 Computer can we get dread? Can you tell me some things? Let me check your sound check check nice Nice John, how about you? Hello, one. How's that? Okay Larry Lo-lo testing getting pretty good baseline George Yeah, here. It's me. It's good to see all you. Okay. You're pretty good Scott Yes, sir, can you hear me? Yeah, and yeah, son Hi. Yes. Okay. Cool. Everyone. This is just just keep everyone up to date It's a radio show that we're doing despite the fact that we're doing it online So we can't curse anything worse than Dan. You can't say and no calls to action so you could be like hey Let I want I like protesting in theory But you can't be like let's meet up at 6 p.m. At the Capitol building and burn it down like you can't say that Yeah, let's not join the Canadian convoy or anything like that Today we have one two three four five six seven and possibly eight. Is that John Richard's audio? Okay, so seven people on the show. It's two 20 minute breaks Right, so you got to remember that every single time you're talking there's six other people that aren't talking So if we can try to keep our responses short and to the point and if you get asked a question Please answer that question. Don't go off. Well, let me start with the stories like no Raise your hand if you want to talk If you raise your hand when you talk out I will get to you a guarantee and if you open up your chat window we can talk without talking If possible, it helps if you can mute your microphone until you're ready to talk that way any like incident sneezing or slurping or crunching or static doesn't get caught up in the audio of the show And uh, we'll get ready to start. We'll do a 20. We'll go for like about 20 minutes We do a half hour a break in a half hour and then we come right back into it if everyone's good And then we should be done by about 11 o'clock eastern central time central time That's about one hour from now. All right, larry. You're good Recording now. How's my audio larry? Oh, it's good. Yeah, okay, great cool. Uh, I'm recording the show five four. Oh Dred, do you need a six count for twitch? Great, okay six five four three two Hello and welcome to the digital free thought radio hour on w o zio radio 103.9 lpf. I'm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee We're recording this on sunday morning, uh, january 30th 2022 I'm larry roads or doubter five And as usually have our co-host wombat on the line with us. Hello wombat Good news. I've joined a new religion. It's called super deluxe atheism. I'm very happy about it Oh, I think I'm there too. Oh We got the new Yeah, can I have we can I have a super duper deluxe? What I'm already outdated. No obsolete And with us on the lines from across the sea we have the john richards over in england. Hello. Hello Hello, we have dread pirate hicks from canada way Brown from east tennessee Hello, hello, and uh, do the famous duo the action duo of shaman scott What's up the big easy? Yep, this is digital free thought radio hour. It's a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought Humanism and the sciences And conversely we'll also talk about religion religious faiths god's holy books and superstition And if you think you're the only non-believer in town where you're just not we're a small town Well, kind of small in uh, Tennessee in the bible belt And we have a group of over a thousand of us and we'll tell you more about that group After the mid-show break, but you are not alone. Also, we have just joining us with us, uh, eric green say hello Well, but what's our topic for today today? We're going to be talking. Does raising your child in a religious environment mean or country or constitute? Uh child abuse is that technically child abuse to raise your kid in a religious environment? But you guys we are one square away from a brady butt situation So let's just jump straight into the mean of potatoes I'd say quick invocation from dread and then we'll start talking about the topic dread. Would you mind leading us? in our weekly invocation Nudely lord who art in a calendar, al dente be thy noodles Thy blood be run, thy sauce be young with meat as it is with vegetables Give us this day our garlic bread and forgive us our cussing as we free of those who cuss against us And lead us not into ketoism But deliver us some carbs For thine are the meatballs and the sauces and the grog whenever and ever You gotta remember he's the meatball the sausage and the carbs so like you can make it all the way you want and the grog He's all there. It's all it's all possible dread balance mail Straight up gonna ask you the question first does raising your kid in a religious environment constitute as child abuse? I absolutely Believe it does. Yes. Whoa talk to me talk to me Well, I mean I was raised Roman Catholic, you know, I was indoctrinated at a very early age and Was taught all kinds of nonsense which took many years to get to get over Including all these horrible misconceptions about how the world works how people work and And how I should relate to other people in the world so I'll throw this I'll throw this bone at you then. How about this, you know in the You could have been an atheist that never really questioned anything It was just was lucky to be in a situation where you weren't indoctrinated Isn't the fact that you were religious and learned to work your way out of it in its own right of benefit No It's it's like saying that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. No, it makes you weaker right Reason takes practice and if I had had the opportunity to start at an earlier age I would be better at it now than I am Reason takes practice. I love it reason takes practice. Yeah, it's not a natural state for the human mind I love it. I love it. I love reason takes practice That's a great line because like if you don't have a chance to practice it That that can be a problem. I'll get a t-shirt with that on and uh, don't be for sale. Very cool. John. What's up? Well as luck would have it Last night yesterday afternoon to you I had an interview on in my free thought hour show with a guy called andrian timeswift who To this day and I think he must be about 28 now Is still suffering illness as a result of being raised in seventh day Adventism and having had to escape from it. It's left him with psychosomatic condition Yeah, absolutely. It's a form of PTSD, right? Yes. Yes Yeah, yeah, so john I'll throw the question out at you Would you then based on that interview or anything else consider religious upbringing child abuse? intentional or otherwise I would yes. Yes because Because it's it's a deception. So You're giving your child a disadvantage at the beginning of life when you should be giving them help Okay, well, let me poke at this a little bit when you're