, yeah, exactly part of the requirements for your for your driver's license. Yeah, it is. Wait, wait until they put barcodes on our nose bridge. Then it's just like, okay, okay, now now we can put whatever we want on our heads. Just make sure our code right here. Larry, doing some biker riding I've heard. Wow, have you been? Yeah, yeah, I went out yesterday. It's beautiful day. He rode for about an hour and a half. And you really can't beat it. I'm also playing a lot of computer games and of course, still working. You're playing Eve online too, right? No, I did for a long time. But I kind of gave that up. Okay, it's just too too many too many games going on. So there's too many games. Plus, I kept I kept my ships kept getting destroyed and they cost a lot of money when you're in game. They cost a lot. They can't. Yeah, I don't generally spend that money on. I see. I see. They had a benefactor to begin with. Are you familiar with the game called No Man's Sky? Me? Yeah, I've seen some advertisements for it and some videos of it. Okay, okay, okay. It's sort of like Eve online, but not as monetarily costly. The thing about Eve online, No Man's Sky is you play pretty much the entire game from a cockpit and that would bore me. With Eve online, you can see you're outside of each ship and you have many different types of ships that have different capabilities. Sure, in Eve online, you're playing in front of a spreadsheet. Well, you have that element of it, but it's live on the side of your screen. The main action is still action. Sure, Larry is much more of a data guys. Like you got to give me some numbers. You got to give me some dice rolling. I need that stuff to keep engaged. George Brown, second and a half, have you been? Well, I'm okay. Ben, I'm engaged in the process of changing my operating system on my computers from one version of Linux to another. Okay. I need more software compatibility applications, compatibility with my operating system. Sure. So our very own Swedish Steve has given me some input. Good. He's been using a distribution called Manjaro. Okay. And he's been pretty happy with it. So he's been filling me in on what he likes. And I think I'm moving in that direction. Not bad. I've been using, there were about 2000 different versions of Linux. Linux is not a thing. Linux is a whole Wild West show. It's like atheism. It's like atheism. Yes, like atheism of things that don't talk with each other. Nobody ever talks about that. So unfortunately, I cannot recommend Linux in any form to somebody who's not already a geek. And I wish I could because the thing I really like about Linux is that unlike Facebook or Google or Windows, it does not track me. It leaves me alone. Sure. You know, I can rely on my own privacy, at least within my operating system. So at least within the operating system, not bad. Within the operating system. Dred, do not throw shade on this. Let him have his happy moment of solace. I just wanted to let you know that Loma and Dada's Trading Room are both watching live right now. Fantastic. Dada's Trading Room, we always appreciate your comments. Loma, same thing. Feel free to throw in some more comments in the show. How about we get into it? We're going to be doing a fill in the blank session, round table, the first half of the show, with a prompt. And I thought it would be interesting to see, oh, Sarah is also watching as well. Sarah says, okay, we'll get back to her. The prompt is just because you're an atheist, and then you can fill in the blank. And I can start with one. I'd like to get a round table on this, but my just because you're an atheist, fill in the blank would be just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you got a degree in something. A lot of people tend to take atheism as like an establishment or some sort of intellectual pursuit or some sort of credibility in being a more reasonable or critical thinker. And it's not necessarily the case that that is the position someone would have if they're an atheist. Atheism is literally just a lack of belief in something. And you could have that from just never being exposed to what the belief claim was in the first place. Likewise, if you don't believe in something, it's not necessarily a demonstration that you're a great critical thinker. It's, if anything, it's just a position that you have before you may ultimately start believing it. Or you might be in a position where you're still skeptical and haven't met your standard of evidence. And the standard of evidence is what you're trying to maintain, or maybe your standard of evidence is unreasonably too high. There's a lot of reasons why people may not believe in something, but the fact that they don't believe is the point of atheism. It's just the lack of that belief. And there's nothing more to it than that. It's just simply a position on a question on, do you believe this or do you don't believe it? And that I wish we would just take a lot of the baggage off of it, a lot of the bad and the good baggage of atheism, and we just had it be, it's just a lack of belief in period, which means if you want to convince someone that there to not be an atheist, make a better argument for the thing that you believe so to meet their standard of evidence. One that's convincing. Yeah, make a convincing case because oftentimes you'll deal with an atheist who's read the book that you've read. And if they didn't see the same thing you saw, that's not a problem on them. That's a problem on you being a better marketer for the thing that you guys so arguably believe. So just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you have a degree. Just take it as a position statement. It's like, hey, I don't believe that. I don't believe you when you say that. Come up with a more convincing argument. I'll get there. That's my just because you're an atheist. Larry, what do you think? What's your fill in the blank for just because you're an atheist? Just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you have no morals. I guess it's the first thing, because that's an assumption that a lot of people make. A lot of my believers make that the only way that you can be a moral person is if you subscribe to the morals that the Bible gives you. And of course, they don't take a very good look at the morals that the Bibles give you either. If they did, they would condone killing homosexuals, or women who are not virgins on their wedding night, and things like that. But they don't. And they just pick and choose. Of course, we have morals that are given to us are handed down through the society that we live in. And we have those morals because we develop those morals so that we can build a functioning society so we can live together in peace. I dig it. I dig it. I love the idea that you have to remind people that atheism have morals because morality is so closely tied now by religious people to religion and theism when truly that form of morality is lacking in so many different capes. I also like to remind them that obedience is not morality. Yes, morality is a system of behavior. It's not a code of edicts. George, what do you think? Well, I'm asking myself a question, which is, is there a unified them? Are we guilty of overgeneralizing about this them that we're talking about? Are there deviations among those other people who are not atheists? So, I mean, there are assumptions that I think that many Christians make about us. And now here I am generalizing, but that's all I can do. I mean, I think that generalizing is the core of the human condition in a way. I won't beat that one to death right now. But I think that, for at least some religious people, we represent a threat to them because they envision us as being active in some way. And it's like my neighbor, I said, I allowed to my neighbor that is a different neighbor that I don't really place any stock in heaven or hell. And her response to this was, do you hate God? Now, the Larry in my head says that hatred is an active state. And one has to put some energy behind this. The Larry in my head says, you can't hate something that doesn't exist. So that's my inner process. But we can always ask them, you can always ask them why they Santa Claus. Yeah, I like it. I don't believe in something doesn't mean you hate it. Right? I really like the idea Christians are afraid of atheism because it represents a threat to them, right? And in the other way around, at least this is my perspective, I don't know if it's shared, but when I see someone that's an ardent Christian, I don't see that as a threat to atheism. I don't see that as a threat to my position. I see it more as a lost opportunity for being a bit more freer in their thinking. It's like a guy who lives next to Walmart and buys only Walmart brands of everything. And it's like, you know, you can get socks from like Target or Amazon. It's like, no, I got to get the Walmart socks. It's like, everywhere makes socks. It's like, well, I didn't know. I didn't know. It's like, yeah, every, all these things you think belong to Christianity, family, happiness, like virtue, morale, like those exist outside of the religion. In fact, some systems are even better. Substantially so. So it's like, I wish, I wish Christians had the opportunity to, to, to get out without the social stigma or the family reliance, a peer pressure of staying inside their codified systems belief. That's, that's, it's, it's an empathy thing for me. Anyway, Dread Pirate. Yeah. Well, you know, sticking on this morality thing, you know, this idea that, that, you know, Christians, I maybe they don't even understand that their belief is essentially that morality is by fit. You know, is a thing moral because God says so, or is a thing moral and God enforces morality through command. You know what I mean? I agree with you. They were, they believe it. They believe that because they were never taught what actual morality is. Right. And I remember that distinctly because I went into a morality and ethics class in college thinking I knew what morality was because I read the Bible. I had all the verses memorized and it was a struggle for me to realize that it's not having the answers in the back of the book that makes morality. It's the knowing how to solve the problems as they may come to me in the front of the books, the unanswered questions, the system that I need to use to solve the questions. And just to continue on that thread is that every advancement in moral behavior throughout civilization has been the result of secular efforts, not religious ones. I mean, slavery did not happen because Christians were fighting for to free, you know, black slaves. The emancipation of women didn't happen because Christian men were saying women need to have more rights. This was all driven, you know, through secular movements and yeah, for sure. So George, I have a hard time with the word moral because I'm never quite sure what people mean when they use it. Ethics to me is a word that is more solid in my own mind. So I guess where I'm coming from right this moment is, okay, what do we mean among us here right now? What do we mean when we say the word morals? We already have a roundtable topic. Well, that's a