 this computer. Okay. Five, four, three, two. Hello and welcome to the digital free thought radio hour on W O Zio radio 103.9 LP FM here right here right in Knoxville. And we're recording this on Sunday morning, February 27 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or doubter five. And as usual, we have our co-host one bed on the line with us. Hello one back. I keep telling you I need D batteries. D batteries. No, I don't have an accent. They do make them. And our guests today are George Brown, the two and a half. Welcome. We got the John Richards from across the pond in England. Welcome to the show. And we have slew from Ohio. Welcome slew. Digital free thought radio hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. Conversely, we also talked about religion, religious faiths, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non believer in your time while you're just not here in Knoxville, we have a group of over 1000 of us and we're in the Bible Belt. And we'll tell you more about our group up to mid show break. What's our topic for this week? How do you charge your spiritual battery? And I think all the weird mechanics and questions and raised eyebrows that come with that question that won't be a fun. We'll have a fun time going through the show with. But I guess before we get into it, you know, we spent a whole week surviving everything that's going on the last week. Let's see how we've been since then slew suffer. I don't know if you also want to change your name to what we were calling you last week, why you reintroduce yourself particularly with the name that you'd like to be using. And then tell me how your last week was slew is fine. Yeah, I just go slew for short. Everything's been okay here, I guess. It's not bad. It's not bad. Did you get never go by slew foot? It's great. Heck, yeah. Okay, not bad. All right. Nice easy weekend. I hope you had some good. What is it? The new movies that are coming out? I hope you didn't get spoiled on any of them like that. I know you strike me as a person who tries to keep up. Or, you know, blacklisted on some of the new Marvel leaks that have been coming out. We don't want to pay attention to those. We won't discuss them on the show. Sounds good. John Richards, how you been? Fine, thank you. My hot news is that global atheist news yesterday got flagged for inappropriate content. No, you have to be over 18 to watch it. Oh, wow. And that's because I embedded a clip of Bill Mayer in which he used the F word. Oh, well, you could always, well, we can talk about how we can probably fix on the back end. But that's that's unfortunate. Though I would say this, we did have a really fun fundraiser, liability before the last time we spoke. Would you like to give me an update? Yeah, yeah, we did. I really enjoyed that it went on for three and a half hours. And Ty came along and joined me and many other guests from different parts of the world. Swedish Steve was on there. I had somebody from Brazil, Ferdinand from Brazil, and other places too. But and Ty gave us some of his music, because what we were doing was getting darker and darker, talking about the religious harm that were people had suffered. And then we would lighten the mood up with a piece of lifting music and time with some of the suppliers of that. So it was a great thing to do. And we we've raised something approaching $9,000. Nice. It wasn't just me. Very good. I did three and a half thousand. I did three and a half hours. Anything. And then it moved over to your friendly neighborhood atheist in the US and for another four hours. And then it went to Australia for another extra lap as well. So between us, we did quite well. And it was in aid of recovering from religion, which is a very good charity that helps people to get back to being themselves after the traumatic experience of being raised in and then having to escape from some weird religion. Wonderful. It was a really wonderful show. And thank you so much for having me on there. Well, I wonder, quick question, could I simulcast that broadcast that we were on on my channel, that way, from the audience a little bit? And then can people still donate? Yes, yes, and yes, to both of those certainly. Yeah, you can, you can. How do you want it? You can have it as a file that you can upload, or you can link it by the URL or take it from your YouTube account and then just also broadcast it in mine as well. And then also, yeah, recovering from religion, I would, I'm not telling you because we can't do call to action on radio, but hey, it's a recommendation. There's a link there and check it out. I highly recommend it. Also, you asked a question on there that I feel like I can revisit and probably answer a little better. We did some demonstrations of the music that I made. And then there was some live video or live music or musicians that were there, they were actually playing and singing at the same time too. I just think there's such a great variety of talent in the atheist community. And so like if these are things that really interest you, I highly recommend that you check out that broadcast just for the the aspect of so much talent and energy that goes into not just recovering from religion, but the humans that support it and the body of talent that's there as well. Larry, putting you on the spot. Suspenders two weeks in a row. What's going on? You're blowing my mind. Also, you're on mute. I'm getting to that age where I get more parachaped and it's hard to keep my pants up. There's no excuse for that. Well, when your knees are bad and your hips are bad, you know, you can't really do the proper exercise you need to do. I turned 72 in May. That's still a spring chicken. You can still run for president next year. Well, compared to George Brown, I'm a spring chicken. Yep. Okay, not bad. Not bad. You'd make a great Southern lawyer too. Yeah, I can see this. Well, sure. There you go. How you been since last week? Have you been doing more video gaming? Oh yeah. And I do it on the Quest 2. I've been playing. Oh, what is that? Skyrim. Nice. Open, open world. Just get on your little horse and ride around and fight the bad guys and it's a lot of fun. I'm a mage this time, so I don't have to do any swinging of swords and stuff, which is kind of rough. It's not bad. I have about 600 hours in Skyrim. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. You can think hours into it. I've already played it before in 2D. This is my first time in 3D. Nice. Nice. Slu just going to ask a quick question. You look like a Skyrim guy. Have you ever played that game? I haven't. I don't know much about it really, but you would love it. You would love it. It has the best demonic gods. It has they have a whole suite of daedric path young gods and you can pick your favorite of like the worst people ever. It's great. It could actually become a vampire, too. You go a vampire, a werewolf, and like a bear wolf, which is also another one of the things that they come to. It's great. It's really wonderful. George Brown, second and a half. Just checking in on you. How you been since last week, my friend? Oh, you're on mute. All right. You're on mute, George. Can't hear you. Okay. Here I am, guys. Well, in the United States, if I were a vampire, where would I go to get my blood? Would I have to go to blood or us or someplace like that? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Sell it all these. I mean, you know, if you, so how you been? I don't have anything very unusual to report. Okay. Well, I've been just ordinary. I've been ordinary. Not there is not bad considering the health problems that you went through. Yeah, I mean, considering that I'm back at ordinary again. But but but being an atheist in the Bible Belt in a little town in the Bible Belt, this, you know, it's really a challenge. And and that that leads me to wonder, how do I recharge my batteries as an atheist? Or as a vampire, right? Or as a vampire in the Bible Belt. I appreciate the transition. So, you know, guys, I was looking to try to buy some batteries. I'm surrounded by rechargeable batteries on my desk. I got the non rechargeables. I got C cell batteries that I've been trying to get. And I reminded me of a conversation that I had with a deeply held believers way back when like about a year ago, oh, look, we've got more batteries all over the place where there was a concern. Like, we would have a conversation at a park about why they believe things and what got them to that belief. They'd realized my beliefs aren't very rational. However, I'm worried about completely abandoning them because then what would charge my spiritual battery? Because I have this need to feel a spiritual connection, but I don't know what could fulfill that if I were to leave my religion. And from talking to you as an atheist, I don't see if there's a way that I can have that same fulfillment that I so desperately need. Essentially, they're saying like, hey, I have a God hole, like society in my upbringing has made a God hole in me. And I'm not seeing how atheists are filling that out. And I was concerned to hear that because, one, I don't see that as a God hole. I sort of see that as a hole that was punched by religion into a non- spiritual region and then claim to be, hey, by the way, I just made a hole. Let me tell you what can fill that. It's sort of like when a mafia comes into a restaurant and they break a dish or they set a fire and they're like, wouldn't be a shame if that happened to every one of your stores. It's that whole, you know, a situation. So what I would like to get is a feedback on how everyone fills their spiritual battery or how they recharge themselves spiritually, because I can guarantee you atheists have a way of doing it in my head. It's healthier, more sustainable, and actually better for society. So let's see. I'm going to pick my poison. Larry, please tell me, how do you recharge your spiritual battery? Well, you know, the word recreation comes from re-creating yourself, re-creation, and that's good enough for most people. You take a bike ride, you go to a movie, you play a game with your friends and play cards, whatever you want to. It's a winding down re-creation of your spirit without, and when I say spirit, I mean your emotional foundation, your outlook. Christopher Hitchens once said, you can't, there's nothing you get from religion that you can't get from regular society, and what he meant was anything beneficial. There are a lot of things you can get from it that you don't want to get from regular society, like guilt and sin, things like that. But that's my take on it. Just do what makes you feel better, make sure you re-create yourself, get more in kilter with society and yourself. Yeah, I really, really dig that, and I also thought another thing too, like help things that you can do to make your body better. Like they always say in religion to treat your body like a temple. Well, you know, loving yourself could mean going to KFC every day for some people, but I find that, and KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken for our British listeners out there. Oh, you got them too, you got them too. Do you guys even know where Kentucky is? That's so bizarre for me. All right, all right. That's where the arc is. It's not a million miles from Tennessee. No, it's not. That's right, that's right. Next door. So, yeah, then yeah, basically my head, loving yourself means taking good care of your body and getting, doing what you can to like improve yourself physically to reduce your health concerns, reduce your health risks, and try to be the best version physically of your body you possibly can be. Like working towards that is very, very good. John Richards, you, we've had some controversial talks from you. It sounds like you don't even understand the concept of a spiritual battery. What do you mean by this? Well, I have great difficulty with the word spiritual. I mean, what does it, what does it mean? You can use it in four or five different ways. And okay, I accept that you can be spirited, which, you know, a horse might be spirited if it's full of energy, but I don't understand that this, it's an imaginary hole for me. I think you were right when you suggested that it's like a protection racket tie, because what's happened here is people have created this imaginary need for spiritual fulfillment, whatever that is, in order to be able to provide their imaginary filling in a cure for it. They made an imaginary pie, and they're selling you imaginary filling for the pie. Yes, yes, yes. Well, the other, one of the other reasons that I don't like it is because the word spiritual is sometimes taken as something that ex-religious people sort of step down to, you know, they leave their faith, but they still have a spiritual belief. They still think there's something, it may not be Christ or Mohammed, but they think there's something, so they still retain their spiritualness. And I think that's a sort of a halfway stage to atheism, which is really redundant. There's no step there, it should be a slide. Larry throwing in. Yeah, and most eastern religions are spiritual, as it were. They're not monolistic or polytheistic. They believe in the spirits of their selves and their whole four parents, four fathers, ancient ones. They consider themselves very spiritual, when it comes to Yen and Yang and all that, but they're atheistic basically because they don't believe in gods. Yeah, yeah. So if their spirits are all dead, there's no chance of recharging them really, is there? Well, I mean, God is the living spirit. I know, I know, I totally go what you're saying, John. I'm just saying there's some Christians back there that's like, well, I have the opposite thing of saying, I don't understand. When you work by magic, any rule can be the exception. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. Slu, I'd be actually interested in hearing what you're saying about this. Do you understand the term spiritual? Have you ever heard of that before? Well, yeah, growing up in Christianity and everything, I've heard it quite a bit, and I agree with John with all of that. I think I understand what you're, what the question is, though, and what we're discussing here with all of that, and I would say that it ties into Satanism for me quite nicely with the, when I tend to say Hail Satan or something of that matter, or even show like the devil warns or something like that, it's it's more of a thing of hailing yourself, of taking care of yourself and everything. So I see that as my kind of, I guess, whatever you want to call that spiritual battery, or recharging it or whatever, that it's taking care of myself, putting myself first, and that sounds selfish to a lot of people, but that isn't, that's been made that way by Christianity, a good bit, and if you aren't putting yourself first in that way and focusing on your mental health and physical health and what you need, then you aren't really able to be there for the people that you need to be there for in your life. So I think that's very important to focus on yourself and do those things, interacting with people, this being here talking to you guys is a way of doing that even, you know? I agree, yeah. I'll throw this out too, selfishness gets a really bad rap, but if you really think about selfishness in the terms of the greater good, in the sense of by taking care of myself and prioritizing my needs and addressing them, I put less of a burden on society, right? Like I'm now focused on making sure that I am putting the less amount of burden on society taking care of me because I'm taking care of myself and if everyone was able to do that functionally, we would all have a greater experience as a community because we all have this accountability to ourselves first, which, you know, immediately trickles down to a more sustainable economy. Does not mean taking food from other people because you wouldn't want that to be taken from you, it just means making sure that you can take care of yourself. And there's no spirituality in that at all, is there? No, there isn't. It's reality that you're talking about. Right. Yeah, it takes a spirit out of spirituality, right? So it's interesting to note that the Holy Spirit used to be known as the Holy Ghost until they decided that was to sort of zombie-like. I believe even the term spirit to begin with was just what, like breath of life or something to that So it wasn't even meant in the sense of, I mean, then there wasn't even in Judaism anyways, there wasn't the idea of an afterlife or anything of that nature, so it wasn't really meant in that way. It's been kind of manipulated throughout the years and everything to describe things that just the people using the terms don't even understand themselves what they're talking about usually. Yeah, I'm going to also combine a little bit of what you're saying with what everyone else is saying. Like the idea of selfishness, meaning taking care of yourself, there's a mental health aspect to that as well. And I find we get a lot of that by being social creatures, by being part of a community to an extent and particularly a helpful community like John Richards, Recovery from Religion, and the idea of people coming in together to support a good cause, but also just hanging out with friends like what Larry says and maybe playing some games. Or as you mentioned, finding like not a quote-unquote religious group in the bad word bag is sort of way, but sort of like a group of people who can come together and do some positive good for a community or for themselves or have a general favorable view of good mental health and work added together. What's absolute? I'd like to also say like whenever I'm to give an example of those things pertaining to mental health and everything, I would say like behavioral issues and things that you might develop throughout even from religion or from your childhood or whatever, working through those things to where you're because those could affect the people around you and you might not even realize how much that's affecting the people around you. So the thing of to where you could be taking things very personally at times that aren't meant to be taken that way. You could be doing different, taking things in differently because you haven't realized that that's what you're doing, that these are things that are being triggered by past experiences and things that you grew up with or things you were subjected to or what have you. Right. I also, one of my things that I love when just from hanging out with other people, particularly different points of view people is that it makes my, the things that irk me seem so much smaller because I'm now realizing that there's just so many other perspectives that the way how I see things that I'm assuming other people see at the same way isn't the same way and it just adds so much nuance to the flavor of different kinds of people that makes it more of a rewarding result to not have to think about everybody thinking about the way how I think about things. If that makes any sense, let me put it this way. It's good to realize that people are different and and it could be shocking to realize how many different people are there and when you realize that everyone's different and you can't necessarily put your finger and marginalize or generalize every single group of people, it just makes you feel good because now you realize it is still worth getting to know people regardless of whatever early rules they're using and that just helps me. I still my spiritual battery but also just make me a better human being and I feel like that's my recourse for charging. John Richards, what's that? Well, you're talking about what's been happening recently is we've all been moving towards the glorifying of individuality and this has been led by the woke movement and cancel culture and so on where everybody has a right to prevent people saying something that they disagree with and so you're right, Ty, in that we need community. We want to forget how important we think we are, that's egoism and we want to join with groups of people and Slough was right when he talked about behavior because that's sort of bordering on morality, how you behave and in a lot of conversations I'm told that behavior comes from a God, well no he doesn't, I'm a human, I behave humanely. Hopefully, hopefully that's the assumption, right? That's what a lot of inhumane humans but I get it, I get it. George Brown, I love to understand how you refill your spiritual battery and what does that mean to you? Well, the word spiritual almost has no meaning to me because for one thing, having lived in California for 40 years, Northern California, that word seems to mean different things to different people and some of it seems pretty wacko to me having, sometimes what I find is people who are into what they call spirituality come to me for scientific validation of their misuse of science and I have a real hard time with that so I'm talking about my own personal experience with people who call themselves spiritual and I have no idea what they really mean by that but you know, it's like when one of these people talks to me about a higher vibration that's when the bats come out of the woodwork because that's a phrase that has absolutely no meaning whatsoever vibrations aren't higher or lower well they are in the sense of musical pitches I suppose Right, but it's not what they're referring to it's not a scientific it's all pseudoscience in a sense right? That's right, they're not and so but how do I recharge my batteries well believe it or not sometimes what I do is I listen to really good religious music because it's wonderful music and you know I'm talking about Bach in particular of course his cantatas in particular and it's wonderful I think if I were in Southern Germany at the time when he was writing I would have been a very religious person because of that music and the way that the music underscores the word so perfectly but so that's one way that I can do it ironically being an atheist but commiserating with the people who fear God and look to heaven as a release from the torment of living on earth It's no different than enjoying good science fiction because you can accept it for what it is you don't accept it as the literal transcendence God inspiring a man to write music you just see it's like oh that's good music that I also get fulfilled by this and there's value Yeah and I get fulfilled by the visualizations that the words conjure up in my mind and the empathy I have for the people who are listening to it and really believing it I mean it's all beautiful stuff and so coming from a Jewish background when I hit these few words that are anti-Semitic it's like all these things these alarm bells go off in my mind and everything goes tilt I don't know how to relate to that I mean there's a lot of other ways that I recharge myself where I try like I can meet with Up it is I That's good John Richard Well thinking of what George has been saying about the spiritual movement in northern California it's made me speculate whether instead of being shaped like this a spiritual battery might actually be a pyramid Don't get it It's a conversation stop So it is I mean if you stack enough cell batteries in top of each other you do get something that kind of looks like that that black obelisk sort of thing Oh they think they have there's this pyramidal thing isn't there crystals and stuff that they think of special properties Anyway I think we ought to put out a warning if you think your spiritual battery needs charging the thing not to try at home is sticking your fingers in the socket Right, right, right know that you got other chargers that are out there that are better than sticking your finger in a socket how about that as a closing sentiment Larry am I taking this out I think we had a great conversation on this point Sure This is the digital free thought radio hour on w o z o radio 103.9 lpf I'm here in Knoxville, Tennessee and we'll be right back after this short break Five, four, three, two Hello and welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour I'm doubting five and we're on w o z o radio here in Knoxville, Tennessee that's 1093 dang I can't talk we're on w o z o radio 103.9 lpf I'm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee let's talk all Wow Let's talk about the atheist society of Knoxville ASK was founded in 2002 we're in our 20th year ASK has over a thousand members and we have weekly in person meetings in Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in pizzeria downtown in Knoxville look for us inside at the high top tables usually the loudest and happiest group we also have a Tuesday evening zoom ask meetup if you'd like to join us on the zoom meeting email us at askanatheistatnoxvilleatheist.org or let's chat s e at gmail.com you can find ASK online at facebook meetup.com or Knoxvilleatheist.org or just google Knoxville atheists it's just that simple by the way 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 well Matt where do you want to pick up we're going to go over some listener feedback from last week's episode last week we were talking about is church just adult daycare and we had some really fun topics slu joined us for the first time as a satanist we have some comments obviously because a lot of people are interested about talking about satanism on the show we've had satanism in the show in the past and it's inspired a lot of good conversation slu I'll direct this to you we have a listener comment who would prefer to stay anonymous who says I want to comment about the satanic temple thing I understand what they mean that it is a form of rebellion yet it does not make sense a theist is someone who believes in gods or gods an atheist is someone who denies or doesn't believe in the existence of god or gods thus it would be logical that a satanist would be someone who believes in satan by linguistic analogy a satanist would be someone who denies or doesn't believe in the existence of satan both a church and a temple are places of worship thus it is completely illogical and confusing when a member of the satanic church or a satanic temple claims that they don't believe in satan and they don't worship satan and at the same time invoke hail satan who are they fooling slu comment well I had mentioned earlier about what the hail satan thing actually is in reference to and it's actually you know it's all symbolic and it's in its standing of rebellion against authority or of god and all of that but yeah to say that you okay do pastafarians believe in a pasta god do hindu like there's a lot of religions out there that aren't believing in an actual god buddhism I believe that's more of a personal thing where they're referring to buddhas themselves and things of that nature it gets done a lot but it seems to be critiqued more with satanism by atheists and by by theists alike I'll throw some some I guess you could say support on this as well like my in my press in my opinion uh I'm aware that there are two different branches of satanism the one where it's like I literally believe in satan and the other one where it's like it's more of a commentary on the idea of using these characters from the same book and seeing what sort of problems as a society comes about when you simply pick the other cast of characters as the figures to follow and what could be the harm associated with it compared to people picking a different cast and like what sort of like double standard do we offer to people when we say we respect Christianity it's like well they're it's they're using the same book it's like but they don't get the rights that we should get it's like well why we have a government that that has divided us in such a way you know exactly and those I believe they're Luciferians are the ones that are actually theists in that sense right and so like I when someone says they're a satanist in my head it could just as easily mean that they are atheists but also have taken a very creative approach to highlighting some societal imbalances particularly institutionalized favoritism for very specific excuse of Christianity and I find that to be you know applaudable it's something I you know deeply respect right Larry what do you think it's not like you're nodding your head or look like you're nodding your head well yeah I you know I hear about satanists all the time as an atheist I know a few but um I I always assume that they're atheists I really don't have much to do with the other ones the one you were talking about uh Luciferians right yeah those people I would have a lot of questions for is is it yeah but I do too George Brown look like you're raising your hand what's up yeah in my life I would and from what you just said slew I have to say I agree with the call with the listener I think that satanists have a hell of an image problem right here because they're all over the map that there's there's no cohesion and what I hear about what a satanist is I mean from what I see in the media which is what other people are saying about you guys from their perspective is is that because you haven't defined yourselves they're doing the definition for you and the definition that I get from them is that you are anti-religion you are devil worshippers I mean the same and sinners for that reason and people to be hated on for that reason so I think you guys have to get your image together and get it out there slew what do you think I would say that that atheists have had the same things said about them forever and our raw just joined the TST group recently and it's spoken out at satan con about a lot of these things it's con there's a satan con so yeah they just started this year but we there is information out there it would be as simple as somebody going to the satanic temples website and checking the tenants out and things and what it's actually standing for but people don't want to to bother to do that a lot of time so so what you guys are going through isn't very any any very much different than what the black community has been going through where you where people look for white people to define what black culture is and what's important to them and it's a struggle for you know black people to claim no we don't care about that it's this stuff that like we would really like the highlight and we would like to share and brought in grints across other communities you know like feel free to take these things and these things aren't the stuff that we care about that's an ongoing conversation and small scope as an idea is like how do you call what do you call black people a lot of people are still calling us African American in 2020 it's just like Charlize Theron is an African American we're black please call us please call us black for crying out loud we're not substandard Americans we're just black and American there's a different thing but also I would say you know when we look for like even the opinions of how we should think about women a lot of people will go towards like men's perspectives on women and what men think they should give ribbon rather than listening to what women are saying as well so it's not uncommon for us to go to the wrong group to hear about marginalized communities it's something that we have a really bad habit of doing and it's because those larger established groups have a bigger mouthpiece or or better PR or better marketing but we need to be willing to get information directly from in my opinion the the actual source I felt I feel like just a common threat of human information gathering so listen I have one more thing I'd like to pick about this comment an atheist is someone who denies or doesn't believe in the existence of gods or gods a lack of belief is what essentially in my opinion is an atheist I don't have to deny that a god exists it's just I don't have to have the active beliefs or I could just lack that belief and someone who denies that a god exists in my book is an atheist that's an that's a Gnostic that's someone who's making a knowledge claim and they might be an atheist and they could be in in some cases atheists who are claiming that this god doesn't exist but my god does exist that's just in my head a problematic circumstance and not atheism atheism is just a lack of belief what's a what do you think this is something I waver between and that's whether I'm Gnostic or agnostic with atheism because of anything else that we don't have evidence of we just disregard and it's not a thing of you know any real you know question about that and in science and everything it's not it's not that way it's not the the thing of oh well you're you're Gnostic or agnostic when it comes to you're to believing in you know gravity or or in you know all of these different things it's not Larry and Larry's on mute so Larry you're on mute my friend feel free to take yourself off mute I'm sorry let's see feel free to click okay so well I don't know how I got muted I have a button on my microphone that's supposed to work for that but I also got muted some other way anyway you're using the word agnostic and Gnostic in the same sense that you're using belief and agnostic doesn't address belief it addresses knowledge or claimed knowledge right yeah like it's a very it's a very easy punnett square in a sense where it's just like if you if you claim knowledge you're a Gnostic if you don't know you're agnostic or claim that you you know but also we could say that about any scientific thing we could say that we don't know 100 percent that these things are true but to the degree that we know these things are true it's it's a high degree right but you were using Gnostic with belief not Gnostic with knowledge that's what that's the point I was trying to make right and slew there's some unfortunate feedback on your end I'm not sure if we can fix that before you get back in but John would you like to make a comment before we move on I think we're skating we're skating on two potential topics that are worthy of a whole show themselves like like Satan and what what knowledge actually is and whether we can have absolute knowledge and which I don't think we can but anyway and if we go back to Satan didn't there's not much evidence of Satan before Christianity is there I mean the Jews had a bit of a no I don't know I'm pretty ignorant about Satan which is why I've got slew lined up to come on my show in the near future because he's going to educate me on it hopefully but last Monday I went to Stonehenge and although various groups worship their specific times of year I don't think any of them are Satanists so then of course just down the road there was a pub that was named after I think a famous what I don't know 16th century author who majored in the idea of the devil and I can't remember what his name was now but it seems it seems quite a bit fur who Miss Lucy Fur I like the pun though but it seems to have grown it's it started out very didn't make much impact on humanity but the idea of Satan has grown in profile and come big quite personally you know recently in like the the grand scheme of humanity absolutely although I think it only came with the advent of Christianity like if no one cared about Christianity and that never caught on we would not be discussing Satanism because even in the Old Testament not as much of a figure it's only like in the New Testament is he like this active components that's like talking with Jesus and hanging out and like being like you should do this for me though and that they only became big when this book was written about 500 years ago and I can't remember the name of the author now and and and it it it was a popular trope from then on so I do want to talk about knowledge real quick just before we get into the next part knowledge in a scientific sense is what you can demonstrate to be the case if you can't demonstrate it you can't have a you're not justified in claiming knowledge and we have very easy examples of this if I said I know French but I can't pass a French test right it's a very poor demonstration that I have knowledge on the idea but I might pass a French test with a 95% I may not have absolute idea of all of French and how to speak it but I can demonstrate knowledge to varying extents and to that we would claim some knowledge to there and that's totally fine so what I'm looking for when someone claims knowledge is not an absolute idea it's more of just can you demonstrate to a reasonable degree the extraordinary claim that you've made and justify it with some reasonable evidence that meets the extraordinary claim that you made to an extent that would be enough to satisfy and unfortunately no one's ever done that for either Satan or God and that's why I don't claim to know that they exist because no one's ever made a compelling case for me and that would make me an agnostic period just because I don't claim it and whether or not I choose to believe after the fact would make me an atheist or a theist and there are very separate things all right next comment thank you so much for the comment Mr. Person who wants to say anonymous next comment is oh no it's another bad one this one is nah guys you're still getting it wrong if the Christian God were actually what Christian all right I'm sorry let me start again nah guys you're getting it all wrong if the Christian God were actually what Christians claim he is it would be no doubt and everybody in the whole universe would worship him by default so this is a comment from last week's episode where we're talking about if people knew that God exists would that necessarily mean that people begin to worship that God or just know that that God exists and my idea is that the devil in the bible knows that God exists knows it absolutely has been to hell even in the book of Job has hung out with God has talked to Jesus face to face he knows that Jesus and God exists yet doesn't worship God and so in my opinion that is if anything a demonstration that knowledge that a God exists is not proof that you will worship that God likewise if I knew that the Christian God exists I wouldn't worship that God because that God seems to be a jerk to me and I'll take whatever repercussions come from yet I would know that that God exists and so I feel like worship someone looks like knowledge and belief is its own separate switch that you flick John Richards do you agree? Pretty much yeah there's sort of two sides to worship isn't there there's extreme admiration you know like I worship Eric Clapton for example he's a good player I'll give it to you I'll give it to you I'll give it to you exactly but then there is the change of the world yeah then there is the worship out of fear isn't there and and that's when you decide that the best the best course of action will be to subserviate yourself in front of this terrifying monster right and and I don't want that one you know if if there's a God I want him to be Eric Clapton not a terrifying monster and the thing is Eric Clapton is not telling you to worship him too right like in my head anything that claims you must worship me is not deserving of worship and like absolutely Larry what do you think do you think that's fair well yes I think that's fair but I also would go in one step farther is I don't believe in the concept of worship I don't think it's a good thing I mean I believe that some people do worship obviously so the concept is there so I'm just spoke but I mean I don't think it's a good benevolent thing to do that I'm worshiping it's just I'm at a loss of words it's it's acknowledging an imbalance of power right well no you could do that with a bully at school and not worship him you know it's putting all your praise and energy and to praising someone or you know supporting them to the exclusion of everything else right divorcing your family to support him that type of thing Larry I'll throw this I just don't believe it in it you have a beautiful daughter you you probably love her more than like anything else in the world but you would never expect her to worship you in a sense right exactly or especially demand it right the things that we love the most we don't expect worship back because I don't see that as a healthy thing to not healthy that's a good point it's not healthy George what's up you have a lot of comments go for it well I have to get back to a horse that I like to flog which which is all this drama about the devil if it is God omnipotent or is he not omnipotent I mean what's going on here if God is can overpower everything and anything why is he putting up with all this stuff from the devil why does he just smite the devil and be done with it because he made the death have no drama it's the the small disclaimer that's in most Bibles is by the way God also made the bad stuff too according to the Bible he did he said it himself yeah it's just like oh wait who mates in oh it's that guy geez why are we blaming this guy for bad things when it was this guy who made the things knowing for a fact that he would make the thing it's like slew let's see how's your audio quality back and is there excuses in your mind to ever worship something um no I don't I don't see it as is uh being anything necessary and like Larry was saying as well like I have a daughter I wouldn't expect her to worship me I if anything question me hold me accountable right that's the thing right you aren't holding some you aren't holding that thing accountable anymore whenever you're worshiping it right um so that no that's nonsense and I've like to throw in my own hypothetical with this that I've thought about on my own was what if we got to the point where technology was God to where it was all knowing all seeing all you know all being on the present everything else and we got to the point where well atheists would would have to admit that that's you know all seeing it fits the criteria for that if we're going to call that a God and it fits that criteria and the Christians would have to admit that it isn't their God anymore because let me let me put it this way we can we know that we made it don't know the thing about it is you can you can you can still believe in God like I say if I if I were washed up on a a desert island and found a tribe of people who had a totem pole in the middle of their village and they said it was their God and they worshiped it and I'd say well then I'm not an agnostic I'm not an atheist because there it is you know I'm not an agnostic an atheist toward their particular God now if they then wanted to say that their totem pole controlled the weather controlled which babies were born or not et cetera et cetera well then I would be an atheist to that iteration or that definition of their God so you can't just say there are no gods because obviously there's you know there are items such a nuanced thing but I totally agree but you have to come to me with a with a definition of your God and then justify it and let me decide whether I believe it or not so the whole idea is and I agree with Larry it's a very nuanced point but it's like the sun worshipers of the world there are people who worship the sun and they say the sun gives life to earth it's like I agree and my only issue is I wouldn't call that a God but I'd call it some but if you want to call that a God and you want to say it's sustaining life on earth it's like I agree on both those points I'm not denying that the sun doesn't exist and I'm not disbelieving that it doesn't do those things my issue is is it necessary and succinct for you to call that a God because I'm probably even without that label getting back to the AI or a technical God okay you could say it's a God because it's all knowing and all wise as it were but it wouldn't put the bill for the creator God because we created it you know it came after the universe and us so you know you have to be more specific on your definition yeah if anything God is sort of like this useless term that we can apply to things whether they're real or not real that are obviously most of the cases most cases not necessary and sufficient to use like a lot of people can point out the salt shaker and say that's the creator of the universe it's like you don't need that label it's like we'll add salt to things like yeah it's a salt shaker let's just call it that just leave it there hey we got salt shakers we got batteries everyone's got messy desks that makes me feel great let's see so yeah great comments from last week's show thank you so much everybody looking forward to this week's as well we have one last question before we wrap up today's show and it's whether or not God created atheists and so how about this we'll just do a quick round table I see George smiling already George Brown as he gets his stuff together we'll do a quick round table did God create atheists? I don't want to spoil the fun here George Brown what do you think did God create atheists? let's let's do a quick round table before we're done I have no idea works for me John Richards did God create atheists what if there is a God he created everything so yes oh interesting interesting so it's not your fault but he started that with him I love it also Slu I thought I think you made the best comment of the whole show it's like the idea of loving myself is not an act question of whether I worship myself or anything else it's more am I hold am I questioning it and am I holding it accountable because that's truly how a critical mind would love something right and I love that I love that put on a t-shirt Slu did God create atheists? I mean we'd have to define a God first and then you know we've already went over that how are we going to do that right right right it's so it's one of those fun questions that just have so many unanswered variables in it right but hey it's a fun way to leave off the show Larry did God create atheists and also I don't know what atheism is it even about why you explain that to me no I believe that believers created non-believers because you have to have a kind of an opposite point to take to be to hold that position and about atheism I do have a book it's called Atheism What's It All About it's available on Amazon my YouTube channel can be found by searching for doubter five or Larry Rhodes my main place on the internet that I keep my content is digitalfreethought.com be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show archives atheists songs and many articles on the subject of atheism if you have any questions for the show you can send them to us at askanatheist at noxvilleatheist.org or let's chat se at gmail.com and we'll answer them in future shows if you're having trouble leaving religious police behind you can get help at recoveringfromreligion.org thank you for joining us on the digital freethought radio hour remember you can find this on apple tunes pocketcasts amazons and podcasts everywhere just search for digital freethought radio hour if you're watching this on youtube be sure to like and subscribe remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real until then don't sweat it enjoy your life and we'll see you next week say bye everybody bye everybody check out freethought productions too last week cool you're welcome all right see everybody