when you're an adult Sometimes you have the tooth fairy and it's all in good fun and sometimes you have santa claus And that's all in good fun and sometimes mommy and daddy when they love each other There's a stork that comes and drops babies down the chimney and that works pretty well like It's it's in the interest of just you know keeping harsh Concepts away from a child like why does the child have to think about death or like unfairness of the universe? Like isn't this ultimately a good thing? How many homes have a chimney now? I don't know in england. It might be every home. I have no idea. I don't know flats flats on that My bad flats don't I think every home in england has a chimney sweep if even if they don't have a chimney We're getting very very close to like stereotypes of english culture from americans points of views that's going to make john which is going on a four-minute tyrant And the sweeps have an appalling cut the accent. There it is. There it is. There it is. There it is But yeah, I mean, what's the harm if you if we accept things like santa claus or tooth fairies or storks or other stuff Why can't we Allow that Eric, do you want to take that go for it? Oh, you're on me my bud there we go No So can't hear you No, there we are. There you go. There you are. There you are. Nice. I should audio check that came in late guys. Apologies No, I think it'd probably be fair to make the distinction though that what you're talking about fairy tooth fairy santa claus all of that great great analogy for tough concepts But we also let the cat out of the bag eventually right you get to middle school or whatever and And you realize oh, okay. It was all fake if we did the same thing with religion Maybe that might I don't know I might be on board with that might be yeah, okay death is tough Things like that. Let's let's pretend This all happened and then but at least let the cat out of the bag at some point be like, okay We were just messing with you So one would be a good time to let the cat out of the bag eric you're on an interesting Little tangent here. I like it one would be a good time to let a kid know. Yeah, by the way this whole bible thing That's just fairy tales All right We don't know what's gonna happen. I think that's probably the best way to going forward. What's up? When's the right time to pull that string? I think like dread santa earlier. They're better. I mean, let's get them practice practice in reason I Found out about santa really early found out there was no santa earlier And I was a fan of that because I I felt like it was lying to them. It didn't feel weak, right? So Um, we'd love santa. We love christmas. We do all that but but yeah I think sooner the better really as soon as they you think they can handle it Okay on the board eric hates christmas war on christmas continues for atheists larry any other comments? Oh, yeah Um, richard docens is famous for saying that it trained it trains us To be satisfied with with ignorance or not knowing things But it's also logical and scientific ignorance specifically that it that it trains kids Without and not miss And some religions are worse than others like fundamentalist Protestantism Islam Uh, so the day advertised And some are some people are more subject to more harm than others women for example For example, um islamic female circumcision circumcision is a turtle male To as well, but it's particularly bad at female. Oh, yeah, definitely Definitely. Yeah in in the concept for females. It literally takes Uh, the pleasure out of you know, relationships for men They're trying their best to take it out. Yeah, it's sort of like I wish I had a choice in there But I was a baby and they just take it off. But yeah Larry, I'm gonna throw something out at you. Uh, you're next up on my list You know, you had a wonderful. I don't know when exactly you turned into an atheist, right? I'm using the turns facetiously by the way So I have a Christian hat on you can't see it. But when you turned into an atheist It was around 9 11. So what were you like around 30? You're like 20. It was like, how old are you? You're about like 25 9 11 I was 51. Yeah, and I'd been an atheist for 30 years Okay, I was I turned atheist in college. Got it. Got it. Got so you had a good 20 years of your formative life You know, you you didn't kill anybody as far as we know You didn't rob any banks, you know, morality your morality, you know Christianity puts you on the right track and you and you turned into an atheist after the fact Like I don't see a problem there. You had your morality instilled to you when you were young It worked for you and then you became an adult like I could see that working well for most kids By the way, you're on mute. Go for it. As I say repeatedly on these podcasts What Christians teach is not morality or the bible does not teach morality. It teaches obedience I'm being able to define and decide what is what is the ethical and moral action at a particular time Is morality following somebody's dictates is not morality I had a similar that's very true when I was in college The reason why I stopped being Christian was I took a class of morality and realized all the bible quotes I had were insufficient as using it as a system It was sort of like knowing all the answers to a back of a math book versus knowing how to do math Right as soon as I got a question I never saw before I didn't have the answer that I could pull out I had to actually learn how to do math and then when I went back to bible I'm like, this is not morality. This is like some really terrible behavior about all powerful being onto his You know His creations. It's terrible Sean and scott you want to tag team this? Um, yeah, I would like to Okay. Yeah, go for it. Go for it. Sean and you know and and what's cool is is like I've been an atheist since I don't remember ever believing in God Now were you in the truth? Am I allowed to pull that up right now? Okay. Okay. No, he wasn't a jehovah witness. That was no no not at all I was you know Initially, you know, we grew up as southern baptists. I remember, you know, my grandmother taking me to church You know relentlessly and it was I always considered that just torture You know, because I didn't understand what was being said. I was too young first of all You know, and you know that the benches were hard You know, it was uncomfortable and all of these things But what really I think what really triggered me Was had to do with Santa Claus because like everybody else, you know, we were we were taught Okay, God is all knowing and all seeing he knows what everybody's doing at any time and but So does Santa Claus because he's checking his list He's watching you and he's checking his list and checking it twice And all of this things and and I remember one Christmas morning How you know kids can't wait to go downstairs and open their presents and all that well I wanted to catch Santa Claus You know, so I went down early and I caught my father putting together a bike And I went oh no, dad is Santa Claus Oh, so that just that experience to me negated everything You know, because then it was like, okay, I'm gonna really have to sit and think about this so from that point on it's until I have I mean until for instance, God reveals himself to me It's all gobbledygook. I do have an open mind and it and it's like If he does reveal himself, but it'll have to be revealed not just to me But everybody else is going to have to see it You know at the same time and you do want to be careful You want to be careful with that standard because that's how profits are made It's like I looked in the cereal bowl and I saw Jesus and now I know for a fact Exactly Dreg exactly you had some comments on this. What's up? Yeah, I was I was going to say that, you know when When parents consider the things that May harm their children Throughout their their youth And of course governments, uh, you know Don't allow people to vote until the night, you know in this case until they're 21 and they can't drink and smoke and all these restrictions on the activities of youth and yet for some reason The pass is given on the how you treat your eternal soul presuming you have one and that you are Essentially indoctrinated or remain to make a choice about your belief in eternal life and whatnot When you're out of the gate pretty much That's that's where I think that the childhood abuse is actually happening In that sense that Parents are essentially religious parents are essentially talking about size of their mouth with respect to what The care that they wish to impart to the children get it George. You had a comment George George there you go Yeah, um, well, this is a really interesting discussion for me to listen to Being being raised an atheist Or being let me put it this way being raised Simply without God in the house Um, this is quite an interesting Litany that I'm hearing from from all you people who are former Christians And and so here I am an outsider in a nation that is majority Christian You know and and I'm just uh taking it in and realizing How much you guys have had to struggle with You know growing up. I mean I I had a difficult childhood. It just wasn't difficult in this way So I'm having a hard time imagining myself in your shoes Each one of your separate pairs of shoes because each one of you got a different slant I'll tell you what's up, George the the the trick about empathy is you don't necessarily have to Understand the problem But at least be able to recognize that there is a problem and we when we respect that more than you know Taking the time to understand every story but realizing that there is an issue here And yeah, I can I can basically purport most of what's being said regarding child abuse. John, you got four stories I hear you lifting your hand I just wanted to come in on what George just said because I'm the same as you George I wasn't raised in a religion. So you and I are looking at these other guys as specimens Who isn't studying them? I feel like I'm gonna Well, what's that who's that national geographic guy the one who was looking at the gopher's jumping off the cliff? Anyway, yeah, the specimens. I love it Scott, I want to hear from you. You actually have kids. You're one of the few that do hate on this show What do you think of the The aspect that raising your kid in a religious environment could be considered child abuse As a father. Yeah, I mean in my opinion it is Kind of child abuse in the sense that you're taking away some some very important skills early on Whether it's intentional or not. I don't know. It's kind of like the same question that I posed to A christian on my show one time If I think that my eight like The question was well Don't you think it's terrible that you're an atheist and you're pushing this non belief in god What if it's true and you're sitting you're trying to drag people away from jesus Well, the question can be turned around like if For whatever reason I happen to have the truth that there is no Christianity is not true for example And it is the truth. It turns out that it is the truth. Then isn't me trying to Uh promote that idea A good thing. Yeah, don't isn't it a good thing to kind of help people So and she would say yeah if it was true sure well, the thing is With religious people they think that their religion is true Right, so they think that they're doing the right thing by guiding their children the way they want But in my opinion, I don't think that they're they're teaching the truth I think that they're actually doing a disservice in a way because They're not fostering critical thinking and skepticism healthy skepticism and critical thinking which is A skill set in life. So for me in my opinion, I think it is a form of child abuse And Depending on how far we want to dig into it. It may be a bigger problem than it may seen it on the surface level So Yeah It's the most insidious trick about religion in that it fosters generations of people who don't have good critical thinking skills Who then pass those inferior skills down? John what's up? I see your I see your problem. You're on mute my buddy. You're on mute. You're on mute Okay, he's just having fun Okay, no, no, I just want this came through the door yesterday. Oh that came through the door watch tower. Yeah They have apps though they have apps though. So watch out for that store I just wanted to know eric. Should I raise my kids in this regime? You might Do Scott I actually got a question for you. Let's let's poke this position a little bit, you know Parents give their kids ice cream knowing that their kid deserve the treat and they're that there's nutrients. There's milk You know, there's I'm sure there's some vitamins that are useful in ice cream What if we find out in five years from now? There's some terrible triassic glycerides. There's terrible hormones There's non-gmo products in ice cream. It's the worst thing you can give a kid What are we going to call that child abuse too? Like if you're struggling your religious upbringing child abuse What isn't everything child abuse if we can find out later on that it wasn't wrong like where do you going to draw the line? While the line, that's a great question. I am a nutritionist and I do think it's abuse Let's let's go to Scott. I want to know about you. What do you think? What do you think? I can tell who's a big brother already? It's so weird because we have to define abuse What is abuse is abuse a thing that's intentional Is it abuse when I trying to help someone and it and inadvertently hurt the person Because of something that I was ignorant of is that abuse? Is that how we're defining abuse? If so, then yeah That would be abuse, but I don't know if that's If that's the common definition of the word so Okay, it's it's just a weird question. I think that once you know something is true Or even if you have a little bit of evidence to maybe raise the question I think that the wise thing to do is to lean on you know air on the side of caution Especially for your kids, you know, and if you're not doing that That may be a form of abuse I'll get two points out and then we go to dread for a comment and then we'll follow up with Derek to finish out this round table But one I would say it is abuse even if you don't know that's just called unintentional abuse Right and maybe it's not as bad as intentional abuse, but it could definitely cause as much or even more harm And then the second thing is instead of teaching kids the truth based on nuggets of information that we have Given the mechanics to determine what true what true things are and what false things are Because at least then they have the ability and wherewithal and practice skepticism to figure that out for themselves And what we should really be focusing on is teaching systems of learning rather than learn facts because those can be valuable or update themselves To not be as true in the future Dred, what's up? My opinion, I don't have kids I think the difference I think the difference lies in You know the parents responsibility Essentially to teach their children how to think and not what to think there you know that is the vital difference I believe yeah, yeah, I think that's a trick and if you treat your kid How to think in like the best there's the great thing about that is we have great ways of how to learn things And and in fact, we know what the best one is already by demonstrable by the fact of its accomplishments And if you were to teach that method, which is the scientific method It's an amazing thing to to have kids learn and unfortunately does take some time to get good at But the sooner you start the better you'll you'll be even before you can even get to like a grade school situation I remember talking to kids when I was in grade school. We're like, I'm not religious I don't believe that can't you don't you understand xyz? I'm like in my christian head I was like, oh, I'm just got to stop talking to this kid because they're making me feel uncomfortable Like I've had conversations with kids who knew it who knew what was up even when I was in You know first grade so like it doesn't take a lot of effort to to instill good thinking protocols in kids, but it's all about like Teaching good epistemologies and then learn make them realize that they can question that method and try to supplant it Or even improve it on their own. It's totally open for everyone to constantly improve Boudreaux, I'm going to throw something out at you Eric. You got beautiful kids. Listen sometimes sometimes You know when you're teaching Vivian how to play the violin or guitar, maybe got a bunch of guitars Maybe she gets some calluses, you know, maybe she gets some finger strain Maybe she'd rather watch cartoons, right? And you say no, no, no, you got to practice and she's like, I don't want to practice She's like, this is good for you, you know, sometimes When you are in a system of doing something it's gonna, you know, I'm gonna have some edges to it Can't you just see the greater good of learning an instrument in the same way? Can't you see the greater good of religion and like don't it's goods outweigh all these, you know Much smaller issues that we're pointing up like the greater good of religion is like, hey, you're growing up in a religious Society get maybe not your morals as Larry would mention But you do understand certain things that you should do and shouldn't do Right. You don't understand justice. You understand authority. Sometimes you need to listen to things Maybe it is good to be disciplined and obedient in a sense You know who to listen to who your authority figures are. You have culture. You have society. Yeah, I mean, are these all great things? I mean, you can just hear the devil's advocate Everything you just said you don't agree with um, but no, I mean, it's that's that's that's not fair. I think because uh, uh When you when you really think about it, not just the lack of morality in the book But but also the fact that I mean what religion, you know I mean What and how deep are you going and what pages are you are you reading? Which parts are you ignoring? I mean, there's so much in it that I it hasn't grown with us as a society. I mean, you know the way we talk about homosexuality in the in the bible I mean, so it's it's I don't think it's it's fair I mean if if you let me get in there with a red pen And and clean it up, which I think some famous comedian or someone did they actually went through the bible and Scratched out all the bad bits and there wasn't much left, but um Even then it it's not it's not growing. It's not it's not changing with with with the time and I love the point too about age, you know, we don't Let children vote at a young age for good reason We don't let them decide whether or not to put on a seatbelt or or ride in a booster seat So, I mean, maybe maybe just hold off on religion until you're 18. Then you give it a crack But not just one of your parents now that is interesting So like you're not only saying it is abuse unintentional in a lot of cases But that Really if there was never going to be a law or like any sort of like protocol It should be let them learn religion at 18 And and at that point, you know, if they hook on it go for them good from there No, no baptisms. No circumcisions None of that stuff until you're old enough to make the choice for yourself Hey, you know, there might be some validity to this I might like it a lot larry some final thoughts before we get close to the half hour Yeah, I was just gonna say uh in the affirmative years we could teach them things that we have Evidence that actually worked like the scientific method the rules of logic a rational thought All those things and in what by the time they get to 18 You can go ahead and teach them about what you think about religion. I think that Religion would disappear within a generation if that happened Yeah, yeah, you're that are a lot more star trek fans, right? Reminds me of that cartoon about star trek and the little boy says to his father says, how comes there's no People don't go to church in star trek and the father says because it's a future son We're at the bottom of the hour. I think we need to take break real quick This is the digital free thought radio hour and we're on w o z o radio 103.9 l p f m right here in Knoxville, Tennessee We'll be right back after this short break five four three two Welcome back to 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 l p f m right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Let's just take a second to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 20th year now ASK has over a thousand members and we have weekly in-person meetings at the Knoxville Old City Barley's taproom in pizzeria down there Look for us inside at the high top table. Usually the loudest and happiest group We also have a virtual zoom meeting that happens at the same time for people who don't live in Knoxville or happen to not want to get out during this covid incidents If you'd like to join our zoom meeting email us at askanatheist at Knoxvilleatheist.org Or let's chat as e at gmail.com You'll also find The atheist group ask online at facebook meetup.com or Knoxvilleatheist.org 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 Wombat where you want to pick up so we're talking about Is religion considered child abuse? We I think unanimously agree that it is though that raises some interesting topics But before we get into it John Richards I know you love truthful propaganda And you love it so much that you're most a magnet for it and he was holding up a watch tower newsletter In the first half of the show would you mind telling us some interesting things that you found out about it? Well, I read it very carefully from cover to cover and it offers Afterlife it offers eternal life in heaven Now you gotta move it's change of address Sounds like a nice place to be The reason this is interesting to me is I'm president of atheism UK And on our council we have a lawyer now in 2012 The advertising standards authority in this country took Action the best way of describing it against the healing on the streets movement Who at the time were giving out leaflets purporting to be able to Solve any conditions to cure any illness just if people came along and prayed with them And the advertising standards authority said you can't do that because it's raising false hope so This document is also raising false hope Expectation of eternal life. I'm going to get our lawyer to put the asa on their backs Nice dredd comments on this idea. Yeah. Well, you know, um, I don't know you guys remember the red bull lawsuit where Their advertisement says red bull gives you wings. Yes, and they were successfully sued in a class action suit Because they literally wouldn't give you wings That's that's what the that's what the advertising says and so anyway, there was a class action Suit metaphor anymore. I can't which which one or anything which one success. They were successful and uh, and the the The people in the class action suit ended up, you know, getting some kind of small award. Yeah, you know what they do now They probably have probably free red bull for a year Now they just put two eyes and wings and now I know why they had that right exactly It's the silliest thing to sue for man. I can't believe it Uh, but I'm I'm what I'm saying is that if if that's successful, you know, maybe now guns You've got a better shot dread. I have I have a comment for you dred because I have I have in my possession a postcard that details the greatness of the flying spaghetti monster That was given to me by you and if you are on board with this idea of I'm not saying litigation But at least the spirit of it wouldn't post-sopharianism be just as guilty of touting a supernatural being that can just do as many superficial claims Uh, no, how and what way how and why that's it because I have a double standard And really I love it. That's a cool kind of a man And really who doesn't love pasta because I Foster really exists too I'm wondering whether the The jw's will pull a red bull, you know, and you know try and bribe me Like red bull did By offering me eternal life That's interesting. All right, so I'm gonna throw this out. Eric, you know If you are on board with this, all right What's your opinion on this? Do you feel like churches are should be able to do that Be able to, you know, issue propaganda in support of their beliefs First of all, they should just put another e in eternal and problem solved Yeah, it's it's tough because I think In thinking about the fine spaghetti monster Um, I would think most pasta farians would would happily take a lawsuit Uh, and then and I'm sure you can respond to this happily take a lawsuit if if You know, it was fair on on all religions. I mean if if if you you could sue Uh pasta farians for what they're saying in in in your your, uh, uh, your bible Then then I would think that just opens the door to do the same thing to all religions and I I would I would die on that That's I was just gonna say that pasta farionism alone amongst religions is the only one that offers a god-back guarantee And it says Join us for 90 days Hey, not on this show. Not on this show. You better watch out. He's doing the thing that we we can get sued for I'm not gonna get sued for this. No, no way endorse The the claims of a flying spaghetti monster scott. What's that? Yeah, I was just gonna say that it would be excellent if You had to require the watchtower society To have fine print That you know that these promises disclaimer Now disclaimer, but that would really go against the um The value that people would find in the claims of the church So sure it would really be a interesting uh turn them out of a bit so that were to happen Son, I got a question for you Don't churches also have a right to free speech and can I issue out Publications if I'm a church in the good spirit of free speech and being able to do so Whether you believe it or not is up to you, but I should be able to communicate freely Yeah, I believe so Longer answer no short answer. Okay. It really works for me. Hey, Larry. What do you think churches? Should they have free speech like is this aren't you saying by I you can sue me if I say my god is awesome Isn't that like some sort of well churches do have free speech? Obviously, I mean There may be trying to draw a line under it in britain, but uh in in america for sure they're You know say whatever they want to I think that Generally worldwide globally. We need to come up with some kind of standard for true speech We have not done that. We need it very badly because especially after this last presidency if the president of the united states Can say falsehood after falsehood after falsehood for four years straight, right? What kind of example is that for the rest of us to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of lives, right? Right, exactly so the You guys may or may not be aware of the fact that the center for skeptical inquiry Is engaged currently, you know in a lawsuit with walmart and cbs over false advertising claims made by their homeopathic products So sorry it is it is now So these claims are being put to the test And so I don't see why religion would be exempt from the same level of scrutiny. Let's let's stick to homeopathias I absolutely want to talk about that in its own topic Next week because we're going to delve into the religion of nutrition And I absolutely want you to bring that up again And I think that's a fascinating point of home. I've got one more t-shirt comment Go for it. Go for it. Faith is the homeopathy of reason Oh Okay, yeah, george brown. I'm gonna throw a question at you. I'm trying to see how I can phrase it But you know, you were raised an atheist. You never had this religious upbringing or background Would you be upset if you know You were driving down the street in new york brooklyn one day and you just saw large billboards promoting god And or a certain kind of god would that in any way change your day or would you be like? Oh, maybe I might check that out. I'm seeing that advertisement enough times Well, my my gut sense My my gut sense is that I would be offended Really? Yeah, but in the same way that I'm offended here when I see doctors advertising on billboards. I'm not used to that I mean here I am in the bible belt doctors are advertising on billboards lawyers are advertising hospitals are advertising, you know, this is Um, I haven't lived in the bible belt before And this is a different consciousness. So, um, what I was gonna say when I raised my hand was About freedom of speech is that I'm all for it But there also have to be consequences for lying Oh Okay, you know, all right This is this is dangerous territory that we're in right now But how do you prove that a supernatural being isn't capable of the claims of one of his artists? Right, like what kind of tests can you apply to even confirm that's a lie? And should the We got to prove you're not lying or should the guideline be wait wait wait I I need to take it off that particular pedestal um Because I've said there have to be consequences for lying In the sense that the the way the american legal system is set up Is you don't have standing to sue somebody unless you have been harmed And I like that You know, so in other words, if somebody told a lie Oh, did we lose your audio? We may have dread. Would you mind going on with the spirit? I saw you were raising your hand to be able to speak to something Uh Yeah, sorry, I forgot. Okay. So here's my thing. I understand what george brown is saying. It's basically yet We should hold people accountable for what they're saying including even large organizations, which i'm for But should our standard be we should step in Only after we can prove that they're lying or should our standard be You got to meet the the criteria of telling the truth first before you even start to expel your your claims Yeah, and I'm wondering one puts the burner of evidence on me the other one puts the burner of evidence on them What's up, right? And I and I would think that someone making a positive claim has the burden of truth or a burden of uh proof Right. Yes, and it's not my job to prove that they're lying or not It's for them to claim to prove that it's true Right in my head. That's like the that is the fundamental problem with a lot of religions is that they will say things And then leave it up to the non-believers to make them make the case that they're in fact wrong And then meanwhile they profit and that classic shifting of the burner proof is what's made them so integral in society today And hard to remove by people who don't have good reasoning. What's up, john? But we already have that standard for products and services You can't you can't put any lies on your labels You can't make any false claims if you're offering a service. You will be prosecuted Right, right, right. Okay. Okay, larry. What's up? Well, what's funny is, you know, they always say, uh, they try to transfer the burden of proof to us saying, uh, How do you know that god doesn't exist? You have all a hunt, you know, the Infinite knowledge of the universe. Do you see behind every rock and every cloud and every nebula? To know that there's no god out there But then they turn around and say that the god of that religion isn't real, right for the god of that religion is That's why they're doing exactly the same thing as why we've had such a hard time, right, right But they won't shoulder any burden of proof either way But your problem, particularly with the pacifarian perspective is that the system is rigged to favor very specific religions And so even when They're all making equal claims christians saying, oh, well, pacifarian isn't real and pacifarians are like, well, our god's the real god Society or the institutionalized network of how our Our departments the government and and authority figures and educational work support one claim And I just find that to be, you know, hypocritical to the point where it makes me like Unnecessarily upset if that causes harm in my own aspect scott. I saw you raising your hand. What's up? Yeah, I would say like for me. I would think that science would should be a good standard For uh evidence and truth, but see this is the problem that we're going to run into religious folk is They're going to say that well, you're appealing to scientism Which is a philosophical statement, you're going to say that science is the authority for supernatural stuff like they're they can make the claim that Well, religion can't be proven scientifically. It's not a scientific question So how can you use science as a standard to judge my religion? and then so you've got to come up with another way to You know claim that these are false claims or whatever the case is, you know So, uh, who are the scientists here? We got john eric me. I'm going to say and and you're an entomologist, aren't you dread Or you know some stuff about it. Like I'm sure we all have some aspects of this I'm pretty invested in scientists I think you won't have issues if I say this but yes currently science doesn't have a way to test the supernatural but Once we do once something can be proposed as a model to test for supernatural things that becomes science Like that will be Entirely included as a new test within the realm of science to test the supernatural So it's not that it's never going to be a scientific method What we're asking for is please show us some methods so we can verify if it's actually feasible or not And what we get is word games and not like a god detector. Give us a god detector machine. Let's test it Uh, too many plans. John, what's up? And all of a while the claims of supernatural are untestable Yes They are unscientific claims. They're unfalsifiable. It's it's also one of the problems. Well, not repeatable. This is a situation where regardless It's always going to point to Uh, what is up dread? Well, I was just going to say People may recall steven jay gould Talking about religion and science as being non overlapping magisteria When in fact claims of any kind of supernatural being or things Are supposed To have real world effects And that's where those claims Do have a burden of proof on those making them because the real world effects are what Are the testable aspects of it, right? Right. Who drew eric? I'm going to throw this at it. You same question scientists in the room is it I mean, do you think that there could be potential if A model is presented that says this actually will test if there's a god or not. It's a scientific method can give binary yes or no Would that be in doctrine? Would that be adopted by science with science from your perspective be open to that as a machine or a testing algorithm Yeah, no, I think if we could come up with a way to To test our claims If that's what you mean. Yeah, yeah Yeah, and I think one one, maybe Maybe science fictiony sounding Machine, uh, could be a time machine who? I mean, what if we went went back 2000 years and All right. All right. All right. I've had this discussion with eric before because we're talking about a time machine That lets you peer into the past and see it without actually interacting with anything It just pulls all the photons back together mathematically and then reconstructs any image you want and you could see if Jesus died on the cross So you can see if he made food multiply you have oh, you can see if Muhammad did what Muhammad did You could see if jade did what jade did Zeus did what Zeus claimed to have done It make itself things like right like I I told to get you if we had that that'd be fantastic john What do you have? Well, the very idea that something supernatural can have an effect in the natural realm is nonsense it's it's a complete inconsistency because The supernatural is immaterial and an immaterial entity cannot Have any effect on the material Imagine a ghostly hand trying to push a dime What they dummy know it's going to go straight through isn't it have no effect Yeah, uh, George, did you have something to say? Well, I unfortunately Let me give you a little backtrack here. Um I lost my sound I know I know When I stopped when I stopped speaking and I've discovered that every single zoom meeting has its own technology And one that I suffer from on this meeting Almost every week is that my incoming sound just vanishes and I have to reboot my whole system to get back in So I have missed everything in between Don't worry. We'll catch you up. We'll catch you up. It's god So what I think you've been talking about what I think you've been talking about makes sense to me And I don't quite know how to implement it, but I like it George is actually on a good point. So we've been talking a lot of smack right now You know child abuse got or religion is child abuse that, you know, we don't have a scientific Measure of god. So why believe it in the first place? How do you rectify it? What do we do to litigate it? Are you going to push the parents that are involved in this? I'll throw this out to eric first. I'd like to see Should there be some sort of punishment criteria based on intentional to completely intentional Misinformation of children on a religious ground or is that something that should always be up to the parents to be able to determine on their own? Uh, we we have you know, we have a lot of uh, you know laws keeping parents from doing horrible things to kids. Um, but it does seem that religion kind of gives a Get out of jail free card for some things and maybe next week We can get into some of the you know religious exemptions to medicine and things like that, but sure. Yeah It it's scary. I don't I don't think the world's ready for for that yet. Um You again because it seems like it would it would look like we're um, trying to you know attack religion, but I don't know. I feel I feel like the the having a like a grace period before you start indoctrinating Would be something that it just would be so you're saying that if I'm an adult and I bring my child to church There should be some sort of action by a government or is that a fine or is it uh Uh, just a public shunning like what's the situation? What maybe it starts? Maybe it starts more as a It starts more as a recommendation Oh, what that larry a recommendation. Yeah Kind of like kind of make it make it seem icky like you know, like you taking your kid to a strip club That would be weird, right? So so you got some comments All right, leaving that that's a great comment. We're going to leave on the great comment dred. What's next? Uh, you and then john and it's got it. It's interesting that there's so much actually so much cognitive dissonance Among people of various religions with respect to the practices of other religions that aren't theirs For instance, there's all kinds of christians who would throw their arms up in the air If they heard on the news that a child was denied a blood transfusion because The parents of that particular faith denied that lifesaving Intervention So, you know, it depends on where you're standing From your religious pulpit as to whether or not you agree or disagree But you never turn that gaze inward to examine the failure of your own epistemology. Sure Yep, I hear that john Well, there's a template for this, isn't there because the movies have a rating system, don't they? So I I suggest we just make churches x rated Or no, no, I like this idea I kind of like this idea if we made churches pg 13 or the bible pg 13 You know or all religious texts pg 13 as a recommendation that is parental guidance, right? That means you can't sell a bible to some kid I don't know how many kids are in line to get bibles in the first place though But at least the recommendation is there and if you're an adult you and you want to buy your kid a thing Go for it. But if you just walk down the street and you see a nine-year-old going through the book of john, you're like, hey Spider-man comic book kid need everybody to get on board about making memes that religions should be pg 13. We'll spread it Yeah, yeah, okay scott You had the comment next. What's up? And then george. Yeah, I was just gonna say what Dread pirate just said about the blood transfuse. I'm familiar with that And the organ transplant with jehovah's witnesses and all this kind of stuff. It's like right now Um, the u. S the united in the united states. That's a protected right for the parent to deny medical treatment for their children That's obviously abuse in my opinion But it's protected that kind of abuse is a protected in this country So It seems like we're already we've already set a precedence And it's going to be a really hard uphill battle to overturn um that including Any other sort of in these are we're talking about claims words stuff like that These are actually things that endanger the light the very life of a child and they're already protecting that so Well consider the challenge to roe vs. Wade I mean with a conservative Bench, uh, you guys are probably in a lot of trouble Yeah, george you got a comment Hey classic my technique you in radio. You know this There you go. Take yourself on me my bud. I'm mute I'm still on mute. Okay. So I'm translating for him. You have to buy more coffee. It's really good for you It's really good for you. Forget about it. All right Hold down space bar george. Just hit space bar while george is working on his uh, uh, I do issues. How about this? We're near the end of the show. We'll do last words on the subject I like the pg-13 idea that's like some of my final ideas And I do think there should be some consideration before you involve your child in a religious environment because Yeah, I know you want the best for your kid But is that something that your parents just did for you and that's the reason why you're doing it It tends to be the case that you know, we we give the kids the same childhood we have but is your is that the best system To improve things It's being adults hard. What can I tell you dread final words on this? um well I just I did want to mention my disappointment and some of my fellow Canadians uh in this convoy effort to uh, um, you know for anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers and anti-mandators um, it's disappointed to see so many people exercise the freedom To have a convoy across canada To speak their mind while claiming they don't have freedom. It's It's bizarre and disappointing John final words Yeah, well, I I'd like to ask all you guys who were raised in a religion. That's not you george, but everybody else Would you If you have children or if you plan to have children, would you raise them the way you were raised? Or what improvements can you make right? I know that's a that's a huge shot to an ego But like what improvements could you make to your childhood that you can you know pass forward and that takes some Honest thought and reflection I think and religion may not always be the best answer for that Larry final before we get to your final words Sean thank you for joining the show today final words on our topic Yeah, I found it very interesting and going back to the question what I raised my children I do have two grown children and what I did is I tried to explain the best I could that this is because Their grandparents on my wife's side at the time were very religious And I said and I know that they I have no idea I left them with them So I know that this is being talked about and I just tried to explain to them when they were old enough to kind of understand that Okay, I don't believe this stuff and this is why Okay, they're going to tell you that it's true But I want you to try to keep an open mind, you know and you know figure it out for yourself I know but And that's the best I could do Yeah, and is it so much about you don't have to worry about trading your facts to your kids But can you teach them to figure things out? Can you teach them a method of understanding two things are false and because that's way more useful Because the world's always going to be changing the answers that we have to make can always be improved on Only if we have good where without to figure out how to get those answers And you know also when you raise children, you're also raising them within the you know how you were raised, you know And every generation is different, you know, like I can't keep I can tell this to your brother So Thank you so much for being on the show. So we got to wrap up. It's a half hour broadcast George I owe you an apology. I had you on mute. I didn't know how to turn off the setting So, uh, George you have final words on the topic of the show. Well, I I think you can hear me now I think we've raised a new topic and I'm really sorry. I couldn't hear I'm going to go I'm going to go to um youtube and Hear what you all said after I lost my sound because I know I set off something because you're all talking animatedly I could not hear you I don't know what that I'm sorry. I was going to say a curse word. Um, I don't know what you all said and But I but anyway, I would just want to comment that you know I'm an atheist and I'm living in the same row boat as all these other people who are, you know, voting The way they're voting their their their delusions are affecting my life and so Uh, it's like y'all have been talking about implementing changes And what I want to know is how are we going to do that? And and maybe this is a topic for a whole other show Okay, go Larry I see you raising your hand. What's up? I might well, I'll save it for the end of the show if everybody's got their last words What's how much time do we have before the end of the show Larry? Pretty close. We're pushing it. I know I know guys. We may have to wrap up about here Eric, did you get a chance to say your final words? I didn't but I'm glad Sean did because he's a newcomer and and I'm good Great show everyone. Yeah, great show everyone. Sorry We were animated cast big big cast today. So happy everybody showed up today. Larry. I don't know what atheism is Anyway, thanks for plugging my book. It's available on digital. I'm sorry on amazon It's called atheism. What's it all about? And what I had to say on the topic was uh, how do you raise your kids if we're atheists? Do we teach them what we know? What I would do is just teach them that it's okay and necessary to question What you've been told I want them to question what I tell them as well as what they anybody else tells them You know and let it go with that and and trust to their intelligence and education to carry them the rest of the way If you like this show, be sure to go to the digital freethought.com and click on the blog button We have our radio show archives there atheists songs and many articles on the subject If you have questions for the show, you can send them to ask an atheist at noxvilleatheist.org Or let's chat se at gmail.com and we'll answer them on future shows If you're having trouble emotionally rationally whatever leaving religious beliefs behind You can find help at recoveringfromreligion.org Thank you for joining us on the digital freethought radio hour Remember you can find this show on apple itunes rocketcast amazon and podcasts everywhere Just search for digital freethought and 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 I'll be one Okay, great show everyone