good question to second but we're running out of time on this hatch. How about we, Dredpire, why don't you give me the the fill in the blank? Okay, so yeah, so and I, you know, our pre-discussion about this was, I think, pretty good that being an atheist doesn't mean you're irreligious. As a pastifarian, I, you know, I'm certainly atheistic to the Christian God, the Muslim God, the Jewish God, Buddha, Sikh religion, Hindu religion. Pastifarianism for me is an expression of my agnosticism towards some of those unanswerable questions about the universe and existence and what came before and what will happen after. So yeah, I think my belief is, and, you know, the pastifarian or the flying spaghetti monster sort of is an avatar or, you know, a representation of those unknowable things is as valid as any other perspective out there. Yeah, and what I like also about pastifarian in general is that there's no demand for worship. And when I, when I know that's the case, being like that is, whether it's real or not real, is far more appealing to me as, as a spokesperson for like a belief system for me than one that not only is ambiguous in its existence, but also demands worship in it. And it's like, what are you doing? It's just like, prove you exist if you're going to demand that level of love or respect or fealty, you know, like, but if you don't... You know, and it's like, you know, like, whereas the, you know, you have the 10 commandments for Christianity, pastifarian has the eight, I'd rather you didn't. I love it. Yeah, it's so good. I really do like it. More, I have a flying spaghetti monster baseball cap that I played disc golf with just letting everybody know. Oh, sweet. Yeah, I go out with that. And yeah, I can bring it out next time. Yeah, yeah, please do that. I want to get me one. Every player that I've played disc golf with has either been either atheist or heavily Christian, but even when you're playing disc golf, it's never a subject that's brought up, but it's nice to have the flying spaghetti monster hat out at the same time to represent. Cool. I'd like to see it. Yeah. George Brown, second and a half, just because you're an atheist. Still on the blank. Just because I'm an atheist, does that mean that I have to have something to say? Because I don't. My head is full of nothing. Sure. Fair enough. Just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you have to say anything. And you know what? I'm happy with that because we just like I'll throw this out too. Just because you're an atheist doesn't mean that you're a representation or representative of atheism or that you speak for other atheists too, right? Because one of the things that I dislike when I have to tell people that I'm an atheist is suddenly be the representative spokesperson on atheism. Whereas when someone tells me they're Christian, it's never a question of them being like, well, explain to me what the Bible is and what your business is like. No, they just say it as a virtue statement or virtue sign. They move on to the next topic. Yeah. If I say atheist, I have to answer 40 questions, right? About like, where do you get your morals from? How does this happen? It's like, oh my gosh, like guys. Where the universe come from? Yeah, exactly. What kind of weird thing could you say that you're into or that you are, that you have to then follow up with an explanation of how the universe came about? Like it's only atheism. It's only atheism. So we'd appreciate if we didn't have to do that. Anyway, that's not a bad round table. I think how are we doing on time? George, you got the timer. Well, my timer is showing something like two minutes left. We did it just in the nick of time. We got, we have a quick two minutes though. So what do we mean by morality? Morality in my head is a system for how to conduct yourselves in a society, ideally towards the benefit of that society in terms of maximizing welfare and minimizing needless harm. Ethics is a codification of those rules, essentially. Larry, what do you think? I like, there's a series of videos by Evidence 3. It says why I'm no longer a Christian. But he said he was in college and he took an ethics course and he thought this would be easy. I'm a Christian. I know I'm bad. I don't have, you know, I just read the Bible. But the professor told me, he says it's really more about how to do the right thing when the right thing is not obvious. He says it's more solving moral complicated problems and when you come upon them, then it is a set of answers, like you said in the back of the book. Exactly. And it's not like riding a bike. You have to actually practice morality. You have to actually understand it to do it well. It's not intuition. We're not genetically disposed to be good at it. We have to work at it. Same with reason. I was just going to say, Dodd is trading with me. He asks, he says, how about this? Just because I don't believe doesn't mean I'm an atheist. Correct. Correct. I mean, I mean, that's the definition of atheism. If you don't believe in God, you're an atheist. I know it says you don't have sufficient evidence. So there are people who don't understand. What do you mean by it? Why don't we get into that in the second half of the show? Stay tuned for the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour at WOZO Radio 103.9 LPFM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. I'm Dodd R5 and we're on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPFM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take a minute to talk about the Atheist Society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 20th year now and have over 1,000 members. We have weekly in-person meetings in Knoxville's old city at Barley's Taproom in Pizzeria that's every Tuesday around 5.30. Look for us inside at the high-top tables. We're usually the loudest and happiest group, and we can't be out on the deck, so be sure to check out there as well. On Tuesday nights, we also have a weekly Zoom meeting. And if you'd like to join us on that, email us for the link at askanatheistatnoxfilatheist.org or let's chat SE at gmail.com. You can also find ASK on Facebook, meetup.com, or at Knoxvilleatheist.org. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you can still go to Meetup and do a search for an Atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. One that where you want to pick up. Yo, I think we're going to pick up off Dredd. Okay, yeah, yeah. So that is training room. He introduced this idea that just because he doesn't believe, it doesn't make him an Atheist. And he introduced this term called Igtheism. So I looked this up and see this on Quora. An Atheist might say there is no evidence that God exists. An Atheist might say the concept of God is incoherent and talking about God is nonsense. Very interesting. That does sound like a lot like that as trading room. I'm going to be honest with you. Three years of YouTube comments and great listener. Okay. That's a good twist. Here was my argument. A Christian is more atheist than he is a theist in the sense that they disbelieve in the far greater collusion of God's who have been proposed and only believe in just one of them. So like if you take a Christian perspective, it's like, well, they don't believe in Buddha. They don't believe in Allah. They don't believe in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they believe in just one. So if you look at it as like a pie chart. Of all the gods that have ever existed throughout civilization, yeah. Who we are are essentially just someone who believes in one less God than what a Christian believes in or worships. And in my head, that's what I meant. That's what I thought that is trading room. And it's just because I don't believe doesn't necessarily mean I'm an atheist. It's like very true because you could not believe in the greatest pantheon of God's, but that 0.0001% that you do believe in would make you not want to subscribe to the atheism channel. So at least I get that. And Dred, you're sort of hovering around on that point to where it's like a lot of Christians don't believe in many other gods. It's like, when you think about it, Christians are also just, we're not so different. It's not like a black and white thing. We're all largely atheists. It's just we believe in one less God than the major players. George Brown. Well, you know, I think it says in the Bible that thou shalt have no other gods before me. That's really interesting because that implies that there are other gods. And maybe the one that we got is not that good and we should take it back to God's are us and get a refund. Yeah, God is a monotheist himself. He's just like, don't step one, don't believe in any other gods. Two, I'm the only God. It's like, okay, this is a weird set of rules. Larry, what do you got? Well, I just saying that it's like atheists don't believe for different reasons. For this set of reasons over here, they don't believe. And we just believe because we haven't got the evidence to believe, et cetera. But no matter the reason, if you don't believe that there's gods would fall in my thoughts, you would fall under the atheism camp. Dredd? Well, I was going to say that, you know, as far as passive erinism goes, there is actually some evidence that the flying spaghetti monster exists. Because, you know, physicists astrophysicists, you know, speculate that in the vicinity of the event horizon of a black hole, matter is spaghettified. Yep. And in fact, in fact, neutron stars are leading into this. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Neutron stars are characterized as having four types of pasta states of matter that are characterized as pasta. And made out of subatomic particles that have flavor. Yes. Flavor quarks. Yes. I also want to throw this out. I think it could be targeted, I think to an extent it could be targeted. If you don't want to subscribe to the capital A atheism, you can at least be atheistic to particular God claims. And maybe you're not conclusively atheistic to all of them. Maybe there's that one that you do believe in. But I think we can come to terms, and I think it's the point that we don't recognize as often, that a Christian and me as an atheist don't believe in this God. So we're atheistic to that God. And we can find a greater list of things that were atheistic to under the same premises that I'm atheistic to that one God that they believe in. But that's where the double standard comes in. And I feel like if we recognize that, we can get, I mean, a large number of theists to recognize, Oh, there's something very interesting, my manner of thinking here. Dredd. Yeah. And, you know, again, one of the principal objects of Pastafarianism is to reduce or eliminate the crossover of church and state. Because, you know, it can't be assumed that everyone who is a Christian, or all those who believe, necessarily believe that Christianity should be the rule of how the nation is ruled, or how any state is ruled, right? So, you know, our push for the separation of church and state is just to say that we're all entitled to believe what we believe, independent of it being ensconced in law. Larry. Well, I was just going to say that