 Okay. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio R&W OZO Radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, November 20th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or Douter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Hey, on the Wombat. Our guests today are the John Richards from Over the Sea in London Way, South of London. How the devil are you? Doing well. Devil is too, I guess. Dread Pirate Higgs from Western Canada. Welcome. How are you there? Digital Freethought Radio Hours, a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also be talking about religion, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not. You're in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt. We have a group of over a thousand of us. The Atheist Society of Knoxville or ASK. We'll tell you more about them after the mid-show break. So be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? I was born an atheist and so were you two. But that's going to be a hot topic for a lot of people. It's going to probably involve a lot of semantics and clarification of what we mean by terms. But I think in the most common sensible sense, it's the most obvious thing in the world. And we'll get into it. But before we do, how about we throw it up to Rowan Dread Pirate Higgs for a weekly indication? Our newly Lord, who art in a calendar, al dente be thy noodles, thy blood be rum, thy sauce be yum with meat, as it is with vegetables. Give us this day our garlic bread, and forgive us our cussing, as we forgive those who cuss against us. And lead us not into key tourism, but deliver us some carbs, for thine are the meatballs and the sauces and the grog, whenever and ever. I love how it's just some carbs, because you do need some carbs. It's always good. I went to a birthday party last week, or yesterday, I went to a birthday party just yesterday, and had some fun eating some carbs. They did give me a box of pizza afterwards and I'll work that off later on this week. But it's good to have a little bit of treats now and then your, your brain loves it. Your brain's like, oh, carbs, let's go. And then four hours later, it's like, what'd you do this to us? Why'd you do this to us? I doubt or five how you've been since last week. It's good to see you again. Oh, doing pretty well. We had our Thanksgiving yesterday. Nice. It was great doing a little early, because our kid is flying the coop next week for Parts Unknown. And we wanted to have it with her and her boyfriend before they left. Parts Unknown, what are they doing? Are they like motorcycle riding into the sunset? No, I should go and visit him at his, his location, which is like Europe. Oh, okay. Yeah. So we wanted to get together and have it before they left. So it was all good. Well, good. It's been very cold. So I have not been riding still playing games, of course. Okay, it's been very cold here too. I'm still playing disc golf. I don't care about the time change. I want to get outside. I love being outside with friends. But yes, it's not a fun time. It's not as fun, but yeah, I wouldn't recommend it. Unless if you have a really, really high tolerance for pain and being chilly. Dredd Pirate. Listen, I know it's bright and sunny in Canada right now. It's just nothing but like tropical winds and weather. Do you still have time to go outside at all? Well, it's, it's minus 14 out here. So is it we chilly? And that's Celsius, of course, not the Fahrenheit minus 14. But yeah, no, it's, it's pretty cold and we've got snow on the ground and it's, you know, it's not quite light. Of course, it's 706 a.m. Pacific Standard Time here. So yeah. Geez, I don't even have my breakfast in me yet. Oh man, man. Coffee. You can't, you can't be Canadian unless we have like a big hairy chest full of hair, right? Just like 14 degrees negative Celsius. And the lumberjack acts in your right hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, my blue walks in the back. Right. We stay sorry because we're that manly, we're that car. All right. I'm going to be the next victim for stereotyping, am I? All right, go for it. Go for it. I don't know. I'll save you and just asking, Jeremy, how are you? How are you? How are things? Everything's fine here. We don't have snow. I can't remember when I last saw snow, but I photographed it because it was on the, we've got a chalet in the garden, you know, one of these wooden structures and there was about that much snow on the roof and it was gone by 11 o'clock. So that's, I can't remember when it was last evidence we've got of any snow here. So don't believe all the lies put out by Hollywood about the weather in the UK. I do have a backdoor balcony and it was, it wasn't snowing, but there's frost on the ground right now. And my cat has the ability to open up doors and handles as he wants to, and I forgot to lock the deadbolt. So at night he comes up, he hangs on the door, he opens up the door to the back balcony hangs out there for a little bit says it's cold comes back in. And this morning he's like cuddled up next to me and I'm like, this is the cutest thing ever. Also, why is it 20 degrees in my house right now? So like that whole thing of like get off. What the hell's going on. It's super dry my lips are chapped I'm like everything's like super frigid and cold and my back doors is billowing in the wind I got stink bugs coming inside all night long so yeah I have a lot of cleaning up to do beyond that but The next thing is to teach the cat to shut the door. Right, right, right, some humility, some, some basic housekeeping would be good. Guys, the problem is is, you know, you can teach your cat a lot of things but you don't have to teach your cat to be an atheist. Isn't that great, because it's almost as if he was an atheist by default, and in very similar ways humanity has the same, I would say, privilege or opportunity to be born without religious dogma. And that's something that we shouldn't overlook think about how amazing it is right now that every human being that's born doesn't have to recite scripture out of the womb, or deal with the idea of well I'm the chosen people and those aren't the chosen people, or know exactly which God they have to worship in fact they don't have to worship any God. That's something that's ingrained in them it's taught to them it's indoctrinated to them while they're innocent and young. And I want to talk about that in a show like format where we discuss, is it actually true that all babies are born atheists. I have a beginning topic presents to us from Reddit. This is an ongoing conversation right now if you want to check it out. The title of the page is all babies are born atheists it's written by birdie dreamer and he says, or she says, every human born has been an atheist because we all have been born lacking in a God. No baby nor toddler can understand the concept of a God, let alone believe in it. It isn't something we know or understand instinctually we must be indoctrinated to believe and even then many of us still don't believe atheism exists in a time of innocence. And it's that innocence and purity that adults so often admire in toddlers and infants, as they coexist with their atheism atheism is innate and easy for children to understand. In fact requires no education at all. Atheism is simplicity with which religions can't compete atheists require no study, no rituals, no belief in the supernatural, we have only one condition for membership, a lack of belief in gods or gods. It's so simple and natural that all children are born atheists. I want to round table thought on what is what you guys think about that dread what do you think. Well, I'd have to push back against that just a wee bit because atheism isn't just disbelief in all gods. It's a lack of evidence to support or justify a belief in a God. And I'd further say that one can be atheistic to the Christian God, and not to the flying spaghetti monster. I mean it's just the way you look at it. So, we are all atheists we're all born atheists I agree with that, but we'll continue to be atheists in so far as we don't believe in all gods, we only believe in the gods that we dizzy a team to have enough evidence to justify the belief. Okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna have to marinate on that a little bit so you're saying, yes, you are born and you are born and atheists. And you, you could be presented with a God claim that's so mundane that you can believe it, but you would be atheistic to other gods at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm atheistic to the secret religion, because I don't have evidence to support a belief in those gods, but I could be a Christian and believe in my God. I see what you're saying. Yeah, because Christians, because I believe I have evidence that supports or justifies my belief in whatever God I happen to believe in, while being atheistic to all other gods because there is no evidence for them. So what you're saying is we're all atheists. It's not precisely what I'm saying. Yes, we all agree to, to at least the majority of gods that are out there except atheists are just one more God than most people. Correct. Yeah, atheists who claim their selves themselves to be atheists, I have just taken that one additional step to say they don't believe or have evidence for any gods. Right, right. It's not as foreign as a concept is basically what you're saying, like the term, not only are all babies it but most people are, and there's very few true pantheists out there that like leaving. In fact, I'd say there are no pantheists. No. Welcome to next week's show. Anyway. What do you think about the idea of all babies. That was really great and thoughtful take on that dread. I appreciate that. Yeah, since atheism means that you are without a belief in God or without God as far as beliefs go, then I would say it's true. You know, we're all born atheists. We have to be indoctrinated into a God belief before, you know, we believe before we're a theist as it were. And it's easier to prove because if you know there are people out there said no no no we were born believing in God. Then why did you have to tell your children about God and teach them about the religion. Right. I have a friend. I have a friend who I play tennis with, and he always brings up religion every single time, because he knows I'm an atheist. So he has like bring it up every single conversation and his conversations always lead to, and I can't wait to start a family he wants 13 kids he's one of those guys. He can't wait to start a family because he wants to teach all of them about God. And I keep asking him. I keep poking at that idea but like one, why do you have to teach your kids God, if God's real shouldn't one you already believe that we're not born atheists he told me that's my face. So like why do you have to go out of your way to teach your kids about God. It shouldn't that be evidentiary like shouldn't that be instilled in them. Don't they already have the right right so like what's this whole teaching thing what's this whole Bible school what's this whole church thing like what's going on there. There's a lot of disconnections. What else can you say. In fact, in fact it's it's it's not only teaching them about their God it's teaching them about the concept of faith. And, and if you, you know, consider the Hebrews 11 one where it says faith is the belief in things hope for an evidence of things unseen. Yeah, that really is something you have to teach people in order for them to believe in a God in the first place. So it's actually taking away any impetus towards rational thought and reason and evidence and experiment, taking all that away and just say hey we've got this whole new concept for you. It's faith. Right. Just take my word for it. Right. John, it's not like you're already wiping your head he's just like I can't wait to talk. Go ahead, John. You want. We've just, we've just commissioned some pull up banners, you know, things you have at events. And one of the slogans that we're putting on there is atheism is our birthright. Right. Yeah, I like it. I can't disagree with anything that's been said so far, except perhaps dread you know I do believe that spaghetti exists as to whether as to whether is a godly monster I have me doubts. But the thing is that I've got a couple of quotes here that I might throw in. Do you want them now or do you want them dispersed later throughout. Let's get the first one out. I love it. Let's get some quotes in your best English accent possible. That's what we all sign up for is the reason why you're on the show. I've been accused of sounding a bit mid Atlantic, you know, because really, yeah, depends who you speak to but I don't know. Oh, I totally hear it. Yes. Yeah. So for people who don't know mid Atlantic Frasier, if you ever seen that show Frasier that's kind of kind of close to it. It's only the, it's only the tone of the voice is not the accent. It's like you have this the voice that comes out of here. It's just a little bit drawn out. It's not the accent that's on top of it. It's two different things middle and two people just talk. I have the voice every morning. Yeah, before I have my first coffee. I don't, I don't sound like the Royals or the Nobles. So I'm, I'm not quite as posh as some people in my part of the world. So here's the first quote and it's Ricky Gervais. He said, basically, you deny one less God than I do. I don't believe in 2,999 God's and sorry, you don't believe in 2,999 God's and I don't believe in just one more. Right. Correct. That's it. You know, And the great thing is, it takes a comedian to really make the best concise quotes for this particular era. You know, I think Ricky Gervais is like a bastion of really great, concise, well made points on a lot of different things, including his point on science and this is just a little bit of a tangent, because like if you take all the holy books and believe them from history and you wait a thousand years on the same trend that we're on right now, you're going to end up with a thousand other new holy books that all say very rapidly different things completely diverges from each other. However, if you take all the science literature, every single science proof and document and piece of evidence and destroy it and remove it from human culture. If you take all the science literature, every thousand years are going to have the exact same science, the units might be made differently. The, the symbols might look different, but all the relationships are identical to the point where we be able to translate immediately. All the new discoveries that were made. That's that is a very telling thing. It's still equal MC squared. Right. And I did not phrase that properly as Ricky Gervais did but it's a very meaningful, concise point to be made that one group is randomly pulling things together anyone's looking at an objective thing and getting closer to it which is the truth. It's very interesting. I greatly admire comedians because they have to be such good communicators they only have a few minutes to get through to our brains and right and press article buttons. So they have to be very concise. Yes, tickle buttons. All right. You can tell you're a dad you can tell he's like recently. Anyway, I don't have, I don't have 13 kids like your tennis playing friend. Yeah, yeah, I hope he doesn't get a meter. Well, what can I say. Anyway, you should have two or three and then decide whether he wants to continue. Yeah, don't get them all at once. The weird thing is, while we can also learn religion. I think we learn a lot of other things besides that we learn our language, we learn our culture, we learn rules of reality like hey if I knock this off the table will it fall. Oh, yes it does if I fall off this chair will it hurt. Yes, I understand pain. I understand hunger thirst all that stuff rules of reality like homeostasis taking care of yourself how to treat other people cause an effect. But also nefarious things like hate. You can learn hate from your parents you can learn hate from your culture you can pick up a lot of bad impressions prejudices misogyny bigotry. A lot of those things like religion are taught to kids what do you think about that john. Well, you've hit another nail on the head there because of course what religions do is they divide us, they divide us into us and them, and then you demonize the them, and you're on the way to war and victimization and the final solution. It's all needless because there's no evidence for any God, apart from spaghetti. Thank you. We're the only religion with the God back guarantee if you don't, if you don't like pastivarianism. After 30 days, go back to your old God he'll likely take you back. Oh, man, I love it. So I want to throw up a quote quickly from a fancy role walrus a fancy rollers walrus, who says religion is like racism it's taught not natural. I'm white and I had a friend from school from five to nine at that age who was black and you know what I didn't know it until I was 24. I just sat there one day and thought hey my old friend Jacob was black. I never thought about that but as a kid I just made friends with him because he was cool. We pretended to be Yoshi's together. Yoshi's a character and Mario that comes in a lot of different colors. And he was the black Yoshi and I was the white Yoshi and skin color meant nothing to us. As years went by I would think about him from time to time, not that much as if it was so long ago but it wasn't until it recently hit me that he was black, because later in life some people are later in life. Some people of all colors have been around have made raise such a issue that it's always the first thing I noticed no matter what or how little I want to what you're taught in youth really does affect you but nothing is there when you begin with. And so I think it's true true point because when I was a kid, I never really considered like my skin color being an issue because I was being raised in California. I knew Mexicans I was getting better at being Spanish speaking person that I was, you know, being what a black person was supposed to be like I all these societal moles I was never experienced or exposed to. And it wasn't until I moved to Georgia that I realized, Oh, there's like boxes that you're supposed to be in. If you look a certain way, or if you act a certain way, or if you talk a certain way, and you don't fit in any of them because you're an outsider. And I realized, well, I'm still in high school and I am very very emotionally driven to fall into like a social structure. And I spent like a time trying to fit into boxes that I couldn't fit into was very distressing. And through that whole process and even inform my early adulthood would I realize, man, this is like something that I'm always thinking about. And like, there's a danger aspect to that. And what I'm aware of, I don't want to not recognize anymore like I don't want to consider like my race as something I don't have to think about because it's vitally important for me to be aware of that in certain circles in the states that I'm in. So it's just this constant dragging down that I never had to consider when I was a child. And I'm wondering why is that the case is that because of me. So it's because of the society that I'm in that I have to learn from it. And I learned some bad things from it and I learned some important bad things from it, but it's still bad things overall and I wonder why we have a culture still hold on to these really bad tenets and paradigms and we should get rid of them and stop teaching our kids that because you can live without it very effectively, like these things, religion and racism and hate. I know your kid hate that's all my bottom line is dread what many do. Oh, you need is the surprisingly a good band surprising a good band at its time that are five what do you think. I know it's an artificial division that we impose on each other when it's not necessary at all of course right kids prove that every day. You know, you don't have a black dog and a white dog that each other's through because of their color. We come in a variety of colors. Hey, that's it deal with it. It's kind of a good thing to john. To get back to the theme of atheism and whether we're born it. You've only got to look around the world. I mean once you come out of your parochial culture and look around the world you realize that if that if you're born into a different religion, you've got to accept that other people elsewhere are born into a different religion. One of you must be wrong. Right. And, and along that same lines, you can be born with different kinds of cultures that say women should wear her jobs and other cultures that say, actually, it's not a big deal if they do or they don't they can decide on their own. They don't want to. But for one culture it's absolutely imperative that they do. And for other ones, excuse my excuse my phone. The other culture it's like it's completely non issue. Like these society wall religion is just a cast of societal rules that people are meant to follow right, but that is entirely arbitrary, given the fact that we can live in this geo political culture that has many different kinds of cultures and we can see that it's happening throughout. If that's the case, why don't we just have the best system, why do we have all these other systems as well. And you had it in California when you were growing up, and you'll find wherever you look in the world, it's the least religious places that are the most benevolent. True true depth. Hey, I think we made it to the bottom of a half hour. I need to take a break. Stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. So I think. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five more on w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's talk about the atheist society of Knoxville for just a second. ASK was founded in 2002. In our 20th year now and have over 1000 members. We do have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We can also we also get together for Tuesday evening zoom meetings. If you'd like to join us via zoom, no matter where you live, email us for details that ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org, or let's chat se at gmail.com. You'll find us on Facebook meetup.com, or Knoxville atheists.org, which is their website. You can also just Google Knoxville atheists is just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you can still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Right. One by where you want to pick up. Yo, everybody was born an atheist and so were you two. And isn't it a birthright? Isn't it an amazing thing that we can all appreciate. And when it all comes said and done. It's all basically atheists, at least to the majority of the guys that have been claimed to exist. There's not everyone who believes in all of them all at once. Doesn't that seem like it's commonsensical. Can't that seem like that's something we can all agree on. No, of course not because this is an internet show where we accept internet feedback, which means we're going to go into some contrary opinions. I'm going to throw it up to John Richards. You have the first say at this first contrary point comes from slimy slugs zero on Reddit who says, Well, I'd say all humans are born agnostics, not atheists. Babies don't know what God is being an atheist means to not believe in any sort of God. How can a baby do that if babies don't even understand the concept of God yet. No, we got John first and then we'll go straight to Larry. John, what do you think? Not the old atheism versus agnosticism conflict. These are two contentious words. It depends who you are, how you define them and being, you know, an active atheist, I define atheism as a lack of belief in what other people claim that they have as their foundation for their religion. I don't claim that I can eliminate the possibility of their being a God, because of course, the universe isn't a cookie jar using your American words. You can't you can't turn it upside down and empty it and say, Look, there's no God in here. So it's not possible to eliminate the possibility that there is a God. And that's what I mean by atheism. But agnosticism is overlapping. You can be both because agnosticism means you don't know. Right. And you're not sitting on the fence. You just don't have the data necessary to make a decision to jump either side. So there is a slight difference there, but it's not a big one. And just a slight correction when you say there's no metal fence you just lack the information to know what to jump either side the side that you're staying on is not believing. So like either believe it or you don't believe it and you're staying on the not believe side until you have knowledge. He was talking about agnosticism and you're using the word believe. Agnosticism is about knowledge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, atheism is about belief. I'm an agnostic atheist. Yes, I don't know, but I also don't believe that there are people that do believe and say they don't know. So it's just two different things you have to worry about knowledge versus believe. Correct. And that shows you how much belief is actually a choice. Even though they don't know, they've chosen to believe one thing at a time one thing at a time. Here, let me let me just make some quick clarification points between John Richard on the original question which was agnosticism atheists, atheism for friends of the show refers to a statement of belief. Do you believe in a God you're a theist if you don't believe in a God you're atheist there's no middle ground either are atheists or you're not a theist and we call non theist atheists. That's why we're saying all babies are born atheists. Whereas agnosticism is a question of knowledge do you know if a God exists do you not know if that God exists if you know God exists you're agnostic, and you should be making a better noise than you are now because you should be a national geographic you should be in front of the president, but if you don't know that God exists, you're an agnostic and you can be both agnostic and an atheist similarly in the same way that you can be a Gnostic theist, you can be an agnostic atheist, and, and the question just becomes. It doesn't matter if someone calls themselves a agnostic it doesn't immediately mean that they're not an atheist because you can be both. So why do people pull up that distinction. Anyway, Larry, go ahead. I was just going to say that I disagree with John on a belief is not a choice you believe things because you're convinced they're true. Right now you may be convinced for bad reasons, or good reasons, but you can't just convince your you can't just make a choice to believe in like Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy. It's not a choice you're either convinced to believe something or not. Now you can do it without knowledge or with knowledge, but I don't believe it's a choice. I concur. Now you can choose whether or not you want to call yourself a believer or not, but you can't just make a decision to believe something that you don't believe in. That's another and the converse is true as well right. A person who has spent, you know, part of their life believing in some sort of a deity doesn't come to unbelief overnight doesn't wake up one day and say I don't believe in God. Yeah, they can try to tell themselves that but all my friends right. I'm going to decide not to believe. It's over a period of time that your beliefs change and you come to a point where you can say I no longer believe or I do believe but well, transitory. That's a particularly American view because you have this thing called deconstructing. I'm Canadian. It's still I have so many if you want to talk about Umbridge's John I have Umbridge with that as that's still North America. You're still part of us Mexico is part of us Brazil still part of us we're all. That's right. Because I don't have a Mac. I can still use a computer. Guys, we can we can make this topic. Another show, and I think it'd be worthwhile discovery to understand do we do we choose our beliefs because that's that's a heady topic it really is. But how about we go into another feedback session from another variant. This one I like to throw out to doubter five to tackle first. And it's the idea of let me see if I can read this quickly. Ah, how can we all be atheists if all religions come from different cultures it's that argument. Anyway, here we go. Dool Dougie says, if it's true that we're born atheists then why has every culture on earth, even under no contact created gods. It's certainly weird that every culture that has ever existed felt the pool to a higher power. Doubt or five first and then we go to John. Oh, so you're on mute my friend and me in there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, most, most Eastern religions are not God religions, Buddhism Confucius and Taoism, Jainism. They don't believe in they believe in maybe souls and ancestor worship but they don't believe in God. And the cultures that he's talking about the ones that deal a poll to believe in a God, don't believe in the same guy. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's just very troubling that he would make that argument. Now what I feel is a large part of it is that we all grow up with higher powers in our parents. When parents are gone, you still have that feel that pull that tug that you need a higher power looking after you that takes the place of those, those parents and then we still call God, our father in heaven, you know, that type of thing. We're still following. So I think it's kind of transparent why we, why all the cultures would still look for a God, you know, a paradigm to stretch out to a super, right? Yeah, John, because you have to understand how computer works for simulation theory to make sense to you, but everyone understands how a family works because we're products of a family. So it's a supernatural family. And the church takes advantage of that. You know, the bus, the nuns are your sisters, the priests are your fathers, you know, the church is your family. Right. The hijack guardian angels are your big brothers and big sisters. The priest is your father. Great movie series brought by Marvel. Sorry, sorry. John riches left to get your feedback. It's not quite true that every culture has created a God. Anthropologists have studied indigenous people. And there are in Brazil, for example, there's the piranha, who not only have no religion, no God, but they don't have any numbers either. It's, you know, it's, it's a sweeping statement to claim that every culture is invented. Yeah, very true. It's very true. Particularly the ones that Christianity took over, or try to sell as a comparable model to why they're inferior and we're better. Yes, but if you look at the grand scheme of things, it's a ball face lie to say that every single culture has, if anything, even if that's true. That's accurate. It's only every culture that we know of, which introduces yourself to a black swan fallacy where it's like, there's no such things as black swans because I've never seen one. It's like, that's not a good argument to say that every case is as you say it because we haven't looked at the whole entire sample size yet. Right. I've never seen anyone vote Republicans like, okay. Mind you, I went to New Zealand where the black swans are supposed to exist and I didn't see any there either. Okay, Dredpire, what's up. Yeah, well I was going to say that while not all cultures may have religious beliefs. We all do have brains and our brains are hardwired for agency detection. That is something that is innate in our cognition or cognitive skills and abilities. A rustle in the breeze. Is it something that might eat me or is it the wind better think it's the thing that's going to eat me. And be wrong, then think it's the wind and be lunch. So it's just a part of how our brains work. So it's not a far stretch to consider that we may look at other things and believe that they have agency. Right. And my, you know, Dred, that's a really good point. It feeds me into this because you're talking about matters of evolution. And I also find that culture is a product of evolution as well. And so when I am born in a culture that is Christian or has evolved to be very Christian like how we are in the West. Then it's not a surprise to me that I could be born and believe that I'm a Christian over a period of time in the same way that people are born in more Islamic areas or evolved into more Islamic regions. I'm not starting to be Islamic or or Janus or or Confucianist, etc. And my point is, I when I say we're all born atheists and someone brings up, well, every culture comes up with a higher power. I'm like, so what, that's the product of the culture that was already pre existing that caused that people to to continue to foster that culture. However, we have seen in multiple instances even looking around the world that if you completely remove that, if you look at cultures who have no contact religion that you can you can have examples like that. Or you can have regions that get taken over by the more popular religion that also happens as well. The fact that these cultures exist with these higher powers is more of a product of like the history of how these cultures have, you know, generated in the first place. And the fact that we can come up with in our own mind state is evolutionary bias because it's what we tend to do when we look at the unknown, we tend to have to primarize it, or give it qualities that are beyond just a natural force. What do you think john. Well, it's, it's a product of being social animals. Every type of social animal needs a leader, even if it's only the fastest will be beast that leads the herd. And what what humans do, and possibly some chimpanzees is project that the leader into the sky, so that there is, you know, even even when your earthly body has gone, you've still got this father figure up there that you can rely on. It's, I also want to throw this out to before we get to the next topic. These, these ideas that we have of the afterlife and the structure of heaven are always very beneficial to the believer in the ego sense, like a holy father who loves his son. I'm a, I'm a guy. That means I got a dad which means my dad's powerful which means I'm powerful because I'm in the product of power. I like this this is going to be the story that I move on. Oh, and you mean the supernatural being who created the universe is my family member that's pretty awesome like my dad's awesome I have a cool that everyone wants that, but you never get the one where it's like reality as we know it is just a slaughterhouse and when we die you're you it's just your soul getting ready to be chopped up for a meal for some, you know, major feast down the road, because a lamb if you think about a lamb in a farm, they don't know anything outside of their farm in the same way like humans don't know anything outside of our planet or we were slowly developing but we've never been off our plan onto another planet in the same way that a lamb visits another slaughterhouse. And when the slimes get taken away it's sort of like when we die, and it just looks like our bodies stop working it's like well where our souls go where are, where is our mentality go where does Tyrone go after he dies. We always want to think of something really great and appeasing to us we never consider a more darker afterlife that could be just as valid, because we don't know where we're drawing these straws from. I find it just very telling that we always pick the most. Massaging yeah yeah yeah it's so biased. Nobody wants an evil teddy bear. No, it's an evil teddy bear we always want the best thing that works for us and so it's just so saccharine is so I'm saying it's just so telling the saccharine so telling me meant to appease us about the concept of death. In reality, if we were to just think about what death actually is and what the implications of a reality where we never die would be. It's like it's not that bad of this concept it really isn't. I just wish we had more time to come to terms with death in a more mature and honest way than than lying to ourselves with these really clearly fleeting no foundational rules of reality that actually make us believe terrible things. That's a fairer for that spiel. Thank you. I was just going to say, I mean no more nowhere is it more glaring than in Western countries that that religion is largely due to our cultural upbringing. Because you don't see white people walking around wearing turbines, right, or identifying as seeks you don't I've never ever seen a white person, you know, wearing wearing a turban, or, I mean I've seen women, white women, where, you know, shadowers or the, the, the cubs or hijabs I should say, the ones that are more revealing, but I've never been able to, you know, assume whether they're Muslim or, you know, some people of course adopt Islam as their religion. But, you know, certainly, I've never ever seen and I put it to you guys. Have you ever seen a non Indian wearing a turban or identifying as a seek. I've seen examples but yeah I've seen that, but really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it's you can adopt the religion is all I'm saying. Larry. Yeah, well no but I'm, you know, the point was that it is culturally driven, right. Right, right, like my sister's Muslim. And so she, she wears a job and and she was born in St. Thomas. So like it that is not a common jump but like she adopted the culture and now she is, you know, over there. What do you think. Oh, you said white guy. No, I have no examples for white people but I've seen it. You're Mike's off there but there you're Mike's off. Yes, one of the DJs under station is a white person who has is a seat. Where's the turban and all that. Okay. And very nice guy. But my point is there are outliers. There are people who adopt religions who aren't born in society, but that doesn't belay your basic assumption that people are born into religion and generally is controlled by the really rather region you were born in. Right. And that doesn't impact whether you're not you're born in atheists, like we live in these two realities where they're both compatible like you're born in atheists and you might be born a culture that's religious and guess what you're probably going to become that religions, or that cultures religion. That's a shame, because your birthright is your atheism, and you shouldn't rest on it, but you should understand that that's a good position to have, when everyone else around you is following a dogma that may not necessarily be scientifically or reasonably based. John, what do you what you got before. Well, this is a an issue which has been rumbling along for hundreds of years. And it's not just whether people are born atheists or theists of whatever flavor, but also whether they are born into a political party. Yes. And, and I've got a quote here from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera that was popular in the Victorian era, in which one of the characters sings a song that goes. I often think it's comical fall la la, how nature always does contrive fall la la that every boy and every gal that's born into the world alive is either a little liberal, or else a little conservative. Nice. They were poking fun right in this country at that time. And that is true. It's absolutely true, because if you were to look at like a heat map of population density across the United States of America at least the areas where there are the most people the most diverse people living with each other. And we're talking like millions of people living like in the same town or whatever like nearby the same area. Those tend to be the bluest areas, because it's the people that have access to most likely the highest education really good pay cultural mixtures different very little in the way of like well this guy is this guy I'm this personal identity is broken down. It's just people existing with each other in a very harmony state, whereas the ones or it's just like, well there's a person there's a person across like this entire state. Those tend to be the red estates because they have the least access to different cultures, least access to different new ideas, and those tend to be very conservative. That's not a rural. It is. Exactly. I was just going to make that point. People who live in a city meet all sorts of other different types of people. They're more tolerant than people who stay in their own little village somewhere amongst a load of farming crops and animals and are afraid to lose what they have. So we'll be conservative to make sure that isn't the case whereas ones were like very considerate of the plights of other people, because they see them on a regular basis and they're like, we need to come up with system to help people like. Can we come up with something that like improve their liberties and stuff like that. I'm not saying one. Actually, I'm saying one's better than the other but I'm also saying it is a product both in both cases of culture, it is a product of culture and we are impacted by that in many different ways. I read, I got a question for you or anonymous and she says, even though it's technically right to call newborns atheists, I don't really like where this is going. The absence of something because of capabilities does not mean that it's a good state or something that should be pursued. What do you think about that. Yeah, we're born atheists but that's not necessarily a good thing because you shouldn't think of that as a good state because you lack the capability of believing in God. And it shouldn't be something that should be pursued. Atheism may not necessarily be something to be pursued. Oh, I'm just excited. I mean that's a pretty hard statement to make. I mean, that's a broad claim and I don't see what support she might have for making it in the first place. It's a non sequitur. It's gone ahead. I can't hold it. This person obviously thinks that atheism is a thing. It's because it ends in ism, and she thinks it's an ideology. It isn't. We don't have any doctrine. We don't wish to impose anything on anybody. Right, right. It's not something you pursue. It's just a state of being lacking, you know, the belief in a God. It's like when you move that what's left behind this or the shape that's left behind is. When you take off your clothes, you're naked. That's that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes it's good to pursue being naked but not. There's no rituals, no taboos. We live, we live in a wonderful peaceful condition where we can do pretty much what we like. And if you have standards, it is something that is worth getting rid of if you can be shown otherwise. My biggest complaint about the Bible is God shows up all the time helping people left and right in person as a dove. A flaming bush drops angels down left and right, always willing to cause miracles left and right. But since the time of the Bible is very the world's champion at hide and seek. Even to the point where the devil is willing to like go and be like, hey, you want to just come down and like harass some of your followers a little bit. Do you want to try that together? It's like, I haven't done that in years. Okay, fine. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. These guys, the devil and God, they know each other exists, but God doesn't like the devil, right, even though he invites him to heaven for beddings. If God gave us the same level of evidence that the devil had where it's like, just let us know you exist. That immediately cures atheism. Immediately, I would be not an atheist anymore. Maybe I wouldn't be a Christian, but I wouldn't be an atheist. I definitely would know that a God exists. Now the question just becomes whether or not I worship that being and follow its tenets. That is a completely different question whether or not I believe, but you can be punished for lack of. You can be punished explicitly in the Bible for not believing in that God. So why don't you just make yourself a parent? Because then you would get rid of the atheists. And now it's a question of on the tenets of the obvious rules that you hand delivered us. Now we know whether we should follow them or not. And based on that decision making, then you would be able to have better grounds to punish us if we don't follow that. That's all we're asking for. Just give us the same evidence the devil had. What do you think? Yeah, who was it on the road to Damascus and, you know, Jesus appeared to him. Give us the same evidence, you know, appear to us. It should be the easiest thing in the world for a day to do. Yeah, have a Twitter account. That's a discussion. We'd be really. I've been asked off very frequently. What kind of evidence would you believe? And I'm with Matt Dilla, Huntie on this one. He says that God would know. I mean, if God is all knowing, he would know the evidence that I would need to be convinced. And he's not giving it to me. Either he doesn't exist or he doesn't want me to know he exists. Or he made a way where you can't be convinced in which case that's not my problem anymore. That's God's problem, right? Yeah, God wants to convince me and he made me invincible. He would know how to do it. And he hasn't done it yet. That tells me one of three things. Either he doesn't care, he can't do it or he made me so I can't be convinced. So like, not my problem either way in all three of those categories. Let's move forward with our lives. A blue tick wouldn't do it. No, and it only costs eight bucks a month apparently. In fact, I think I think he almost actually took that program away. You know, not for free. So like, come on guys, what's going on? Just make a Twitter account. Dred, do you have anything else to add on that question or the idea of atheism is not something that should be pursued? No, not really. I mean, I agree completely with John. You know, yeah, there's really not much to say about it. I think there's a silly question actually. Okay, we got five minutes left in the show. How and we had more comments but you know what it's always good that we keep it easy on Larry's part because I don't want to do extra editing. So how about we just do a roundtable things we'd like to plug. For me, you can check out. Oh, go ahead, Larry. Oh, we're just gonna say it's not so much for the, I'm sorry, the extra editing is that I hate to cut anything. There's just so much quality content. What do I cut? Alright, so you won't cut anything because we're going to end a little early today or we're ending exactly on time. And so I would say if you like this topic that we're having this open discussion, feel free to check out atheism on our slash atheism and look for the topic all babies are born atheists where this conversation is ongoing as we speak. And for more my content, check it out on let's chat on YouTube. And feel free to check in and other shows will leave a comment will be happy to go over over next week show. In fact, I know we didn't do it in the last couple of episodes we will do it in the next episode so thank you so much for all your attention to time. Alright, where can we find your stuff that well I have a YouTube channel mind pirate. Of course YouTube has given us all handles now so all you have to do is check out YouTube at mind pirate, and you will find me there I live stream this particular video at 7am Pacific Standard Time, and I also when I'm available hop on for global atheism review at 11am Pacific Standard Time, where I joined john Richards and other guests and talking topics of religious nature. I just found out about this handle thing yeah I want to do yeah let's chat that's that's all my video that's awesome. Yeah. Okay, great. That are five or we'll wait for you john Richards. Tell me about the land of chaos. It's settling down. We, we've had a prime minister now who's lasted a whole three weeks. My, my stuff is on free thought channel on YouTube. And as dread said, one of the shows that we do is global atheist news review or I'm renaming it views on the news. It's a wonderful panel, including you tie and you dread of wise and witty people who give their opinions about the things that have happened over the previous seven days, as reported in global atheist news itself. And there's some hairy stuff this week to talk about the, the, the leaders of, I think it's Afghanistan have. Yeah, the Taliban have now specified that. They're now chopping off hands, and, and other forms of torture and execution are back. They've decided that they want to enforce Sharia law once more. So what you're going to say about that later on today. And there's, if you look at the clips of what's going on in Iran at the moment. There's so many women not wearing their hijab. There's a video of this guy who gives it gives a fist bump to them as they're walking down the street, they accept the fist bump and he turns his hand over, and there's a sweet, and then they take the sweet, and it's all happening. So, that was, that was the most pleasant way that story could have ended. I was expecting many, many terrible things. Something bad. I was like, no, oh, candy. That's great. I hope they got it. I hope they got a cookie. Yes. Or biscuit. Yeah, my content can be found at digital free thought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show archives, atheists songs and many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel handle is at doubter five. You can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon. And if you're having trouble recovering from religion there's help for you at recovering from religion.org. Check it out. I'm sure they have some way that will leave your problem some of your problems anyway, and there are a lot of problems from leaving religion. 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. We'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock here on WZO radio. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody.