 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour and WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, Sunday morning, September 24th, 2023. I'm Larry Rhodes or DJ Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Aim for the eyes. Oh no. I don't want to know where that's from. 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 religions, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not. Here in Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have 1,100 of us now. Whoa, look at you. We're the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK. And we'll tell you more about us after the mid-show break, so be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? We're talking about responsibility and why we should leave it all up to God or not. Both options are available. Also, just wanted to say over 1,000 versus 1,100. 1,100 sounds so much more than 1,000. I don't know. It's so impressive. This is not the first time we've hit that mark. It just fluctuates around there for a little bit. Sure, sure, sure. So enjoy it while you got it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we are going into the topic of responsibility. But before we do, how about just a quick little update on how we've been? Larry, what have you been up to? Oh, sleeping on the couch. Oh, wow. Not because of any domestic problems. You got any problems? No, it's just my knee. Too much motorcycle? No, I'm having knee troubles. I have a 73 and I've got knee problems. And sleeping in the bed, it seems to aggravate it. Okay. I had happened to notice that sitting on the couch watching TV, my leg doesn't hurt. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you do whatever you have to say. You were in a cast around your leg? No. Okay. No, I got a steroid shot in it, but I may have to actually do the surgery because it didn't take care of it. All part of the saga of life. You know, the cool, how do I put it? The weird thing about modern medicine is like, to an extent, the, the human body was not designed to live or may to live. You know, we're on this kind of show you have to be careful which words you use, but like the longer we make our lives better to the point where we can live longer, the more work has to be put into quality of life at the later stages of our lives, the extended lives that we have, because this is a new territory that we never really experienced. Like, oh, we have people who are past 30. Like that's, that is a new thing for nature to have to, to figure out like Shakespeare. Oh, you're on mute, my friend. Shakespeare only had like a diet before his 40s. If I, if I recall correctly, like that was like the typical average lifespan. Larry, what do you think? Just take yourself off of you and I'll, I'll hear you out. I keep in the button that keeps flashing at me. No, that's a good thing though. I remember before we were industrialized and civilized. We lived to 30, but I mean, we had, we died of abscess tooth regular infections on any kind of thing, a bad, bad food. Just one thing after another. So we've got those behind us pretty much we can take care of that. But the other end of the life is still a challenge, but hopefully we'll take care of it. There's a saying that I've, I've heard that really intrigues me says the first person to live over 200 years may have already been born. What? Okay. Because of the advancements in science and genetics and all the stuff that we have going on right now. Sure, sure, sure, sure. A new baby that was born last year or a year before might actually live to be 200. I never know. Okay, so that's an interesting concept. I always, I always thought of it on the flip side. I would have said something like the first person who will give birth on like Mars or like in outer space may have already been born already. And like, when I think about it like that, I'm like, you know, that could be a thing that could actually happen. Though, like I can imagine some sort of study where they're like, hey, we need a lady that's pregnant in the International Space Station that's been up there for like years at a time. How about you go up there for the entire gestation period and give birth. And like the first facial baby. What do you think? I don't think that's a good idea. Politics? No, no, because of the bone density. Ah, true. So you see gravity as a baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe they'll figure out a way to like induce gravity. You can't have the baby exercise. You know, I can't put him on a treadmill. You know, weightlifting to keep his bone structure growing. Sure, sure, sure. So Larry's looking past days like potential lawsuits like that baby's going to be like, I want to be a baseball player. Speaking of like good bone density, I've been taking care of myself now that I've recovered back from COVID. I have been trying to get back to the gym and get back to my regular performance and strength levels. I feel like I'm back now. I went back to rock climbing. I know the reason why I'm doing rock climbing is I needed an activity to do when daylight savings time kicks in. And it's just dark after work and I can't go out and play. So like I'm getting into rock climbing now, so I'll have that for the winter possessions. And I did a climb to yesterday that was a lead climb that's rated from like one to 12 if you think about it like that. I did a 5.11 climb, which is like still near beginner territory, but firmly outside of beginner territory too. And it was a pretty difficult climb. It took me like three weeks to try to figure out and I finally completed it for the first time yesterday. Really good. Yeah, thank you. You still have another month or five weeks before the time changes. Good. Let me tell you that I'm also have some of the best weather possible. Like this is really, really good times to get outside. So if you're in the Tennessee area, go outside and enjoy life because, you know, enjoy those leaves. Winter's coming. Winter's coming. They're not going to be around much longer. So we also have a responsibility to enjoy the outdoors. But you know, responsibility can mean a lot of different things in different contexts. It's that way. In a religious context. Well, you mind talking to us about that? Well, sure. The thing about it is if you're an atheist, you have to take responsibility for pretty much anything that goes on in your life. Anything that you can improve or eliminate, anything bad that you can eliminate, you know that you are responsible for doing it. You can't pray for it. You can't rely on some supernatural power. You can't just hope that fate will step in. We have to take responsibility for our actions and as much of what the world throws at us as we can. And religion seems to absolve you of that. There are so many sayings that the religious have to dump religion on an invisible being. One of the most famous is, let Jesus take the wheel. In other words, don't worry about it. Just let things happen as they may because Jesus has you under his wing. He's taking control of it or God is. And you're just you're just careening on down the road with no controls, basically. And your responsibility is basically abdicated at that point. Right. I, you know, I take this another level where you do have that responsibility. When you realize you're an atheist, there is the secondary hit of, oh, man, now I am responsible for how I conduct myself. How I want this world to exist even after I'm dead. What I know and what I don't know, what I teach people and what I don't teach people. If I'm a good person or I'm not a good person, but there's also an extra layer to it. Because you can't just, you know, give it all to God, but there's another layer to the responsibility, which is accountability. And like that opens up the door to not only am I responsible to treating you well. But if the consequences of my action are poor, I get the consequences of that. Like I get consequences. So it's cool to be responsible because everybody wants to be responsible. Like you put that down on like a piece of paper and you're like, Hey, is this a good trait? Yes. Everybody loves responsibility, but not everybody loves accountability, which is when things go wrong, we're looking at you. You are the one that's accountable when there's a mess. Yes, it's responsible to clean up after messes. But if we find a mess, that's your fault. That is your fault. And that is the part that I found to be really hard to stomach because if you are responsible, you have to also be accountable. And when you give everything to God and you say, man, today was a great day. Thank God. Man, today I have a great house. I have a great meal. Thank God. Thank God. When something bad happens, I can't pray to God to fix it or Sam being tested. I have to look at myself and say, Oh, man, my house is a mess. I need to clean that up. That's my fault because I messed it up. Oh, I'm hungry. I should have cooked better food instead of eating all this junk food. And I should have like prepared my meals better or budgeted appropriately. Or I feel bad that no one calls me. Maybe I should be calling other people so that I start a relationship where people call me on a regular. Like all these are my fault, the things that I have problems with my life, the things I would have prayed for. I can't pray to God to fix it. I have to fix it myself because any faults that I find in my life are my fault. And that is like, that's the paradigm shift. Because once you figure that out and you get to a point where you can resolve some of these issues, you get filled with my mind, a sense of self empowerment. That doesn't that you don't want to give up to God or or a holy book. Like you want to say, Hey, I know how to fix my own problems. I'm both responsible and accountable. And I'm going to fix it. If I feel overweight, I'm going to go work out. If I'm hungry, I'm going to go cook some food. If I need a more companionship, I'm going to get a pet or find a significant other and make those changes in my life that are productive to put myself back into a place where I want to be. Once you recognize that you will take the responsibility for getting the skills to handle the things that go wrong. The challenges that you know that will come up and you feel you feel better about yourself and your, your empowerment of your, your own talents and skills that are going forward. Correct. And when I call that maturity, like you actually become a more mature person, you get the skill sets to be able to make those improvements to you and your environment. I think a good idea, a good example of that would be the idea of even life and death. Right. So we want to be responsible in our lives. However, what religion teaches us is that a component of life, which is death doesn't really exist as an end of life, but it's really more of just a change of address. So like when you die, you just get to hang out at a different place. There's another party somewhere else that's even better than here. You get to go there and hang out. And if that's the mindset, you never really develop the skill set of understanding why life is valuable and precious in the moment, because it's the only one that we are aware that we have, but also come to terms with the idea that it will end one day in a healthy way. So that way, when it does, it's not like this, how do I put it? Like this callous event where you say to yourself, oh, but I'll just meet this person again in the future. So I don't have to mourn or feel bad about it. Or even if I do, I have this very weird supernatural Instagram filter on it where it's like, I can only, I only have to feel this much sad because I feel any more sad than I'm almost admitting that my religion isn't true. And I don't want to think that it's like, dude, like it's okay to feel bad that you won't see this person anymore. But also, it's also good to realize that the life that you guys had nothing's been taken away from that in that you guys can still appreciate the life that you have for the rest of your experiences. And the fact that you can make a good bond with somebody, even if one person's gone in that bond doesn't take away your ability to make bonds with more people or devalue the bonds that you have with that original person. Right. You're familiar with the cognitive dissonance, the problem with religion versus reality. Yes. You know, for instance, you think that you are the perfect creation of an almighty God that can make you whatever way you want to. But at the flip side, you're also a dirty sinner who can do no good, you know, without God on your side type of thing. It's holding two symmetrically opposed beliefs at the same time. Right. And it's a cognitive dissonance. And one of the things in prayer is, you know, I'm going to pray to get a good job. I'm going to pray to make more money next year. I'm going to pray for this out nearly. Why is it nobody ever prays to get their house cleaned? They know on that level that it doesn't work. They say you can pray for anything. And in the Bible says, if you have the faith of two mustard seeds or a single mustard seed, that you can move them out. Why not clean your house or fix your car? You know, they know at a certain level that it ain't true, but they're in this state of cognizance and dissonance when they actually have to face up to it. Sure. I do think it's telling. Right. And I've had conversations with Christians who I was driving with who would talk about like the value of their faith. While in their ear, there's a Bluetooth headset. And they're driving like a. You can't trust science. How many times you're heard, you know, believers say that at the same time while they're using the products of something like tell me that when we're flying on a magic carpet, then I'll maybe I'll be more inclined to believe you then but like when I'm looking at you. You are a person wearing a blue shirt, wearing a blue hat, wearing blue pants, saying, man, I love wearing red clothes. And I'm saying like, I am not seeing that, though I think you might be mistaken at the best in the in the nicest sense. I just sing you saying, so why don't you wear some. If you value space so much, why don't you actually use it in any case that actually matters aside from the fact that, you know, that we have no impact on. So like, that's a good point Larry, like I think it would be good more responsible. How do I put it, it'd be more responsible for people who want to advocate for faith to demonstrate that they actually live by faith in their lives because in any other from in any other context, from the mega pastor church leader to the the follower at some rural town that no one knows the name of you have people that seem to be interacting with a reality that's based on scientific observation and physics and and and economies and human interactions that have deliberate consequences and and are and are based on ethics and codes and tax laws, etc. But nothing with prayers actually working or supernatural intervention, or God's actually talking in a way that can be measured or documented or observed by other people But you typically won't ever you have a God documented talking to somebody it's always someone else talking about a character in their story, talking to God. And, and well, you know, I've watched the atheist experience for many years, and I still have occasionally somebody called and say God told me. He told me to do this and they always jump right on that and say, how did you experience that voice that you actually hear the voice well no I was just moved in that direction. In other words, they're, they're ascribing their emotions to God, right. I think it's a good point because I think if you really do care about God and you really do care about messaging of how your religion is perceived by people, particularly non believers who may have a genuine interest and figure out how you came to that conclusion whether or not it's accurate. I think you have the responsibility and the accountability to make sure that people who talk about God and their experience with God in that aspect is corrected, and that you go to those people and say, actually, that was an emotional experience. Let me explain to you what an actual God talking to you moment feels like and is like that way we can all be on the same page. Because the last thing I want is people explaining or expressing themselves as I have spoken with God, and then being completely off the mark and making everybody look like fools when they call into an atheist radio TV show. Like, get your messaging right, get your messaging on point and I feel like religious leaders and religious followers, both have the responsibility of making sure that's the case because it has been my experience that after speaking with every single person who does believe in a God, or has like a devout dogmatic belief in a higher power. Whenever it comes to expressing the actual mechanics of how they interact with their God is always based on conjecture, some assumption, or at the base level, some personal experience that if someone else had the exact same personal experience but related to a different God, they would say, Oh, that's invalid because it doesn't point to my personal God. Right. And this object abdication of responsibilities. It doesn't only hurt you. It hurts your children and the people who you are responsible for, because you're abdicating that responsibility and just trusting to when you say trust the God to God. I hear trust the luck, you know, because you're just basically hoping that things will work out for you, you and your family, without actually working toward that end, other than getting in on your knees in the bedroom and hoping out loud basically that things will turn out okay. Right. And letting Jesus take the wheel is just basically going rudder listen to the future. Going rudder listen to the future I love it. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it sets up the current generation or the next generation with a poor skill set. I like to think of it. As you had mentioned before Larry, that learning the values of responsibility and accountability gives you skills. Right. Like it gives you cards in a deck. That you can play with as you grow older and rely on and for the refine to make sure one of that it gives you the motivation to gain the skills and the knowledge and the motivation that you need skills and the motivation to get them. Yeah, the best way I can put it is say my power goes out right and I need to fix my home maybe a breaker goes out and I go into my toolbox that's behind that door right there. And I say, Hey, I need a screwdriver and I find out I don't have a screwdriver because I need to go into a toolbox. That is a problem that I would have figured out at a crisis point. Right. But I have a problem. I have an opportunity to fix that now by just going through my toolbox when I don't have my power out and say, Hey, do I have my flashlight here. Good. Do I have a does have batteries great doesn't turn on fantastic driver to have all these tools and are they structurally good and sound and are they organized in a place where I can find them. That's how the maturity of growing up works like you don't necessarily use all the skills at once, but you have them there because you've tested them or you organize them or you develop them as you grow older. And the thing about responsibility and accountability is if you don't you don't just get it as you go older you don't just turn 20 and open up your mailbox and then here's all these aspects for adult. That's just waiting for you glistening like you have to develop them and you have to work with them and figure out how they operate right and it's not like a bike if you don't use them they go they get worse over time like just like those batteries in that flashlight. You have to constantly make sure you're testing the tools that you have. And so if you are a child and you never had the opportunity to develop responsibility or accountability at the rate that someone who has to take on those those mindsets are at a young age or even at an earlier period in their life. You're not going to have them as you get older. And that's a scary thing because kids who never have the opportunity to be responsible or accountable for their actions grow up to it into adults that are irresponsible. Incapable. Yes. And and if you know just the way how economy works in the US like capitalism works rich and you're you're a kid, you're probably going to be rich and adult and adult, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you're any more well suited for being responsible or accountable. Governor or person of power or person of authority. It just meant that you were in a climate or a geolocation where people had money, and that gave you more opportunities in life to continue advance. But if you still are unresponsible or irresponsible and unaccountable for your actions that leads you to being a poor leader of people. The unfortunate thing that we have in our in our country, generally, is that there's no criteria that that instills responsibility and accountability in people. We have programs, but we don't like make it a mandatory thing. And not only that but the people who are empowered there's no criteria to clean out the people who lack the ethics of responsibility and accountability for their actions. So anything we can just say hey, if you are and I here's the part where I might be overstepping but if you are religious, I feel like we should be asking you these questions first. I feel like we should have the criteria of what do you think. What do you think good people are what do you think bad people are how do you govern your actions. How do you make sure you. If you hurt someone or fence someone how do you what do you go what steps you go through to resolve that do you just pray to your God or do you go to make up men's with that actual person. Why is that important. How do you come to the conclusions. And are they rely that you have that you care so much about and are they reliable or not. I feel I need to go to those people first to make sure that they have the mindset capable of governing other people before we go. Why would you trust somebody who can get forgiven for anything they've done wrong against you simply by asking their invisible friend for forgiveness and going on. Why would you trust that person. Right, and the the shame along with that is why do we allow, not just hey I can pray to my God and come up with my own forgiveness but also, I can pray to my God and come up with my own reality. When the doctors and scientists on TV are telling me to get vaccinated, I can listen to my pastor, or my bishop, or my thought in my head and say you don't need vaccinations and I'll be like, it's just as good. Like, how is that. How are these competing realities for people, you know, it's just and you know how dangerous it is to actually believe that that inner voice that you have in your head is God. I mean, if it's literally God. One, you can never ignore it to you always have to do what it tells you to do. Having your inner being that having to follow your inner voice, do whatever it tells you to do. Right. Or on pain of hell. You know, or our sin. I mean, it's incredibly dangerous to assume that the inner voice is that of God. And you know, matter of fact, we have stories. What is the son of son of Sam thought God was telling him to kill people and he did that type of thing. But you know God, Jesus, even when he was so like, I look at Abraham. All right. All right, we can. Yes, Abraham's great stories, but I'm also going to pick on Jesus, too, because he's just a guy who's like going into cathedrals or like, you know, places of worship knocking over tables and be like, Oh, you guys are doing it wrong. I'm the number one guy. I'm the number one. I'm the number one guy. I'm literally the son of God. I'm literally the son of God. Here you want some magic healing. Here you want some extra wine. Here you want some fish bread here. Here you want to come back from the dead healist. I'm coming up for that. And then when they put him on the cross, he's like, God, why have you done this? Why have you given him this cup? I'm like, he's not taking accountability for all the things he said. It's like, no, this is part of God's plan. I'm like, dude, you got to be responsible. You got to be. The things that you did and said, like, I would have loved to see him just be like, you know what, this was on me, but I'm going to be back. It's all right. Guys, calm down. It's all good. No one needs to have a war over me. I'm going to be back. Trust me. This is, this is a temporary situation. I would have loved to see that. Yeah. And for those Bible literalists out there who think that Jesus came back in three days. Read what the disciples did or said when he came back and presented himself to the disciples. None of them recognized him. I mean, it could have been a brother or a cousin. It could have been a completely different guy altogether. And he just be estimate believing that he was the original guy. So go into your Bible and read that just to check it out. So like and doubting Thomas did not even touch the wound. He just looked at it and then Jesus theoretically shamed him into not touching it. But the main thing is, it would be great to see a character, even in a biblical context, advocate the value of taking responsibility and accountability for your actions. And when I look for responsibility, I don't see it in Jesus. What I see in Jesus is a guy who is really, really happy to pray, really, really happy to tell people they're doing the wrong thing, really happy to use his powers to like show off. But when it comes to like, hey, I'm being crucified and this hurts. This is God's plan. God, why are you doing this to me? God, I mean, give it to somebody else. Like, you're not taking accountability for the fact that you just called yourself the son of God, and are part of like this Trinity where you are part of God. Like, take responsibility, take accountability and make it look like that's a good virtue to have so that when people try to do what Jesus does, they don't say, Oh, I'm in problems. I'm having problems. That's God's, that's God's problem, you know, but application of responsibility. If I'm doing good things, it's God giving it to me. It's like, dude, you just need to take responsibility for your own actions will be great. Gary, it's good to see you on the show. Yeah, dead pirate welcome. You're just in time for join us for a break. I mean, okay, you guys can hear me all right. This is the digital free thought radio hour on W OZO radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on W OZO radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take a moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in a 21st year now and have over 1000 1100 members now. We also have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in pizzeria. Look for us at the high top tables inside or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck, you can find us online on Facebook meetup.com or go to our website at Knoxville atheist.org. You can just Google Knoxville atheists and it'll take you there. 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. That's right. What about where do you pick up a I want to talk about responsibility and accountability. I, in my mind, they are two parts of developing skill sets that make you into a more mature of an individual. However, with religion, you can actually stunt the growth in these two aspects because in my mind, it's not just tools that you have, but it's tools that you have and regularly check and get better at using. And at a certain point, you can use them to resolve other problems that you might run into in the future, particularly as you're an adult. Because if you don't use those tools, they're transferable skills. They're transferable skills. Exactly. If you just keep them in a closet, you never use it. If you never use responsibility, you never use accountability. They're going to collect dust. They're going to get uncalibrated. And when you really need to rely on them, they're not going to be ready for you. And a lot of times people work rate under such a level of high cognitive dissonance or overconfidence that they think they're being responsible when they're actually being irresponsible. They think they're being accountable when they're actually not accountable whatsoever. And if they ever get themselves into positions of leadership or to a point where they can tell other kids people how to operate in their lives, they can transfer terrible, irresponsible practices and unaccountable practices to the next generation of people that can spread just as easily as the effort that it takes to learn responsibility and accountability. In fact, in my mind, it's more easy to spread bad advice on how to be responsible accountable than good advice to be responsible accountable. So let's set the record straight. Dread Pirate Higgs, I would love to understand. And if you want to do a quick mid-show invocation, I'm also totally for it too. But after you do the invocation, how about you explain to me good practices to make sure how to spread good responsibility and good accountability in our next journey. Sure. Sounds good. God be my captain, I shall not want. He maketh me to float in salt waters. He stirreth me through glassy seas. He fiddles with me all. He stirreth me through the straits of doodliness, for goodness sake. I, though I sail through the heaving of tempestuous waters, I will fear not, said King. For thou art with me, thy mast and thy rudder, they comfort me. Thou preparest a meal before me in the presence of me mates, thou quenches my thirst with grog, my goblet runneth over. Truly, past and grog shall be a bind with me, all the days will be life, and I shall dwell in the galley of the quab forever. Amen. Yeah, I wholeheartedly concur. In fact, I think it's easier by virtue of the fact that it requires you, it requires less of you, right? Yes, yes. So these bad habits, not having to think things through, not having to take responsibility, absolving yourself of culpability, I guess. These are all easier things to do than take responsibility and think about things and all the rest of it. And so that's why it's easier to behave that way and unfortunately to our detriment. I've got a, maybe we already talked about sensitive issues on this show, so I'll just dive into this, but like if you are obese, chances are your family is also obese. Like if you have obese parents, you're going to have statistically way more often than not obese children. And it's by virtue of the fact that there's a culture of behavior that is not being corrected when it comes to rearing a child. So like when I, even yesterday I saw, you know, an obese couple and they had a child and the kid was also very round as well. And I thought to myself like, it's not my responsibility as someone who does not know these people whatsoever to talk about good eating habits or like where to eat or like, hey, that much soda is not good to like chug and like one sitting that was like probably a day's worth of calories in there. But these are questions that the couple aren't asking each other or correcting. And they're just handing off with very little effort, the energy into the kid. And now I have to think about the flip side. So like, what would it take to be a fit couple, right? We have to exercise regularly and then have a kid and then instill those behaviors in the kid and be like, kid, you also have to work out well. I know donuts taste good. I know Halloween has a lot of candy. But here's the reason why you have to be more responsible and accountable for your actions, because it leads to better long term health as evidenced by us who've been doing all this work our entire lives. That's so much asked that's so as dread, as you said, it's so much to ask for a person to be responsible accountable. But at the end of the day, that's what, in my opinion, the purpose of my life or what purpose of life is it's not just to exist. It's to set a standard for yourself and meet it through your actions. Absolutely. And yes, I've been actually on this quite a bit with people just in the last few days, just in conversations I've had, you know, Jean-Paul Sartre, he talked about authenticity, right, living authentically, as opposed to living in bad faith. And he made, I don't know if I've brought this up before about the waiter, he brings up an example of the waiter, a waiter who has been a waiter a long time is a waiter, right. But a person who's just starting off being a waiter is acting in bad faith because he's pretending to be something he is not. Right, and that's the difference between people in real life is whether or not you, you know, in accepting responsibility for who you are, what you are, what you're doing. You sometime people will deflect or, or, you know, make themselves victims of their circumstances. You know, like, for instance, you were talking about obese people. You know, often I would hear, well, I've got a slow metabolism. Or, you know, it's, it's not due to their own actions. It's they're a victim of their circumstances. And that is why they don't accept responsibility for their condition. It's just passing it on to someone else. That way they don't have to be responsible for it. And, you know, then they have a ready excuse to. I've seen race be used as an excuse for why people like I live in a low income environment and there's only a gas station and stuff like this like true but there's only craft craft dinner available. Yeah, yeah. You know, you have a car and the grocery store is in town here and the aisle for the vegetables is like right next to the entrance, right. It's like, well, I have this was like, you, at a certain point you have to be accountable for yourself, right. Instead of driving three blocks to pick up craft dinner, you can walk there. Yeah, there's ways to do it. Little things, right. Little things. It's really honestly that it is and it's an exercise of discipline at the end of the day. And I think it doesn't just hit diet. I think it goes to how we treat people I think it goes to how we vote, it goes to how we think goes to how we act and conduct ourselves. We have actions that we need to be able to discipline ourselves with and the reason why I care about the actions, belief in my opinion is an action, but actually the, the, the idea that we have things that impact each other, right. That's the things I care about in society, the things that you can do that impact me are the things that I care about. And if you don't have any sort of regard of discipline with that, then it leads to potential harm on my part, or I could potentially harm you. We can get rid of these harms if you were to have some sort of accountability for your actions, recognition that you have an impact on my life with the things that you do. And a responsible sense behavior that says, listen, even though I might believe in a supernatural God, I'm not going to use that as a way to impart how you should behave in a way that might, you know, distress you or make you uncomfortable. That's my personal beliefs, but we're going to have a conduct of code of ethics. That's a quick equal for everybody that hopefully enhances of the quality of all of our lives without having necessarily partake or lean towards me or be biased towards me because that that's my personal God and that makes me feel better. That's, that's the worldview without I'd love for us to slowly evolve towards faster. I think we're getting there but it's just taking us some time. Well, yeah, exactly. And, you know, you know, certainly I tire of hearing people say, well, you know, I can't help it. That's the way I was raised. Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's the last thing you should actually rely on. You know, like if you, if you are just the result of your upbringing. Sure. And you're not self directed at all. Right, right, right. Or you are in certain respects, but not in the respects that matter. Right. Larry, Larry, you said something like Jesus take the wheel. And I think that was a good point. The last conversation I had with Christian, like in a near Socratic examination format. He brought it up. I, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm so over at this point, but like I'm really still good at the having these conversations. So like he brought up. I don't understand why atheists just have no hope and blah, blah, blah. It's like, Nope, we have hope. It's like, well, why do you believe in your God? He's like, well, it just makes sense to me. Is that a reliable way to come? It's like, actually, no, it's not. But, and then we're just driving and drifting a little bit. And I'm like, you know what, you can believe in God. It's okay. You can believe in God just as long as you like keep asking yourselves these questions bands like, Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Like, I don't want the Jesus take the wheel mentality to, to, to be shook and out of a person who's currently my pilot. Right. Because I can see that as current home. Right. But I do have kept driver. Right. Right. Right. But I do want people to continue to ask these questions in like more calm and controlled settings, because I think these are good questions to ask. I think it's just as good to ask these questions. I think there's a time and place for everything. Right. And so that's me being responsible and accountable because I don't want to get in a car accident or distract somebody or like have a real shake of faith. But I think even if someone is religious in they want to be religious, because that's why most people are religious, they want to be. You can still ask these questions and come up with better answers and still be religious because I would love to have better answers for why people are religious, than we have now. And I think if you care about those answers, if you care about really good answers for why you're religious, you need to look at other people who believe the same thing you do, and recognize when bad answers are being given, and go to those people in your own faith and correct them, because you have a responsibility to make sure that your brand, your religion is being advocated and expressed in the highest format of clarity and logic possible so that people who don't aren't born into your religion can look at what you're saying it from your followers and be like, you know what, that makes a lot of sense. I'm going to now subscribe to this belief that would be so good benefits everybody or at least see that it is the result of reason for, you know, some, yeah, some thinking. Right. It's the responsible thing to do. Accepting things on blind faith, right? Yeah, and it's not just small things are like medium things like your job or whatever which direction your life is going. We're talking life and death here. Look at Christian scientists. They don't believe in modern medicine. They don't believe in blood transfusions and things like that. We're talking how many times have atheists looked at these situations where these Christian scientists have let their relatives die or their relatives die, because they won't get even minimal medical treatment for these people. Take responsibility for your family. I mean, they're your family and want them to take responsibility for you and do what is necessary to protect them. Right. Right. And I think the other weird thing is, I think there's at least in America, Dredd, I'd love to hear if this then diagram also makes sense. But people who don't trust the government. That's a circle. People who absolutely trust God, right, which in my opinion is like the greatest governor of all time, right? Why is there, why is there this own near overlap or like near almost overlap of people who are like, I don't want the government telling me what to do. Don't tread on me. Also, I love God and I'm going to do whatever that that being tells me. The preacher tells me he wants, you know, have you met God? Have you met have you met a governor like no, no, I hate governors, but I love God. It's like who's more powerful God, but you don't trust the government. No, they get in the way and they tell me what to do and they try to take. They try to take. They don't want. They don't want to live in a governmental dictatorship, but they're happy to live into a religious dictatorship. Right. Right. What's up with that? You know, it's interesting and actually I was watching, well, I've been watching a number of things like Peter Bigosian, who, of course, wrote the manual on creating atheists, which has started the whole SE movement, street epistemology movement. And others of that sort of bent. And, you know, it seems that people who believe in, you know, conspiracy theories and, and God and would forsake, you know, corporal, you know, authority are people who think they have, they're part of an inner circle. Right. They've got the inside track on knowledge and, you know, they're, you know, they're, they're bucking authority because they think that they have a special access to an omnipotent being. Right. And or inner knowledge that's superior to everyone else, despite the despite the evidence. We had to discuss this last week, but there are two parts for a brain, right, that lizard brain and then the. Yes, well three parts actually. I'm going to get there. I'm going to get there. We got so we have multiple parts to our brain. We have some basic parts and then we have more advanced parts and we do some of our high level thinking on. Because evolution has built upon what was previously there. Exactly. And, and this is so there's also, there are also more. Can you hear me still? Okay, great. Yeah. My cat was on my. So the idea that we have multiple parts for a brain, they don't necessarily communicate with all of each other. As quickly as we'd like them to, and it's sort of the problems where it's like, I can touch a hot thing into my finger burns. I'm going, Oh, I burn myself versus I stubbed my toe and my brain's like, wait for it. Wait for it. You're going to know this is going to be terrible. I'm like, Oh, dang it. Dang it. This is going to suck. And then finally, when I get like my between the legs, I'll be like, now everyone pause in five minutes. I'm going to be on the floor. But anyway, the idea is, there's this thing called, and it's not necessarily a part of the brain, but it's like, like it, et cetera, but ego. Ego is a component of our thinking process that I feel biases. How we interpret reality, and it can do so in this very intrusive, but also completely terrible way just like fundamentally terrible way like I wish we could just get rid of ego, which is the idea of the things that I use more often are the things that I trust because the things that I use more often simply by virtue of the fact that things I use more often. So if I believe in a God and I have a relationship with that God since I was a kid, then I think that's my God. And that's my thinking process and I'm more confident that that's true, even though there are other people can you have the exact same experience with their God, their own personal interpreted gods, and come up with radically different conclusions. I see that in the world, I can see people with white headband or turbans on, and they're just doing what makes sense to them, and I can see people with the long beards and maybe like a red Fez and they have a different religion and they're just doing what makes sense to them and I could be an old fashioned middle America boy born in Ohio, and I got the Jesus cross around my chest, and I'm saying like, no I'm just doing what makes sense to me. Everyone's doing what makes sense to them they're all coming to different conclusions they can't all be correct right Why do you believe that one because it's the one that makes sense to me it's the ego backing me up to making me more confident that my conclusions true. And I feel like if we can recognize how ego can be so invasive with our thinking process and recognize what ego is and realize this isn't a rational or reasonable way to come to any sort of conclusion, maybe we can get rid of it. Maybe there could be a thing that we could like a pill we can take here's my thought. Maybe there's a pill we can take that just de egos us for like a period of time or like a drug. But like a pill that's just like the blue pill. Yeah yeah yeah and you just drops your ego and you just look at the world and be like oh my goodness. I finally have clarity and then it even come back and be like I don't need this anymore. Wouldn't that be great like I feel like that's some stuff in the future but the main takeaway is my main takeaway maybe you're talking about. That would represent something that had no work to it right right if that if it were that easy. Yeah sure people would do it. But the fact is, it takes work. It is not natural to the human brain. Human circumstance. You know, we've only had it for 250 years you know since Galileo really. But what we really needed is like some sort of way to expose people who can't do the work, or maybe not willing to work just give them a glimpse of like, look, this isn't an electroshock therapy. This is just a trial version of clarity, you know you do it for like two hours and you just look at the world it's not going to look any better it's fact it's going to be pretty scary for like the first hour, but this is what it is and I feel like once you see it, going back to what anything happens is like fiction, you know, but I, I mean, I think this is, you know, what I'm going to say here is is pretty common to many people is that transitioning out of that sort of rigid religious thinking isn't instant it doesn't it doesn't happen as iffy. Yeah, it happens over time and that's the issue is that, you know, many people may have, you know, realizations that perhaps what they're thinking is, you know, flawed. Yeah, you know that cognitive dissonance thing. But then find a way to rationalize around it. You know, because it I mean if it were like, you know, Paul of Tarsus walking down the road getting struck by lightning and realizing yes Jesus is the savior and he's my God and I mean if that happened in the reverse way that would that would be great, but it doesn't like typically a transition out of belief is one that takes a long time just because the pieces that you are looking at really don't fit together the way you thought, until the point you just can't handle it anymore. You're saying there's a fundamental lack of maturity to appreciate a transition of that caliber such that you couldn't just do it in like a pill or a button. But it's the difference between some guy who spends a year learning how to rock climb, and a person who just uses a ladder, right? Yeah, like the guy who was climbing was learning how to discipline themselves do something that was very challenging, came up with a lot of obstacles, learn how to develop different techniques, learn how to manage risk and efficiency and endurance and change their abilities in a meaningful way, compared to a person's like why did you do that when you can always just climb with the ladder, and they put the ladder up against the wall, and they'll climb with the top and they touch the top hold and they're like, look, see, I can do it too. And they come back down the ladder and they walk away, like 1000 miles away, it looks like they did the same thing. But there's such a fundamental context there that you have to appreciate that the dedication to developing reason and responsibility and accountability that that's an ongoing practice, right? You can't just train for it and then stop training for rock climbing. I mean, when you're not rock climbing, you're still training for it. Yeah, and on top of that, you just can't carry a ladder with you everywhere. Sometimes you don't have a ladder. Sometimes you don't always have a ladder. And so you have to think about like, I am ready in any contact as a rock climber, I'm ready in any context to climb something if I need to climb something because I develop those skills. But for the person who has a ladder, great that you have a ladder, but that only works on very specific things to climb and you have to always carry that ladder. When you leave your ladder at home and you go to somewhere else like on vacation or something, you are completely unequipped to climb things, even though you feel like you have the confidence of owning a ladder if you don't have it on you, that's the difference. And that's what I feel like with the religious mindset. It's when I'm in church, I feel great, I feel empowered, I feel connected with God, I feel like a moral person, I feel ethical, I feel like I'm connected with all these people around me. When I go into a completely different environment where there's a bunch of heathens, non-pleavers, and like I don't necessarily have my holy book ready to flip through to the chapter my pastor told me to flip through to. How do I operate? How am I ethical? How am I moral, aside from just the random verses that I can barely recite in my head? You know, I heard the saddest thing yesterday? Sorry, loud. At work. I, some guy at my job who is a little, the younger generation, I would say like the 20s, there was a conversation I was over hearing about religion. And some guy says, No, you got to read the Bible. And the guy, the guy, the younger guys are like, No, there's YouTube videos for everything now. And the guy's like, you can't just read you, you just can't watch YouTube videos for Bible passages. And the young guy said, No, because they're all two hour long videos. And I'm like, for it for a, for a young kid, that that sounds meaningful, because that means they had to sit down and watch something for two hours, because that's a big ordeal for like a kid in their 20s. But like for an adult, they're like, for, for people our age, they're like, What are you? How is that at all relevant? How is that all a relevant response? Not only that. I mean, the guy has a point about, you have to read the Bible because theoretically you could watch Cecil B. Mills, Ten Commandments and understand Genesis, but it's a, it does not match the Bible. And these, a lot of these videos that are being produced does not match what the Bible says. You need to read the text in the Bible if you're going to say that you know the Bible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just as an aside, I'm actually on a two day course with Bart Ehrman. You guys remember that guy? Uh huh. Yeah. He's a New Testament scholar and very well respected in his field. Anyway, yeah. So this is born a believer. Day two of a conference of 10 New Testament scholars talking about various aspects of the New Testament. You can bet he, he bases his lectures on the very text that he's talking about, not some kind of interpreted version of the text. Well, yeah, absolutely. In fact, pointing out, because he knows ancient Greek, he knows Aramaic, he knows his ancient languages that were actually used in, in these texts. So, you know, coming to a fuller understanding based on evidence as opposed to what people would like to believe in. And actually, and including, you know, the non canonical texts like the gospel according to Mary and Peter and, and whatnot. It's very, very interesting. But again, it's just lending to a fuller understanding of what these things actually say, as opposed to what people believe. Tell each other that they say. And my takeaway would be is if you adopt the label of a Christian, it's your responsibility and it's your accountability to make sure you understand the text. Don't watch a YouTube video, don't listen to someone else read it, you read the text, you understand that you come to a critical assessment, and then fact check it with other Christians after you put in the work. It demands a lot of you but it's the most important thing you can do in your life, which is believing in God, right. So go through the effort. And then if you find out through all your effort that you can't come up with better answers that are currently on the market, make better ones. And if you can't still even after that point, maybe you don't have a good reason to believe this, this, this thing is a real conclusion that you might reach doesn't mean that you should keep forcing yourself to believe it. Maybe you're at a point where I don't have a good reason to support this belief anymore. Maybe you're going to walk away and and say hey I don't believe this anymore maybe you'll come to a point where we're at. I know I've gone through some rigor in that field that's led me to where I'm at now. I would happily abandon where I'm at now if I had better reasons to lead me back into a faith, but no one's putting in that work and that's what we're demanding. Responsibility to do it not me. And we need to wrap up. Okay. All right. Dread pirate Higgs final words. Okay, yeah, mine pirate. That's where my stuff is on YouTube. I do lots of shorter stuff so that it appeals to the short attention span of many people out there. I would say you have the responsibility to come up with good reasons for what you believe it's not my job to come up with reasons for what you believe I can just wait until you have the good reasons that's what I meant by responsibility. That's my final word check me out let's chat on YouTube. Larry Rhodes, where can we find your stuff. My channel is on YouTube is at doubter five. My the rest of my contact can be found on my web page at digital free top three thought dot com. Be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show archives, atheists songs and many articles on the subject. You can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon. Thank you. Dread pirate. You can find the show and podcasts everywhere just search for digital free thought radio hour. That's on YouTube be sure to like and subscribe. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, get help from recovering from religion.org. Remember, everybody is going to some other religions hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. And we'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock on W O Zio radio. Say bye everybody. Bye bye everybody.