earlier in the show, I talked about different flavors of atheism, you know, the ones that have never believed versus the ones that used to believe. I agree. So, now we had another flavor. And to that, I would say we were all, we were all, whether you're religious or not, we were all people who didn't believe in the God. And then immediately or over time, we were indoctrinated into a belief system, sometimes maybe not at all. And then there are the born again atheists, if you will, the people who recognize that they need to buck this, you know, terrible dogma and go back to how they were before, but then also go through the recovery process of building up the reason and getting rid of the fear if it was, you know, instilled in them on unnecessarily, you know, fabricated supernatural concepts. And so that's a process that a lot of people use to like come to terms with like a capital atheism. But like, I can totally see how there's, how there's different flavors, but they all started from the same position, which is by default, not believing in God, just being a de novo human being, like how George was organic, atheist, and like unaltered in their thinking. And I feel like we all started that way. And it's, it takes a while to get back to that position again, if you're taken off of it without your own intention. George, what's your thought? Well, I, you know, in deference to Dread Pirate, I can't speak with enough knowledge about Canada. But in the United States, of course, it looks like, from my perspective here in the Bible Belt, like we're heading, you know, hell bent on a downward trajectory into a theocratic state. And, and so when Christianity officially rules America, will the rest of us have to ride in the back of the bus? Or will they simply just slaughter us? I don't know. I mean, in the, in the Muslim world, Jewish people were able to coexist very nicely in the back of the bus, you know, it's like Jewish people paid an infidel tax. It was a small amount of money every year. And they got left alone. You know, everybody got along. Would it be like that? Or would they come after us with machetes? And eventually, right? So my thought process of that is we do have a president right now who's ardently Catholic, but also supports abortion and women's rights, right? Like that one of his first objective orders was, you know, women's protections, things that Catholic church would not support whatsoever, right? So I it's not possible. It is possible to be both religious and dutiful to your position as a representative person for our government. And I would also say if you go back 300 years, we're probably I wouldn't say more religious than we are now, but definitely not more in favor of the welfare of marginalized people in the society, at least in America. I think we learn over time. And, and I think the voices who are complaining now are only getting louder. And I think we wouldn't have had that. We only gain that ability to speak up over time. So yes, can we become a theocracy? Possibly. But does that necessarily mean that we can start ruling in lack of favor of many different groups of people? No, I think I think we can have both at the same time. But I see what you're talking about, George. Go ahead, Dred. Yeah, I was going to say that, you know, as we view the statistics of religiosity and the decline in the Christian majority, if there really ever was one, is that, you know, the fewer voices there are to speak, the louder they tend to shout. And it may be that's, you know, a part of this, this, you know, apparent trend towards the theocracy. Very good. It's just, it's, you know, it's like the freedom truckers up here who, you know, are very, you know, represent maybe just a couple percent of the truckers overall, right, who decided they didn't want their shots. But, you know, they spend their time honking the loudest and, you know, obstructing other people's freedoms to push a point which is rather stupid. So, you know, maybe that maybe it's just a, you know, there's a mirror happening there, right? Just you're hearing the fewer and fewer people just getting louder and louder and louder. Or the an establishment, the death screams of an establishment falling up down, right? Like a tree falling in the woods does make noise, right? George. Yeah, I think that's an interesting, Judd Pirate. I mean, there you are in Canada. And I think, you know, we're the 900 pound gorilla. It's like we roll over in the bed and you guys stop, you know, you're crushing me, you know. And I have a great amount of respect for Canada. And I realize that it's a place that is not without its problems, but that not the same problems that we have. And so my first question for you is, do you have the same problems as we do here? In a sense we do, yeah, because of course we are, we have a sovereign. And the sovereign is the titular head of the Church of England. And so therefore we de facto have a state religion, which is Anglicanism. Yeah, it's essentially. So you actually pay loyalty to the Archbishop of Canterbury if I hear you right? Well, yeah, whoever, yeah, the Queen's representative. And of course, you know, there's the Attorney General, or not the Attorney General, the oh, the Queen's representative in the Parliament. So yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it is in most Canadians wouldn't even recognize that. And I've certainly when I've said those very words, you know, kind of get the surprise and then once it sinks in, it's like, yeah, you're right. That's exactly how it works, you know. And despite the fact that