 I'm going to have to stop. Hello and welcome to the digital free thought radio hour and W ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, December 4 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or a doubter five. And as usual, we have our co host one better line with us. Hello, I'm back. Hey, I'm the one back. Our guests today are Swedish Steve all the way from Sweden. Welcome, Steve. Well, thank you. Digital free thought radio hour is a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences. Firstly, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, 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 the middle of the Bible belt, we have a group of over 1000 of us. The atheist society or Knoxville or ASK, but we'll tell you more about that after the mid show break. So be sure to stick around. What's our topic today? It's a mail back episode. We'll be talking about belief psychosis and all listener feedback since, you know, our last couple of episodes. Well, we'll certainly address it. Nice. So normally at this point we would either do an invocation, or we start talking about John Richards quest for chaos as the leader of all atheists in the UK. You know, I, I it's really get an opportunity to just check in with everybody see how they've been. Sweetest evil welcome with you. You've got a new kid. You're living up there where it's still probably covered in 10 feet of snow. What's going on with you. How you been. Well, it's okay it's starting to get Christmas and people are like, we should go back to the old ways of the North. I love it. Yeah, it's it's fun for me. And we don't cut that much snow outside but it's darkest. Yeah, yeah, our are so you probably do time zone changes do you do like a daylight savings time thing where you are. Well, but Tennessee we live in a state that's very, very long so it stretches multiple time zones. And so one side always gets unfortunately the the short end of the stick and it's our side that does. I don't know Larry if you're on our side if you're more median but it's really we're in the Easter time zone so okay. We're central and it's dark when we wake up and it's dark when we go back to work or come back home from work it's terrible it's really bad waiting for it to be nice. Larry, how you been what's going with you. Oh, not a lot just working and playing computer games about it. Yeah, the one thing I hate about winter is not the cold it's the dark. And you get so much darker and it's, it's not that bad compared to place like Sweden or something but you know it's still a lot of dark and I don't especially don't like driving in it with all the bright lights in my eyes and all that stuff. Nothing that I'm doing fine. You know it's not the cold and it's not the dark it's the hope that's the hope that I find really annoying, because every year, there's people being like well it's the last time we'll ever do daylight savings time. Oh, it's going to be the last one guys, it's going to be the last one getting pushed through it's the last one maybe next year we won't have it I'm just like you say that every year. Don't you realize we're in a spiraling pit of despair. No one's going to change for this we're going to live with this this thing that no one wants. Yeah, seems that way. Yeah this radically popular thing that everyone wants to get rid of, like every single so we have a we in the US we have a Senate and we have a house, the Senate hate each other. The last terrorist attack led by our own president back at the time, when they were like rushing the Capitol they were attacking the Senate because those guys weren't inciting that fight against each other, and they're all huddling and trying to kill each other. And these are the people who all uniformly agree unanimously agreed let's get rid of the daylight savings time they did in a day they're like, we hate this get rid of it. We thought, oh man the Senate passing I guess the house has to as well. House is like now we don't want to deal with it right now I'm just like why not we all, all of America, even the Senate agrees that this is a crazy thing. All right, that's my day I apologize might be more to come there might be more to come but yeah, I've heard, I've heard a really great quote before we get into the topic of show that hope may not lead anywhere, but it creates when people follow it it creates a path. A path. Yeah, and that sounds nice but I just hope it's not a path to nowhere so let's try to make that into productive path. It's a circular path. Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to talk about some of the comments that we got over the last couple of episodes. We're sitting on, you know, about 17 over the last three episodes that we've done. I really appreciate all the feedback, not to mention, just like you guys willing to speak up and give us some really nice, not necessarily critical but really supportive words to mention and good questions go over. I want to talk about one of the questions that we got today. This is off of the topic. Can you choose your beliefs, where we were talking about people being able to choose their beliefs and is that potentially considered like potential mental illness if you can self delude yourself. And how would you address that what's the way we know what's the most beyond politically correct what's the most apparent way to describe something like that. And so, I'm just there, left us comment and asked, Why isn't believing that God is talking to you, not considered a form of psychosis. They also have an extra sentence here. How is believing that some invisible thing is talking to you not considered a form of psychosis. So, if you consider anything else like, if you believe that leprechauns were talking to your fairies or the Easter Bunny, that would be considered a psychosis, but it's a societal norm that steps in, and thinks, you know, maybe he is maybe God is talking to you, because we all know God is real. And he talked to people. So so in the Bible. This discussion with my, my Bible group. Yeah, I'm in the Bible group. And they start talking about how they met God and what he had said to him and Jesus and all that. He asked me, How do you feel when, when we tell you about these things. Well, I don't say that you're a liar, but I would say that it sounds like