 Hello and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is Sunday May 17th 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5 and as usual we have our co-host Wombat on the phone with us Hello Wombat I said falfan omega Prince of peace oh my kings of kings You're king. Not my great. I am the jojoira who cares for me the holy one the holy father the blessed trinity Give me some rotini Burning me. All right, harmony there Welcome Ty and as a guest today are Boudreaux say hello Boudreaux and hello everybody at pirate Hicks New guest Carl S welcome Carl. Howdy Didn't leave anyone out. I don't believe so. This is Digital Freethought Radio hour And it's a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences And conversely we also talked about religion religious faiths God's holy books and superstition If you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville while you're just not There are several atheists rethinking irrationless 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 been a TV? streaming Atheist call-in video No spoilers. No spoilers. I haven't caught up on the latest Rick and Morty yet, but I am excited to check it out I love the show. I think it's so funny. It's like really really well-written satire and like I love community and I love we can use satire. We will use satire. I'm sure but I feel like it's rude. I don't I just want to put this out We're going down the wrong wrong road every time And we'll talk more about how you can watch the video or slash TV show right after the mid-show break But we've been doing one here in Knoxville for almost 10 years. If you'd like to interrupt us interrupt Interact with us during the show go to Facebook and search for our digital free thought radio our page Use the messaging function to send us questions or comments during the show We record this on Sunday mornings It's about 11 o'clock Eastern standard time. So next Sunday's that's your timer and be ready to comment or call in Yeah, anyway, what's our topic today time? So I actually wanted to throw this out to J. W. Because he had a really interesting Thing that I thought would be a really fun thing to talk about today. Actually a depressing thing to talk about today We should mention that J. W. Just came in of course and and Chad did Chad also came in With the link there for a second. No, you're good. Oh good Yeah, I was just um, that's I wouldn't call it a pressing. I hope it's the opposite of depressing There's just something I've been on my mind lately a lot of questions that we get from religious people is like they feel like It comes in it comes into play with all the misconceptions and all those strong manning of the misunderstandings of what atheism really is What it means to be agnostic and What what our beliefs are and just not really understanding us they I hear a phrase a lot and I used it a lot when I was religious They can they accuse of that they accuse us of being bankrupt in hope and They you know I'm trying to think about the best way to best way to word this question or present this topic is What what do you guys say when someone asks you like well, where do you find meaning in life? Well, what's your well if you if you don't live forever and you don't have a God to worship or you know There's really no purpose isn't there or is there and Like I just want to know what you guys what you guys answered to that question would be like What do you do when you're feeling down or when you're feeling stressed? Where do you where do you go because I think a lot of religious have these misconceptions about non-religious that all we ever Do is go to drugs and alcohol. No, I think that's a good point I think a lot of people do look at atheism like a if you don't have a God belief What do you do when the times are hard? What do you do when the chips are down and yeah What kind of thing can you rely on that? I have as a religious person my all-powerful being to get you out of a hard situation Dread pirate have you ever considered what it's like when you give up the God belief that you no longer had that crutch to rely on anymore and What you can do to compensate for that? It's that's a tough one and certainly it evolves over time. Certainly in my case it did You know when people ask me, you know, well if you don't have a God what what is Where's your purpose as JW was saying? What's your purpose in life? Why do I need one? You know, isn't it enough to marvel at the Incredible universe as it is in the relationships I have with the people in my life. Isn't that enough? I mean, I think it is hold on hold on hold on I'm gonna throw this one off the doubt or five. What do you do when you lose your keys? Doubt or five. Who can you ask? You we've had a situation where you couldn't find your keys before you just like I have in my head I'm like he the door's locked. We can't get in what's going on here. Who's he praying to? No, we live in a natural world and once you get that mindset, you know that there's no supernatural being go cultur So you get you get on your horse and you start riding and you look around for things in other words you You do it yourself matter of fact I There is no objective purpose. I get this question an awful lot when I set up my ask an atheist booth Well, it's one of the most common questions. I have what's your purpose in life if you don't have God Well, the thing but it is when somebody has raised in a church and they believe in God all their life And they believe that the purpose in life is to be God Well, I've got there is no purpose. I can understand that they don't see that But it's I like to say it's a role your own thing You create your own purpose in life and you create many purposes throughout your life And you can have many purposes at one time there and can you think of anything more important in your life? Then create a purpose for your life, right and it doesn't have to be overarching, right? Right. It doesn't have to be You can you can like run from one purpose to another you can fulfill