 report on this computer. Hello and welcome to the digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, July 24th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Every day, every week, every hour here I am on the Wombat. Nice to meet you guys. Every hour. Wow. And our guests today are Dreadpire Jigs. Welcome. How are you? And from Texas, Skye, welcome. Good morning. The Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books, and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town while you're just not in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over a thousand of us. We'll tell you more about that after mid-show break. Time with our topic for today. We're talking about two things. We're talking about devils in the details and also a little thing called Jesus measurement units, which we're going to get into as well. You know, that's what I like to consider the main course. How about we start with a little bit of carbs to start our morning and we'll throw it up to Rowan Dreadpire Higgs for a weekly invocation. Oh, monster, grant me the serenity to know the things I cannot change the strength to know the things I can and the noodle to tell the difference. That's one of my favorite ones. We don't hear that one very often, but I think. Give me the ability. So, you know, I grew up on a show called Conan the Barbarian, or it was really a movie. And it was a comic book before it was a movie. And the cool thing about the comic is the guy was so metal in the sense that there was a there was a there's a story where he went to go try to fight this big monster boss before that he went to like this creature that would grant him any wish, right. And when he was able to get the wish, the only thing he asked for before he was about to go through his epic battle was I just want to fighting chance. Don't make me any stronger. Don't give me a weapon. Just give me a fighting chance and I'll take care of it from there and I'm like that is so respectful in the same way. We got to use your noodle. You got to have a fighting chance against the waves of ignorance that are coming at you. So don't forget you got a cool thing up here and you have all the capability to improve it. Before we go on our topic, say let's do a round table. How's everybody doing today, dread looking sharp looking clean. How you been pretty good pretty good. I performed two weddings yesterday. Oh, congratulations. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Oh, what's that day. That's a two in one day. Wow. Yeah, yeah. So is he counting the groom and the bride because every wedding. Yeah, I have one in the morning, which was really just to cover off on the legal aspect of it. And then the second one was in the afternoon, out at a riverbank. It was a full out hand fasting ceremony. Hand fasting. What does that mean? They, they, you know, they asked me to wear my holy tricorn and my pirate attire and that was it was great. It was a really good, really good ceremony. I really enjoyed it. Is the second one always easier than the first one is the first one you just like warm up you trying out the new material and then the second one you're like okay I know what swings I know what bangs let's go. Well, see as a marriage commissioner I have a standard script that I would generally read from. So it's up to up to the celebrants like the, the couple to determine what they want to do, because there are. There's four statements that are required under law. And that is to to have them declare that there's no lawful impediment why they should not be married. And then the second statement is to ask those present to witness that they're making a declaration to enter wedlock. That's interesting. Yeah, in in us Larry you can maybe educate me as far as I'm aware you can do whatever you want on a wedding say whatever you want. It's pretty much certificate that makes it legal. The wedding is just a party. Is that not like that in Canada. No. Interesting. Oh, wow. So you could actually just marry people without them realizing being like hey this guy saying you guys being married and there's no reason for you not to be married. I know the license, the license ties in with the declarations and that's okay and those two things together is what makes it what makes it legal. I'm going to ask one last question is there. I can't marry people in their sleep. Is there a marriage commissioner license that exists. Yes. I have an appointment from yep, I do and actually I'm wearing my tricorn in it. No, I, I'm appointed by the Ministry of vital statistics for a 10 year period to perform marriages. Larry. I'm going to say the first marriage that I had, I had checked their IDs and married them right there at a table and Barley staffer and Pete's area. You marry people. Nice. Yeah, I'm a celebrant for the rationalist of East Tennessee. And I was also been ordained by the church was spiritual. Something universal life church. I'm, I'm more game with them as well. Yeah. Yeah, although they're not recognized in Canada officially. I'm still a little baffled I thought. So the only thing in us that matters is the certificate right that legal certificate right. You've got to have the ID to verify who they are, and you've got to get that and get their consent and usually that's done during the proceedings. As long as you got a license and they're both signed off on it. That's, that's pretty much it. You got to file it though. If you never file it. You got to file it after the wedding. If you don't file it, then it's kind of questionable whether you have a valid marriage or not. So most people file. Good. I feel like only these rules exist because it was just one crazy commissioner out there who was like and you're married and now you're married and he's just driving a bus is like you. Shift captain. Yeah, there you