mass psychosis. Yeah. Okay. Well, you can, you can have a range of replies to that. The most blunt would be, you know, you're lying. You can also be very kind and say, you interpret what you feel as something that is coming from a supernatural source. You know, because of the way that you were raised the input that you got, you know, growing up from the people you trust most. You know, it could be anywhere in between. My question is, in the Bible, there are lots of supernatural beings, including Satan. When you hear a voice telling you to do something, how do you automatically jump to the fact that it's a God or your God, or not an angel, not Satan, not a demon. You know, it's just God, it could be any of those, according to the scriptures. Yeah. Especially if that voice tells you to kill your first born child. Yeah, that's pretty bad. So I have a bit more of a nuanced take on this, because obviously if you, if you lost, if you believe in something so, if you believe in something that's, you know, clearly not demonstrable to the point where it's making you lose contact with external reality. That's a psychosis, right? But there's a lot of different reasons why people believe I'm only saying this because I used to be a believer. And I ran into a situation where I knew it wasn't real, but I chose to believe anyway, because that was, one, what I was told, two, would make my life easier. Three, I was trying to believe in it because I wanted to be a better Christian. I wanted to have that relationship with God. Like, and this wasn't always the case. When I was a kid, I believed anything, right? But like it was when I was beginning to lose my faith and I wanted like hard curve back. I'm like, I know you can't just touch water and have wine come out of it. Like wine has completely different molecular structure than water. There's additional atoms there that you're adding in. That's not just a standard transition you can do at room temperature. Like if you just, it's not Kool-Aid for crying out loud. There's a lot more to it. I know you can't walk on water. I would never try walking on water. I've never seen anybody do it. I'm like, I know what ice is, and I know surf to tension. Like that's not going to work. I know it didn't happen. But maybe that I don't have to believe in those crazy little stories to believe in the big picture. Like I'm constantly hedging my, my belief towards the big picture, which is a God does exist. Maybe a lot of the stuff in the Bible is in true talking snakes, all this other stuff. I know that's not real, but I will still choose to believe in that God. Is that, is that wishy-washy-ness of a Christian where I'm like just trying to find the most objective path to that God? Is that a form of psychosis? Or am I lying to myself? Like what would you guys call that? I'd be interested. Larry, I'll start with you. What do you think about that? I know it's not true. I think a large portion of wanting to believe is wishful thinking. You feel that the problem was with you, not with the belief itself. It was what I thought of when I was in college, I mean, in high school growing up. My mother was a very religious woman and she always told me, you know, that what's in the Bible is true. You know, what I needed to believe in to make sure that I always believe that. Because as soon as I don't believe it, the devil will get me the type of thing out. But, you know, I internalized it in that I was thinking that my doubts are my own. It's the devil testing me. And I'm sure there are a lot of Christians out there right now that think that. I mean, that's just part of it. It's just part of the world view of the religious person. That's a really good point. You feel like the problem is with you. You internalize it, right? The pastors tend to reinforce that as well. Very true. You know, what sucks too is you internalize the bad stuff, but any good stuff that happens to you, you give to the belief. So it's like, hey, this really great thing happened to me. Thank God. This really terrible thing happened to me. I need to ask for forgiveness. That's on me. That's why it's never God's fault when you fumble the ball. But when you make that touchdown, right, right, right. Sweetest Steve, what do you think if I know something is not true, but I choose to believe it anyway, is that a psychosis as well? No, I mean, there's a lot of things where we choose to believe in non Christian religious ways. Just Marga, for example, that's the big lie. Sure. And we have lots of that kind of things. So I wouldn't say it's a psychosis, but I wouldn't say, I would more say like Larry said, you allow yourself to lie. Ah, that is trading room says in the chat. I know that Santa Claus doesn't exist, but I choose to believe in him anyways is in fact a totally illogical and nonsensical statement, but most people don't realize this fact. They simply have never really thought deeply about what it means to believe. Some people are afraid of thinking per se, because, you know, even religious leaders will say, you know, you think too much you, you know, you send your son to college and he learns how to think and gets away from Christianity. You know, they have a they have, they seem to have a problem with that. And here's here's my here's my other take, you know, the whole nature of faith, right, is explicitly believing things without critical thinking application applied, right. The actual definition is what is it. There's two of them in the Bible. One is the substance of things hope for an unseen belief or conviction without actually, you know, having any evidence and I'm just like that's a terrible explanation of what that could be. The Christians who are watching this show are like, that's a terrible definition. Ha ha. Let me show them with the fact and if you read it from the definition is the actual Bible is even worse than my summary. But the main thing is, don't use critical thinking, don't think too hard, be like a sheep, blessed are those who don't ask questions, right, blessed are those without any kind of testing. Like, that is such a terrible foundation to put such a such an important claim, or such a statement of the thing that's most important to you. Like, you shouldn't even test it, but it's it's endemic of don't critically think. And so if someone says you need to believe in God, and they're also telling you don't think critically about it. It's like, it's like the two punch combo of I'm, I'm selling you a lie. I'm selling you a lie that I believe, just believe in it too so that we can profit off of it, you know, we'll get the good stuff. But the more you think about it, the more it falls apart. And the only thing that that happens to is lies, because the truth wants you to keep thinking about it will truth wants you to keep poking around at it. So I'm really unfortunate. I think it's a really unfortunate thing that we just have, you know, a lot of people will wishful thinking to the point where it actually is affecting not just external reality but my reality as well. Oh, we'll do another comment. Pom the needle driver says when you gather enough followers instead of being considered psychotic you're just a prophet. At some point when your popularity spreads far enough folks center their entire lives around your delusions that are willing to even die for your sake. That could be really dangerous right. There's a, there's consequences with changing the way how people believe. And what about it as a mental illness Swedish Steve would you consider them, you know, people who are ardent in their faith is that a former real mental illness. No, I would say the mental weakness but I wouldn't say illness. Like, for a person like me, I have bipolar disorder with schizoaffective problems. I've had psychosis. And what I feel afterwards is not like it was real. No, critical thinking. Now, the Chinese ain't spying on me. They're there ain't people moving around talking to me via telekinesis and stuff. Yeah, so a weakness but not an illness. I love the way you said that I'm going to keep that in mind. It's not a work mental illness is a mental weakness because it's something that could be overcome with some practice and training. Yeah, I remember that phrase. That's a good one. Yeah. And, you know, it's a good point because it wasn't like I was indoctrinated into a mental illness and I was just taken at a time where my mental capacity is very weak and ignorant and pliable. And it was molded into the way how society wanted, and it took my effort and willingness to hold myself to a higher standard I had to work out my brain, you know, and and I got better as a result. And now that I'm at the position where I'm at, it's not like I'm saying, listen, I'm never going to change my mind again. You guys are all wrong. It's just the standard of what you're using to the standard you're using to believe this incredible thing is so low that I can't possibly lower my standard down to meet that. But if your God exists, ask him to meet my standard. I'm one human being just have him meet my standard and I'll believe whatever he wants to to it's not up for me to figure that out. It's up for your powerful God. That is if he wants you to believe. If he wants me to believe it's not my problem. Like all the preachers say, you want you to believe well he's got the capacity to show me the evidence to make me believe. Yes, he also knows what that evidence is. Yeah, he knows everything. Right, but there's he hasn't shown me. So sweet Steve you'll love this there's a show in America called baggage baggage is a great show. It's hosted by Jerry Springer. It's a dating show. It's one I and three girls or one girl and three guys, and they each have three cases of luggage right. And they'll come out at the beginning of the show and the girl has to choose which of the three men she'll go out on a date with but they open up their small little suitcase of baggage first and the first one's like I eat my toenails. I have 40 cats. The other ones like I never brush my teeth and it's just like, why are these the guys like you got to know the baggage first, we're getting it out of the way so you don't end up marrying them and realize they like to bubblegum with every weird part of their body or stuff like that. It's just like, let's get all the baggage out of the way ahead of time. One of the guys, their baggage was, I'm an atheist, and on my head I'm like that's not that would be baggage to me baggage. Some people it would. Yeah, some people it would be and the lady was like well I'm very very spiritual is that a problem for you and it's like no it's not a problem for me if you're spiritual. And he's just like well why don't you believe in a guy's like maybe you should ask your God that. Does he talk to you. There will be more baggage. Exactly it's like, I shouldn't have to answer that like if you have a God that you believe in that's all powerful. Why don't, why don't you ask your God why I don't believe in him and he'll he'll happily tell you, or he'll be like I'm gonna turn on Jerry's believe there you go. Great. Yeah, I love the way how he handled it he didn't win. And I don't think it would have been a good match anyway but I'm remembering that comment as far as like good comments for a thesis like don't ask me why I don't believe ask your God why I don't believe and see if that's a good answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, love that little. So I'm going to throw out a couple more comments. What do you guys think about. All right, so it is decomposer who also posted on the comment of why isn't religious belief considered a psychosis says it is, but only by us atheists, and it's maddening our politicians brag about having the psychosis, and they control our lives. And that's why we all need to meet here and console each other on the internet beats other less healthy coping mechanisms. And he lists some things like drugs and stuff like that. So it's like yeah. I have made the point that it does feel like when you're an atheist and you're out, it does feel like living in the Twilight Zone sometimes where your politicians your your parents, a lot of authority figures. Like God or our cross cross your chest and just like dang it for me. I'll put something out before around table but like when I see like the struggle of black people in America, we put ourselves we've been in chains for a long time, and both like physically and mentally and then like we we've been freed right. And then I still see guys with like these giant chains around their neck with the cross on it I'm just like that's another chain, because it's controlling how you're thinking it's controlling how you treat women and see other people. You bifurcated society as a mess of them like you could break that chain do this like I'm not in chains like you literally got one around your neck. That's just me and his mind. But it's not just why people it's just anyone, I just feel like, why yourself. Yeah, Steve is a Christian iconography when you see that is it so bizarre to you that you're like I need to talk to this person, or, or like, yeah. It's so alien for me. Sweden was a great place for me to come out as an atheist because like nobody cared. They're just like, yeah, and tomorrow is going to be Tuesday like why. Great. Yeah, it's frightening because I came from Georgia at that time, the South and so like there was a lot of societal pressure. And then when I got to live over there for a while, it was just like, no one cares. I was just like, I'm an atheist, no one cares. I don't believe in God, no one cares. It's like, Oh, this is amazing. This is so great. And then I came back and it was just like, Oh, this is rough. I'm going to need like 40 different friends. I'm going to have to do like a weekly podcast on just atheists. It was great. Larry, when you see people with Christian iconography, do you think that's a person suffering from mental illness, maybe someone trying to show to their peers that they're in the fold, but maybe they're not a genuine believe. Yeah, I mean, one of the major memes going around the internet right now is how can you tell someone's an atheist. The answer is they'll tell you. And it's like, we're always out. We're always in your face. We're always telling you that we're atheists, whether you want to know or not. They don't realize that the Christians are doing that all the time. They have crosses, you know, that they wear all the time. They put Jesus fish on the back of the car. You know, they, what's worse for me is when I go into a doctor's office or receptionist or something, and they have this Christian stuff all over the place. And I'm wondering, you know, how much of this medical recovery. Are they going to just hand over to God and not take responsibility for it themselves. But it makes me just concerned a little bit about how they view the patient client. I mean, relationship. Okay. Okay. Good points. But they are always, or it seems to be, they have no shyness at all about, oh, like, even a waitress told me today, you know, have a blessed day. You know, I didn't tell her, you know, that she should have a secular day. And it's like they're always pointing at us for things that they do. We got, we got one last comment before we go to the show break. I'd love to actually hear Swedish Steve respond to this. This is to you, Swedish. It says, Hello there, Swedish. I'm a 24 year old boy from Greece that three years ago suffered from psychosis as well. It was really strange experience. I went from agnostic to believing that there was Jesus Christ or the Antichrist psychosis made me religious. I thought that I met God through depersonalization. I thought that I had lost my soul for three days. And the third day I was resurrected again. And for a really long time, I thought that God was sending me signs. Like when I go to do something that I disagree with, I would hear a horn honk and think that was God who ordered me not to do it. I wanted to get baptized and I also wanted to become a monk. It seems so funny to me that after three antipsychotics and one antidepressant that, but then it's after I take my medicine, it just seems so real after I take the medicine didn't seem real. I thought I also made a sin to never follow any faith and that God has punished me for that. Right now, I try to avoid believing in any deity. Getting religious is like a sickness for me. So I avoid anything associated with God. Even if I have a religious delusion, I can say, but I'm an atheist. The belief in the Antichrist is Christian and I disagree with it. And the delusion just goes away. Yeah. Guy just affirming his life story. Yeah. I'm happy you do that. I'm happy you now have a mantra that can at least help you get away from your psychosis. That's really good. Yeah, really good. I can't but also going from I feel like I'm susceptible to psychosis and having all these religious stories and religious pressure versus I need to get rid of this and taking the secular route and taking actual medication and like getting like actual tested lab tested fixes to real world problems and dressing them in a more objective way. It's a benefit for him compared to just reinforcing those beliefs with more superstition. My heart really goes out to people are in that same situation. If you do suffer from that. What would you recommend sweetest if if you are suffering psychosis. Get help. As soon as possible. Good points and modern medicine has a pretty good understanding of the treatments now. So the help is available. Often the best help is just get get into a hospital and get sleep and they will have the medication to get you to sleep because often it's it's the lack of sleep that that that makes your head spin. Yeah, so I'm not even create the situation so you don't get sleep for a long time. We need to take a break. Any thoughts before we do. No more comments after the break. Let's do it. Okay, stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour here on W O Z O radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after the short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm daughter five and we're on W O Z O radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. John Richards from England has joined us welcome. Hello. Let's talk about the atheist society of Knoxville for just a moment. ASK was founded in 2002, we're in our 20th year and have over 1000 members here in Knoxville. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening at Knoxville's old city at Barley's tap room in pizzeria right after working lesson till about eight. Look for us inside at the high top tables, or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have a Tuesday evening zoom mask meetup. If you'd like to join us email us for details that ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org, or email to let's chat I see at gmail.com. You can find us online at Facebook meetup.com or go to the website at Knoxville atheists.org. 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 star. That's right. Where you want to pick up. Hey, I want to talk about the nature of belief and who better to handle it than our own John Richards master of chaos over in the UK. Come as you are has a comment for you really supports your idea that you can choose your beliefs, but there's a stipulation is a little asterisk. We'll do this. And I love to get your thoughts on the comments, not a direct question, but it is a affirmative statement of the idea that you can choose your beliefs. So come as you are says over the last episode which was can you choose your beliefs. Yes, you can choose your beliefs within the constraints of the program what do I mean by that. Well, it's like an open world game where you can go anywhere you want, but only within certain constraints, those being physical thought processes and the environment and how you perceive reality. Or have you been told that, etc. Those are the standards that you have to place on your belief, or those are the standards that control your belief. Beyond that, you can choose them. What do you think about that John Richards. Well, as I said before, I don't think we can choose our first belief, because that's thrust upon us when we're learning what it is to be a human you know we're right right right. We're born without any beliefs is my view, because beliefs is something that have to be conveyed by language, and we're born without language. So in the same way that you're never born Democrat or Republican you are also never born Muslim or Christian or whatever. Once you've been through the family induction and whatever, whatever belief your whatever faith system your local society your community and imposes upon you, then you're in a hole, you've got to dig your way out. Right. Of course, some people never do. Right, a lot of famous people have succeeded in doing that and I could name Cassius clay or Muhammad Ali as a as a prime example of someone who changed his belief later in life. Sure. My opinion went from one hole to another hole, right. Well agreed, but at least you can do it. He demonstrated choice. I would be the first to say though that he probably was a Christian before he switched his matrix of belief in a God in other words he had belief in a God as an adult, and then he switched to Islam. Apparently because he liked the teachings of this on better. But if you if you study Christianity and Islam is the same God. You know, so did he really change his, his, did he choose to change his belief in a God or just the matrix supports it. Here would be my here would be my thought process behind it like typically if you get indoctrinated into religion of religion, you have what I like to call a God hole, like a giant hole that was put into you by other people who dug it into you and now you have a God hole and when you leave your God hole the whole still there. Right. And so what Cassius Clay may have done was like, man, white Jesus is really annoying. Anything. What about the the brown prophet. The same God that might be more on part with what I'm talking about because I think why Jesus is evil which he is. And like, he's got some probably good points and that's what fills his new God hole a better shaped. I don't I don't know how brown the brown prophet is because of course there's a lot of Arabs in it and they're not very brown. They're pretty brown. I'm just saying they're browner than white Jesus all I'm saying have you seen that chest you open it up he's like a newborn baby just like no UV protection in the Mediterranean. Sorry guys for that. Sweetest Steve, I love to get your idea on whether or not you can choose your beliefs. What do you think about that. Yeah, I was talking about Cassius Clay and all that I was thinking around use of Islam cat Stevens. He went from 80s to Islam. Cassius Clay was an atheist. No, cat Stevens. Stevens was an atheist. Yeah. Okay. And then and then became Joseph Islam. The thing about that, the way I would address that is that he was convinced that a God exists and it was the God of Islam. The thing about is, I don't believe that you can choose to believe. I believe that you are convinced to believe something. Right. Now once you become convinced. It's not a choice. If I if I could convince you that I had a dragon in my garage through evidence. You know what rational argument whatever, then you would then believe it. Right. You would be you would be convinced of it, but you didn't just choose to believe in a dragon in my garage any more than you could choose to believe in Santa Claus or a tooth fairy. January. Let's flip this on its head then. Can you choose to disbelieve. No, I don't think you can. Can you take a person who firmly believes in their God, you know, and, and worships them with all his heart and then just say I'm going to choose not to believe in him. Yeah. No, I think that he's thoroughly convinced that. What about all the increasing number of nuns in the US then what's happening to them. Again, they are becoming convinced by the evidence and logical arguments that God don't exist. John, here's here's Larry's model in and I have the same model as well. It's just three steps. It's one you have a standard of evidence. If it meets your standard and then to if it meets your standard of evidence, you're convinced of it. And then belief comes as a function of you being convinced that it's like a three step model. Same thing with disbelief. If it doesn't meet your standard of evidence, you don't believe it or you just lack belief in it. But if you become unconvinced, you become unconvinced and then as a result you you don't believe it. And you can become you can result in a state of disbelief if it's something you did believe in. If it doesn't meet your standard of evidence anymore, but that takes work and that's what we I know it's a bit more nuanced than just you believe or do you not believe. It's more of like in the capacity where you have a bucket of things that you can't tell if they're true or not true, you have to apply a standard of evidence to it. And it's a question of how good your standard of evidence is, whether or not you're convinced it's true or not whether it's completely false or not. And then as a result, you'll believe in it or or not believe in it. What do you think, John? Well, it's certainly not the case for your first belief, is it because you don't have any idea what criteria to apply. Actually, it does apply to because you have no standard of evidence. That's why you have babies born in Egypt who are Egyptians or Roman babies born believing in the Roman patheon, or guys in China believing, you know, in Confucianism tell that's less supernatural. But like, that's why there's so many people who are carrying over their parents' belief because they got to a point where they didn't have a meaningful standard of evidence. And so they believe or they were convinced of everything that they were told because it satisfied their very limited, very ignorant standard of evidence. And when they were raised the earliest years. But it wasn't until like you grow up and you improve your standard of evidence that you're like, wait a second, why do I still believe this? I can't believe in it anymore. I'm convinced that it's true. I want to believe in it, but I can't believe in it. That's a problem. And it causes a lot of stress inside people. So what you're telling me is that the bar for adopting a belief is zero. When you're absolutely fresh born. I think when you come out of the womb, it's that zero. And then as you begin to make patterns without language, you might make some patterns of like, hey, if I try to think about my hand, maybe I can make my hand move. This is my parent. She's taking care of me. If I cry, I get milk. Okay, if I knock this over the table, it falls. There's patterns here that I'm observing. People are making sounds and they're pointing at me and looking at me when they say certain sounds. Maybe I'll recognize that as like my name and I can start calling other things names too. Oh, okay. Words have meanings. And now I'm going to keep using this pattern. And now I understand words. And now people are telling me with words that I understand about God and how to be kind to people. And that there's a person who's always looking at me and I'm believing them because I've always trust them. They're the people who've always taken care of me. But at a certain point like that doesn't cut it anymore. And you're like, wait a second, I'm in school now. I understand how things work. This is magic. Like I'm having a problem believing in these magical stories that have very limited ways of reinforcing that they're true. It's just ancillary stories of people saying that it's true. And if you bliss believe it, you go to hell. And that's not enough for me to be convinced that it's true, even though I want to believe in it. Who wants to be an atheist in America? It's a really disadvantaged point of position to be in. Like, you're almost a danger if you're in, if you're, you know, we'll go ahead by going in. Well, if a lot of people that they want to believe, they will seek out the people who will tell them stories and anecdotes and show them stories in their holy books that will then eventually convince them. But it all starts with wanting to believe and or, you know, like, let's say that you, you are a Baptist and you marry a Catholic, but she says, you, I won't marry you unless you convert. So you are. Can you choose to believe the practices of the Catholicism right over baptism, which you've lived all your life. No, but you will say you do. You will practice those beliefs, but you know, will they actually come maybe in 20 years, only because you've moved into that society. And the stories are reinforcing all the other stories that you hear in that society. And maybe that new religion can hopefully beat down your standard of evidence so low that you do genuinely become a believer. Like there's people who do that too. I've seen atheists, we've had them even on the show, who were very good with their standard and then fall into a position where they're fairly lonely. And then the group says, listen, why don't you come over and just hang out with us. And they, they swage them and they're like all these questions you have you don't even ask them you just need faith. It's all about not critically thinking you reduce that standard to the point where it's like maybe this guy guy does exist somewhere. Well, we've seen that happen to here. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, praying on the bone rule is one of their tactics. Absolutely. I know, I know several people who, because they're their parents, the parental family fell apart. They found comfort in the society of a church. But this is false pretenses. And I love the way that you you described what how did it go these people who start out, not Catholic but because they marry a Catholic. They might sort of be grudgingly adopted. It sounds like hypocrisy to me. It is. It is. Listen, this isn't a good thing. We're not advocating that this is a good system. Like it's a terrible, it's a terrible, terrible thing to be like, Hey, I love you, but your most core belief to who you are to change if we're going to have babies. It's like so bizarre. It's like maybe we don't like each other. How about that? You know, I always think of belief as like being wet or not wet, right? And your standard of evidence is like a dam, right? And you could have high dam, which is great. Or you could have a very, very low dam. But if you have a low enough dam, water is getting over it. That's like being convinced that something's the case. And you're going to get wet, but it's a function of the water coming over the dam. It's not the choice that you're making. It's not like the dam breaks down and water's flying over. You're like, I choose to get wet today. It's like the function of the water. It's a low standard of evidence. A low standard of evidence. That's what we mean. Larry and I typically when we say belief. And it's just a question of whether or not we're convinced or not. I still, I don't agree with that, but I can't really explain in a better way that that that I'm sure that people just everything is so hard. I just want to see some light. Yeah. I become a Christian. Yeah, I can say that. Hey, that's just a low dam. You know, like I wish we'll thank you like we were talking about that's where it starts. Yeah. Yeah, but they can have a pretty big dam in other ways of life. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. The irrational dichotomy of boys. Yes, cognitive bias. Yeah. Religious cognitive dissonance. Absolutely. And that frustrates me really badly because it's like watching a guy build a giant wall dam. I have guys who are in our lab scientists, very smart guys who have very, very high dams for every scientific principle for all the experience we do, but are religious. And I've asked them questions like, so you, you understand that this scientific principle is X, Y, Z. It's like, yep, and evolution's real and tectonic plates. I believe all that, but you still believe in a God. Well, you see this one time my, my pastor made my leg grow, like two inches for one of the guys who are in there. I'm like, you have this giant dam for everything. And then you have this one section where it's like a foot high. And then there goes right back to a 10 story dam again. You've, you have this weird standard double standard. And yes, yes, not really bothers me. I see that. But that, that's really a fake evidence. Oh yeah. He has been shown. Yes. I'm, I mean more, a person knows full heart of that this can't be true by all logical means, but I choose to say that it really, yeah. There's a difference there. That's the difference. I don't think there has to be different. It can be different, but I believe, or I think that people can choose just to brighten up their day or something to start believing. Yeah, I wouldn't see much of a difference between that and wishful thinking, but if you want to use that term belief, I'm also fine with it too. I don't, I'm not an ardent believer that words only have one meeting. No, no, no. It's probably a language barrier in this case. Yeah, well it seems to me that if you're born at zero belief, and it seems that this dam is more of a sinkhole. Yes, and just fill it in with whatever which is why people can not be on religious beliefs people can be indoctrinated with misogynist thinking bigotry racial prejudices. It's just nationalism. Like, when why do they talk. Can you imagine going to work as an adult and starting every day with a pledge to the flag. Oh, you don't know about this, guys, but in America they do a pledge of allegiance. We know. Oh, you know about that. Do you guys do anything close to that, or is it like no. Nothing like that. I think it's interesting to us when we see pictures or visit America, and we see all these gardens with flags in them. You don't find that in the UK. You don't find that in the UK. I don't know of any garden that has a Union Jack flagpole. Right. But still, you have stopped with the Balamy salute. And that's a great evolution. Yeah, yeah. The Nazi thing. No, right. No, right. The reason why they target kids is because they're impressionable they're targetable their standard of evidence is low enough that you can indoctrinate a nationalism in them it's why advertisers repeat the same model even when they know it's not true it's like four out of five doctors agree that you know they didn't say that, but if you say enough times they will. If you say America is the best country in the world enough times people in America. When they start out young will continue to believe it and carry that message to their adults, it's support the troops like for what what what are they doing or doing something terrible. Support them support them support them. So like it's the same message make America great again like all these catchphrases that like permeate culture in the US are targeting people of low standards, so that they maintain it even into their voting age and carry over with that and it makes them speak out to other people like Christian hey I am a blah blah blah because when they make themselves publicly known that there are certain thing. There's that that ego momentum that keeps them from having to say oh actually I changed my mind and now I'm something else. No one wants to go through that effort so sorry, sorry, sorry. This was originally a topic on what we're talking about. I have no idea. Guys, that is trading room has a counter comment on the idea of belief. This was targeted at John Richards, John Richards don't take this the wrong way he says, John Richards has a nonsensical belief on belief. They don't, he doesn't understand what it means what it means to believe if one is aware that something is nonsensical. They don't believe this thing exists in reality. So how can they logically say that they believe in that I'm trying to understand the sense. Does that make sense to you, John. No. No. All right, let me try reading it one last time Dallas. All right. Or, John Richards statement that you can believe in nonsensical beings is nonsensical or they don't believe what to believe means they don't understand what the word means. If one is aware that something is nonsensical, they don't believe this thing exists in reality. So how can they logically say that they believe in that. I get it so it's sort of like saying hey if you believe that Santa Claus doesn't exist, how can you choose to believe if you know that Santa Claus doesn't exist how can you choose to believe in Santa Claus. If you know that's that's what he's saying he's saying if you know something isn't true how can you choose to believe in it. That's what he's asking you. Do you understand. Well, yeah, yeah, this is this is the difference between belief and knowledge here, isn't it because a belief is an attitude. It's, you know, a positive attitude. It's a, you know, a belief in something or a negative attitude, if it's a disbelief towards some proposition, but knowledge, I would contend that knowledge is something different it doesn't matter what your brain, what attitude your brain has towards it. It's out there. And it's unaffected by who believes in how many people believe in it. It's information that anybody with the right equipment can gather. Okay, it's not vulnerable to belief. So, sweetest Steve you also support that belief is an attitude. Yeah, whole hearted. Okay, okay, okay. Like I said, I'm aware that there's different usages of words, especially in English, especially across so many different cultures. I would say like just make sure we understand what we say when we say belief because I think, John riches you understand what you mean when you say belief but other people may not when you say it because more different people just have different usages in that word. It is a word. It is a word that lots of words like this but this is a particularly pertinent one. There's more than one meaning. Right, right. It can be used. And I wouldn't use it for this purpose myself. It can be used for mere acceptance of known information, like, I believe in the force of gravity where you don't need to. Right. You're wasting your time there's nothing to consider there. It is a fact don't jump out the window. It doesn't change your way right. But there is another way of using belief, which is a preference for a dubious proposition, like, I believe my horse will win this race. Go on, but he's not going to make a difference. Right, like I believe my sports team will win the championship. Exactly. You don't have a way of testing that until you actually see it. Afterwards, your belief or disbelief is irrelevant, because it's happened and is now a piece of knowledge. And I also believe that you can have unwarranted beliefs, like you can believe that things that are absolutely not true. And so, if it's ever a question of belief or knowledge, I'm always reliant on knowledge. Right. I'm always going to be reliant on knowledge. And in the place where I don't have knowledge to confirm a belief, I would choose not to have the belief, which doesn't necessarily that I disbelieve in the claim. Which means I'm lacking, I'm withdrawing my belief or I have no belief because I can't be convinced that it's true. Yeah, that's fine. Yes, you can you can sit in the middle. I'm sitting on the not believing side. There is no middle ground there is like either believe it or you don't believe it and I'm sitting on not believing which isn't the same as disbelief it positively disbelieving it's just hey I'm with the guys who aren't believing you. And you got to make a better claim or a better statement. That's an interesting thing, guys. Larry, how are we on time. We're getting pretty close you need to start winding down. Okay, okay, we can start one. I've got lots of things to say. Have a double are you and what stuff could we check out. Yeah, well, on Tuesday, the UK Atheism UK organization staged an event in London in the very famous Conway Hall which is the home of the ethical society. I think it was sponsored originally 100 years ago by the Bertrand Russell family. Anyway, we had we hired a room there. And we invited Professor AC Grayley to come and speak to us. We sold lots of tickets on Eventbrite to sadly he fell sick and was unable to attend its flu. And you know how that can make you feel horrible and we wish him a rapid recovery but I had to run around like a mad thing and provide an alternative because I didn't know until the lunchtime of the day that he was not going to be able to attend. And this is what I got. I got half an hour of visual contact with the following Lawrence Krause, Peter Singer, Steven Pinker. Excellent. And that's been videoed. And this morning we had an Atheism UK Council meeting. And we've decided that we will release that video in pieces each speaker had half an hour. And we will release it initially to our membership, make it available only to them. And then subsequently, at a later date, we will release it to the unwashed public. It's not compulsory to be unwashed by the way. No look forward to it. Yeah, and that's that's what I've been doing with my AUK hat on course I've also been busy with my free thought channel I say my free thought channel we're a team, including Steve. Hello Steve. Nice to see you here. And Steve is our producer. And so we've we've got new shows coming up there every. There's one later on today and I hope you'll be able to join us tie. Let's do it. Great. Excellent. Yeah. So we had a good meeting yesterday with psychiatrist Scott, why gold and anthropologist. David Orrinstein. We discussed this very issue, the difference between belief and knowledge and what what truth means. And you can see that it's already on free thought channel. And please go and take a look and set the notifications, subscribe, you know, do all the usual, like, share and subscribe. Yeah, I just want to like, you know, English is a part of culture culture evolves cultures going to change words will change as a result to and will adopt new messages. The main thing that we shouldn't do is say, the main thing we shouldn't do is say, hey, I'm going to believe in words meaning only this and crossing my arms and never being open to change or anything like that. That's too conservative. Just be aware of the new ways that people are using terms and also the old ways and be willing to be with it. That's how we can engage ourselves. Don't use words. But use them as a way to bridge gaps. That's it. Yeah, I would contend that the word belief had a great deal more important. So 150 years ago. All that time, previous 250 years, then it has an hour because it was deemed to be pretty much the only way that you could access information. Exactly. By believing what the religious people told you. Right. Then science got it. Science girded his loins. We have an alternative source of information which is much more reliable. Let's hope knowledge doesn't change over years. I know, I know religious people may try to count how words and be like, well, I know God exists because of life. It's like, do you know, can you demonstrate that? Please demonstrate it for me. It was like, well, knowledge doesn't mean you can demonstrate it. Knowledge just means that you have a lot of faith in it. It's like, oh, get away from me. I don't want that. It's no good you knowing. It's terrible. My final words, my final words are if anyone asks you why you're an atheist, just say ask your God and he'll tell you. That is if he speaks to you. My content can be found at digital free thought.com. If you go there be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show archives atheist songs and many articles on the subject of atheism. My YouTube channel handle is at doubter five. And you can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon. 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 worry about it. We'll enjoy your life. We'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock on that was a radio. Say goodbye everybody. Bye bye everybody. Great show.