purposes and get the goal Move on one of at one point in my life Well, my purpose was to get a black belt and karate and I spend years What do you have a black belt and karate and I've known you for six years? I do and Issuing your karate and then another person another time. I wanted to learn how to dance There were I knew you could dance. Yeah, that's very well. I went to college. I joined the fencing game I learned how to Sort fighter you have a lot of oh there's also raise your family Be a good spouse. There's all kinds of purposes that you can you can assign to yourself Why do you need a supernatural purpose? So and and when you do subscribe to a person What do you call supernatural purpose? What you're really doing is advocating the purposes of your life to your preacher He now controls your purposes And that that's just a huge loss in your life I'm going to throw this out to Carl Papa on the top. Hey Carl What do you think about the idea of When I'm down or while I'm feeling down and I'm an atheist Is it harder to cope with that when you don't have a god system to support that way? Uh, I'm coming from a position of a little bit of bias here because I've never had a god belief So I wouldn't know what it feels like to to use that as what I would consider perhaps a crutch I don't I don't mean to sound Ergon about it, but I see I've always seen that as less admirable just because I'm able to be the captain of my own ship and I don't need To rely on this, you know, sort of crutch to get me through life and I've just found nothing but Happiness and pleasure. Of course, we all have our own art down times and stuff at times But just relying on myself is the only way I can see getting through those different things and not appealing to something that That doesn't speak to me and has never been there. So And just for the record with with jw's, you know Assertion about drugs and alcohol and things. I've never done a drug in my life, you know, so I never needed never needed that To to be a crutch either so Pretty cool. I've never needed it. Chad, why don't we talk about so that didn't keep me from using it? Yeah I got did I speak up and no, no, please continue. No keep going. Yeah Well, back to what jw was saying, what do you say to people? I've had that question asked a lot That it's usually followed by Um a look on someone's face like oh my god, what what what in the world do you do? What's your meaning in life like they really can't believe that you I go on daily without having this assigned set of beliefs and And assigned meaning I don't really know like what doubter five was saying you have to you have to find it you have to Create your meaning. We're not born with an inherent meaning. I don't see where we how we could be I mean no more than a rock is so So, yeah, we've got to create it. We've got to find it. It's everywhere. You just choose. It's part of the beauty of this You get to Do that. You don't have to be Told this is not a dictatorship, right? I gotta be awakening of that can be can be troublesome though, you know going from there you go Like what Carl was saying he never had this but moving from A state of being told what your meaning is to a state of Freedom can be shocking and it can it can seem very lonely and If you build I guess what buddhist would call sangha, you know a group of a group of people that think like you do You you're essentially building your support group and you can move through that transition with other people It's kind of what we're doing here. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to throw the question out to uh Boudreau uh Boudreau, let's pretend Chad won the bagel lottery He's got a billion jillion bagels now lifetime supply We'll not share them with you and you're like, but I thought we were friends. Like well, you're a you're a buy your bagel person I'm part of a new club that just gets bagels and it's sort of like a you know, I don't want to make this uncomfortable between us I just don't want to start that kind of relationship between us like we're good But I got the bagels now So like if you want to bagel you can just go buy a bagel but like don't make this uncomfortable And you're like god, I wish I had my own bagels, right? Like that's you right now You can't make that prayer. You're you're an atheist. I'm sorry You don't believe in a god that'll help you with your bagel this this function So how do you get over that? He'll chill. How can you mend that kind of relationship? Well, first of all, Chad would never do that to me ever Chad was very quiet during that entire analogy. I was like, yeah, I'd probably do that But I don't have access to all my bagels I think as an atheist, it's it's pretty easy. I mean, I think, you know, eating babies, you know, cranking up Ozzy Osbourne I mean, you get through the day. I mean, it's just Nothing goes better with a bagel than a baby I thought I was the only one that did that so Part of the new community It was we eat babies All right It is funny that those are the the drugs and the alcohol and the satan worship satan satan worshiping is the weirdest thing to blame an atheist Yes, and it doesn't make any sense But but yeah, I I did I did come out of a of a god belief. It wasn't a very strong one But it it was always there and I think I think maybe that's kind of part of it is uh All the kitty shows up. Yeah, uh, I think part of it is you you you're kind of conditioned and trained to think there's purpose and meaning Because that's kind of what you're told By every preacher in the world. I mean those from and your parents when you're young going up Yeah, it's not like you came up with it yourself And and then I think you just start looking for it in everything like a lot of a lot of folks Like to think there's some purpose and evolution when again, there's really there's no that's survivability There's no there's no like there's nobody steering it. It's there's no you know The id thing intelligent design. Yeah. Yeah, and so and just going back to it I I I