 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour and WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, August 13, 2023. I'm Larry Rhodes or DJ Douter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Hey, it's me on the Wombat. And for a special guest today, we have John Richards all the way from England. Hello, I'm not a Wombat. Hmm? I'm not a Wombat. Oh, you're not a Wombat, well. We don't have them. We can't all be that lucky. We have rats in mind, but no Wombat. Hopefully good pirate Higgs will join us in a bit. I just realized that the word not actually has a T at the end of it. We've been doing it wrong this whole time, Larry. We've been doing it wrong this whole time. Not. That's the how you pronounce it. Now I know. I'm not a Wombat versus I'm not a Wombat. Oh, it's some consonants. Well, it depends on where you are in England or even Northern New York. You'll just drop those T's all together. Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of water bottles behind you. That's like. And of course, and of course in France, it's actually against the law to pronounce any of the last six letters of a word. Oh, well, that explains a lot. No. Anyway, digital free thought radio hours, a talk radio show about atheism, rational thought, free thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion. Religious faith, best ofarianism, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not even here in Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt. We have a group of over a thousand of us. We're the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK. And we'll tell you more about us after mid-show break. So be sure to stick around one bit. What's our topic today? What's your end goal, atheists? What do you really want? But we're going to get into that. I want to do a quick little catch-up starting with our own John Richards. John Richards, how you been? I hadn't seen you in the last week due to a disc golfing venture with some friends. How you been since then? Yeah, we all missed you last week. That's sweet. We took the opportunity to put our feet up and have some time off. Nice, nice, nice. What was your particular beat-up relaxation highlight? Well, normally it would be a bit of cricket, maybe, and possibly only as a spectator, you understand? Okay, I was about to ask. How did, by the way, you said Australia was playing, and did they do well or not? Well, it was a fantastic series. You know, it was the test series, which is fought for an earn that is literally that big. You know, in all the other competitions, they have an enormous trophy that you can barely lift. Sure. Well, this is the size of an egg cup. Okay. But it's regarded. It's not what it is. It's what it represents that matters. Two wildly blistering things that I'm taking for granted in this conversation is the word earn for, I guess, trophy. Is it the same thing? No, it's earn. Larry, can you help me out with that turn? When I hear earn, I think of cremation. Same, same, same. Oh, so it's a lot like that. So they get, they get cremated brains of somebody and then an egg cup, the size of an egg cup. You shouldn't know what the size of an egg cup is. Oh yeah, egg cups. Of course I see them every day, you know, I'm all out of my egg cups. I'm like, where's my cup? I can't hold this with my bare hands. Where's my ketchup? It's a container. It's got a base, a stem, and then a bowl. Oh, so it's a tiny, tiny little guy. I'm defining an earn. It's a goblet though, right? It's like a, ah, okay, okay. Similar to a goblet, yeah. But this one is a little tiny. It's made of clay, I believe, you know, baked clay. And the thing about it is that it contains some ashes. So it is very much like a cremation earn in miniature, but the ashes are said to be of the bales. Those are the little pieces of wood on top of the stumps and you mustn't disturb. Otherwise you will lose your opportunity to bat. So those little horizontal pieces. Exactly. The top of the verdict. Okay, okay. You got it. And what happened. I don't know. 100 years ago. Was for the first time ever. Australia, which, you know, had only recently been populated by convicts. Which we. I like the little giggle. You know, there are other people in Australia before you guys dropped to convicts. Okay. A little bit of history that they don't teach as much. Yeah, yeah. A bit like America in that respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we deported the people that we disapproved of. After a few generations, Australia has grown enough to have actually generated a cricket team. And they, they had the effrontery triumph players. And of course. Season after season, we beat them until one day. One, one year, I should say. Australia actually beat the English team. And back home here, it was just, it, the headline was cricket has died. So the bales, the bales, the little horizontal pieces of wood on top of the vertical stumps. They were burned. And the ashes were put in this and to signify the death of English cricket. And every four years now, we compete to win. You brisk. We compete if you don't win, it's dead. Exactly. Yeah. So every four years now, we compete against Australia to win these very prized ashes. Okay. Okay. It's in the clay. It's not like a cup of clay. No, no, it's the crumbled up and they're inside the little earn with a lead on it. Yeah. Got it. Got it. You're trying to get back all the ashes to, to resurrect, resurrect. Cricket in some sort of like religious fashion. You'll, you'll. You'll get back all the ashes. You'll get back all the ashes. Damn it. We want to win back our ashes. You got to get back your ashes. That's it. I see. So it's a personal stake. That's, that's a very interesting story. So, so let me tell you, let me answer your question, which is that the, the recent series is called a test. Series. And there's five matches, each of which can last five days long. And the recent series was phenomenal. We won the seed stuff. We were there biting our finger nails, wondering who was going to win. And it was a draw, because we won two, they want to, and the middle one was drawn. The middle one. So, but, but because we didn't beat them, they kept the ashes. Oh, so you, it's one set of ashes. They can, they don't even make a new trophy. It's like the Stanley Cup. It's just, it's like, we've got to get our trophy back. We're doing another competition. No, no, no, no. Our core stakes. Our core stakes. I think I'm not sure whether the ashes travel with the winner. So, John, here's your question. In, in Lords, the London cricket ground, North London cricket ground. Or maybe they travel. Perhaps if you win them, you'll get to take them home and bring them back next time. I don't know. Good points. Next time just pray more. That never fails. The winner always is the person that prayed to God to win. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It always. It always fails when I want to parking space. So God never helps me out there. Well, you know, the God of parking spaces is a very tiny office. It's backed up, you know, it is what it is. Larry would love to check in with you. How you've been my friend. Oh, fine. I took my motorcycle out last weekend. After the show. Well, after what we would have had to show. And I rode for three hours and way too much. I did not want to do that again. I kept wanting to go down to Dayton and visit the, the site of the scopes trial. In Georgia. No, no, it's halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Oh, okay. 50 miles south and then 20 miles west. Interstate. Okay. You know, the farther I got the tighter I got, but I kept telling myself, oh, you know, you come this far. You know, we had a show on that, you know, the vested interest in the costs. Yeah. I got about 30 miles away from it. I'm going to go home because I don't want to add another hour to where I am. And I'm already tired. Sure. But when you're 73, you know, you just, you get tired more easily. How did you get through the weather? I mean, I had scattered storms all last. I never really encountered any. Okay. Okay. Well, that's good. That's good. I mean, I'd hate to see you get stuck somewhere, but like, again, we were talking before the show started that you're in. Well, that's what made us a tiring. It was, it was really hot. Some were beating down on me all the time. So. If only they made like a motorcycle that had like two extra set of wheels so you can't fall over and like an enclosure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe like air conditioning, maybe. And maybe like airbags. I think that would be pretty interesting. I might have to do that next time. That sounds like two motorcycles strapped together. Hey, you might be on this up and done. Hey, I had a good weekend as well. Like I said, I went out and try to do a lot of things that. I had a disc golf mini tournament that I was involved in. Got even. I was really happy about that a new course. But the cool thing was I got to play on a card. Card is how they break up players and everybody on the card. I already knew. So it was just like being out with your friends. And it was a fun time because I knew all the four, the, the, the three other people who are with me. And we're all having a great time. And one of the guys there was like a particularly good friend of mine. I've been over to his place. I've met his parents and met his wife. And he was like, Hey, you know, this kid like slowly grow older from being diapers, being in diapers to like walking and talking. And we were having a conversation. He pulls me out. We're to the side. He's like, listen, can I ask you something? And I said, yeah, absolutely. He's like, okay, I don't want you to take this personally, but you're an atheist, right? He's like, yeah, of course I'm an atheist. Like I'm very open about that, right? With my friends. And I knew he was a, I knew he was homeschooled. And I also knew like, he was very, very much very specifically religious because you don't necessarily have at the fundamental age where you can like build a lot of interpersonal relationships with different people in a public system. You are more or less following whatever your parents say. And that becomes your fundamental appreciation. And so he said, well, listen, I'm a Christian. No, that surprised me. But like, what do you mean when you say you're an atheist? Cause I know there's like different definitions of it. I just want to know where you're coming from at that. And so I explained the whole thing. And you know, for me, I can break down a couple of sentences and he's like, okay, that's cool. Cause I would rather have my daughter be around. You as like an atheist. I think that's a good exposure for her, but I will compare to what she might get from like YouTube or online or what those people on the news are doing and stuff like that. Like I'm good. She has you as an example. But here's my thing. Here's my bottom line. I'm a Christian. I'm very, this is my fundamental morals. I, I, I, I really, I think you're a good person. And I just want to let you know that like, I love you and I, but I won't celebrate what you're about. I won't celebrate atheism. I'm not going to go to your parades. I'm not going to celebrate if it's a federal holiday. I'm not about that. And I'm like, wait, we have parades. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to your conventions. If you, please don't be too atheist around my daughter or anything like that. Until I give her a chance to explain about, but like, I think you're a good example either way, but like, give me time to explain. Don't just like be an atheist around her. Like try to like, you know, be as normal or not normal. You didn't say normal, but try to not be as atheist as possible. I'm like, it's totally fine. So like in my head, I was thinking about that. Got in my head. I did beat him by the way. As he was like telling me this, he was just missing putts left and right. He was like trying to make a putt and he missed it. And he tried to put us like, you should focus on the game. You should focus on the game. But the main thing I was going to say was like, I just told him flat out God loves me more. But the idea that he said, listen, I don't want to go to your, your conventions. I don't want to celebrate your holidays. I don't want to go to your parades. I don't want to celebrate you. I thought that was a really interesting thing. And I said, you know, I followed up with like, that's fine. And if you ever have questions about, you know, atheism in a nutshell, more than welcome to come to me whenever you feel comfortable with doing it. But I don't know how to turn necessarily not believing in God off, but like we, we had more small talk afterwards and went back to disco. I thought it was an interesting though thing though, because there's the idea of like, did I not ask for enough? Is it not fair for me to demand someone to celebrate my atheism or go to our conventions or go to our meetings left and right or attend our podcasts? You kind of lost me when you were saying, you know, don't be atheist enough. Don't be an overtly atheist around my daughter. Yeah. You know, like, does he not see these overt Christians around other children, you know, or your children or, or atheist children? And does he go to them and say, please don't be overtly Christian around these children? No, of course not. No, he doesn't. He comes to you and tells you that. That's the problem I have. Right, right, right. There's also like he lives right next to a bunch of Amish people. And so, you know, the, the idea would be, I couldn't hang around a bunch of Amish people as an open atheist and be like, Hey, let's go play some discos. It's like, no, you, one, you, you don't respect or believe in our God. And two, we can't come to terms with you because we have a completely different worldview. Plus you feel plastic. We don't do plastic. And I'm like, I see plastic in your buggies, guys. I know you're not following. You're right. You're driving on our roads that we pay taxes for your guess how we pay for those. We sell things and there are things that are made out of plastic. You're benefiting from us whether you choose to do so or not. Either way though. Either way, I was, I asked them, oh, John Richards, did you have any comments on the idea of like, what was the agenda that perhaps this Christian man was alluding to with regard to, Hey, I won't celebrate your, you know, your, your, your atheist celebrations, your holidays, your, your events, maybe your heroes is, is that fair? Would you have asked for more? Would you have drawn? I want to, I want to roll back a bit and. Okay. Find out where he's coming from and why it's all wrong. I saw wrong. Okay. And it's because atheism ends with. Ism. So he thinks that it's an ideology. He thinks it's a belief system. He thinks there are values and principles like he has. He thinks there's a belief system. Which is Christianity is. Christianity is another ending like ism. It's, it's applied to belief systems. And so what he doesn't understand is he's expecting us to be like him and have a belief system. Whereas atheism is not a belief system. That's exactly what it is. It's, I don't believe what you're telling me. That's all it is. So, so well said. Yeah. So I wanted to say that first of all, but then. The reason that he came up with this don't be atheistic around my daughter is because he thinks that we've got attitudes similar to his of tribalism belonging to our tribe and demonizing him because he's not, you know, we don't do that. You know, he can believe what he likes. Whatever, if he wants to believe in the Easter bunny, that's fine. Right. What we don't want is for him to impose his beliefs on us. Right. Or society in a systemic or administrative level. Like if you want to believe in heaven, that's fine. You can believe in heaven, but don't. You know, cut health insurance because you think having a heart pack is a good thing. And, and you don't want to have medication or good quality healthcare for people because paradise is right behind the corner. So we will strive for is a good quality of life here with what we can intend with the current tests that we have to assess reality. And if you have a more supernatural understanding of how the world works, that's fine, but don't let it impact the same objective reality that we're all sharing. Absolutely. This is not a rehearsal. This is the only life we're going to get. So let's do the best we can while we're here. Yeah. I want to plug my global atheist news because in this week's edition, I've got a clip from some New Zealand Jehovah's witnesses. Interesting. Okay. Now, you know, you know, the Jehovah's Witness is one of the most extreme fundamentalist cults that they're in Christianity. That's my mom. You're talking about. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry ties. Now you're making it so much harder for her to watch the show that I keep talking about. You know, some of the times when I'm on the shows is like, you're not talking about me. Are you? It's like, no, we're talking about religious beliefs, spiritual. Let me tell you about these two people in New Zealand. They're young, young people. They're cousins actually. I think the bloke is 21. And she's about seven years older, but they, they've escaped from Jehovah's Witness. And of course the outcome of that is you get shunned. Right. Yeah. So, so she tells how she had to suddenly find her feet as a, as a separate. Independent individual without the, you know, the support of a family and friends and colleagues. She was suddenly all on her own. And it's a big challenge to have to do that. But when you've gone through that difficult part, you realize that all that you were taught is nonsense. The people out here, not in Joe, the JWs don't hate you. There are some good ones. And this is what got her out of the JWs because she started questioning. She started going to her church leader and saying, listen, there are good people who are not JWs. Why should they die in the Armageddon? And why shouldn't they be excused like us? And honestly, that's coming to the reality. Coming to. What's funny to me, Ty, you know, JW better than most of us. Do they believe that it's predestined whether you go to heaven or not? Yes. Then I don't understand how they can say, you know, you're with us. You're not with us. If it could be anybody in the world that's predestined to go to heaven, whether they're a part of their religion or not. So. Why are you putting me on trial to like try to explain something? I would like, I am curious. And if you can explain it, that would help. No, it can't. That's fine. That's kind of the, the, the concept of why I have an issue with it, but you know, the idea could be, well, no one knows what the list is. Right. So without trying, you don't know if you're actually not on the list or not. So I think only that, but like the people who are on the list. They're on the list. They're on the list potentially. And this is the more radical. This is the more out there. Can recruit. People to host. As like, Hey, I'm on the list of people who will be chosen. And I can pick my. But nobody knows if you're on the list or not. Nobody knows on the list, but the people are. Nobody knows. George. Why are you? Why are you cross questioning me? I'm just. No, I was trying to make a point. I didn't want him to be annoyed. What he was saying. Surely. Surely. Surely the first consideration, the first criterion for being on this invisible list is. Belonging to the Jw's. Yeah, you would think it'd be like the first one, though. You know, they do make a lot of work trying to recruit people. And it's, it's a conflict of. It's a. It's a juxtaposition of ideas, isn't it? Of ideologies where it's like we already have a chosen list. Okay, so we don't need to keep recruiting constantly right knocking on people's doors, sending out envelopes stuff like that. No, because the practice of being a jovial witness is to share your life. First Peter or first Timothy Peter or something like that where you, if you're on Light of Hill you are Peter 315 I think. Thank you so much. Yes, you are there to advocate so if you don't advocate you're not really jovial witness. And the only the true jovial witnesses can go to the afterlife and that list has already been decided so you have to just constantly keep shedding the message of, I'm invited to a party but you may not be able to come, but your invitation but it might be expired, but here's another invitation, you're just heading out expired invitations for a bulk of your time isn't that weird. Anyway, I had this follow up conversation with him because I did have a chance to drive he drove us. I car pulled with him to the course and he took us back. What we're in the car he wanted to do some follow up talks, and one of them was, you know, hey I think you're a good person. And it wasn't in spite of your atheism, and I was happy that he didn't say this like I think you're a good person even though you're an atheist. It's, I think you're a good person, and you're an atheist and I think that's really interesting. I want to let him think that out, but I, I, I followed up with also, you know, there are, do you think being a Christian automaker makes you a good person. And he says no I think there are in fact bad people who are Christian, and I also think that there are good people who aren't Christian. And so I said, then it's not necessarily the case that being a Christian makes you a good person. And he's, this is like some of the first time he's like rationalizing this but he did follow up with. Well, I can't be a good person if I'm a Christian, because if I think I'm good. If I think I'm good and we'll talk about this in the next act, because if I think I'm good, then I have pride and ego, and that is the root of all evil. So I can't be a good person. And I'm like, no you are a good person. Larry, what do you think. There's no shows on this before you. It has nothing to do with whether you're a good person or not to get to heaven. Thank you. You have to believe you have to accept Jesus and, and that's it. That's the you can be any kind of person you want to be. And a lot of Christians seem to take that at face value and just act any way they want to and say it's God's God's will. They don't care, but as long as they believe they accept Jesus as their savior. You can get in with being a terrible person as long as you accept Jesus. And that's basically at the last minute, at the last minute, you don't have to accept him earlier. You're going to accept him on his on your deathbed. Yeah, exactly. So, but I'm more interested in the good people, honestly, couldn't why is that such a, why is that not as popular. I like good people I like hanging around good people I talked to I said that's like yeah, you know, I also said this too. There are Christians who would not be friends with an atheist. Yeah. And you are a person who's good enough to see past someone's like lack of religion or color their skin, or even sexuality like regardless you like are really cool guys like yeah I like to see people and see them pass it's like, Okay, that's cool. But the people who are don't do that and who are our Christian can cite in their Bible, why they don't get along with the other. And he's like, Well, that's, huh. Well, that's a problem because it's how they're interpreting the gospel. It's like, it's a literal interpretation. It's like black and white. Yeah, but there's a you there's a relationship that I have in my heart and like I'm aware of the the the wiggle room he was giving himself. My main takeaway is, I'm glad you're the kind of Christian that could be said an example for other Christians of how to interact with people and how to ask good questions. I want there to be more Christians like you. And I don't have a problem with you being a Christian but I want more Christians to take an opportunity to ask these kinds of questions like yeah Christians and atheists alike it's like yeah everybody should be asking questions and getting along with people. What do you think Larry. I sit out in public, you know, with an AS asking atheist sign. I like to have several reasons printed up that I can, I can answer the question. Why are you doing this, because they always ask me that why, why are you saying you're trying to press non beliefs on everybody. Well, first of all, I'm not trying to press it I'm here to as a resource and be in case people want to come up and talk to me and ask me questions. I'm not out there knocking on doors are giving away, you know, literature to people on the street. But one of the reasons I'm out there. Forgot my rant I forgot. Why are you thinking what you want to say. I think what we are trying to do is clear our names of all the, the do do that has been attached to it. I mean we wouldn't have to, we wouldn't have to ask an atheist. They hadn't got this jaundice view. Right. That helped me. Remember what I was going to say. Because the people who are representing what we are and who we are generally the religious leaders of the church or whatever that are telling the people in the puse you know atheists are bad people you know how can you possibly be good if you don't believe in Jesus. You know that type of thing. And that's one of my rain reasons, and I usually thank them for coming and talking to me and trying to get the answer directly from an atheist, which is the point you were making earlier time. Thank you. Just stop demonizing us. Exactly. Maybe that's what we want as our end game we'll go into this more in the second half but like the idea of maybe the only thing we want is to stop being demonized and chastised, and we'll accept your tolerance, you know, you don't, I don't, maybe you guys in the second half can tell me where all these parades and events are happening because I do know there's some of them I spoke at a couple of them. And as far as celebrations will go into it in the second half of the show Larry Wayne take us out. Okay, this is the digital free thought radio hour and w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's just take a moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in a 21st year now have over 1000 members. We have weekly in person meetings if you'd like to come down and talk to us every Tuesday evening in Knoxville soul city at Barley's tap room in pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top table or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. You can find us online on Facebook, meet up calm or at our website, Knoxville atheists.org, or you can Google Knoxville atheists, just that simple. If you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. Right. Wherever you want to pick up there. I'm going to pick up on the ride back home that I had with my friend who was a Christian who won some questions about atheism and let me know that he wasn't going to celebrate it but he was happy that he knew that I was a good person. Not in spite of my atheism, but in conjunction with it. I asked, you know, there was time in the drive back for me to just, you know, ask, I didn't, I don't ask these things. Christians just like to sometimes throw them out as like a, you're just a weird little, like green tiger that sitting next to me in my car I got to ask you what's like to be a green I can explain my world to you as an atheist when you're when you're out and especially in Tennessee in the South, be prepared for just people explaining why they believe in God at you and like having like good follow up so he was explaining listen I just, you know, from our world do I just don't. It makes sense to me that when I look out the world that everything here was just completely, you know, emackedly put together. My Sunday school teacher said if you put a 747, you put all the parts were 747 out in the middle of the desert and you explode, you blow them all up. There's no way that planes coming back together again, yet you look at the world and everything's completely functioning it just, it makes more sense to me that either God made everything. Or it's a complete random explosion. And I'm asking like who told you it was a random explosion it's like, well I'm not saying anyone said that I'm just saying, it makes more sense to me that it has to be God I'm like how did you know those are the only two options what method are using to figure that out is like, well I don't think I'm not saying it's the only two options I'm just saying it makes more sense to me. So like all I'm doing in my mind is getting to his first methodology that he's using to assess how his conclusions are true, because I'm not going to attack the conclusion. I'm going to attack the methodology that he's using the link his identity to the conclusions that he has. And so I'm just, I'm hitting the, the top layers of the onion, until we get to the first methodology statement it makes sense to me. I said, is it. I'm saying it makes sense to you and that's why you believe it's like yeah that's what I'm saying it's like, is that a reliable way to come to a true conclusion. He's like, oh I think so. And I said, that's fair if I brought in a Muslim, or a person that believe in Joe awareness because we were talking about that too. And they said it makes sense to me that my God is the one that made everything. Do you think they that's something they would say he's like no that's something they would say. They're all very different conclusions very different guys is like yeah that's very true their guys are not true. Then what does it say about the method that you're using. If it can come to radically different conclusions by people who earnestly are following what makes sense to them, because if I step on your gas pedal. That's a reliable way for the cart to move forward as long as there's gas and tank, your car can step on that gas pedal, you can step on the gas pedal we can all use the same method to come to the same, the outcome, but the method that you're using for the most important decision in your life. Whether or not you believe in this God is so potentially unreliable that anybody else can use that same method and write a completely different conclusion was that say about your interest and trying to figure out something that's actually true. And he was quiet for a long time I thought this good friend he is thoughtful. He didn't like, you know, over talk me and he finally said, well you know I don't know everything. Exactly right, but there's no, there may not be a good method. And, and, and I'll just, I'll just finish the story woke up I'm sorry. I, I said yeah, he's like there may not always be a good method for something tie. I was like, that's true but when I run into that situation. What I do is I just say, I don't know. Larry thankful about that. Right. No, there's a meme going around the internet. One or two. I'm sure. Let me interrupt my story. It says you can't people who don't who are basing their beliefs on things that are not rational cannot be talked cannot be reasoned with you can't reason with a person who's irrational. But I feel that all of us. I mean I used to believe you used to believe tie. Yeah, and you were always an atheist. I mean, it happens every day that people get argued out of irrational beliefs, and we need to fight against that concept if we can. People do get argued out of their beliefs all the time. The proposal of having parades and, and conventions, because I do that I don't do parades but I stage gatherings and put on shows where I have very academic top expert speakers, and I invite people and they come and we have a good time. There's a lot of interaction, there's food, you know, we're meeting together like minded kindred spirits, you know, but we're not proclaiming any doctrine when we're not saying you must believe this that or the other. In fact, I had a really good unsolicited review from the last event that we held in London. It was a lady who said, I actually attended I'm one of the few people who was privileged to attend this wonderful magical event. And she goes on to say that all the speakers were very good. And to my surprise, extremely humble. Why is she surprised. Hey, this is, it's, it's quite normal for people that the speakers included Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins and, you know, and she was surprised that these people are humble but why, because people who accept that they don't have all the answers. They expect them to be humble. It's the dogmatic ones who claim to have the answers that are hubristic. It's the other way around from what she expected. Anyway, I'm staging another one of these events in September in the midlands. This is, I was talking about this last time we were together. It's near Birmingham, which is not Alabama, but in the midlands of England. The reason I do it is not to promote atheism, because it's actually a the isn't. And what I do is I try to overcome the ignorant. Don't call it a new term that I think Christians are going to take that one day and make a website. We're the atheism. I'm sorry. So what I'm trying to do is to spell the ignorance that makes people come to the decision like your carpool friend did. Yeah, it makes sense to me. It shouldn't make sense to you specifically. It should be out there for everyone to see right and come to a conclusion about. Yes, it's a weak basis. And listen, it's nothing wrong for having something that makes sense to you like if I turn on the light switch I understand light switches work that makes sense to me like that's fair but the problem is is it's not the most reliable solution for me to reach a conclusion. And if it's the most important decision in my life for the most important relationship in my life, I would love to have a higher quality or a higher standard methodology to reach that conclusion, because clearly, people could have different reasons for why it makes sense to them that a light switch works, but the light switch is still going to work. So it's more important for me not to have an assumption that that's based off of a reality, but rather have a like an in depth understanding that I can test where we can test our different understandings of how lights which work and actually knock down the ones that do and don't and that way if I'm wrong because I care about being right. I can correct myself to the most accurate methodology that's not just rely on, well it makes sense to me it's like no I actually tested it against other hypotheses that are out there. We found something that that's an accurate model for how light switches actually work. If we do for light switches and we can do it for cars let's do it for God as well. There's no reason not to, there's no reason not to. You only have to look back in history to see that a lot of things that once made sense to. Yes, you know the earth is flat the sun goes around it, you know, heavy items will fall faster than light ones iron ships will sink. It goes on and on and on. It's sort of gold at the end of the rainbow. Right, right, right, right. This is all examples of how making sense to you right not a good technique for coming to a reliable conclusion. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. I mean I think back on like germ theory, just the idea of like Oh germs don't exist what are you talking about tiny little animals that live in my hands. They're big things that are in grasses. Now excuse me while I go give birth. Watch my hands. There's the other fun thing where I asked. So after we got rid of it makes sense to me we asked I went down one extra layer. You know typically faith is the number one core but I let the people walk me there, and it was a short car ride so the next layer that we got to was. Well, it's when I just look at the world it looks designed to me like this world just seems designed and I wanted to dwell on that a bit it's like what do you mean by design is like, well it just looks super complicated like you look at, you know, how grass grows and then the animals eat the grass and then they fertilize the grass like there's just such a level of complexity there that it has to be designed it's just so intricate, like it would take forever someone to like build that it's so complicated. And I'm like, how do we recognize design. And I asked that in two parts, the first one was, I asked, why do you recognize design, want to understand what he means by design but also what methodology is using to recognize if something's actually is designed. And he said well if it's really complicated it's designed. And I followed up with, you know, if I had two light bulbs, one that took one step to screw into a hole. Everyone takes 1000 steps to screw into a hole, but they both make the same light they both cost the same, which of the two light bulbs was better designed. And he's like well, obviously the first one that only takes one step is like yeah because it's more simple. What we value in designing and engineering is simplicity. I can put an extra engine in this car and get more or less the same horse power makes it up so it gets the same horse power. So why would I add an entirely different extra moving part to a vehicle if I can get away with the same horse power with just one engine. You know, like we always strive for simplicity and things. Simplicity is the hallmark of design, not complexity. He's like, well, it's simple. It looks simple to God. I'm like you have an extra nipple you don't need your body has extra parts, but I didn't want to do on that a little bit more. Instead I said, you know how do I would you like to know how I recognize design. And, and that way I'm not just like forcing you down like a series of questionings. I said I recognize design by comparing them to things that aren't designed. And so I said like if I gave you a smartphone watch and a rock. I would say I can compare these two things and see that there's actually manufacturing logos on one. And like components that come from different areas whereas this rock seems to be like one homogenous thing that's created in nature that we can like and verify where it even came from maybe even fit it back into its original location, whereas all these parts are desperately processed from many, many different sources, like I can. I can go to the factories where these things are made and he's like yeah, because rocks aren't designed and smart watches are designed, but my follow up was that is well if you believe this whole universe was created and designed. You don't have a frame of reference for something that's not designed. It's like the rock should have been designed and that in that story. You're looking at everything you're looking at everything and saying everything's designed but you don't have a frame of reference for what something that isn't designed is it's like you went into your clothing drawer and pulled out a shirt and said this is a sock. By the way, I'm very confident that this is a sock, even though you're pointing at a shirt. By the way, I don't know what things that aren't socks look like. You know, I don't have a frame of reference is like, well, then you don't you can't claim that things are one way or the other way. You know what's an example of something is and what something isn't is right. And when he, when he understood that he's like well, God is my thing that isn't designed or created. And I'm like, well, do you have a way to test God is like no I can't test God that's good for you. Well, until then, you can see why someone who is from my perspective, trying to understand what you mean when you claim things are the case, why I can struggle with intellectual honesty, recognizing that you may not necessarily have a frame of reference to make the claims validated or justified. He's like no that makes sense. I again I don't know everything. I'm like that's fine. That's totally fine. I'm like that I just generally say I don't know and that's generally what atheism is like, I don't have enough information to be convinced that this belief is true. No, believe it, nor do I know if it's true, but my atheism is fueled by my agnosticism and we had talked about those definitions before. The coconut is natural. But the two halves of a coconut that you used to make the sounds of a horse clopping, they're designed. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know the weird thing is, I am willing to say that I don't identify as an atheist, I don't know if that's fair for everybody else on the show. An atheist is just a characteristic of a state of being that I'm in right now. It's a way to describe where I'm at, but I don't have any. I don't identify with it with like, like, any more than just saying like, no, it's my default state until one of these religions come along and actually convinced me that their God is true. Until then, I have abandoned it, but I'm in a position where no one's making a good argument. I'm not telling you guys you're wrong. I'm just saying I don't believe you. You're not match your burden of proof. Right. I've had misgivings for for many years about the word atheist because of course, being demonized means that we have even less respect in the community than estate agents, for example, or politicians. But so if there was a word lack theism, I'd go for that. Because that's all or go back to my, you know, atheism. That would be my preferred label. Yeah, it's a shame because like a lot of the terms that I follow now that best describe me all deal with not doing something that's very popular by other people, right? And it's when you say you're an atheist who doesn't tell you anything else about you other than a lack of belief, but it doesn't say about the things that you do believe in. And I feel like it puts unnecessary focus on the lack of a belief in a particular religious claim, then it does the fact that everybody doesn't believe 99.9% of most God believes that are out there. So like, why are we making that one distinction on that one extra God that most people believe in, right? And he, the guy was carpooling with was also very honest with like, you know, listen, when you love people are versus like, I understand that I don't believe in Thor, Joe the witness was I'm like you only believe I only believe in one more God than you like I get that. It doesn't sound like he's coming to term he also understands, based on my where I was born my geopolitical location will dictate what I believe and I understand that I'm teaching my daughter, XYZ, so that she can have a good path forward. Like I understand that could be fundamental to he's just, he's asking good questions, but I don't my end goal is not for him to become an atheist. My end goal for most Christians in fact is not to become an atheist is just for them to tolerate the fact that atheism does exist, and that it's an okay state to be in and to understand what it actually is. And they don't have to celebrate it. They don't have to come to our meetings or conventions, but they can at least not dictate how society operates in a way that affects demonizes. Yeah, that would be one of them to yeah or you know, like, don't chastise don't rule policies that are against, you know what we're trying to do. So I put a three point list into the chat that we had on the way here. Okay, but I wanted. I wanted theists to stop miseducating our children I want my children to be better prepared for life than to be told myths, you know, to believe in. And I want them to keep their faith based opinions out of government. There's an interesting example of this in my local my global atheist news again because in Australia. They don't have many problems I'm hoping that you're going to talk with me about this later on. They don't have many problems but one they have is that in the state of Victoria they have banned opening their council meetings with prayers. So what they do instead is they have a minute silence when they individually think about whatever they want you know if it's if it's a belief system, they can do that in their heads. And if they just want to commemorate those who have died fighting for their country or whatever. That's what that means for its silent. Okay, so what happened in this particular meeting was one of the counselors grabbed the silence and started praying loudly. He was, he was a soundly told off. Good. Good. The other things that I so I want I don't want them to influence government with their faith based ideas on them to keep their faith based ideas out of government. That's, that's one of the main things I'm saying I would love to have that will I don't mind having a religious president or religious prime minister, but I don't want their religion to affect my life like right now we have a religious president, but he's not making policies. As far as I'm worried he's not making policy that are directly saying you need to go to Catholic school. And we saw. Yeah, interesting me on the prime minister front our current prime minister is a Hindu. That's awesome. So, so we've got four things that we want with our end goals. Don't demonize this. Yes. Don't, don't govern us with your belief system. Don't tell our children nonsense. And the final one is you said this is a three point list. Yeah, I've added one. It was. Don't demonize this is going to be. Yeah, yeah, play nice. I like I can't. Surely you know that. But the final one is great. Yeah. Probably the best it is. Keep your noses out of our genitalia. I love that. I can throw out one reason why I love this so much. I came to an understanding over like the last couple of weeks after our conversations and had some time to think about this that there. The two categories in the world are biological male or biological female. Like it is, you're going to fall into one of those two categories. However, there is also a very valid category in between of a cornucopia of different kinds of intersex people by intersex. I mean, people who have like ambiguous genitalia to people who are phenotypically male, but they were born and their, their in birth made twins or like they became a twin. And then they refused again. And so they are phenotypically male, but they're hybrids, where maybe they're pancreas or their liver has female chromosomes in it but they are, they look male, but parts of their body, because they infuse they fuse from like another embryo that it's so crazy, how there's so much different forms of humanity. So in between the these this two seemingly or a parent binary states, there is just as much of a valid spectrum, if you will, of intersex people in between. And what's really cool is that is that category has been inundated with a lot of pestering from religious points of views from saying, Oh, your genitalia looks male enough but there's something wrong with it. It's not male enough, non consensually, or, or let's modify this people put them on hormone therapy, so they can appear as what a female should look like, and it's caused the people who are on these more. They were just caught in between what is essentially just nature to abide by standards of what a man or a woman should be from a physicality point of view, and the kids never asked for that. We're at a point now where some of those kids can like, and this America for file lawsuits, but I feel like if we were to just come to a better understanding of like the science of the empathy, as we were talking about in previous shows, and recognize that, you know, on an individual we can like assess where someone's coming from, and recognize that these differences aren't necessarily harmful, and recognize that it could just be an accepted category of its own and everything falls into the, the, the, the first models that we said everything for. I would love to see something like that but yeah keep their noses out of the people's genitalia. It's okay if someone has like an extra finger, like don't amputate that off it's okay it's not going to be big deal. It's okay if someone has like a like, I don't know, like a thick eyebrow, a baby with thick eyebrows like no, she's female she needs to have her eyebrows shaved off let's start surgery to like reshape her or the structure of her forehead. I don't really crazy think stories that are out there, but largely involving genitalia and I just be more accepting if we had less of a pure, puritanical point of view on these things and just let people be who they are. What do you think, John Richards, I'm bursting again. Talk to me talks. So you mentioned the six finger syndrome, do you know where that is most common is a place in. It's in the Mennonites, because they marry their cousins, they're not allowed to out breed. So, yeah, it's, it's typically small pockets of people who don't go out and marry more people and bring more people into the genetic they get more. The other thing, the other thing you mentioned is Chimeras where one twin is absorbed few cells of the other, and he's actually partly one person and partly another person but made in the shape of one person. And the incidence of that, there's only ever been 100 confirmed cases in humans. So, in my opinion, the lengths that it takes to confirm a case doesn't necessarily represent the total number of potential cases that could be out there. In my opinion, still, that's still 100 value. That's still 100 of people of value. And it's still part of, in my mind, a continuum of a variety of different kinds of stories of people who are caught in between. And I wouldn't say those Chimeras should go through surgery to remove the body parts that don't have the proper chromosomal patterns and be replaced with something that's more apparent for or proper for their sexual. It's fine. If you're intersex that's totally cool. I'd say let that just be it's a part of what a beautiful understanding of humanity is and recognize that that's a natural part of nature. And I would never say I would say this to I would never say that it's a the that what's in between is proportional to what's on the edge. It's clear to me that most people find I know it's clear to me that most people fit in the category of male and female, but I do think that there is a continuum or spectrum in between. And we should recognize that the system of sex, at least from my point of view, is not one or the other but actually aspects of both in a much more nuanced model. Nobody has any authority to say that you're acceptable and you're not. It's ridiculous. I love that. Yeah, exactly. Not even God. Sorry for taking on so long. What any final thoughts before we should wrap up the show. Nice. Very cool. Larry. Excellent. Oh, what about you time. Uh, listen, if you are beating a Christian at disc golf, the way how you rub it in is you when you if you make your pot you look at him dead in the eyes and just say God just loves me more than you. That's all there is to it. Oh, that's bad. This program does not condone. Get in their head. Get in their head. Get in their head. Anyway, my my content can be found at digital free thought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button when you get there for a radio show archives, atheists, songs and many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel handle is out at doubter five. And you can find my book atheism. What's it all about on Amazon. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind and a lot of people do, you can get help from recovering from religion.org. 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 Wednesday night at seven o'clock here on W O Zio radio. Thank you everybody.