in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, sections to A and B refer to the freedom of religious expression, certainly I'm one of those groups that are not represented, not represented fairly right under that order. And which is what we're struggling against right now throughout Canada as Pasadena. Yeah, I see that. And we have, you know, something I'm sensing is going on like what you're talking about the blowing of the horns, you know, the people who are drowning and making the loudest noise is that we have a resurgence of bullying going on in my country. Yeah. And it's almost like it's coming out of the social media culture where people are anonymous and unaccountable, essentially. You know, I mean, what is the sound of a horn do? If there was ever a monosyllabic word that didn't actually convey any essential meaning, that's it right there. I've put it, but it invades. Now all other things are being subsumed under this. And just to get us back to the bullying here, just to get back to the point, sorry about that, but we can wrap this up real quick. I'm going to say as one final point, the sentiment was there. Now there's a microphone, right? Right. And before it was people screaming in the streets. Before that, or after that, it was like script. But now there's a bullhorn and it's beginning people who have this ascent. So I wouldn't blame social media. I would say it's more of like now there's a better magnifying glass to see that that degree of this descent that's that's always was present. We guys, we guys, we have a lot of lists in our comments that I'd love to be able to go through. Yeah. And one of them is from Free Thought Channel from last week's episode, which was on value by the Let's Chat podcast. Free Thought Channel says great show, guys. And we miss you, John Richards. We're hoping to see you again in the future. If not, check out Global Atheist News Review. I believe they're doing a show even today. Yeah, we're doing a show today. Data's Trading Room, both in our chat and in our YouTube comments and in our hearts said on our last episode, which was value, as usual, when we think about it, there's always going to be more questions than answers. And the deeper I go into the rabbit hole, the more new questions come up. I love it. Always keep asking those questions. Always keep seeing questions. It's a good way. And being willing to answer questions is really useful. We appreciate your comment status. We sometimes get some saucy comments. Latinite, HVAC, has replied to me saying, you guys mentioned Aaron Ra, he is ridiculous. I don't necessarily support that, though. I have had a conversation with a guy. He's very intense, but ridiculous. Maybe who knows? Who knows? Who knows? I wouldn't say ridiculous. Who? Aaron Ra is a well-known atheist. Yeah. He comes from the fabric of argumentative feedback atheism, like, hey, I have things to say. I'll have an argument with you. And it is an intense thing to try to curb us away from that, or at least show that there's an option to not necessarily be argumented and still have good points. He's well informed on evolution as well when he likes to go into detail on that. Sure does. James Moller says on our episode, should atheism have hopes? And we have a lot of comments on this one, guys. Should atheism have hopes? Question? Answer? No. Nice and short. But also, Dottice Trading Room had a comment on should atheism have hopes. And he said, so wait, after your discussion, you want to have a global representative or president of atheists? And it has to be an American dude? And that's something that I don't think we necessarily considered. The nationality of a representative for atheism would inherently give power, political favor to whatever nation or country got that representative to represent all of atheism, which is a global association, right? Not something I considered. And so I really appreciate that feedback. Next one, Inspire Reflection said, I love their videos. I really think we need more of this friendly, relaxed and open energy and communications about atheism. Great job, Tyrone. Inspire Reflection. Thank you. It's a good group that we have here. Also, Monster Hunter videos said on the topic of taxes. Taxes are neither Christian or un-Christian. The Bible nowhere says it's right or wrong for a government to force taxes upon the people. Under the a theocracy, people tithe, yes, but 10% of your wealth compared to more than 50% of your government taxes is two different things. Here in the UK, you pay an income tax, national insurance, VAT after you've already paid tax in your job, council tax, carbon taxes, TV tax, road tax and whatever other hidden taxes you pay on top of that. Even if you believe in taxes are right that the level taxation extortion is outright robbery. You also have zero choices as to where that money goes, and much of it is likely to go to causes that are wicked or immoral. There should definitely be a cap on how much tax an individual pays. 10% is reasonable. Here in the UK, it's just robbery because you're easily paying what he's going back into it. He's called it eventually wage slavery. Here's my thing. Taxation of any extent without representation is a bad thing. And while I have a problem with religion and government colluding with each other, I also see no individual representation of myself in religion. In fact, religion does not change in any capacity regardless of how much money I give it. So it's just a question of whether it was already institutionalized to favor me or not. And well, go ahead, Jared. I see your hand. Well, I was going to say, you know, here in Canada, of course, churches are given a statutory tax break on property taxes. And then the remainder that they are not, you know, the remainder that they have to pay tax on, they then seek relief from their municipalities. So a million dollar property that may have a tax burden initially of say $20,000 a year, 90% of that is taken right off the books through state statute. And then the remaining 10%, they go hat in hand to municipal city councils and say, you know, we're poor, give us a break. And then try to include their parking lots, you know, outside of the actual places of worship. So yeah, it's not so innocent. No, and not only that, but the comment was made, the Bible Nowhere says it's outright right or wrong for government to force taxes upon its people. I believe Jesus himself said, what belongs to Caesar belongs to Caesar, right? Yeah, give unto, yeah, give unto Mammon, what is or Caesar's, what is Caesar's? Yeah, he's like, your money belongs to Caesar, Caesar says he wants more of it, it still belongs to him. So give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, like he's not saying only 10% and I don't think other than that is wage slavery, he's saying pay your taxes like and well, and Jesus actually promotes poverty, you know, as a way of life, right? Yeah, you don't need that money anyway. Give it all up. Dredd, I'm sorry, Larry, what's up? I was just thinking that if every church, institution, corporation, person in the country would pay 10% across the board, no exceptions. I think we could do that. It's just that, you know, we exempt corporations and churches, we actually give tax breaks to certain entities so that they they don't have to pay any taxes at all. And in some instances, we'd actually give money to them as subsidies. It's there. And if we just got rid of all of that and taxed everybody a flat 10%, I think we could, it would be doable. Yeah, flat tax. Am I allowed to say the CRAPPY word on the radio? Yeah, we think so. Okay, okay, just one. I mean, you're not talking about the actual thing, you're just talking about a condition of something else. You say CRAPPY? Yes. So, Dredd, you got a specific response from one of our commenters. They asked to remain anonymous. I was practicing. The premise is, because it's a bit of a long talk, basically, we've made a number of mentions in our videos about how design, the hallmark design is simplicity and how when we look through the universe, we find a lot of unneeded parts and in fact, hostility to life and a lot of unneeded complexity. And so their point is that complexity of the universe as an indication of whether or not a God is irrelevant because what if God is just a crappy engineer? Well, there you go. And like we say, too, is the flying spading monster was drunk for the most part. So when you put everything together, no wonder there are so many broken pieces. So I have a lot of problems with that train of thinking, but I don't want to bias it. Dredd, do you want to give a more serious answer to that or is that your best? So, well, it's about entropy, right? So if someone has questions about apparent complexity or the brokenness of the universe, a better response is to study more, to learn more about the science of it and to increase your understanding so that you can better sort of pick apart your own argument and decide whether or not it's valid. You need to appreciate a frame of reference of what engineering actually is and what design actually is. Because if someone tells you the world is designed, but you don't know what design is as a concept, like as a structural engineering concept, you will believe it and be impressed by how complex it is or maybe how simple or varied things are without appreciating that designing is all about reducing unneeded parts, making things as simple as they possibly can be, but still as functional or more functional. And a very important concept is the blind watchmaker. And of course, Richard Dawkins wrote a book entirely about it, this idea of design being necessary behind the universe, otherwise it couldn't exist the way it does. Like, look at the trees, they're amazing. But, you know, so understanding even how that argument is structured and what the responses to it have been will go a long way to sort of clearing up any fog that might exist around that question. Yeah. Also, Dylan Huntie, Matt, Dylan Huntie has this great example of if you're in a spaceship and you go to a planet and you see this weird rock formation that looks like a spire or something like that, right? And you've never seen this fire before and you don't have a context of the environment to know how it was made. Can you say that was designed or was it just earth, wind, and friction making that happen? And when you recognize design, it's not by looking at it and being in love with its apparent aesthetic, it's by recognizing the intention behind its fabrication, right? And if there was no intention there, if there was no greater plan, then the argument that it was designed falls apart. And when you look at the world or look at the universe as whole, there's a lot of trial and error. There's a lot of unneeded parts. There's a lot of things that are not compatible with each other whatsoever. And that's sort of the reason why we try to help people recognize what the tenets of design and engineering actually is so that they can recognize it for themselves and realize that the universe doesn't fall to that same level. Larry, what do you think? And that doesn't even get into like birth defects and things that just grow out, don't grow correctly after their inception. You also have, there's this thing called Occam's razor. Have you ever heard of that before? Occam's razor? Yes. I have no idea what this razor is. Razors are philosophical razors of our way of cutting away the detritus around an argument to clarify it. Right. And so essentially the Occam's razor, the true Occam's razor, not as it's reported on YouTube, but is basically, it's not the simplest answer is the best answer. It is not that. It is the answer with the least number of assumptions, thanks to be the best answer. It still makes it work. It still makes it work. And so we have two, we have essentially two, but not a true economy, but two options here. We have either, God is a bad engineer or a crappy engineer. Or maybe the person who's proposing that doesn't know what engineering is. And the thing is that first point comes with all these assumptions of God, all the ideas of supernatural, this giant ambiguous force that can exist that is also bad at engineering, right? Or maybe this person just doesn't know what engineering actually is and doesn't have a frame of reference of what actually are the hallmarks of it. And it's calling everything engineering. The last, the last thing I would say on this is another Matt Dilla Huntie thing that I like is when you go to that planet and you see that spire, you recognize design by comparing it to things that aren't designed, right? But if you are a Christian, or if you are a person who believes that God created everything, you don't have anything that's not designed to compare that against everything from the rocks to living organisms to buildings are all designed. So if you don't have a frame of reference of what something isn't, you lose any justification for an absolute claim that something is the case as designed. You need to have the frame of reference of a knot and it is to make that claim. And there's the thing about the watch on the beach. You know, if you found a watch on a beach that would be proof that it was designed. Well, no, because it would be a watch on a beach of watches. Yes. A sea of watches. Yes. Trees made of watches, you know, like. Because theoretically everything is designed. Everything's a watch, yeah. Everything's a watch, right? Yeah. So basically, you need to know another simple example that I used to like is you don't know what a sock is. So you open up a drawer in your home and you pull out something that looks like a shirt, but you're like, that's a sock. You pull out something that's pants. You're like, that's a sock. You pull out a sock. That's a sock. It's like, you don't know what a sock is and what a sock isn't. We need to first figure that out first before you start calling everything socks. And then once you know what a sock is, you'll be able to see that not everything here is a sock. And that's that's the point of why we don't say God is a crappy engineer. We just say maybe you should know what engineering is before you make the claim back. That is the best engineer. Hey, what's up, Larry? Just another thing real quick. We're getting close to the end of the hour. But you talk about circular arguments when you're raised to believe that God made everything. I mean, from the earliest age, you know, God made the blades, the trees, the sky, the stars, everything. And then later in your life, you point to those things as evidence for God. You know, say, well, look at the trees. You don't realize that you've been told they were, that God made them, and you're pointing to them as evidence, which is circular. Right. Absolutely. That's a tautology. Right. We really need to be wrapping it up, though, for the end of the hour. Okay. So anyone have anything they'd like to plug, Jared Pirate? How about you? Sure. Yeah. So I am live streaming this, as we speak. I do so on my YouTube channel, Mind Pirate, M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. And I do that at 7am Sunday mornings, Pacific Daylight Time. So if you want to see this and comment, as a couple of people do, regularly, just come to my channel. And if you like it, subscribe and press the little bell there so you get notifications. Nice. Also do the Global Atheist News Review at 11am PDT on Sunday. So my short plug, Happy Pride Month. I'm a sexual, but it's still something I'm even still figuring out. So it's a good opportunity for everybody. I don't know. Just figure out the people that are out there, maybe get a better idea of where you're at, and just have fun being yourself, for the most part. George Brown, anything you'd like to plug? I wanted to ask, Jared Pirate, in Canada, did you also do away with standard time, as like we did? We haven't gotten rid of it yet. The threat, it's coming. It's coming. I want to. Our province are a premier for the provinces, saying that this may be the last year that the change is happening. So I'm looking forward to it. I am too. It's blessed relief, man. It's a miracle. We can't spell America without miracle. All right, Larry, go ahead. Okay. My content can be found at digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheist songs, and many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel can be found by searching for Douter 5 or Larry Rhodes. And I have a book on Amazon about atheism called Atheism What's It All About. If you're having trouble leaving religious police behind, and many people do, you can find help at recoveringfromreligion.org. 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. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life, and we'll see you next week. Say bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.