can't find any Comfort and and thinking that there might be I can't find comfort in thinking that either I have no control or that I'm you know going somewhere after after this because you know Having that question work and having that doubt and having that lack of understanding and the misinterpretations and everything just is too stressful For me, so it just seems much easier and what's Simpler just to say this is the one life I have to live and I'm going to live it to the fullest and therefore apply all that Meaning that you guys have been talking about um towards it I will throw this one thing out And I think it gets closer to what jw was saying and it also speaks on what chad had mentioned because I feel like he hit it on the head It when you are coming from a religious point of view And you fall into a non religious point of view or like a not a atheist point of view That transition is what's really really hard Because I remember when I had my god police and I was very genuinely christian Like to the point where I was even watching power puff girls because I have the devil in it I was like really hardcore into it. And so when I when I realized hey, I'm not a christian. I'm not Non-religious. I think I might be an atheist holy crap. I'm an atheist like when I went through that whole level it was it was a it was Terrifying because the freedom component was scary right and I didn't know I I didn't have I had muscles that I never really exercised that were all about being self-sustaining and And self-independent and and self-reliant that I never really used before and it took a while for me to realize One that I had these capabilities and that everything that I was doing that was good in my life Was a result of you know my my the consequences of my own actions and the people who love me And I wasn't like a mysterious being who came and saved me from these situations But also that took time for me to figure out because I didn't I wasn't I didn't always know that if I jumped I would land on solid ground and that transition was really really Like a big thing like freedom is scary as Chad was saying and I Now now I can say yeah, definitely. Yeah, I I can put on my atheist. I'd be like, yeah, I don't need that I don't need that I don't need that But if I'm in that boat right now, I'd be like is there solid ground if I get out of this boat And it turned out that I wasn't even in a boat to begin with Like these crutches didn't even exist to begin with and it was all me and I just had to realize that And that made it a lot easier and I think that's the transition That we need to be aware of jw said right there, man, that is Huge I think as far as creating your own prisons. Yeah What I see means on the internet all the time about there's no freedom like religion There's no freedom like christianity. You don't know the meaning of freedom without christianity They're in the gilded cage and and singing about freedom when they don't even know what it is They don't mean freedom thought much less Choice the last thing I think of when I think of religion and christianity is freedom It's the exact opposite to me. I can't can't imagine having that burden and that and that confusion and that doubt and I just I hear it from from specifically former christians all the time about The doubt that they always had and just just sort of trying to discover the meaning in the bible and things like that and that is Not freedom, you know freedom is not having those those those being being handcuffed to those ideas I know there's any freedom. It's freedom from accountability. No, that's good. I like that I know larry will fall up immediately after this But I know christians who will hear you say that carl and be like no no no My church helps people, you know, especially in the coronavirus helped make mass We help with daycare. We help contribute to our societies we're in Soup kitchens we're helping out and my response to that is you can do all of that without the religious beliefs or no religion needed Right, like you if if church was just a big community center where people in the community came together once a week and And made you know charts on how to help people and sing songs together And just like went out and and made the community actually better I have zero problem with that and a lot of churches do do that It's the other layer that comes with the dogma of it that I i'm hoping people will shed Because they don't need that to have the good stuff. So they aren't one and the same thing Something a friend of mine often says that our summits Is ty exactly what you said? Yes, the the the church has organized these things and he'll turn it around on atheists and say well you guys doing Why aren't you doing it? Why aren't you helping? The thing about it is you look at all these Church hospitals that have like Methodist and Baptist hospitals and stuff They're usually just paying like five percent of the expense of the hospital put their name on it. It's not their hospital Also look at any hospital that doesn't have a religious name on it Fort Sanders UT hospital Those are secular hospitals. You might as well say they're atheist hospitals because they don't even lie in religion to get the stuff done Yeah, and most hospitals are Atheist or agnostic at least in practice Sure, why would you even have medicine if there was a god that answered prayers? And why don't faith healers go to hospitals, especially children's ward and cancer only a dollar question. Yeah, I mean they how better to uh Praise their god and and show the efficacy of faith than going to a hospital and healing people They don't do that. What kind of venue do they do it in they doing that? attend and ask for donations And they usually have people in the crowd that they pay to pretend like they're sick. Yeah, it's a show It's simply a magic show Dread pirate, uh atheist What have you guys done recently? Well, you know, I'm uh, I'm the captain for the church of the flying spaghetti monster, British Columbia so we actually