go. Okay, Larry, catching up with you. How you been looking good in those suspenders. Oh, thanks. Yeah, it's a fashion statement. No. They're very useful. Give us a snap before you before you go into. We need to get you one red strap one green strap. Yeah, I don't know about that. What the captain can't wear. Oh, jeez. That's the red green show. It's a Canadian show. Yeah, I grew up on a red green dread. I won't leave you out there. I respect that show. They don't find you handsome. They might as well find you handy. Let's go. Let's go. Anyway, Larry, how you been, how you been. Oh, fine. Not riding my motorcycle. It's just too hot. Other than that, just playing around my quest to and working. Nice. I'm really enjoying my quest to. Take on the ice. What else can I tell you? Yeah, yeah. Cool. It's Joe sky looking good looking like a fashion statements ready to happen. How you been. I've been good. I've been really busy. I've been trying to work, do an article a day so I can get ahead on my blog. Nice. Nice. Very cool. I got a crazy flat tire that happened to me two days ago, and I'm so happy it happened to me because I was wanting to change my tires anyway. And I was looking for every excuse not to go and change my tires. So when I finally got the flat tire, I was like, Oh, well, if I went and immediately got my tire change and then this happened, I would been very upset. But the fact that like happened when my car was already in a dilapidated state of four wheels, I was just like fantastic. Now I can clean the bowl. It's officially time. Yes, it was it was a it was a sign of God to be like, Hey, you change your cars and be like, No, not yet. I will be the commander of my own fate and I found it. I finally found the time that worked out well. Oh, really good tire swap swap and switch. The whole premise was, you know, we have these things in our phones, or actually our phones are tied to the database of all human knowledge and stuff like that. So if there's anything you don't know, just Google it there on the spot, you'll find YouTube videos on how to do everything. But thankfully, I already know how to change my tires. But if I but the first time I did it, I didn't know how to do it and I had my phone on me. And so what I like is that it's a very detailed process and much things are covered in very fine detail. And I love details because I'm a science. I'm a detailed kind of guy. And the strangest thing that I'm realizing is this phrase that I've heard often is that the devil is in the details. And I asked myself, why is that the case? And so there I am with a flat tire. I'm in the middle of the town that I've not been to I don't have any way to walk anywhere. And I could pray to get the problem solved. I could be like, God, just fix this problem for me. Or I can go to my trunk, my car, pull out my, you know, my, you know, efficient car jack, get out my spare tire, get out my torque wrench, and then, you know, properly remove all the bolts put on the temp inflate it back up again because I have my emergency inflator because I'm prepared for any sort of emergency that happens when I'm on the road because I've packed myself accordingly. And I go through all the steps and the sequence that need to be I put chocks in the front and the back of my car as I put my car up on a jack I have a jack stand, ready to support the weight of the car, I got all the details of that procedure down. It's been so helpful to me, and I didn't see the devil once, but I did realize that there was also a lack of God in that procedure as well. I didn't need to rely on God to help myself get my car tire fixed. And I think that's the concept behind the devil in the detail. There's a concept in religion or that atheists call religion called God of the gaps where it's, if there's something that you don't know, God exists there he's taking care of it. And the more you know, the smaller that gap gets, which means God of the gaps is getting smaller and smaller as our awareness of how the world works also gets smaller. And I think there's a point to be made that there's a fear of nuance from religious sectors, because nuance as we begin to understand it, or as we begin to better understand the mechanics of things will directly imply that there is no God that's in control of like say how cars get fixed, or why we get sick, or why our climate is changing, or how to better interact with people. Like, there's no God there it's just us. And it's not so much a deep devil aspect it's the fact that we can take care of ourselves we can provide the mechanics of our own success and our own failures. And it's up to us to be accountable for our actions. Larry I want to throw a question out at you. Do you think, do you think, do you think that there is in fact fear from Christianity or any other major religion about scientists trying to like figure out nuance things and what's the fight against intellectualism about from religious areas. If I can make the question even more straightforward like, why is it the fact why is there a concentrated effort seemingly from religious sectors to not make sure that we are capable of proper scientific modeling of the universe, so that we can figure out how to solve these problems that we've been facing like why what's the market. I think the main problem just comes from the fact that when science does come up with explanation a lot of times it doesn't line up with their scriptures. So, so you know they they take issue with it and say it's not right and it's wrong we go with our spirit and our feelings in our heart, you know, because it doesn't go along with perceived or mean the viewed reality that we, we experience. I think it's a challenge. It's a challenge. Dred, do you have comment go for it. Yeah, there's also the, this idea that they try to diminish scientific explanations through