 103.9 FM, WZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, December 20th, 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes, or Dour 5. And we use, as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the phone with us. Hello Wombat. I want to be the very best. And you are Wombat. You really are. Our guests today are Doubtfire, Boudreaux, George I, George II, Brooklyn and Buffalo. Hello, Georges. Both originally from New York. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books and superstition. This particular time, we'll be talking about the war on Christmas. If you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in Knoxville, well, you're just not. There are several atheists, free thinking and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville. And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show breaks. Also, did you know that there was a streaming atheist calling video show broadcasting here in Knoxville? It has been for 10 years. Did you know that Wombat? I've been a fan of it since I was a child. And really, I haven't really been paying attention to the show that much, but I have been playing the video game at least once every two years. It's only been on 10 years. Sun and Moon just came out. Love that. And I have like a level 100 Charmander. I know I never know. No, no. I just really enjoy the cute little fire on his tail. Right. Just keep flipping those channels. You'll find it eventually. But we'll tell you more how you can find it after the mid-show break. And if you'd like to interact with us during the show, go to Facebook and search for digital free thought radio hour and use the messaging function to send us questions or comments during the show. Wombat, what do we have today? Ho, ho, ho. Mary, what are we going to do about Christmas, guys? So like, we decided, you know, every year a bunch of atheists get together on a round table and figure out what we can do against Christmas. We've got to do the war against Christmas. Do whatever we can to make sure no one ever celebrates Christmas ever again. The Grinch couldn't join us today, but we'll try to work without him. We'll share our video out for the world to take notes on and see how we like succeed this year if any year. Obviously, we're going to be talking about like, what are we doing as atheists talking about the holidays? And what are our plans for Christmas or the holiday season in general? And before we get into it, I'd like to do a quick, hey, how are you doing? How are you doing? Brooklyn, George, how are you doing? What's going on with you? I'm doing great. I'm doing just wonderful. I don't know what else to say. You know, I'm recovered just about all from surgery. That's so good to hear. And I'm also getting myself a doctor who is not a... Are you getting into doctor? Yes, I am. I am getting a new doctor who is not a Trump supporter. Oh, look at you. I'm happy about that. The only one pro-science is better. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. We'll go straight to Doubtfire. Doubtfire, how are you doing? How are you doing? I'm doing good. Doing good, man. Yep. Tell me what's going on in your household. Do you got the Christmas tree up? Do you not do the Christmas tree? Former Drova witness? Like what's going on here? Maybe I'm trying too early. But like... Too lazy. Too lazy. Too lazy. Too lazy. Okay. Okay. We'll get... I want to get into this more, but let's head in straight into Boudreau. Boudreau, how are you doing? I'm good, man. I just started... Let's see. Friday was my last day of work until January 4th. Same here. Same here. Yeah. It's going to be a... You have a whole family though. So like you got a dog. You got... You have things to do. I'm just here with my cat. Two dogs, two kids as well. That's all right. Cats are work too. Yeah, that's true. Our Christmas stuff. We put up our Christmas stuff in July and... We put it up before Thanksgiving this year just because of COVID. Right. Right. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of the neighbors did that. I saw some guys who never even took down their lights from, you know, last December when COVID like initially hit. They're just like, man, I need this joy in my life. And it was nice to see, you know, in July, just like, no, Christmas lights, screw it. Buffalo George, I want to know everything about you. You're the new face for the show. And actually not too new a face for me. Would you mind telling us about where you are, where you're coming from, who you are, all that stuff? Well, I'm in outside of Lexington, Kentucky, about 15 miles outside, sort of in the country. Cool. And what I've been doing lately is more walking in the woods and enjoying my religion, which is nature. Nice. In my cathedral, which is the woods. And fortunately, we have a neighbor, a very friendly neighbor who has a 300-acre, three-range cattle farm. And we're permitted to walk there freely. And my wife and I do that at least once a day, sometimes more than that. So that's about the only thing I've been doing lately that's noteworthy. What's your relationship to any of these people on this show? Like, who brought you here? What's going on here? Well, there's Eric there, who's my great son-in-law and the host of the summit group, which I expect to know about. And yeah, and I enjoyed the topic. I enjoyed pursuing these questions about religion. Used to be, you know, born and raised in a religious situation, Catholic in my case, but started asking questions in my early 20s. And I'm a scientist, so... Nice. It makes sense to me. And it always has. So that's where I'm coming from. Okay. Okay. Very cool. I'm going to start off with my best friend Larry. How you doing? Doing well. Staying in, staying safe. The whole country is really baking in this COVID right now. And half of the highest cities that are experiencing the worst of situations in COVID are in Tennessee. Yeah. We're just not taking it seriously as a population and we're paying the price. Absolutely. We're just trying to stay in, keep the spirits up, and doing what we can. And I'll say I'll round this out, because I think that's a really good comment. When we started this COVID thing, like we even did like a quick discussion. I'm like, you know, like, hey, what's the deal with face mask? Should we be wearing face masks, all this stuff? And I think like my go-to thing that I was saying is like, we should take precautions, but we should also be very observant to see what works and what doesn't work and be willing to ask some hard questions about like, okay, there's way more death rates. And I'm just going to say Italy may not be Italy. It's definitely not Italy, but like it's more death rates in Italy. What are they doing wrong? No death rates in New Zealand. Let's learn from New Zealand and immediately is to do those rules. Let's do what we can to figure out what doesn't work, what does work, but we'll take precautions in the meanwhile. And I feel like if we go through this whole process and just politicize everything to the point where it's like, okay, it's over, you know, COVID like naturally, maybe we just got rid of it. But we learned nothing when COVID 20 is just going to rock us in the exact same manner. Like we just won't learn anything. And I feel like right now, America is doing absolutely the worst. And it's such a shame. It's such a shame. And what do you mean we pale face? What do we mean? We're all trying, but a lot of us are trying. A lot of us aren't. Yeah. As a country, we are doing so bad, like we're getting detention and we're on the borderline of getting expelled. But like, I just hope, you know, we can learn from this because we need to start. We've had, we've been needing to start. And the fact that like a vaccine can come out and we're trying to take like instant credit for us. It's like, ooh, scientists were trying to figure this out well ahead of time before you came in and were like, you need to figure this out. It was like, no. Anyway, I want to, I want to say, hey, like I said, I want to see you happy. I want to see Chipper. We're talking about the holidays today, guys. I am excited because like Eric or Boudreau, excuse me, like Boudreau or good friend Boudreau, I'm also off work. And I have time now to reflect on a really, really crazy year, but also be fine time to be thankful for just a moment of reprieve because we had been working nonstop since February trying to make face mask material for like all of Tennessee. And like finally it's like, okay, we hit all of our, you know, deadlines. And now it's just like, ooh, what can we do now? And I think what made me feel really happy is I came to work or I came home last Friday and there was a little package on my doorknob and it was one of my neighbors who gave me like a box of cookies and cat toys for my cat. And I'm like, man, this is cool. Like, you know how it's crazy. It's just been working home, working home, working home, working home, but there are other people out there and they were considering for me. And it's like, now it's time for me to think about, oh, what kind of gift can I return for this? What can I do for my neighbors and still stay socially distant, but like also appreciate the fact that I am living in a community that's like very positive and supportive of me. And I think that's what this holiday season is like for me. That's how I celebrate my holidays, just like, what can I do back for my friends and family and my neighbors who I love and I want them to come back with love at me. I want to do a round table discussion on like, what are you guys doing to destroy Christmas? Because that's what I'm doing to destroy Christmas. Being nice to people and loving and sharing reciprocity and all that stuff called my family. That's how you destroy Christmas. Let's go to Scott. Scott, how are you going to destroy Christmas? What's your war on Christmas? Oh, I'm just going to, you know, try to be as positive as I can and try to be as loving as I can and take your advice and example. And yeah, that should really make people angry. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That'll make them real. That'll show them what's up. That'll show them what's up. But you know, you're really interesting because I'm, my mom is Jova witness and even yesterday she was texting me and like, so what do you want for Christmas? And I'm like reminding her. It's like, mom, you don't celebrate Christmas. Anyway, you can't be it. You can't be a cheating Jova witness when there's only 14,000. Right. You got to like try to try to get on the A list at least. But, uh, you know, I've gotten very used to not being overzealous with my celebrations. Are you in more or less in the same boat? Scott. Yeah, I, um, you know, if I'm really honest, because I, you know, since I was a Jehovah's Witnesses Christmas and these holidays were never, they were kind of weeded out of my life way back when I was. So coming out of it, I never like ran back to Christmas or ran back to celebrating these holidays. So this week because it was never an emotional right anchor for me to begin with. So I don't know. It's, it is what it is. And I kind of understand why people get emotional and they get really, it's really important for them. Sure. But, you know, if I'm an atheist, I don't, I don't care. Like you do you, you know, I'll do me live and let live. But it's nice to have a time of day set aside to be especially nice to each other and this and that. So I don't have a problem with it. And I, and I play along with it. I just don't go overzealous about it. Right. Like I don't have Christmas trees and stuff like that. That's overzealous. But I don't even get that far with it. So it is what it is. It won't look like Christmas in New York in my house. I do have like a plant that I put some tinsel around and stuff. But, you know, that's more or less as far as I'm about to go to. I'm more or less in the same boat. But I also like the idea of like, hey, you can celebrate it. If you, you can go crazy. If you want to go crazy, I will support you. If you want to go crazy. I'm just like, I just don't have the energy to do that. Yeah. I have the same question for Brooklyn, George. You know, you were raised atheist, but you do have a Jewish background. So like that's correct. Yes. It's, it's Hanukkah more like the appropriate analogy here for you. It is not. You see, because now you heard it here first. So I'm going to say it in the, in the Jewish context, Hanukkah is not a really big time holiday. Hmm. So, and the irony in the way I was brought up is that every once in a, every, every year or two, so and so my parents would get a Christmas tree and put presents on it. Sure. Sure. Sure. Which is funny because, you know, it's not in my background. It's not in their tradition. It's, you know, but they would, they would do it. So it's like there's a Christmas spirit of some kind. And it's, it's a sort of an American thing because Christians are the majority of Americans. And all these people are doing all this stuff. So can I get with it? Well, yeah, but no, you know, and it's, it's, it's sort of a strange place to be. And sometimes I just wish the whole thing would go away. You know, blow over, but I bought myself some presents. I did. I bought myself some goodies. I have bought myself some presents too. What's the best thing you got for yourself? Just going to ask this real quick. Well, I got some computer stuff. Believe it or not, the best thing I got was a tire pump. Oh, hey, I got a tire pump too. Hey, hey, I totally did. I got one that looks like a drill. It looks super, super cool. I'm just because the last one I had broke when I had three flat tires, the one that I had, the only one that I had three flats because I thought it worked, but instead I was blowing air out of my tires. So I heard the hiss, but I wasn't looking at the tire. Yes. And I'm like, this works. Third tire. Second tire. This works. Third tire. This works. It's not working. Why is my tire? Why is my whole car greening to one side? I'm like, oh man. Well, unlike a lot of people, I have to live with something before I know whether I want it or not, or whether it's any good or not. And sometimes I just have to buy something. It's like I'm scientific. I want to know how it works. And so that's what's behind my having bought a number of things in my life. It's just curiosity. Yeah. You have to live with something to know what it's like. That's sort of like Scott's situation where it's like, I never really had the in-your-face traditional green and red and silver and gold Christmas. So like lacking it, I don't feel like I'm really missing anything. And like from my perspective, I've had really, really Christian Christmases and then the low key, hey man, just do what you got to do. Here's a present. Have fun. Here's your Amazon account and your own credit card. Get whatever you want. And I'm like, I kind of like the second one better. Though like the main thing for me was just like hanging out with family, not so much like the purchase and the in-your-face commercial and the terrible Christian, not Christian, the terrible Christmas music that comes out each new year, some new country stark, figured out a new rendition of Silent Night and I have to listen to him belt it out or the FM every day. And you know what, a lot of that, a lot of that Christmas music was written by Jewish people. Hey, nice. Yeah. And you know the story behind Irving Berlin's writing that his famous Christmas song, right? No, throw it at him. Because he was Jew, living in Brooklyn and he wanted to express his Christmas cheer but not have it be in a Christian sense. So if you listen to the lyrics of White Christmas, you can see that coming right out. Sure. Well, talk to me. There's a lot of secular attributes of Christmas that are non-religious. Santa Claus is a good example of that. Absolutely. Yeah. Originally came from St. Nick, but now it's just like this mascot that's like so generally appealing for everybody. Right. You suck all the religion in. No, no religious overlays at all. Exactly. And I think that's cool. Was St. Nick based on a real saint? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who gave out oranges and was not fat or like. Yeah. You know, the original St. Nick was kind of a gangster. He would go down. So I guess back then it was okay, but he really liked giving away oranges to the point where he would like throw them into people's homes. Like that would be his thing. He would go down the street. Pull out a sock full of oranges and throw it into people's homes. It's like, hey. Oh. Be with God. And if you would be like that guy just throwing an orange in my house. What the hell? But back then it was like. It was better than bananas. Oh, it's better than. Or tomatoes. Yeah. In order in order to, in order to give away oranges, you got to get the oranges in the first place. Where the hell did he get oranges in the middle of the meter? I don't know. I guess it was like a, it was like one of those things where just like, Hey, one, it's food too. It's exotic. You know, like I'm not going to complain against this. So yeah. Well, he had to get them. The trade routes. Yeah. And we're going to Buffalo, George, George. George, I want to know like what are your plans for this Christmas and what's your plans for destroying it? Ah, I don't, I guess I've never thought very much about destroying it, but. I mean, that's what you invited here for, right? I like the, I like the. Oh, the happiness that comes out of it, especially the way in which the kids view it. And so a lot of my focus is on doing that. And I, I enjoyed buying gifts online this year for the grandkids. Really. How do you buy kids, how do you buy kids gifts? I have no idea what even high schoolers like these days. Like I try. You find out from their parents what, what, what they sort of like need. And then you try to try to take that in with what you think you'd enjoy giving them. Now here's the thing. The parents are going to tell you like they need socks. They need underwear. And you're like, yeah, but what kind of socks? What kind of socks? They don't want socks. They never want socks. They never want socks. Especially girls, you know, they, they have special likes and dislikes when it comes to socks. And so you can work on that and it works. Okay. You just, then you go to the internet and you say crazy socks and you get all kinds of possibilities. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think that Christmas to me is a, is something that a lot of people enjoy and especially in a time like this and the dull winter days when the sun's not shining brightly. I just kind of like it. I think Christmas is a grandparent, grandparent, right? Is way, way, way more fun. Then like Christmas is an adult that's already just grown up, right? Like that's the boat I'm in. I'm like, I'm, I'm about to get out of that boat, but I'm still in the boat of just like, Hey, I just barely grew up. Yeah. And so it's just like, okay, I can buy whatever I want. What's the big deal? But when you think about like, oh, but I can buy kids whatever they want. And I don't have to raise them. I could send them home. I could send them home. It's like, oh, then you're half four Nintendo switches. I got dispensable income. I don't care. That's your parents' problem. I want to be the rock star. Yeah, that could be. So this year we can go one step further with that. You know, you can buy them stocking stuffers and you can take the stockings and put them on their front porch in a box and get back in your car and go home. Very cool. You could be like literal secret Santa, basically. And no, well, then you have a zoom where everyone's opens their stockings together. So that's super, super sweet. That's sweet. Okay, cool. Hey, Boudreau, I got some Star Wars info for you. But of course I want to know what your holiday plans are. And then we can go straight into that. What is your means of destroying Christmas? Well, I plan to, you know, you do the usual eat babies and and all that and sing Satan songs and fun stuff. But no, for me, Chris, my mom is just a, but she's a giver. She's a spender. She loves to, to spoil, spoil people. And she spoiled us as kids so much that I was left with Christmas to me was way too many presents. Loving it. Like just as a kid, it just, you know, we always got way too much. And I loved it as, you know, it was Star Wars things and like, G.I. Joe, all of it. Star Wars. Have you ever thought about it? No, no, it didn't exist. What would you be right now? This is like, you'd be an accountant somewhere. I'm like, probably be a Star Trek fan. Oh, the shame. Okay. So, so I don't, I carried, I carried that the memories of that into my being a parent. And, you know, I love spoiling, you know, Kristen gets mad at me. Kristen's George's daughter and she gets mad at me because I want to spend way too much on the kids. So I usually have a few surprises for them to open that even mom doesn't know about. Oh, cool. Yeah. I don't know. It's a great time of year. Outside of religion completely to me, it's about giving, you know? That's nice. Yeah. And spending time with family too, I think. Really. Yeah. However you can, right? In these times, right? I will ask this one weird question before we move up to doubter five, but like, I know in your heart, you want your kids to be able to play as many musical instruments as possible, right? Like, what is the temptation to buy them instruments that secretly you want? And being like, but it's for the kids. They'll be able to play it by the time they grow up to be able to hold this giant jumbo guitar. It'll be an heirloom. So like, really it's a double gift. Really. When you think about it, like how do you, how do you manage that? And is there a conversation with Kristen to like, even things out just like, no, you can't get them for giant metal flying these. That's not going to count. That was tough because the Vivian started with piano, which Kristen played plays. And now she's on flute, which none of us play. So, you know, I've got guitars and drums and everything based down here, but they haven't really taken an interest in it. If they show an interest in it. Yeah. Believe me, I'm going to get a. I hear this is for the kid. It's this less Paul custom. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Silverberg's just just happens to be Silverberg's. It has a beer dispenser, but trust me, I'm not going to let him try until they're 21. Right. Right. Okay. Doubter five, mind give us a walk through about your Christmas plans for destroying the holidays. Oh, it's, it's simple. If somebody says a Merry Christmas to me, I say Merry Christmas back. Happy Hanukkah to me. I say happy Hanukkah back. It's straight forward and it gets to the point. Brilliant. Anybody. Brilliant. Brilliant. That's the master plan. Hanukkah to me. I know that they're celebrating Hanukkah, and I wish them a happy Hanukkah. Yeah. It's no skin on your back. Right. I don't care. But what, one thing that we do a little different here is we put tree, I mean lights up around the living room. Not specifically on the tree, but around, you know, on the, on the tree. But specifically on the tree, but around, you know, on the curtains, on the entertainment system. And last year, from last year to this year, we left them on the curtain all year long and really enjoyed them. So we may do that, you know, just continuing on going forward. Yeah. Really nice effect. It is always kind of sad when you have to put away the Christmas decorations. And back to your head, you're like, but I live here and I'm not hurting anyone if I keep them up. So like, what's going on here? It's like, I like the way this looks. Right. I do have family that's Muslim. And when it's Ramadan, I'll be like, hey, happy Eid, happy, you know, Eid Mubarak or whatever. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done that at grocery stores when it's like around Ramadan time. And then people be like, yeah, Eid Mubarak. And then someone will be like, are you Muslims? Like, no, I'm an atheist. Like, oh, well that's weird. For the most part, they just enjoy that someone else is like appreciating them. Yeah. The weirdest thing, I'll say this before we go to our break is when I used to do SC or Socratic examinations up in Kentucky, there was a walking path at the University of Kentucky. And there would be a lady who would always be out when I was out. And she'd wear like all black and she'd be in the full hajib. Is that the right term for it? Anyway, when she, when she walked past me, I'll be like, hey, Eid Mubarak. And she would respond back with the full on 10 line Islamic slogan. That's just like, but like happy and smiling. And I'm like, I don't know what any of these words mean, but I know she's like, hey, thank you very much. And then you have a happy holidays to bless you and all that stuff. I'm like, all right, awesome. That's cool with me. But she would like remember me and like every single time she see me just like straight. I was like, oh, cool. It's that same way to get. Anyway, what I'm saying is like, it's, it's no skin off my back to, to improve her cheer and her holiday cheer. And so it's just cool to dial into that and make things better. Generally, as a world and more accepting and all that stuff. So I love that. Larry, we're at the bottom of the half hour. Can you believe it already? Oh, no. Can it be? Yeah. Well, this is the digital free thought radio hour and WOZ radio 103.9. Now P F M here in Knoxville, Tennessee, we'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM WOZ radio Knoxville. Hello and welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on WOZ radio 103.9 L P F M right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm daughter five and today is Sunday, December 20th, 2020. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start. That's right. With us on the show today, we have Doc Fire, George Buffalo, Boudreaux, and of course, regular co-host, Ty, Squirtle, Squirtle, Squirtle. Where do you want to pick up one bet? So we just came back from the commercial break and now it's time for everyone's favorite game. Who's that Pokemon? Oh, no. There's no Pokemon here. Where'd it go? Where is it? Where is the love? Where is the love? The love. The love. Buffalo George is like, I have no idea what's going on. I have no idea. What's happening? So we are. So we have a segment of the show where we go over a listener feedback from last week's episode. Last week's episode of course was logic can't prove anything. And we actually had a really cool conversation about the nature and limitations of logic. It's a great thing to come up with for proofs, but it's not a really adequate means to prove anything. If anything, it's just a good way to show that we can't be certain about anything. Like the only thing that we can't be certain about is uncertainty. And so it inspired a lot of really interesting comments in that video and we're going to go over them today. Dada's trading room all the way from Poland. He says logic can lead to evidence. Breaking up. Oh, my bad. My bad. Dada's trading room all the way from Poland. Still breaking up. No, you're okay now. Okay, cool. So Dada's trading room all the way from Poland says logic can lead to evidence and evidence does lead to proof, but we can't prove. It's proving is a lot harder. He also follows up with a belief, a claim or a model of, oh, wow. He really, really well defines his terms with like some, a very good definition. But basically he came up with a defense for saying like, hey, logic is a good way to lead to evidence. And evidence does lead to proof, but that's a different thing to prove with a V something. And I thought that was really interesting. What do you think about that Buffalo, George? Do you think you can prove something with logic? Can you like sit down here? I don't care. I don't care. Buffalo, George. Buffalo, George. Brooklyn. I'm walking over here. What are you doing? Yeah, I think, well, I'm a scientist and the main thing I have been for my entire career and what I've come to learn the most is that we never know everything about anything. And so maybe that's an answer to your question. Can you prove anything? And I'm not so sure you can, but you can conclude certainly. Okay. Logic leads to conclusion. Yes. And that's the way I operate. Yeah. I don't believe anything really. I conclude with the best evidence I can gather. Can I poke at that? I would say like you don't believe anything with absolute certainty, but there are obviously things that you are convinced are true, even with your own infallibilities. Whether you say that's more accurate, or would you have an issue with that? I'd have an issue with that. Talk to me. Well, for example, the example I usually use is, you know, gravity is the most obvious thing to, just about anybody that thinks about it and we don't understand gravity. Okay. So science does not understand the basis of gravity and you can apply that to almost anything. The properties of water, for example, there are still some properties of water that are not understood. So I don't think we have to. We have to, we have, as an experimentalist, I depend upon experimentation to arrive at my conclusions whenever I can. And so we have to just do the best we can and advance the understanding in that way. Okay. I'm going to throw this out again. I'll massage my words a little differently. We don't have an absolute idea about anything, but we at least have working conclusions about how things operate, where we can like still, you know, know the consequences of our actions and interact with things in a beneficial way for mutual benefit. Is that something you would agree with? Yeah, working. I like working conclusions. Working conclusions. Larry, what'd you think you had your hand up? Yes, I was having a conversation with someone recently. They were saying that I was saying that absolute certainty is overrated. Science is always absolutely sure about their facts. And I told them, no, no matter of fact, we reserve our highest rewards and most prestigious rewards for those who can overturn our previous assumptions with new information. I mean, we don't assume absolute certainty over what our discoveries are. Give them high credibility. Yeah, I like that. I like the idea of like, hey, you know, science is about rewarding people who overturn science, right? Science is inherently a pursuit to figure out why the last guy who said something was wrong. Which is sort of, go for it. And the method is retested. And if something that science says is overturned, it's only overturned by more science, not by religious claims. Yeah. There's an unfortunate conflation between, well, you just trust science, but science is what you used to correct science. So if you can't trust science, how do you even test this whole system? But really, science is what is knowledge. Like, it is not just something that's on the shelf of knowledge, it is the shelf. And so like all of our... And we break it down to different methods. Sure. But like, there's a lot of observations there. There's some empirical studies. There's philosophy, there's mathematics, where you just have incredibly well-defined terms. It's a big shelf of knowledge. And we can't throw that out, but we can add to it. And it tends to be that when we use this shelf of stuff, it leads us to the best conclusions. And I think, demonstrably, that makes it the best method to come to conclusions. And we can always improve it, and we can take stuff off the shelf. We're willing to adapt it. Is it not the best words at right now? No. But can we keep improving it? Yes. And that's what makes it better than a strict dogma that doesn't change, that assumes that it knows everything. Boudreau, I'm going to throw a question out at you. You know, we talked about this last week, but like the idea of like, can you prove... So, Ecocentric Homestead asked, there's no... I'm not aware of any logical arguments for the existence of God, because I think they're all philosophical, not logical. In your head, what's the difference between philosophy and logic? Like a philosophical argument versus a logical argument? Boudreau, what do you think? So I think I've said before on the podcast that one of my bigger regrets in my education in college, I never took a philosophy class. And I kind of kicked myself, because I feel like I'm missing a lot of the pieces, and maybe the pieces would be needed to help answer this question properly. But to me, philosophy, it's thinking about thinking, talking about how these thoughts are put together. So logic certainly comes in there. But I don't know, I guess my experience with logic is more on George's side of things, more scientific, more testable things you can... But I mean, I think you can use a lot of the same tools in philosophy, like logical fallacies. You know, because you don't control what you understand in your head, right? Someone makes an argument, and it clicks, and you're like, yeah, I get it. That makes sense. I agree. But you're not really in control of that, especially if you know my thoughts on free will. So... Don't get them started. Don't get them started, anybody. It really just comes down to, you got to put the words in the right order, whether that's logically or using the right terminology to make it just click for that person to say, oh, yeah, I get it. So I don't know if that answers it. George, I'll give the follow-up. What do you think? Bail me out, George. Bail me out. When I was in college, I only took one philosophy course, and I'm aware there are different branches to the discipline of philosophy. Notice I just called it a discipline, because the way what I picked up was that it was very much about logic in my one semester of philosophy. I think it's all based on logic. I mean, I think the underpinnings of all good philosophy would be logic. It's the tools of philosophy and science. You can't really make any headway without it. One of the problems I have with philosophy is that Descartes started off with the most foundational logical conclusion that you can reach. We think, therefore, we exist. Or I do. I don't know about you guys. I can't prove it. Way to throw us under the bus. Other than that, after he made that conclusion, he went off into Neverland with spiritual beings and other realms that are not conclusive and not logical, if you ask me. That's just me. It seems like the best philosophy are the ones that cohere with logical entailments and stuff like that. Epistemology, that's a branch of philosophy. But it's asking how do you know things and it usually appeals to logic. If how you know something isn't logical, then it opens up a bunch of questions like, well, how do you know if it's not logical, if it doesn't? And then there's other things like concreteness versus imaginary things. How do we tell the difference between imagination and the concrete? Like logic is a mental conceptual in the category of imagination. That's what logic is. It's in your mind. But then if it coheres with the concrete or something we can actually point to in reality, then it makes a better philosophical argument. It's more sound versus just the valid conception. That is incredibly well said. I love that. I love it. I like philosophy is better when it's rooted in logic. Like it's enriched with logic. You can have Sophistry, which I think in my opinion is philosophy sans logic. It's just like, this guy's just talking. That's your Jordan B. Peterson. And the crystal came from the mouth of the mammoth. It's like, oh, this guy's just talking. That's just a person speaking. Word salad. But when you get a doctorate, you get something called a PhD, which is a doctor of philosophy. That is a person who's studying very hard in the logistics and the logic and the technical aspects of a field of science to the point where it's like, ah, good job, dude. Good job. Or good job, lady. Good job. Whatever else we do. Exactly. There can be PhDs out there that issue Word salad. But the peer review of his ideas. I love it. And I love the peer review. Go for it. A big component here is this person or that person versus lots of people whose expertise goes way beyond themselves. And that's one thing I find very appealing about science. It's really accumulation of knowledge. It's not a Nobel Prize winner here or the other Nobel Prize winner there. When I think of logic, that's my definition of logic. It has to come from many heads. Oh, it's a team pursuit. Yeah. But yeah, to Ty's point, though, you get someone who is good at the word salad, right? Jordan Peterson was an example. They're kind of like a preacher, in a sense, where they're convincing, right? They get on the stage and they say these things. And again, it comes back that it clicks into people's heads. Charismatic. Even though they're not peer reviewed and it's not like, you don't take the words and parse them out and exactly examine. I mean, some people do, but it doesn't matter because they've got a million followers on YouTube and they're changing people's minds. So I don't know how you combat that or fix it or improve it. With logic and education. My opinion would be like the whole purpose of college, in my opinion, at least should be is to improve your critical thinking prowess and be able to parse bad information from good information. Not be able to say this is the good information I'm always keeping with myself and this is the bad, but be able to have the process to be able to distinguish the two. And that only comes through rigorous study where you are sent out into a field with us, being asked to solve something that your professors can't figure out or whatever. And it's like, I have all these, you know, journals that I could read information from. Some are higher rated than others. Some are from authors who are just really popular in the field and maybe have less standards in terms of like, oh, but if we get this article from this professor, maybe our journal looks better, et cetera. So like you need to be able to see like, this is good information. This is a good test. This was done rigorously. This is a comprehensive analysis. This is not. This is just pop science. This is just a nice picture, but there's no weight behind it. And I feel like those people who train themselves that way and anyone can be trained that way are the best kinds of mindsets for getting rid of the pop culture philosophers that we have on TV. Or what I also see is like athletes who get asked questions about things that are like, you know, like, what's your opinion about Bosnia? What's LeBron James? And LeBron James is like, I think we should, I don't know, like maybe he has an opinion on it, but like, is that the most well-versed opinion that we should be listening to? And like, we should just be able to have an awareness of that. I think everyone waited on that. That was a really great, that was a really great, like great comic, eco-centric homestead. We're going to go on to Ashley Williams. Ashley Williams says, hey Ty, you're a microbiologist, aren't you? A man of science. I mean, you have a PhD. What are you guys going to do a show on this COVID vaccine? I mean, what better way to put science, logic, and proof together than that right now? And who better than you guys? LOL, asking for a friend. So, so we actually did a show on COVID and vaccines. It was called, can spiritual healing save us from COVID? And we did that back in November on the 22nd of November. You're free to check out that video. Let's see. Another comment is, oh, it's a question. I'm going to direct it to our new guest of honor, Buffalo George. He wants to know scientists. Okay, let me read this question. Do scientists only form consensus? I'm sorry. Do scientists ever form consensus without demonstrability? So basically he's asking, can a bunch of scientists come into a room, come to a consensus about something, but not be able to demonstrate it? And has that ever happened in the past? Well, I think theoretical physicists do that all the time. That's their branch of science. But really there the purpose is to instigate experimentation to prove or disprove. But by and large, I don't think scientists do that. Everyone looks at the data and decides whether or not you should go on from just something that's data driven to a consensus and then to a paradigm. Right. But again, the overlying thing that's going on there all the time is it's expected to be retested. A couple of years ago there was a good paper out on challenging some of Newton's theories. And Einstein's relativity theory was tested a few years ago in the peer-reviewed literature. And in both cases, both of those guys came out okay. But everything has to be based upon retest. Nice, nice, nice. He invented calculus at 20. I just want to see something like needle. I was like, come on, get him down here for someone. Could you imagine if Newton was in your math class, he would be like the ultimate teacher's pet. He'd be like, I did all my homework. I did the whole book. It's like, ah, this guy. But he wasn't one of the nicest people. I would like to add that. He's not my favorite scientist. He was very bad to some of his colleagues. Listen, I'm going to say this. Sometimes people are mean and deserve to get away with it. If their contribution is good enough, I don't care if Einstein parallel parks every couple of times or uses that. I don't care if Marie Curie uses the handicap parking space at Walgreens. It's like, you can get away with that. I'm not going to hold you against it. I actually agree with that. I agree with that. However, if it's impacting science and if it's holding, if it's holding back another good scientist that has a different view, then that's wrong. Okay. Yeah. That's why Thomas Edison's in my corner. Like you're in the bad room corner because he did that all the time. Boudreau, I saw your hand raised. What's up? Yeah. So to chime in on what the person was asking of the question and add to what George stated. It's interesting. And I don't know if others have this in their scientific community, but in engineering, you know, I have civil engineering background. And one of the things we do as researchers for traffic safety is something called an expert panel. And I don't know if you guys have this as well, but you get to a case where it's like, you want to study, you know, 10 foot lane roads with a, you know, eight foot median and this type of shoulder. There's just not enough data to study it. Right. Which is so empirically, you cannot put a study together to study it. And with experts when you review this and you discuss it and you come to a consensus and that consensus sometimes leads to some factor of safety that you can use to help design roadways. And that's our statistician friends often look at that as kind of, kind of scary and kind of, you know, smuggling in some bias. But you know, what do you do? I mean, I mean, you're, I think right now that's the best science we have. And admittedly it's not great science, but it's, it's better than a random number. I would presume, but here's, here's where I think slide on bridge. I actually think that's great science. Cause what you are essentially doing is presenting a model that people can learn from. And you're not saying it's absolute. You're saying, Hey, we can improve this model, but that's what science does. It's like says, this is our best guess of what things are right now. Let's use this as a model and we'll look for what doesn't work and we'll change that in the future. But it's those foundational first steps that really make science a beautiful thing. Cause it's like, Hey, we're building this on the premise of we can improve it. You know, Scott, you're an IT. Have you ever had an experience where like a bunch of IT guys came together and just came to a conclusion without I guess like, you know, hard data to support their conclusion, but they needed to have to come up with something like that. Oh yeah. Absolutely. All the time. Like, let's say if they're trying to roll out something like a, um, a program or something that's supposed to solve a problem. And we've never done it before using this program or somebody creates an application that kind of like update computer systems, for example. Sure. And, you know, they, you know, you kind of decide on a group of engineers are going to get together and they're going to decide what it should be, what it should look like, what we, what we want to accomplish and lay out your case. And then you come to a consensus and then you all agree that this is what we want to do. So let's go out and test it. So then they go and they test it. And if it works, then it, you know, then they roll it out. And if not, then they go back to the drawing board. So it kind of starts off with some imaginary thing. You know, some imaginary, um, something logical, something that seems to logically make sense. And if it logically makes sense, then they will come together and say, yeah, that's logical. That makes sense. Let's try it. And then they'll try it. And then it becomes a concrete thing. It becomes something we can say, Hey, this actually works. You know, there you go. That's the greatest, that's the greatest quote in like all of science, whatever happens. It's been said by many people, but it's like, Hey, this actually works. Oh, let's, no one's going to graduate. Someone's getting papers and going to graduate. Hey, Larry, what do you think about this conversation? I think sometimes, sometimes you just have to do your best and throw it out. There and see what happens, you know, and then figure, figure it out, figure out what you did wrong and do that. That's, that's called improvise and surprise. And I love that motto in terms of science. Cause like, sometimes you just have to think about it. You brought up Edison. What was that about? Edison was just a notorious jerk. It's just like a well known inhibitory to science jerk. Very good at putting his name on other people's ideas. You know, just promoting himself very, very harshly. But like, you know, hopefully history will shine some better light on that guy. And the people who got overlooked as a result. Yeah. Oh no. Cause he didn't invent the light bulb. Let's go Larry. Let's go. Um, no, I was going to say that a lot of people think that scientists will say something like, Eureka, I found it. Yeah. I found it. I found it. I found it. I found it. I found it. I found it. I found it. I found it. Yeah. Um, and it's, it's something like, you're a guy. I found it. You know when they find a new discovery, but it's generally something like, Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then they, I like to say, what are the six controls look like? What? Mmm. What, what do the six controls look like? Oh, Yeah. Hmm. All studies. So what? authority in the same vein they have different definitions and they should people should be aware that an authority may not actually be an expert and an expert may have no authority in certain areas but that's something that a distinction should be made that's all. What I also like about the scientific method is that it has like this almost golden religious almost it's appreciated at a higher esteem than what it actually is because it's not like one guy being like I'm going to prove this I came up with a hypothesis I did a test and I prove that it's more of like I'm systematically documenting every step of this process so that if something like Larry said weird happens I can backtrack read all my notes figure out oh I expected this for this to happen but something completely opposite happened can I use that for something like my chocolate bar I melted in my pocket what happened there oh yes exactly microwaves came about I was back into religion yes last week I had a conversation with a christian and we were talking about science and they said and she was trying to defend faith and so she was saying well even science uses faith and so I was kind of disagreeing with that and she and uh equivocation yeah she was equivocating the four core assumptions of science with faith because you know the assumptions is there's a world out there the world can be tested you know it follows patterns and laws and things like that but that's an equivocation because that's just basic inference how do you handle that equivocation in dialogue how did you deal with it um I just copy and pasted you know what science says about the core assumptions let us see what those core assumptions are and then a philosophical like from the Stanford dictionary or encyclopedia philosophy to show the difference between inference and faith and different things like presuppositions and things like that George we'll get right to you I would say like for for me I found it way more compelling at least in a face-to-face conversation because this sounds like it won't happen like over Facebook but to ask someone just three questions these are from like my sc practices but like what do you mean by that like faith and science are the same thing what do you mean by that that's the first question let them say whatever they got to say get let them define it in their own words and not just copy paste from some rigor but once they really think about the words coming out of their mouth they might change their their story then ask how can we test that because now they've just given you a claim and you can test it and then the last question is how reliable is that test and through those three questions alone I think you can get someone to really consider why they believe something that might sound weird to you without having to challenge them or throughout their logical fallacies in their face perfect perfect what do you mean by that how can we test that how reliable is that test George why don't you take us out you'll have the last comment before we end the show today well before we destroy Christmas for good once and for all I wanted I just wanted to ask Scott did you was you were you successful did you change your mind on any did you change your mind yeah she actually did she she changed her own mind yeah she said well oh okay so inference is different than faith okay I understand I think I understand you better I don't know if she changed her mind really but at least she acknowledged the information I gave her because she was asking for citations or whatever so very cool so guys were at the bottom of or at the top of the hour George I'm going to ask you a question because I asked you this last week and you said you'd look up something if you say absolutely nothing I'm going to be sad but was there anything that you'd recommend that we check out over this next week um yes but I can't remember it all right work on it work on it I'm going around we'll go to you one last time oh good did you finish that song by the way I didn't know it's still getting mixed um hey we should have it next time should have it soon okay no pressure but I will tell you guys this um in the Christmas spirit give well do do do some charity but but pay attention to what charities you use and find a charity that's that's effective and absolutely if that's very very true uh do you have any charities that you would recommend off the top of your head honestly I would go to givewell.com and they they study all these charities and they find the most effective it's it's a Sam Harris thing I'm sorry I'm sure how he's plugging in but effective altruism Peter Singer I guess but effective altruism it's it's uh give give where it can do the most good you know since um Black Lives Matter protests had started I actually found some really great um charities to donate to that basically give bonds to people who are in situations where like I can't afford this bond I can't afford another phone call for my parent I need help just like letting people know that I'm stuck in jail or anything like that and I'm like in this local community and no one knows my name and I feel like you know I'm I'm I'm fighting against a police state at this point it's like we you can put in money into a ability to get those people at least you know to the bond hearing meetings faster so before they lose their job and fall into a system where it's like for profit you know penitentiaries so yeah I thought it's built well I can't call to action but I'll say look up stuff like that that's my go to uh Scott Williamson Dub shine have you have you have anything that you would recommend that we check out um yeah so two things I would go to um an article about what is Christmas understanding history and origins at crosswalk.com that would be has a really interesting article about where Christmas came from its origins and things of that nature and then two check out my uh my music you can you can download music go to dubshine.bandcamp.com and check out nice things of that nature dude I need to get a band camp that's a great website that's a nice website dubshine.bandcamp.com right that's it nice all right Buffalo George anything you'd recommend that we check out over the next week if we if we no I guess I'll pass okay that's totally fine Brooklyn George getting a getting a have you gotten the epiphany that you're looking for yes yes nice looking looking into what's called cluster B personality disorders and I want to suggest that if you want to know what's called the um the dark triad in psychology actually it's got more to it there's more than three uh personality disorders but you'll find of course one famous person on that map and um there are a couple others but they may they may have some importance in your own life nice very cool uh I'll give you personality disorders cluster B personality disorders give it a google um I'll give one shout out to my black brothers and sisters uh there's a game that's a star wars game hear me out don't don't close it yet don't hear that this is this is pretty good it is called star wars Jedi fallen order I would recommend that you check it out I think if you buy it on epic right now not saying do it but if you buy an epic right now you can get for like 10 bucks because it is it's such a good game and epic puts out such great deals but like the idea of if you were disappointed with episode what's the late what was the what was the number of the last two stars movie number nine if you were disappointed with number eight if you're disappointed with number nine I think if you played like just 10 minutes of this game you'll be like oh I get what star wars is supposed to be like I understand the weight of it I get the world now it's not it's not spoon fed to me and and so simplistic and just you know john abram's explosions it's like oh I can take my time and listen to this conversation I can see myself get falling into this world and I want to explore it more and I recommend that you check it out uh black people typically not the biggest demographic of star wars fans I say check this out you guys I'm challenging you all right Larry what do you got well my content is found on digital freethought.com that's also where the blog is the radio show archives atheist songs and articles on the subject my book is called atheism what's it all about all about available on amazon if you have any questions for the shows or comments you can send them to ask an atheist at noxvilleatheist.org we'll answer them on future shows if you're watching this on youtube be sure to like and subscribe to be notified of new episodes are posted this has been the digital freethought radio hour remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real until then don't sweat it enjoy your life and we'll see you next week say bye everybody bye everybody bye