do get out there in the community and Try to do good things like uh pasta fests and sock drives and stuff like that And just share the message that uh, you know as silly as people think we are well So we're everyone else's ideas about what supernatural beings are running a muck out there and you know Running our destinies. Yeah. Yeah, I get out there Chad, I'm also going to fill this out at you atheist. What have you done? Like I can put in all these cool things christians are doing right now They're they're they're filling the airways with this incredible music. That's always in the key of g Atheist, what have you done for us recently or lately? You know as an atheist I don't really Okay, what what I do More than anything I think is to just try to be that good Person and do as much good as I can And when I have weight for the question of which church do you go to? And then I tell them I'm an atheist nice and That I think just setting an example of extremely kind airport's good behavior just trying to be the person that helps The person right next to you as much as you can Just doing good And I know that there's some judgment that comes with good And I'm not getting that judgment that good from the bible either, you know, there's all this should and You know you should all over yourself If you want but there are some things that we should do Here we go. Sam Harris wrote a book called The Moral Landscape and It's a fantastic place to start at least start the inquiry Yeah, don't read the don't listen to the audiobook. You will fall asleep But if you have a chance to read the book read the book I was driving with that audiobook going and I was literally like Okay, we're gonna hit play and then next thing you know my car's upside down and I'm like Oh, I was woke up right now. This is not good. This is really bad That was a bad tangent, but it's possible. Don't listen to Sam Harris while you're driving. It's not good And the Moral Landscape is and really It's not a good voice for radio. I'm sorry. It's not it's not a good book to get woke with. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, exactly. Um, that's good. How do we get back on topic? Someone help me out. Carl, uh, last thoughts on this Oh, wow No pressure. Um Yeah, I don't know. I just think uh, you know I think I think what Chad said is is to be a good example for your community is the best way to To to uplift atheism and to show that you know, I think we've mentioned on this Or y'all have mentioned on this show before is just be that neighbor be the, you know, just just be Be a good member of the community and then oh by the way I happen to be atheists at some point and that you know comes out casually And they can see all the good deeds that you've done up until then and then, you know All of a sudden it's like oh this whole time this guy that's done tremendous work for the community or In his profession or her profession and then all of a sudden this whole time it turns out that they were an atheist You know, I think that speaks volumes more than anything More than anything else you can do and I know places like the aca here in austin where I live Um constantly or are doing things that are Church-like in the sense that they go down and help probably more Church-like than than the church actually, you know does but they go out and help the homeless and they're constantly doing Programs to to to do good in the community. So It's out there. It's out there for sure I would like to take more of a se point of view when someone asked me like what have atheists done lately Because it gives the impression that we should base the merit of what people are doing as a determination on Which group is better and my opinion it's more of like I think good people do good things And I don't think good people necessarily have to be religious and if that's the case then it doesn't matter if they're Atheists or christian good people can do things regardless of whether they have the god belief or if they don't have the god belief So the question is why do they have the god belief? And if they turns out they don't have a good reason to have the god belief They can still do good things without it, which is the point of what the atheists are saying It's a it's a spurious It's a spurious variable, right? It's a it's something that they use that's for some of her spurious this year. Go for it Well, it just means that it's it's a correlation that's made that's that's not You know a does not cause b and it's actually something else and that's something else is You know being good spirited or just having a good You know moral compass or whatever it is and it doesn't have to be associated with uh with the god belief So, yeah Just one quick point I was speaking with jim helton who's the leader of the oh man. What's the name atheist alliance? it's the tri-state area for our tri-state free thinkers and also uh The big what's the big atheist group that sam harris was president of now nick fishes. What's that group called atheist? Come on american atheist american atheist. There you go He's one of the leaders in that group and he told me that you know if there's a day Where a bunch of nuns are walking and protesting for Uh, women's right to to have a choice for abortion whatever He'll be like, hey if we can agree on this I will walk with you or if there's a bunch of pastors who are like, hey, we're gay pastors And we think you know gay people should be allowed to get married and it's like we'll walk with you We're atheists. We'll we will support each other on this Because they're about to come and cause there are a lot of pastors and preachers They walk along with the gay priority when we have it here in Knoxville You know, they they think that that's not a valid criticism of a human being is which way they're sexually oriented and they uh, they forego that particular Uh dogma to be able to support human rights Yeah, so yeah, why can't we we can definitely come together? So it doesn't matter if you have religious