arguments like irreducible complexity. Yep, like, you know, look at the trees, look at an eyeball, you know how are these, these things are irreducibly complex and, and, you know, you can't have something that's an eyeball. Yeah, an eyeball is an eyeball and there's no precursor to it, because it wouldn't function as an eyeball and, of course, we know that's not true. It's just that's an argument from ignorance really right. It's an argument from ignorance it's one that really badly models the water and it's also one that I find to be dishonest, because there are scientific disingenuous right disingenuous. Yeah, disingenuous. Thank you. Thank you, because there are Christians who know biology, who are aware of what evolution is who understand that it's a very simple model that explains a lot of things but choose, you know, just through the environment or not to upset anyone to continue to create the, the idea that, oh okay well, you know, if I'm paid, or if my career or my social, you know, group depends on me saying these certain things I'm not going to go against it. I feel like that, that's both disingenuous and actually harmful. I feel like that's actually harmful. You know, just as an example, my, my daughter is quite, quite religious, and she's taking advantage of course now of the recent James Webb Space Telescope images to sort of promote the idea that again this irreducible complexity and look at the universe how could it be so complex and and not have an intelligent designer. So I've got other gaps, as you say, got other gaps argument, but then also an argument from ignorance and I don't even communicate with her anymore because, well, and this is actually her thing because she wrote me off as being too skeptical. And yeah, so anyway, she's content to believe in these, these ideas at the expense of her familial relationships that challenge those things. I want to make a point on this like the idea of being too skeptical. Is it actually maybe there's a devil in the detail. Do you think it is possible for anybody to be too skeptical. You know, in my sense, go for it, Dredd. What do you think? Well, I mean, it would depend on a person's definition of skeptical, right, because some, some people may just seem or may feel that you're just, you're just being a contrarian. And that's an important distinction between being skeptical of things that deserve skepticism and just be contrarian because if you're just being, if you're just trying to pick fights all the time. Well, yeah, you're not going to make any friends, but, you know, that's distinguished from skeptic healthy scientific skepticism I would say. Dr. Steve novella makes a good point of in skeptics guide to the universe. So change doesn't happen without a challenge. That's that's the mantra that I've been following for a while. And the cool thing about it is it applies to skepticism as well to the point where it gives skepticism a bad rap, because the skeptic and the layman term is someone who's always challenging things. Because they don't take anything at face value and they're always questioning and they're trying to figure out why, right? And it can seem sort of aggressive, but there's obviously different approaches towards asking questions that are both, you know, more passive or more polite or more less confrontational. But in the idea of, is it good to question everything? It absolutely is. And if I'm questioning everything, I can't imagine how I can be even more skeptical. It's just at that point now I have to learn how to format it in a way that, you know, doesn't make me as aggressive or off putting, but I'm still questioning people, even if I'm being polite about it, right? And that's an interesting time. There's a devil in that detail devil in the nuance of it. Joe sky, I'd like to get your opinion. Do you think that I'll throw this easier. Do you think Christianity has a problem with people trying to figure out stuff and why. Well, yes, most definitely. As to the why, I think if you keep the people ignorant that your religion is going to do better. Mm hmm. Yeah, well put. The more ignorant your followers, the more ardent they are in your in their support of you, we, we can almost pull that to any sort of, you know, relationship. And then that takes it back to last week's topic where we, you know, talking about ignorance being bliss, right? Right, right, you know, the blissful or our followers essentially of those who would keep them ignorant. And speaking of previous topics, we had this thing where knowledge is power. And we were talking about how in Catholic circles, there's this idea of a confessional, or like a person will give all their deepest secrets to somebody who's still a part of their social network, who's still talking to all these other people. It's like when you disclose that much price personal information to somebody, it's very hard to leave that congregation, right? You're not going to just like move to the next place because that guy now has collateral on you. And that's a person at the end of the day. So, you know, it's a really bad situation. And your whole family. Yeah, not a family. Larry, I think, I think we we've been hitting this on exactly the snail on the head in that it then when we find out things that often does not call fall in line with the dogmatic principles or teachings of any major problem when we figure out new stuff. And so as a result, it's considered as a challenge against that dogma. And so a lot of that dogma tries to fight ahead of time against the efforts, or even the interest to try to figure out the matters of the world, because that would only cause them to lose power if it was if the results are that it wasn't their God, or their principles or their narrative that was responsible for events in the world. And like, if that's the case, then we should ask skeptics only continue to promote people to try to figure that out and build our awareness on that on those key points. Speaking of awareness. In other part, I thought you had some interesting concepts going on. Well, you know, and it's funny, because of course I have brought this up, just ruminating brought it up about this idea of Jesus units, and in the idea of a Jesus unit being what was available in terms of scientific knowledge or awareness of the in 30 and 30 AD. And it was funny because I'm reading a book called from bacteria to Bach and back by Daniel Dennett. And, and I just a few days ago I got to page 113. And there he says this science fiction writer called Robert Anton Wilson. Oh yeah. I've never read anything of his, but he proposed the Jesus unit. And it was defined. So you're saying great minds think alike, or dummies barely differ I don't know. No, no, no, no. But anyway, he says defined as the amount of scientific information known during the lifetime of Jesus. And it was just, I mean I was just flabbergasted when I read it. And so, anyway, so I thought, yeah, what a crazy thing to have happened. You need to read the Illuminati trilogy dread. Yeah. Okay. Most classic in its field. Okay, cool. Yeah, I love good science fiction. So do you ever feel like sometimes you life is like stand of comedy where you'll tell a joke and people will be like that's someone else's joke and you be like, but it's it's so easy to just put together like I think about, you think about Leibniz and Newton coming up with calculus at the same time or yeah yeah yeah yeah or Wallace and Darwin coming up with evolution I mean it seems sometimes that things are, you know, that that stuff is kind of percolated to a point where there's time for a paradigm change. And all of a sudden all these people are simultaneously having these great ideas right right right actually it's quite remarkable. You know, I definitely blame the newly monster of course tentacles are everywhere. Okay, so let's talk about the Jesus unit. What would you propose. Well, I was just thinking, because it's like Moore's law with respect to technology where, you know, there's exponential gains, like transistors are becoming twice as small. Twice as quickly as the as the former formulation of them right and that it's going on an exponential curve. The decrease in size of a chip say with the with going over time. So, in half the time, a chip is getting twice as small, you know and it's working like a log logarithmic thing. Yeah, it's all for kindness. Yeah. I, so I like the idea of a scale that, you know, increments in units, the awareness of the world, how it was such a disconnected world in like 30 AD, right. And a lot of information of the cultures that we had aren't available to us now so, and not only that but just so desperately disconnected that it's sort of like, it's a harder thing to capture than compared to today where it's like we have a much more connected world and a much more better understanding of like, what do we all know, or at least have access to as a as a people yes there's people who are still living as if it was medieval times right now and then there's also people living in space at the same time to it's it's much more grander time, but like we can track that average much more, I would say accurately than we did 1000 years ago or 2000 years ago. I find, I like the I like the, I like the idea of a unit to describe awareness. What is the meaning of the unit and like what are we what are we hoping that that unit does over time. Well, you know, like if it's a Jesus unit I think it's just kind of kind of something to sort of intellectually have fun with because you know certainly a Jesus unit. I hope he's okay. She's got separation anxiety. Okay, okay, somebody else talk for a minute. Well, sure, sure, sure. Larry the idea of a Jesus unit is sort of like hey what did everybody know at this one point in time. And my thing or like my, my scientifically. What do I mean, I'm going to say scientifically let's keep it simple right, but my my issue would be. I think in the grand scope of the universe, like of what the things that we could learn right if if you know humans get their stuff together, like anything that we've learned in the last 2000 years would barely be a blip on the on the Jesus unit scale as a result, like to say that we could advance to like 10 units four units 40 units I'm like, what are you talking about like it 50,000 years from now we might have completely different standards of science, like we might look at what we're doing now and be like you guys we're doing homeopathy you're still like, like, no, no, no, this, this is not science, this is science. As far as science goes, we're doing the best we can. Right, we have, we make new discoveries every year we build on the science so that we've had before, standing on the shoulders of giants as they say, right because we have the teachings of those who have gone before us. But religion will more or less teach us to ignore that and stay with what is put in the book, right and it would stagnate is or be the like it ultra conservative values and hold to one. And that's a weird thing science doesn't just get bigger over time. It does as much cleaning out as it does grow, right. And so 500 years ago the science that we used to use a lot of those principles a lot of those classes are genres of science, we don't do anymore so like dowsing for like looking for water, we got rid of that. We still have chiropractic tree, but we got rid of a lot of spiritual healing snake oils now like synonymous with like fake oil like that's not supposed to cure you. There's a lot of things that we did back then that if we went back another 500 years would be like oh geez guys this isn't science at all this is just putting leeches on your body and expecting that to get rid of my grades or like connect to the stars by like drinking mercury and you go back another 500 years past that it's like you guys are you aren't praying to God's but you are burning a lot of stuff with the hopes that you know flies will spontaneously regenerate from like pots and of oil and stuff like that. So no germ theory 1000 years ago. So like how are you going to claim like hey we made the best sewers in the universe was like one you don't know what chlorine is to you haven't made metal like you're not just affecting anything you use lead when you do. Yeah, so I'm saying like if you give us 500 years from now, would we really look back at the time that we have now and say here your increments or will we say you instead got rid of a lot of stuff hopefully that's what I'm hoping for, and maybe. What do you think, dread. I mean science is a self correcting mechanism right. Yes, absolutely. So, I mean that's built right into. Right into the method, methodology of science. And it's sort of a, you know, the Bayesian reasoning right where you build on your priors. New information is not just generated in the vacuum. It's based on your priors so that you're correcting for what you formerly knew. Just coming up with new theories all the time. Exactly modifying and adding or subtracting from the theory you currently have. So it's not like someone is going to come up tomorrow and some great discovery they found in a cave that's, you know, around for three million years or 30 million years or whatever. And all of a sudden Darwinism is turned on its head that's never going to happen. Right. Right. I mean, never, never, but I think we have enough evidence right now where it's like, we're getting closer to something. Right. And so for us to do a complete trajectory change would have to be like a fundamental change in like the fabric has our universe, at least our local universe, we might even figure out like in a different part of the universe physics is completely different with completely different variables right and that now will not be a formula exchange to like how we think about subjective science in one place working it compared to how it would work on the other end of the universe that might be interesting anyway musings I love it. Well, it's just the middle of the show we need to take a short break and come right back. Stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour and W O Z O radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after the short break. After the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on W O Z O radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's talk for just a moment about the atheist society of Knoxville. The first meeting was founded in 2002, we're in our 20th year and have over 1000 members. We have weekly in person meetings in Knoxville's old city and Barley's taproom and pizzeria. Look for a sunset at the high top table so if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have a Tuesday evening zoom, zoom mask meet up, you'd like to join us email us for the link at AS, I'm sorry, ask an atheist at Knoxville atheist.org, let's chat s e at gmail.com. 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. Don't start one. You talk too fast Larry. Hey, so we were talking about the Jesus unit as in measuring our awareness over time turns out a lot of people had this idea over time, but dread I'm going to give the credit to you because you brought it up for the show so but I also thought what if we did one instead of it's what if we base the Jesus unit not on awareness, but on other ambiguous things are kind of hard to track and I thought kindness would be an interesting thing. How kind were we back in 3080. And now are we more kind or we less kind and can we metric that based on many times as or less than the time that we're kind during Jesus's point in time. If he existed Larry or dread what do you got. Well one of my favorite favorite authors is Steve Pinker. Anyway, he wrote, he's written a couple of really good books, better angels of our nature. And he actually does a really good job of scouring historical records to determine. Are we, whether or not we are getting better as a species in terms of how we treat each other. The freedoms and rights that we grant, you know, like, you know, in building equality and, you know, mutual respect and all the rest and, and it seems that we are on a trajectory. A positive trajectory towards towards that end. It's an easy thing to overlook. It really is, especially in this, like, you know, recent news or the agenda from my field news agencies to continue to captivate people so they can watch advertisements. So that they get you with terrible news, terrible news, terrible news, so you never feel like you can change the channel. You won't believe what happened at 6pm. We'll tell you then, and there's like an explosion, Jeff, you're just like, Oh, no, I have to keep watching. So I do feel like we are on a trajectory of being better and kinder and nicer to people, if anything, being more interconnected, which I feel like is the driving force of the empathy that we are. I have a Facebook group called humans for a kind of world. When I was doing some research, this group, did a little math and I found out that there's a quarter of a million people on Facebook belong to various kindness groups. Good. So there definitely is progress in that direction. Larry, what do you think. Well, it reminds me what dread was saying about it. It's a long arc. Martin Luther King said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I believe he pretty much got it right. Yeah, I mean the old days were the savage days, getting medieval on you was pretty close to the truth. Yep. Nowadays, all of that is seen in a bad light, if not downright illegal. And