or not It's like can we do good things together and you might find that a lot of the christians who are doing it If you talk them one-on-one They may be actually be a lot of atheists in that group as well And agnostics including chad. What about you? Yeah, well, I was just going to mention that I think it's also important when someone asks you a question Like that. What are you doing as a an x group member Or what is your group doing? That's almost irrelevant because I think you can ride the coattails all you want Accountability has to be paramount here. What are you doing? I think is a more important question as a human being as a singular Autonomous Creature that that functions entirely on its own. I mean, I just I don't like the idea of putting people in groups I think it's dangerous Kind of falls apart a little bit in activism though chad because we've talked about this before you as a single person can make a Vowel to do good and do good things, but you're not going to be Of feeding hungry people in a soup kitchen Because of just you you need we need to unite into a group get a bunch of money together And act as as a group to help people and I think that's why atheists aren't viewed often as Helping people and churches are they're organized. They've got they meet once a week. They've got a name. They've got a tax They got a free system. They've got tithing. They've got they have the infrastructure for this You just being on your own being a good person is fantastic, but I agree with that. I don't disagree that that you Can do more with a group. I just don't like the way some people are able to hide within a group I see you see it all the time or or that they give up their agency, right? Yeah, yeah and accountability. I mean so I just I I refuse to be identified as a group member of almost anything because I don't want to be held accountable for someone else's For actions even more If I'm going to be recognized as a group member, I'd rather it be for something I believe in rather than something that I lack belief in and that's what that's what I'd rather be known But we guys we're at the bottom of a half hour. Larry. Why don't you take us out? Okay, this is wozio radio 103.9 lp fm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee And we'll be back in just a minute for the second half of digital free thought radio hour Welcome back. I'm doubter 5 and this is the digital free thought radio hour on wozio radio 103.9 lp fm in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is sunday 17th may 17th 2020. Welcome to the second half of the show Let's take just a minute to talk about the free thought groups that you can join here in Knoxville First, there's the atheist society of Knoxville We're in our 18th year and has over a thousand members and you can find us online at KnoxvilleAtheist.org By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and search for an atheist group in your town Don't find one start Another large free thinking group here in Knoxville other rationalists of east, Tennessee They've been around for longer than ASK has and like 23 years or something like that And you can find them at rationalist.org. They actually have Educational meetings and presentations. So that's pretty cool Earlier in the show. We said we talked about the atheist call-in TV show. We have an atheist call-in TV show. Wow Yeah, it could happen. You need to start telling people happening for 10 years Anyway, it's called free thinkers united coalition of Knoxville. It's online at youtube streaming version Just go there and search for three words free thinkers united coalition And remember you can find their archive of the shows on youtube where a fan has been posting them Also, if you're interested in getting involved in this tv or the radio show just call I mean come to an ask meet up or ret meeting and talk to us about it You can be our next co-host or guest And you can find or comment to us on digital free thought radio our facebook page Believe a comment and we'll get back to you Uh on our show today. We have dread pirate higgs car Carl s and j.w. Kennedy chad the impaler boudreau and our co-host tyrone wells, uh, dr. Wells's Tyre uh was wombat took me. Yeah, that's fine. All of those were counted all of those kill Yeah, uh, you were saying that we had a question from a a listener And yeah, we have a we have a segment that we're going to be doing a lot more regularly This one's called where is the love? Where is the love the love the love? Nice guys We get feedback from a bunch of different places our youtube comments We get feedback from street r slash street epistemology on reddit and then of course facebook as well as Larry's email, which you'll uh, do you know it at the end of the show? But if you really want to get in touch with us comments are good at the bottom of the youtube channel as well as um, r slash street epistemology or my patreon feed Here is the question. It's from g gen three nine. He wants to know hey Is this show a call-in show or is it just a discussion podcast? I thought you had mentioned that this was a call-in show. It's so how do I call in? Doubter five, how do we answer that? Oh, well, they'd have to go on to our digital free thought radio Our facebook page and let us know that they're interested in calling in and then we will Give them the link to join our wozo pot zoom Meeting and then they could join us there and and call in Yeah, so we're still filling it out right now like this is still like I think we just switched to zoom recently What I think would be good is um, we will eventually most likely broadcast this simultaneously over twitch So we'll give up those twitch information when we're on twitch and people can just comment live But if people want to call into the show, we'll probably broadcast the zoom login channel Uh on my patreon account and people can come in through that But we'll figure out a way for people who want to talk and and give us questions live and join the conversation to join In the conversation, but for right now, please bear with us. We're still getting all the technology sorted out Yeah, anyway, how about we get back to the main topic? All right. Well, I have a follow-up question to the main topic. Um What kind of things um since we we don't have religion what kind of things do we find? Specifically, where do we go to to find meaning in life? What specific philosophies do we do we find comforting and beneficial what specific coping skills or healthy habits We work the would we think well work well for us and maybe we could send suggestions to anyone listening who maybe is in a deconversion process or has Who has been out for a while and who is wondering what the heck to do their life So are you saying like if we meet someone who's maybe recently an atheist Maybe just drop the religion or maybe never really put a lot of thought into it anyway And they don't want to fall into a god belief What could we recommend as something that we fell into or something that we subscribe to or follow? In a sense and some it can be something personal too. Maybe um a quote that really you know It comes to your mind often philosophy Um a topic that you do or just a song even like yeah, or a or a leisurely activity that works for you Cool. Cool. Could be anything I got a I got a good quote that I that I've fallen to Um Frederick Nietzsche um who said that's interesting Yeah, I know I know right So here it is says says know thyself for all that thou doest and thinkest and desirous is not thyself So I've fallen to that one as I go to that's interesting. I like that Carl papa. What do you got for us? What's your uh recommendation for the theists that's trying to enhance themselves? well, I think uh finding the community that we've been talking about what I mean is um, you know the way I sort of Vent out some frustration and things that I was going on in my life as I find other people that are like-minded and Not not so much just to be involved in an echo chamber or something like that, but rather Um, for example for me, I started practicing street epistemology. I found that um, you know, you're good at it, too well, thanks, I um You know found that it that it's kind of like a um a mechanism that I can use to Explore a little bit about my own beliefs and things like that and I just have found that to be an outlet. I'm also watching you know regularly watching stuff like the atheist experience every sunday and and kind of Using that as my church if you will and finding that community and just being able to watch and and just really listen to listen to them speak on things that I agree with is is huge for my you know Coping mechanisms You know, I used to watch the a xp religiously until I got more into se and I realized like The approach that's being used on the show while yes, it's evolving compared to how it was like early on like I think like You know, I think my boss on this whole team really did a number on matt because he's much more Patient and willing to ask like how'd you get to that conclusion? Why do you believe that rather than just saying you're an idiot and hanging up the phone? right That that that seems to practice um se a lot Yeah, truth wanted objectively dan show that is just basically se and that's much more Up my alley in terms of watching so there's a lot of channels available for people who need to have that like mental coping That's beyond just the a xp. You got talk evens. You've got truth wanted and some of the shows I can't say on radio But yeah, check out their stuff literally the scathing atheist to me is one of the funniest So check that one out as well. Cool. Outer five. Hey, since you're on the on the mic What do you suggest as a philosophy that be us who or maybe recent atheists can subscribe to? Well, um, we since like We do live in a natural world. I agree with carl We need community and that that does not mean echo chamber because the only thing that we really agree on is just one point One answer to one question. We're all different. We all have different views on different things find community And if the core reason that you're getting together with another Person is the fact that you believe in a supernatural being that's never been demonstrated That's not really a good reason But at the same time it's still community and we're human beings or communal members of society Find a community There is one saying kind of sound long as we're throwing out sayings that have gotten me through a lot of things And whenever I find myself in a situation where I have to do something that I don't really want to do Uh, it has come to me. I don't know where it came from, but it says if you can't get out of it Get into it And I like that that lets me take a second breath go into it dive into it with a different attitude and hopefully get Get through it. Okay. I like that a lot. That's really good. I like that. No, all right Chad, how about you? What's a philosophy that you particularly appreciate that you would recommend that someone who's like, hey, I'm a new atheist I don't really know what's out here. What would you recommend that I check out? I like stoicism. I think I think it's really really fun to read some of the old stoic books Is it is it bad to say I I don't like stoicism because I think it's too stoic No, I think it's great. Okay. All right. All right. That's one on that right now So that uh, I think stoicism is fun. I think it's really neat, but I as far as these This kind of core group member that we groups that members that we have that we're looking at right now I don't know if this is actually the core. I'm not sure who you guys started with But these are the faces that I see mostly when I when I hop on I'm I'm likely the most And and this might be I might be wrong here dread Kind of I hate to say I'm spiritual, but I kind of am there's there's a part of me that really longs for a weird ethereal connection to This existence it's it's not all black and white with me and and I find a lot of I find a lot of comfort in things like Some spiritual teachers that are open to all religions like there's a fellow called muji that I occasionally Watch now he comes from a christian background. He studied under hindu practitioners and He's a lot of woo-woo to most people But there's something very Calming I enjoy listening to him. I agree with much of what he says so I think there's a place for that. I I don't I would hate To push those fellow atheists aside that feel the same way I do that are longing for a deeper connection And not to say that that there are but that you guys don't have that It's just that some of us feel the the pull toward When you think about it most eastern religions are atheistic religions. They buddhism Shintoism Taoism, they don't have god per se They're atheists to give but they're very spiritual too. They're philosophical So I think that's a valid orientation. Yeah, I think that is like sort of like a mental discipline of Reducing your ego so that you could be way more empathetic Beyond what most people ever have the opportunity to be and what you're really connecting with is people on a level That most people are afraid to let themselves be vulnerable to open themselves up to I agree. There's and when you put it in that context that that's that is completely inoffensive to me or any other atheists that I even know of it's more along the lines of Hey, my name's moogie. I shouldn't use that one. My name is poogie But it's poogie. I believe in all these empathetic levels also for 1999 I can tell you this water that will make your legs get longer so you can run this like Oh, now you went you went too far. Yeah, there's to take that extra line. You have to watch out for gurus for sure You do you have to watch out for them. They're they're just as corruptible as the rest of us Right, right. Um, yeah, and if that if I had a quote, it would be what you are looking for is where you were looking from That's oh Man, we gotta make a song Together What you are looking for is where you are looking from it's a st. Francis of Assisi quote and it's he put it differently I'm sure different language at all, but I like that. I don't think about that one thing Which would you mind if we budo you mind telling me a philosophy that you think's really cool We got like about 15 minutes left in the show. Let's wrap up budo. Yeah What's yeah, I think aside from, you know, the eating babies thing Um I I think uh similar to your se Something it was really important to me when I first started talking about this stuff out loud You know, I've been an atheist for a while, but I was pretty quiet about it in the closet Um, the books and youtube videos by by the greats that we talk about I think are fantastic That's that's kind of like the starter pack um For me because it really you you read these books and you say that's what I've been trying to articulate for years And and these brilliant people found a way to do it So I I think that's really important and that led me And chad to the summit where now we can You know, I we can meet with people like similar minds We're not trying to convince people they're wrong or right, but we're just we're just trying to talk to them And and let them hear pleasant stories from atheists that you know, hey, we're not we're not bad people And other points of view It arms watching those videos and and doing things like atheist experience and street epistemology arms you with the tools you need to be able to Verbalize your position better like you I went my whole life pretty much without Knowing that I was an atheist but without really having the tools to describe it to people that aren't and so that's that I think is Is key and that gave me the confidence to be able to Describe it much much easier Joey, I want to have you get a chance to rain in on this. What would you recommend personally? Well, um, I am getting into the tostoicism. Um, I and I also am absolutely in love with the waking up at Harris And meditation app his guided meditation is the the thought experiments that go through Session by session or just it's indescribable. I can't articulate. It's so Therapeutic and profound. It's like nothing I've ever experienced And when I'm feeling down If I if I'm stressed or depressed Sometimes I like to watch mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers is good though. Mr. Rogers will tell you how it Yeah, mr. Rogers will tell you how it is But in a in a sober voice, but he does not hold back And it's really really great in terms of like preschool or like children's educations. He's like no kids. These are puppets They aren't real things. Look pushing this trolley. It moves back and forth with these buttons. Let's go talk to some actors That's a cameraman. All this is fake guys. All this is fake. You live in imagine We live in reality. There's no such thing as magic. Um, dread part. You wanted to say something I just another quote was uh, when I lost my faith. I found my reason Cool. I like that I would say for me personally Okay I can I can see the lack But I like working on my car, uh as like my meditative process The reason why is I love not having faith that my breaks are going to work Right, like I love just knowing my breaks work because I changed my brake fluid Or that I need to rotate my tires and that when I'm in this metal box and as it's Creaning down the highway, you know at maybe 10 or 15 miles higher than the posted speed limit sometimes Uh, I I have taken apart this like vehicle and put it together in different places I put new stuff in and that I've built a confidence with What I am managing on the road and that if anything happens, I know that I can fix it as well And I didn't know people still drove pentos I'm just kidding. No, I drive a small car. I like small cars. No, I like small cars Right there with you while that on the on the mechanics. I love garage time, man And I just like a hubby. Yeah, so yesterday I helped a crew Like a like two guys in a parking lot replaced one of their tires that had gone flat And I was in my back