we tend to treat each other better these days on average, although there are exceptions everywhere. You know, I, I was reminded when I went to the gym yesterday, and I was working on an elliptical trainer and I was looking out the window there was a swimming pool at our gym. And the most bizarre thing that I know no one else was paying attention to what's happening that was kind of blowing my mind. And it was like a small black boy and a really tall white girl, both kids, just playing with each other in the same pool with each other. And I know that's like an easy thing to overlook it's 2022 but like from my perspective, that was like a situation where I'm reminded of pictures from civil rights where it was illegal. One for black people even swimming pools like that was probably illegal in the pool that we had here. It's pretty old pool. And like, give you from a reference 1960 was the time when the first black guy got his PhD at Georgia Tech, before that, you know, 10 years before that was illegal for black people to go to Georgia Tech. So my mom couldn't have gone to the school to get her college education at the place where I eventually got my PhD. And I just see this rapid generational change where it is commonplace for different color kids to play with each other in the south, where there's no problems whatsoever with that being the condition. And I feel like that's just setting us up for like the next advancement, next generation next generation. Yeah, we still have obstacles to overcome like these all right groups that are coming up now specifically Nazism. I'll make a dread I feel bad going ahead talk. I was going to say that one notable exception, I think, is again the rights of women. You know this, you know, the gay pride same sex marriage. You know, equality, you know, greater equality for, you know, through black lives matter attention drawn to these grave injustices over time. And yet the rolling back again, once again of women's rights. Yep, it's egregious in the in the worst way. You know, I was, I was reluctant to to call myself a feminist, because I didn't want to be that my entire focus you know what I mean, but the more I, you know this, this is an occasion where I now call myself a feminist. I think it is such a wrong right to the rights of women and to the equality of all people in the human species to allow this sort of right wing. Blasting of rights that were established, or had gained some ground 50 years ago, and are now being rolled back it's just painful, painful. It's like the equivalent of having a marathon start. And just before you begin you give one guy, or one of the runners a 10 minute head start and you shoot the other player in the foot. Like, the one who got shot on the foot needs help is like well we should help everybody's like hold on, hold on, hold on. This is not a fair race we have to help this person who's bleeding on the court. I'm like, oh, well you're you're handling one person over the others like yeah I am because that person needs the help right now. And that's how we can make a better race for everybody make sure that person got shot doesn't get shot in the future or any other players get shot. That's why it makes sense to be feminist in my head. And that's, that's, that's where my approach is for it like you have to look at which group is clearly being marginalized and affected by like the misogyny that's active and and actually rampant institutional lines and how can we resolve that as effectively as possible. You know, and this came up in one of our previous shows, either through the global atheist news. But, you know, for someone to say well I can't really speak to it because I don't have a uterus. No, you can speak to it, you can speak to it. Yes, you know stand up for for people you know of, you know suffering injustice, right and you know take a stand you know that's the point. That means even more in my head than and I'm not saying it means less when people with uterus speak up, but like when the marginalized groups speaks up. That's, that's what should happen because if you punch someone they're going to say ow, but if you have a person who wasn't getting punched being like hey stop punching that guy. That's hurting that person. That means so much more because now you have someone in the crowd you have someone you can follow you have someone in the audience who is empathetic to let you realize. I'm not as crazy as the people who are attacking you. I'm an ally, and I'm willing to speak up and cause change in the same time to that's so much more valuable. What's up. I was going to say also, it's not speaking in the absence of that group. Like, so I'm not going to in the absence of say, you know, someone talking about Jews or whatever. I'm not speaking for them. I'm speaking with them. Correct. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, pretend to speak for a woman. Right, but I would speak with a woman in support of a woman, right in the presence of women, right. Right, so that I'm not, I'm not, I'm not their champion I'm not a knight in shining armor. Exactly. I'm there to support them. Larry, what do you got. What you were saying about speaking up when some when you see oppression or aggression. Silence supports the aggressor. Yeah, if you if you say nothing, then he assumes he's on the right and there's you know the person he's trouncing on is in the wrong and he's he has every authority to do it. Unless you question that authority will continue and the people around him will take it as authority. Not only that, but like being afraid to speak up or choosing not to prioritizing the feelings of the, the, those who would victimize, you know, the assailants of misogyny or racism or bigotry, you're putting it above those who are actual victims of the thing that you, that you also are against. What are you doing? It takes courage. Courage is not lack of fear. It's doing something in the face of fear. And sometimes we need to have courage and exercise that courage. That's why we give our some of our highest awards for an act of courage. I'll make a, I'll make a point that the change that we cause is not permanent and needs to be protected. Same thing with like, for example, democracies are very fragile. And the rights that we have are just agreements that we've come to they aren't necessarily like a thing transcendent that's been given to us. It's things that we've come together as a social contract and established and said these are the rules that we will follow as a society, which means they are very fragile because anybody can come and take them away. And if you have rights that be taken away, they aren't truly transcendent rights because there aren't a transcendent force given to us, which means it's up to us to protect them. And if we ever fall on that, they can be taken away as they have been for women's autonomy. And I think they can also be given back, because we've seen that come back and forth. So the change that we're seeing needs to be protected needs to be maintained because it's not a passive thing. It's not a thing where it's like, well, they'll figure it out. You have to enact it. And one of the easiest ways to do that in America is by voting, just as a quick reminder, not a call to action Larry. Hopefully this isn't it, but early voting is open. Early voting is open, especially in Tennessee. So if you are want to vote, go to your electoral commission, you'll be able to do it immediately. And when does it end? It ends after the actual election, which is coming up. Oh, really? You can vote now until then? Right now, you can go into election commission and vote for your local districts, shares. I didn't know it lasted so long. Yeah, it's not the final election two years from now, but it's the one where you can decide primaries and a bunch of other stuff and your local areas as well, and make some knowledgeable choices. And that's, and thank you, Ty, for saying that, what you just said, they're knowledgeable choices. I mean, just calling people or just encouraging people to go out and vote is not enough. Right. People need to know what the issues are. They need to make rational decisions with respect to what those issues are, and not just close your eyes and throw a dart at the ballot box. Correct. And in Tennessee, you can use your phone when you go vote. So you can clearly look up the names, you can just Google them. There's typically websites that'll tell you everybody who's on the ballot, what their positions are, what their backgrounds are. And listen, if you're the kind of person that wants to vote red all the way up and down, there's no problem with that. But let me just say this, there are different candidates who are running for a Republican office, and not all of them agree with the things that you agree with. And so you can, you can truly fine tune your choices if you're like a straight, you know, ticket ballot or one color or the other, and choose what I feel to be the best option and not just necessarily the one that's at the top of the list just because they have Republican or Democrat from their name. I was at the booths. Can I talk about I was at the booths, and I was realizing that some options didn't have a independent or Democratic option that I can look up. I had three Republicans and I instead of just picking one at random, I was looking him up. And one of them was like straight up. I have 14 kids. I went to a Bible college I had six degrees from a Bible college. And I believe that church and state shouldn't be separated because when you look back at the, at the time, it only says that Congress shouldn't make church shouldn't declare a state religion or something But every state had a religion they were Presbyterian, they were Lutherans, they're a Baptist. So when you really think about it we should really have these things combined I'm like this guy is crazy and I do not want to vote for this one crazy Republican. I'm gonna at least segue myself into one that I find a bit more moderate in their approach and at least you know not pushing us further towards the doom and gloom that we could potentially reach if we don't protect the advancements that we've made through the changes that we have. Again, change doesn't happen without a challenge. And I like Larry's point, you can't challenge something without courage, because it's important to speak up, and it's important to keep speaking up and make your points can be well known and not let that science take over. It's absolutely imperative that we maintain that as a culture. Man, ninth, it's getting close to the end of the show. Dred, some final thoughts on this. So you, you agree that people are getting more kinder. Is there a unit number that you would place on that are we four times taller 4.6 high reference your shirt at all. Yeah, we have to have a. So we got to shift it from Jesus units to kindness units. I like it. That's definitely got to be the shift there. Yeah, Dr. Robert Anton Wilson and and get him to write a new sci fi with kindness units. Yeah, we need a pair of kindness. I don't know if anyone had Johnson. Joe Sky. Say unfortunately Mr. Wilson is dead. Oh, well, we got to talk to his kids then his 14 kids. Yeah, he does he has kids. One of the girls is a bootish. They tend to be kind if they're not radical. Dred, I'm going to throw something out at you because I think it's a little tongue in cheek. But what if instead of Jesus units we called it bacon units. And one everybody agrees like bacon's nice except religious people. People would not be kind to bacon units. Right, right, right, right. And I'm just like, Hey, baking minutes from Jesus. We could have pasta units. We could have pasta units to everyone can eat pasta. Everyone can eat pasta. That's true. That's true. It's true. It's true. Okay, I like it. I like it. Larry thoughts, kindness in humanity. We're going up challenge we should protect it. Any other wise sage advice from the man who wears suspenders, even when he's in a virtual reality. Come back to it. We need a drawstring on the back of you that we could just pull and you can just give us some nice. That sound like okay. It's just hard to come right out of the middle of the air. I need a topic and ask me about a particular things and I can probably come back to it. Okay, fair enough. Give me some advice. It's not brush your teeth every day. Brush your teeth every day. Hey, that's not that dread. I was going to say that, you know, going back to the rights of women is that in order to really make that solid because row versus way was actually a pretty weak foundation for women's rights is that it has to be enshrined as an amendment to the Constitution that is guaranteed as part of the Constitution and not as something that the Supreme Court can just overturn based on their affiliation with religion or politics. The Supreme Court is the newest drama of the Republican party. But also realized that the Supreme Court, nine justices from what we call correctly six of them on the conservative side. So truly three people are the ones that are making these decisions, in a sense, pushing them down. And so it's not a reflection of American culture that three people decided that they don't like something. And because of that, we don't have to accept it for what it is. So if there are protests, support the protests, if there are, you know, this distaste meant for it, remember why you were distaste it from it. And don't just swallow it up for the next election cycle, make yourself, make your voice heard, and speak to the culture of wanting that change, because that has power. And it's only when you give it up that the nefarious sides of things went. So hope is hard. Hope is hard. So is living in a world that you don't want to be in. Right. So is living in a world that's falling out of control you can choose your heart right you can choose to make a change. Pick your heart, pick your heart is what I'm saying. Okay, that's about it for me. Larry, we're going to go through plug and Joe sky, do you have anything that you'd like to plug. Yeah, I do. Now, Facebook page called the nullifidian chronicles. It's not always about atheism and religion. Right now it's kind of political. I also have the Facebook group humans for a kinder world. And we're very active in the kindness movement. Dred. Yeah. Well, you can find me on my YouTube channel. Mind Pirate and my NDP why are ATE. I live strain this at 7am Pacific Daylight Time on Sunday mornings, and also on Sunday mornings at 11am Pacific Daylight Time I stream the global atheist news review through free thought production so cool. Like subscribe and come check me out. Anything and any random one give us that title for the book again if you happen nearby. Oh, are you talking about the Daniel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bacteria to Bach and back. Nice evolution of minds. It's a fascinating read. Daniel Dennett is such an amazing author. He's a philosopher. He's been working in this field for of minds and consciousness for, you know, his almost his entire career and he's had a long and illustrious career so I will tell you this I have rewatched contact the movie. Okay. I mean, I don't all the problems I had with it. Make me feel like I didn't watch the movie the first time. Because I was just like, well it's got this and then it did the thing I'm just like oh okay well and that's pretty good and I was like oh that's kind of clever and I was like oh there's pretty good representation here too okay fine. But you know what else also kind of bothers me and also like everything that was like it was written by like a woman, and it was like promoted by like a science head. I'm just like okay I can't find the grips that I was holding on to so I'm willing to let it go. But the problem, the other problem that I have with the movie is like how frustrated I am that there's just not closure to the movie. And that sort of alludes to like, it's not a scientific result it's more just like more open questions that could hopefully be approached. I also don't like this to I also say this to give my last thing, the, the alien who's like, thanks for coming here, and I know a bunch of people died as you try to get here but you're not ready for us to come here it's like you couldn't send us a text message then trillions of dollars trying to get here twice. Just text us next time if we're not ready and let us know because we had people dying trying to get up here man you wasting our time. I hate it if an alien told me that I'd be like oh well watch out we're coming for you now. That's how you make enemies. That's how you make enemies. Anyway, I'm let's chat on YouTube Larry. My content can be founded digital free thought calm. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheists songs and many articles on the subject of atheism by YouTube channel can be searched, found by searching for or doubt or five or digital free thought calm. You can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon, and you can find the atheist society of Knoxville at Knoxville atheists or just by the Googling Knoxville atheists. If you have questions for the show you can send them to ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org, or let's chat s e at gmail.com. You can find the show on Apple iTunes pocket cats Amazon pocket cats everywhere. Just search for digital free thought radio hour. If you're watching this on YouTube be sure 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.