of my head. I was thinking like if they're like, thank god You're here to help us or like here's our church. I'm like, no, I'm an atheist But I never had to say that so I was just like I'm glad it was just a thing where I can stop my car help them out and then you shake hands and just like Move on and go out on our own way. But it's it's a cool thing to just know That you have the confidence that you're capable of helping yourself in a time of need Because it's the same thing that's analogous to when you have a deadline at work Or if you have a family member that's sick, you can rely on that personal strength that you developed And you know that you've had the yourself the challenge and yourself at the outcome and you made it through it stronger and I just have An appreciation for the fact that the things that I do well are on me because I worked hard to do them And and that's the kind of perspective I want to have moving forward Guys, we got five minutes left. There's a new podcast on horizon. Carl Papa. Joey. What do you got for us? So we're working on a new podcast. We don't have any we don't have a channel or episodes out yet But we're still working on it. We're gonna call it one nation indivisible and The idea is of course, that's a part of the pledge of allegiance that Has gone back to the original version of the pledge of allegiance that did not have does not have under god in between those words And the idea is at least my idea is that we want to draw in an audience that maybe is not so You know, we're trying to avoid echo chambers And so, you know, instead of being either on some extreme left or extreme right We jw and I find ourselves In the middle a political centrist if you will And so we're trying to look at political issues and religious issues issues from the same null you know zero hypothesis to Try to understand the truths of of what's going on in the world and in doing so trying to draw in maybe a you know a crowd that's Most most of the atheist activist crowd is pretty far left-leaning and we want to try to draw in maybe some more people from the right By kind of being in the middle. So that's our idea Yeah And if you ever like have these kinds of political chats on this show feel free to post this video on on your channel as well More content's good and we want to support everyone that's having like really good conversations. That's what i'm all about Judd pirate, where can we find your stuff at? Well, um, i'm on mine pirate on youtube Pirates is spelled p y r a t e and in fact, I just finished uploading last weeks of ozo digital free thought radio hour on there So i'm gonna start posting them there. Nice cool All right, let's see who we're gonna flip a coin got it. It is chad the impaler. What would you recommend we check out? Uh, well, unfortunately buddho and I have yet to put any content out. We know that's not true There's a podcast thing going on come on guys. Yeah. Well, okay. So so we started recording some Well, I think at this point we have one Uh podcast recorded. It's just buddho and and me sitting there Best buds talking about stuff and things as I sit in a hotel in chicago a few weeks ago trump international What a fun place to be nice Um But yeah, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna try to get some guests together Uh, we don't have a name for it and it's a little more freeform. I think and what i suggest bourbon street I suggest bourbon street because yeah, it's it's a science right there in the logo. It's good. That's good And it's like, hey, you know get some beer or whatever and just chill on the streets whatever Yeah, all right. Maybe that's it bourbon street epistemology. Uh, no, I really don't like the word epistemology I think it's that's awesome. All right. Yeah, buddho. What do you got? Yeah, I just echo what what what chat saying, but I maybe uh, Nice, we could probably do a crossover podcast where we could get with carl and jw because One of the things we're trying to do too is to kind of break the mold of Of what, you know, the typical Leftist atheists is we one of our summit guests now has has actually come out as as a gay Republican atheist and that's a really interesting Venn diagram of Beliefs, I think that so people are out there. There are, you know, they're They're right wing, uh, atheists, you know, my dad among them so Does it speak to the fact that I spent so much time at political conventions doing sc that that doesn't surprise me as much anymore Like I've spoken to drag queen gay republican atheists It's like that's just normal for me now. It's so weird. It's so weird. My life is It's amazing that there are there are people out there. Yeah Are politically politically free thought, you know, yeah all their own conclusions and they don't choose they don't Like you don't have to be liberal if you're gay. You don't have to be Conservative if you're straight, you know, you don't have to You know, you don't have to be liberal if you're an atheist You don't have to be conservative if you're religious Yep, it's a rarity, but hopefully it's something that'll catch you on Miracle. All right that or five Where can we find you and can you please close this out? Well, of course you can go to digital free thought.com Which is where our blog resides so you click on the blog button for a radio show archives atheist songs And uh many articles on the subject of atheism which we cover on this show If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to ask an atheist at noxful atheists dot org And we'll answer them on future shows If you like our podcasts, you can tell your friends that they can find them on youtube I mean itunes stitcher luminary Podcast.com my heart et cetera et cetera. We're out there Right, uh, and as our weekly reminder, I like to tell and remind everybody that 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. Enjoy your life and join us again next week Wednesday night 7 o'clock and w o z o radio 103.9 lpfm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody